JPS Board Meeting - 03/15/22

001all right it is 5 45 so i will call the meeting to order and welcome you to our march board meeting and with that we will do the pledge of allegiance united states of america is a nation under god indivisible with jesus hey mrs axley could you do the roll call present here okay we are on number four approval of the agenda so at this time i would entertain a motion for approval of the agenda support hunt thank you any deliberation okay all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay motion carries uh number five superintendent's report so i will pass it over to mr beale awesome welcome to the march meeting of the board of education it is awesome to see so many people here tonight i would like to open our superintendent's report

002for the month of march by inviting jasper lesbi the principal for instruction out at sharp park academy to come forward and share us with us an update from from her program and the great things happening out at short park mr beale members of the board thank you for having us tonight we are very excited to be back in front of the board uh it's been a couple of long years and so it's really nice to be able to have the opportunity to share with you some of the wonderful things that are happening in our schools um i sent everybody today a copy of the school board edition of the viking voice i hope you had a chance to kind of take a peek at that but i do want to go through a couple of

003um of the things that are going on on there for time's sake and i understand that in the past there has been some friendly betting about how long i was going to take so i promise that tonight i will be much more timely than i have been in past years um we have amazing things happening every day at sharp park academy and i couldn't be more blessed to work with a better group of teachers and parents and kiddos i get to live out my dream every day of doing good work with good people for good people and there's just not enough that i can say about sharp park i've got like nine pages of the viking voice here for you guys um some pictures from some of the the highlights of our year we have

004been super excited to be able to get back to some more normal-ish kinds of things so we got to do some obstacle again was a record-breaking fundraising year for us with over 28 thousand dollars collected um reading month kickoff i'm going to tell you it was the first time we've had a full-on assembly in almost two years and i had goosebumps and i almost broke out in tears and i'm not a crybaby we've had some new things happening in the building this year we have an ell program as the south side hub for english language acquisition students we have mrs maureen heiler there with us as our teacher of students of other languages and that's been a really awesome opportunity for us to not only include and invite really a lot of multiculturalism into the

005classrooms and really make sure that all of our kids are aware of all of the opportunities out there with regard to language and culture and diversity and that really ties back into what we're doing as a staff with jps and a lot of the professional development that we've received with diversity and inclusion so not only are ell kids getting a lot of really good quality instruction as part of their english language acquisition but we're also bringing that multi multicultural facet to all of our classroom students so when you come into the building you're going to see all of our signage in multiple languages you're going to see kids interacting with children who are not native english speakers and we are welcoming all of our families every month to an ell coffee hour and it's not

006just for our ell families we encourage all families to to take that opportunity to just come into the building and be part of what's happening but we also make sure that we have translation services available for the families one of the reasons why i sent you all the viking voices that i wanted you to notice that we can translate the the blackboard program that we use translates into multiple languages so even our families that are not native english speakers can have all of this information translated every week my my sunday night call is also being translated out for our families that speak other languages as well parent involvement um such a critical part of what we're doing every day at the school and so having having lifted restrictions that were in place due to covid

007has been just such a blessing for us there are so many opportunities for parents to get involved at shark park from the weekly things like mileage club and popcorn to our pbis experiences where we have i mean those are mostly parent-powered we have parents coming in they they work with our kids they manage stations they help with supervision we have parents that do things outside of the school to help support what's happening in the school i get lots of parent support with working on my newsletter every every week that's a lot to put together for one person i have parents that are coming in you know they aren't able to to take time during the school day but they're willing to to take work home and do those things after hours to help out and

008make sure that the school is inclusive and that everybody's getting the information that they need i have parent reading buddies and adults that are coming in and working in small groups with kids one-on-one with kids to help with reading field trip chaperones that's the the old standby for parent volunteers lock in supervision obstacle was 100 parent run our parents do an amazing job of planning preparing setting up managing coordinating supervising taking down and then wrapping it all up with incentives and prizes for kids it's all 100 parent generated reading month activities again another huge parent push because they do our book fair our book fair just wrapped up with almost nine thousand dollars in book fair sales which was amazing um we are one of the one of two schools that for the last few

009years has been a consistent participant in the jps homecoming festivities and for us again that's another parent-powered thing that takes place where we have parents and kids coming down and decorating our float we walk with the with the parade route and that's part of making sure that our kids get that viking pride and they know what they're looking forward to and that's instilled in them from a very young age we are also continuing our work with safe routes to school that was very exciting that we got the ribbon cutting done for the work that parkside and sharp park academy did in collaboration with the city of jackson and summit township to get that walking trail put in through the park now we are working on that parent participation and that parent engagement piece and so

010we have some grant money to work on those projects coming down down the road and then new to us this year as well is we have had shop rat coming in they are with us every wednesday for eight weeks doing robotics with our third through fifth graders this was actually a project that we um started before the pandemic and then the pandemic kind of put a lot of things on hold they were able to get that going again and reached out to us and were like hey we would like you to pilot this program and i'm like hey yeah come pilot at shark park because we're we're ready for you and so we've had parent volunteers coming in to work with that and that has been so well received the parents have been so excited

011about being able to have that opportunity to be in the room um but then not all parent involvement opportunities have to be about volunteering we want to make sure that parents have the opportunity to be in the building as i mentioned the ell coffee hour um open houses you know ice cream social things like that um one of the things that's that is in the works um our school improvement team has decided that we want to start opening up our library once a month next year to do library nights and so you know bring some pizza in have some literacy activities going on at craft activity but also the opportunity for families to come in and check out books and get library cards utilize the interlibrary system so that if there's a book maybe an

012adult family member wants we can have that brought into the school they can pick it up at one of those library nights i've been working with susan solo our jackson district library person who comes in and works at sharp park to get that ball rolling and so that's something to look forward to in our upcoming school improvement plan for next year the stem learning has been phenomenal for the kids they have really enjoyed that um moving along that kind of ties into our career and workforce readiness goals that's part of the college and career readiness standards under classroom guidance so that's always a challenge because we have so many academic things that we need to cover that that was really a great way for us to kind of hit two birds with one stone and

013have that science and technology engineering and math piece along with the college and career readiness piece that shop wrap provides so we're really grateful for that opportunity looking forward to expanding that next year um the last time i was before the board i had a lot to say about data i love my data i'm super excited this year we are we've discontinued use of nwea as i'm sure you're aware it's been replaced with fastbridge which aligns better with illuminate but it also allows us to do a better job with intermediary intermediary assessments so between our benchmarking we can do additional assessments you know do progress monitoring student tracking that kind of stuff and as part of having this um this program available to us it's been able we've been able to do a lot better

014a lot more thorough job of drilling down to what students know and where they're at and so i put in here an intervention celebration i'm very excited to share with you that at the beginning of the school year in september when we did our initial assessments on students we had 89 students that were identified as having some deficiencies in reading that put them at a level that was below grade level and we knew that that was going to happen the pandemic hit us all really hard in terms of of being in a hybrid situation student involvement you know it was difficult it was a tough time for teachers in schools um so we had we knew we had our work cut out for us and we had a plan in place and so as of

015our february progress monitoring we are down to only 40 students who are in need of reading intervention and a lot of that has to do with the fact that we have really good quality assessment strategies at this point that are highly aligned to what we're doing and that we have the resources that we need to be able to utilize that data and really be prescriptive in how we are addressing student needs so that's that's awesome we are continuing with our math professional development with aes which also has been a huge contributing factor to the strength of our math scores across across third fourth and fifth grade and m-step last year our third fourth and fifth graders met or exceeded state averages in math and we're really proud of them for that talked a little bit

016about our ell program we are the south side hub excited to be welcoming more families we have families one that just joined us going to be bringing their children from the northwest district into jps to come to sharp park to take advantage of our ell programs we have translated all of our handbooks our brochures our welcome packets all of those things have been translated into spanish and japanese we are working on urdu at the moment and then we will probably be adding chinese to that as well based on the need that's been expressed within the community we also have mrs hyler who is a fluent spanish speaker i also speak spanish but it's more of a spanglish but it's nice to have an actual spanish speaker in the building and then we have miss akiko

017brown who is our japanese speaking paraprofessional she's with us and supporting us with our students of other languages and translation and finally um i'm going to i have some some goodies for you guys but march is music in the schools month and we are very excited to be able to have a high quality music program that is shared between sharp park and dibble and if you've ever been to either our holiday program or our end of year program for either one of those schools mr jane does an absolutely phenomenal job with those kiddos the big wow behind this is that he is split between two schools and so he sees classes one maybe two times a week and he accomplishes amazing things with these kids they are such great performers music is such an important

018part of of a well-rounded curriculum and a well-rounded education because those kids not only have the opportunity to explore their their talents that might not necessarily be academically driven they get an opportunity especially those that might not have an opportunity to participate in music programs within the community the opportunity to discover talents and passions for the performing arts also there's evidence that ship that supports music as um helping students with their language capabilities they have an improved function of their working memory there's a lot of memorization that goes into playing music and singing they have improved fine motor skills they have better study habits because students who play instruments have to be dedicated to practice so they have a lot of stamina with their ability to stay focused on one thing over a given period

019of time teamwork and collaboration you have to be a good listener and be ready to listen to the people around you as you're as you're playing and then auditory processing and problem-solving skills are stronger in students who have a music background as opposed to those that don't have that exposure um i linked you to an article that kind of goes over a lot of these things and i would highly encourage you to take a peek at that before i introduce mr jane and our fifth grade ukulele players i am so proud of their hard work and i'm grateful to the parents that supported them and bringing them tonight i also encourage you to take a look at our kindergarten display back there part of what our ell program has infused into our classrooms is that

020idea about diversity and cultural diversity and so this is a project that the ell teacher collaborated with the kindergarten classrooms on and it's the artwork and some of the things that have gone back and forth and so you're going to see students artwork you're going to see parent connections the there's a lot of parent support that goes into that so i really i hope that you'll take a few minutes at the end to kind of take a look at that um at this time i'm going to pass out our goodies for you and have mr jane bring our fifth grade students up thank you so much [Applause] thank you mrs leslie for such a nice introduction i'm mr jane and i have the pleasure of being their music teacher it's fun the kids all read

021music they sing they create and uh we all cooperate together we are going to perform four short pieces for you today and uh you'll get a sneak peek of the wonderful flavor curriculum that the board has approved for us that we absolutely love so enjoy our youtube ladies these are fifth graders they're going to introduce themselves now so [Music] good [Music] clay [Music] okay [Applause] the next piece is called layers [Music] so [Music] oh [Music] the next one is called funky stuff you'll see two parts [Music] from [Music] funky stuff [Music] focus up [Applause] starters [Music] so [Music] shake shake [Music] shake shake [Music] so [Music] oh yeah that'd be good nice job [Applause] as i wrap up special thanks to mr jane and to my wonderful fifth grade students who are absolute rock stars

022in a literal sense and their families for supporting them at this time if families would like to sneak out quietly i'm sure that that would be just fine and thank you to the board for your time and stop by short park anytime i love to show off what we're doing thank you very much jasper and all of the students awesome work today thank you very much parents for sharing your children with us uh next up dr patterson um and really before i let him kick off his secondary update we are our days are numbered with dr patterson's secondary update we have been blessed to uh to work with him and uh he is working right now he is the unanimous choice to take the superintendent position in lakeview school district over in battle creek congratulations

023well deserved thank you mr bill and i am excited for the new opportunity and experience in lakeview and and thank you to the jackson public schools community and teachers and board for for everything that you've done for me professionally and and uh and and sometimes personally i've known a lot of teachers and administrators in the district so just quickly a few highlights from the secondary level starting at middle school at parkside want to say congratulations to logan kosegi who meddled in the 100 100 yard breath stoke at the middle school state swim meet so how exciting for logan also um congratulations to the sixth grade academic games team i know ms brown got me started with academic games um in the team of abby grabenhorst leo nguyen trenton prater yasir lam and brooklyn dunklin who

024is a fifth grader and is mrs dunklin who's a parkside teacher's daughter the five of them together earned a bronze medal and a school trophy for placing third place in their division for onsets the five students worked incredibly hard and for all three days and coach richards is very proud of their efforts coach richards has been around for a while doing a fantastic job with our our academic games students and a special congratulation goes to leo nguyen who was one of the outstanding players of the tournament he earned a perfect score in equations won nine rounds out of uh nine rounds out right and tied for first in the tenth round out of twelve rounds of cube games and had one of the highest propaganda scores in the state so congratulations leo nguyen what a

025amazing accomplishment and if you haven't been able to see some of those academic games i'm sure mr patterson will take you around parkside and some of the fantastic the kids just love playing the game and it goes by fast jackson pathways are continuing their speaker series which has been focused on professionalism their speakers have been provided have provided students with valuable insights into the work necessary to see succeed in their profession they were honored to host speakers from k105.3 j-rod and jenny lewis and bart hawley and brandon from jtv um they also heard from a branch branch manager at blue ox credit credit union drew broocher um so students were inquisitive and enthusiastic about each of the speakers message so you know great conversations and and great learning happened through a lot of those speakers

026at jackson pathways um and at jackson high just a couple uh shout outs to the jackson high varsity boys basketball who shared the sec white conference championship in a three-way tie and also senior jalen riggins is named third in states for wrestling congratulations jalen and of course our very own principal for instruction mrs monica pierce who will be honored on march 19th at jackson college with the mlk legacy award for her work and dedication to the community with our families and youth so congratulations mrs pierce and uh those are just a few items going on at the secondary level that i just wanted to point out if you didn't know or if you have any questions please let me know thank you very much dr patterson up next uh julie baker an elementary update if

027you would thank you very much good evening board members and members of our community march is reading month and that's a big piece for elementary schools there's a lot going on right now in our elementary schools if you look on the sheet here we've got different themes in every building we've got reading and living color we've got red white and reed read like a champion read for the gold it's always a big olympics theme during those years for reading month reading is wild and reading feed and so a lot of things happen in the building around readings we have assemblies we have bike giveaways the the kiwanis um purchases a couple of bikes for each building and those are raffled off um around the things that students are reading they get tickets for being caught

028reading we have guest readers and those are community members their parents their district district staff that go into classrooms and read a book and so kids hear a lot of different people read at dibble we have the illustrator evie lewis coming in to work with students and then doing a family night we have um drop everything and read every day in several of our buildings which is a cool thing for everybody um we've got door decorating so if you go in it's hard to miss that it's reading month in our buildings we also have some other cool things happening we've got some jackson high students that are going into a couple of our buildings to help with cross-age tutoring so we've got them going into hunt and then also into dibble so they're working with

029students when they i think it happens on and at dibble on wednesdays smiles on wheels is a wonderful program if you go into some of our buildings they come to us twice a year and they'll go in and they do teeth cleanings for students and so if you go in you'll see really cool sunglasses on kids that are that are relaxing while they get their teeth cleaned and have treatments and so that's a really neat thing that's happening right now lots of great community support from our our partners the other thing that we're seeing is is an increase in that parent and family involvement we just finished a round of parent-teacher conferences for spring we've got popcorn that is coming back to the buildings and parents you'll find them in the in the hallways popping

030popcorn there are book fairs in just about every building this month and so we've got parents shopping but we've also got parents running those we've got ptos that are meeting but also we have a new um parent advocacy committee that is meeting at northeast and then the el um nights that you heard about happening at sharp park we have also some field trips that are starting to happen again so uh there we've got parents that are in helping to plan those and then and chaperoning for those so lots of great things happening um in the month of march in our buildings um another great thing that always happens that lets you know that we're getting towards the end of a school year for our kids is that our fifth graders take a trip to parkside

031and they get a chance to see what their new school is going to look like in the fall so they go they have lunch there they have a wonderful tour they get to meet the wonderful leadership and the staff at parkside and they get to select some of their classes so it's a very exciting time for them and i think we've seen just about every school at this point we've got i think one work happening on the 22nd so that's always exciting and and i know that our kids really look forward to that um professional development this month we just had a big district-wide pd on monday an elementary teachers met in their grade levels and in elementary teachers love to meet in grade levels it's a it's a great time for them to uh

032talk to people who have the same concerns and the same experiences and what they worked on was our inspect assessments so we are committed to making sure that inspect assessments are something that teachers that that they do for themselves that they are they work for them and and not something that is being done to them um so we want them to have good data we want the alignment to be correct on that we want to make sure that there are great questions on this on the inspect assessment so we got together in our groups and they had a chance to work on that alignment and to fix any questions that they found maybe had some bias or were confusing for students who may not have the experiential knowledge to be able to answer questions um

033then after that they've got to go to the day of discovery which uh this is a wonderful experience very rich pd that is being offered by jackson county isd and they had a chance to go to sessions that ran everything from mental health and also um there were you know even things that that for those who had an interest in vaping because we you know we're seeing a lot of those issues with students in school and making sure that we're educating kids on that but they also got to sit in on a wonderful panel with some of our young people so that that was wonderful um we in each of our buildings there's building level pd that happens on the regular too um so we've got what are called professional learning communities that happen once

034or twice a month in each building where teachers get together with grade level teams or with their entire team and they look at data together and they they plan next steps so we've got that happening we're continuing on with our dei training with dr marks with a whole new um two new cohorts of staff going through that um and then play works training um is happening at northeast which i'm hearing is a is a very exciting thing so that's for a pair of professionals to um to learn how to work with students playing some organized games at recess and they've seen some really great things but it's really reduced um you know students having fights and things like that and learning to cooperate with each other in the playground so great stuff i'm very excited

035to tell you that field day is back this year it had before covet hit culminated in the most beautiful huge event that had happened at whittington stadium and so um we are so happy to see that happen again every one of our elementary kids has an opportunity to be on the field at with whittington to i'm telling you the events there rival the things that you saw in the olympics we've got bouncy houses and other things that are happening there and just an opportunity for them to go out and have some fun and be vikings on the whittington field so um and that's not just elementary that is a whole district initiative that we recently did planning on the 14th in the morning and that involved pe teachers from across the district it will involve

036jackson high school students on that day and it is really something to see so once we've got dates set you must you must come it is it's really exciting that we've brought we've got this back again this is another step back towards some normalcy um last thing i just wanted to talk a little bit about pbis events in particular um some of them are called extravaganzas they're called razzle dazzle um i know that um mrs lesby had an event around in kanto she had an encanto experience in kanto and um so these are celebrations of positive behavior and they are for individual students and for groups of students classrooms perhaps even buses of students to earn tickets and in most situations in most schools if you go in you'll see where these tickets have been

037um there's a wall there's a a bulletin board just for them and students are working their darndest to try to fill that space up with those tickets because as soon as that happens the school becomes a carnival and students are released to go into the hall under their own under their own steam to make choices about which activities they go to and every classroom turns into a different place where there's a great activity for them to go from face painting to a place just to go and read with the lights down and cushions legos the gym is open and we trust students to um go and enjoy themselves they usually last between 50 minutes in an hour um we see them start to happen more frequently as the year goes on because they're so motivated

038to earn these tickets that they go out of their way to be kind to one another and to um practice those positive behaviors so i just wanted to kind of talk to you about that and um and if we if we get a chance we'll make sure to invite you to the next one sometimes we don't know when they're going to happen and sometimes we get a pretty good idea um but you must also see one of those they really were seeing we stole that idea from a school in ann arbor and also it's part of the mobility work so uh that is all that i have for elementary thank you very much julie miss gin eddie a communications report i believe the hype yes good evening everybody welcome to our board meeting and i

039think you guys can all feel the excitement as we are able to start doing the things that we had come so accustomed to and love doing with our students in groups and gathering and field trips and everything that we do that makes school fun and um you know just on a side note starting in april uh just to make sure that you spread the word for us our kindergarten roundups will all be held in april the dates are on the calendar you should probably see a lot of communication around town about our kindergarten roundups and these are partner kindergarten roundups that we do with many of our partners in the community so it's a one-stop shop for all of our parents whether they have young fives or kindergarteners and they do get a t-shirt for

040the class of 2035 which just seems like a long time away but um you know they're so cute when they're at that age aren't they so i wanted to let you know about that also um you know we are have been on a process here our eop which is our emergency operations plan committee has been doing some work behind the scenes and we have visited every school and every doorway and door to assess the safety of those doors and what things may or may not need to be done our group meets next tuesday to go ahead and start the process of providing magnets and then we will work on our paracords we learned a lot from the district and it was good to be out there so we all went out in groups and and

041visited different schools so a lot of work to be done there but felt good to know exactly what school looked like in every situation so we take that very seriously and we want our community to know that on another note of course it is hiring time so if you know someone who is interested in being a viking which is probably the best thing that you can be we are hiring for all teacher grade levels especially looking at secondary some specific areas and and a lot of elementary so we were happy to have people join our team and you can visit our website um for any opportunities but encourage people to get their applications in whether they're parapro's or tas or bus drivers or food service we would like to welcome you to join the viking

042team and additionally i would like to send out just a special thank you to the ambassador committee at jackson high school the online event was very impressive and i'd like to just extend a thank you to our two parent liaisons who are probably two of the hardest working people in the district aaron slater and christy dillon for really carrying that torch on another great event you know we see them everywhere doing so many things from young fives all the way up to our seniors and they really do encompass the word parent liaisons and and really do work for our students and we are proud that they both work for our district on a daily basis and finally i did want to mention that as you can see and we've talked about this gathering one of

043the things that we have not been able to do either is gather with our staff in the way that we we really like to and about four years ago we instituted a uh we do a beginning of the year event but we also do a a picnic for our staff as well and i'm here to announce that we are in the works of planning a picnic for this year to celebrate our staff once again so we plan on doing a ton of giveaways and just a moment of time to say thank you to our entire staff for the hard work they do it it is a long year we know and this event is kind of a fun thing to see all 800 and some of our employees together enjoying each other's company and fellowship

044so we look forward to that details on that to come so uh just give us some time to plan that and if you are a community member who would like to help us provide some of those giveaways don't hesitate to contact me i can spend your money if you need me to or you can donate things but our staff really deserves a round of applause for every day they show up and everything they do and this is just one small way that we like to say thank you so look for information about that thank you very much chris all right um further down the agenda and it it came up last month uh was the conversation of the jackson high school valedictorian criteria i was asked to take a a look at this um in

045the last 30 days i've invited monica pierce the principal for instruction to come up and talk a little bit about the history of the valedictorian criteria and kind of some of our our thoughts and plans kind of moving forward so miss pierce i'm gonna the floor is yours [Music] all right good evening board members and uh community i appreciate this opportunity to come and talk to you so i am again here to speak to you on the valedictorian discussion that has transpired and in 2018 there was a committee that was created to review and revisit the criteria for the valedictorian status from that committee they came up with the new policy that is currently in place and it it speaks to our 4.0 students also taking challenging courses ap classes and dual enrollment and that

046factoring into the valedictorian status that's determined in their senior year so there can be more than one valedictorian based on that new policy in 2018 that was created and approved in 2019 i became the principal for instruction so with that my new transition into this role and covet that happened in 2020 there was you know a lack of communication with the class of 2023 are some things that you know are unknown to me again because of my transition so because of that i do recommend a delay of implementation of the new policy for the class of 2023. um as we move forward i would suggest that we honor the committee that met to create the new policy and keep the palace the new policy in place for the class of 2024 and beyond but i

047would also recommend that we have a committee convene to look at the language of the policy so that is my input and i value the voices that i've heard at the table here at the board meetings via email through meetings in my office calls and conversations that i have the voices of my students of my parents of all of our community in terms of the valedictorian status because i do want our students to all feel successful and that their voice is valued so i am always open to to any discussion and again that's why i recommend a committee convening to to revisit this conversation the language so real quick just a little bit of history on on the work that's happened in the last 30 days um you know obviously we had some concern you

048know when we started to have class meetings with students and parents and the criteria was reviewed we had at least one concerned parent mr higgins thank you very much for for speaking and then you and i had an opportunity um you know on the calendar to to get together we make that one but we've talked my point is is that i asked i followed that meeting with immediate conversation with miss pierce i asked her specifically to show me to provide me evidence bring me the the documentation of of conversations that happen because it's while we know it's in the handbook um what we what we want is we'll make sure that those conversations took place and kovit has certainly brought on lots of challenges um miss pierce was able to provide me with a meeting

049agenda and powerpoint slides for both the class of 2024 and the class of 2025 indicating you know where they went through the the criteria she was not able to to share with me the material for 2023. um and again recognizing kind of how kovit interrupted and we suspended learning for that year um you know i i certainly agree and and later on in the the action item 21 2296 my recommendation will be exactly that to delay the implementation for 23 the class of 23 because candidly i can't verify that the communication happened at the level we would like with that being said um you know i didn't sit on the committee back in 2018 that made the recommendation i wasn't part of that it was a parents and students and teachers in administration and this

050is not the first time that we've had a conversation about the valedictorian criteria in fact it dates all the way back to was was the history that i found and probably goes before that but in 1999 they put in a rigger component as well they they put it on a point scale um to address how uh i you know i think it went up they got points different different points and forgive me for this uh for an a plus and an a and a different point for the an a minus and a different point for b plus and so on and um about five years later four years later the implementation in 2005 was back before the board uh and so it's a similar conversation to the one we're having today because lots of i've

051seen some misinformation out there that we're suddenly imposing a brand new standard and really what we're doing is we're actually it's time for the standard that was adopted by the board of education and proposed by this committee all the way back in 2019 so this is this is the same point we've seen in history before where we're running into those same criteria um but in 20 in 2005 the the board met and they um they revoked the point system and went to a point system where all a's a pluses a minuses they all counted for a four point um and that system stood in place for well several years obviously until 2019 and i think some of the conversation that came around in 2018 and 19 centered around the changes in education that we had

052seen since 2005. there was the adoption of e-2020 or online courses that weren't taught by jackson high school teachers there is the advent of a significant investment in dual enrollment in early college and so there was a lot of work kind of put in and thought put into this about what does it mean to be valedictorian and that's the definition that we really are struggling with you know today and again like i said history history repeats itself um i support ms pierce's conversation and um i i certainly recognize and i know there's a couple folks in the audience who want to speak to this specific to class of 24 and 25 and i encourage you to do so but i encourage miss pierce to pull together a committee but i would not make it a

053full year-long committee for the class of 24 or 25 and what i would say is is probably put a 45-day timeline on it and report back no later than june so that if there are changes to be made they can be incorporated in the handbook and scheduled for the class i'm going to get this right now the 2026 so current eighth graders rolling up to next year's freshman um i for my part um you know i will i will speak to this i'll share my personal and then i'll i'll stop on my valedictorian piece um the conversation about what it means to be a valedictorian is different for everybody i had a daughter who graduated a valedictorian and i can clearly remember a night in 11th grade where she was sobbing on her bedroom floor

054because she was afraid she she wasn't going to make it and the stress that it put her under was tremendous i remember and i've got five children in the system another daughter who was not going to be valedictorian and and yet another daughter who graduated um with 60 college credits through our early college program and and was not valedictorian and she came to me early on and said dad i'm struggling in this early college class i'm going to get a c and she'd never seen a c before candidly and she said okay but you're in college you're a sophomore you're competing with college level kids and you're going to get a c and i said that's terrific and she looked at me and said but i won't be valedictorian and my answer was was straightforward

055if you're not enough without being valedictorian you will never be enough with being valedictorian should both my daughters have walked across the stage well all again my children walked across stage i had a couple more coming jordan who graduated valedictorian has never been asked about being valedictorian at northern michigan university she didn't get a full ride because she was valedictorian she worked very hard and i credit the the the effort and i recognize the conversations that are out there because i want all of our students to work really hard my daughter arisa is over at wayne state university and again she has never been asked about being valedictorian or in her case not being valedictorian i want all of our parents to be advocates for their children i want our children to strive for success

056but i i need everybody to recognize that each of us is is great in our own way i have no skin in the game i i'll personally tell you right now whatever the committee decides um if if that's the route we choose to go will be something i'll support i didn't sit on the committee that made the change in the first place um so i know we've got some some folks coming up and and i hope i've helped to answer some of the questions with regards to the valedictorian conversation how it came to be how we end up at this point what i will tell you is no matter what we do likely in future years we're going to have the same conversation because every time that i mean it gets hard right uh when

057when when the changes come they they get hard and that's the time when we face conversations like this so uh whatever we do i hope that we we do it with thoughtfulness um and we take a look at with the resolve that that were intentional about our our decisions again like i said the board was was was supportive of that committee back in in 2018-19 and i with same thing with mrs pierce i've said it to others i think it would be very disingenuous to wave a magic wand and simply ignore their voice today because it's hard now i have no issues with revisiting it to see if it's right for our day and time um but i i do think it's probably appropriate to to change the policy the same way we did last

058time through a committee if if that ends the case miss pierce thank you very much um what i would say is board members do you have any questions for miss pierce while she's here otherwise we can talk about valedictorian again a little bit later in the action item i'd just like to ask one question monica um who is going to be on the committee and how will they be selected so i am looking to have some students parents and teachers and administrators on the committee and we will determine how they're selected i have a question as well you indicated that there can be more than one valedictorian is there a specific number that we have made a decision on no so that would only be determined by their their number of classes and say you

059have five who have taken the same amount of ap classes same amount of dual enrollment classes and they all have 4.0 so that would be that would make it where there are five but i can't tell you today like how many there would be in a certain class right now we have 12 who are in the running they've all taken one ap class no dual enrollment so all of them are in the same you know they're in in the game at the same time i mean same they're competing with each other if you look at it like that and dual enrollment is a requirement dual enrollment is not a requirement but we do offer that through our jcec program so we encourage all of our students to sign up for that so they can take

060those classes at no cost okay thank you one other point of clarity dual enrollment is not a requirement for the rigor component at this time or it is so a requirement i'm sorry for the valedictorian status yes it is currently a part of that policy my yes to to be clear though the and i want to just clarify um ap dual enrollment classes through j through early college are all they're all equal in in that rating so if a student only chose to take ap courses they could other students may supplement that with dual enrollment and or early college is that is that accurate so the ap class is correct um right now there are one credit and then the dual enrollment are half just because of the length of time that they're in the

061class ap class they're in a full year and dual enrollment classes they are not so yes and the new current policy the dual enrollment classes factor into whether you're a valedictorian or not you still have the choice to take them just wanted to add a a thought and i don't i don't think you even have to have an answer right now but i sat through my own eighth graders orientation two weeks ago and i thought you guys did a really good job with the presentation and i i walked out of there as a parent and it was it was pretty clear of what the requirements were and i've had that conversation with with my son but there were definitely some very valid emails that we've received um just on really the eighth graders i think

062from that era that maybe 2024 specifically um and i think there could be still some concerns that the ap conversation and the value of that as it relates to their quest for valedictorian may not have been crystal clear but as i think as we explore over the next 30 days and we get closer to a committee um i understand tonight we're looking at 2023 but i i i would feel really good if we looked at 2024 and at least the conversation and we do um also with that ap conversation i know that just making sure that everyone's aware that most of the time in our freshman year the students will sign up for one ap class we do have an additional ap seminar class that students can take in 10th used to be one and

063two and they'd gradually increase their ap classes as they went up but they can take we have over 13 ap classes that they they can enroll in so you can double up you know however you want to take the classes you can and and again you know i i recognize the i'm going to say this the immediacy of the need which is why tonight's action item is really strictly the class of 2023 again based on communication that that you and i were looking for and we didn't find um but i i fully support the conversation for 2024 and 2025. i mean we've talked about this these students went through something that no other group of students has gone through in you know since the 20s and 1980s so it's it's certainly been a long time

064um but uh that's where i stand on the valedictorian any other final questions for ms pierce if not i will get her out of the hot seat did i confuse you guys are you good with the requirement and okay i don't feel confused but i just want to say ap courses and or dumb enrollment i want to just make sure i'm understanding that correct correct so you can have a 4.0 and then um so say you have a 4.0 and libby has a 4.0 and libby takes three ap classes and you take three ap classes and dual enrollment classes you're a head of libby because you've taken dual enrollment classes in addition to ap i understood it thank you and that may be part of the conversation to clean up some of the language absolutely

065so i appreciate your time tonight ms pierce and your work over the last 30 days that concludes this oh no i apologize one more thing on the superintendent's report um if i could i'd like to recognize ms cheryl simonetti she received the award of distinction from masb for her continued professional development and her work um so ms simonetti congratulations and thank you very much so so i want to say this because um the board of education volunteers for this right they they run and they they to represent our community they don't get paid um and to to put in all the extra hours and time it takes to to truly um you know go through the classes uh my hat's off to all of our board members for their work but uh but tonight i'll

066say thank you to miss simonetti okay thank you lots of good information uh we are on number six the consent agenda so at this time i would entertain a motion for approval of the consent agenda okay thank you aaron thank you pam any deliberation okay hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay motion carries next line item is or it's number seven citizens requesting to address the board there are quite a few here um so i'll call you up one by one and you can have um podium here in the microphone you'll each have five minutes with the exception of the first one oh we may have two delegations here um if it's a delegation you get 15 minutes i'll set a timer on my phone so when you hear that ding

067if you could wrap it up that would be great um and then there's just no back and forth just so you know so the first one is joanna perkins and that's a a delegation representing change with the district level oh it's stephanie sorry i read the second name excuse me i'm stephanie sizzak a retired teacher of 33 years in jackson public schools and i'm appalled upon learning of superintendent beal's verbal and physical accosting of his boss keisha hamilton in the january board meeting simply because she looked into among other issues actions taken by the board in regard to the superintendent's salary increases and this is disturbing on two levels first it's indicative of a person who's used to abusing their authority individuals with accountability do not dare address their boss in such a manner second

068this is a mere drop in the bucket of what has been allowed to continue under superintendent beale's reign mr beale's behavior is nothing short of life destroying careers destroyed at the hands of harassment at the hands of abuse at the hands of retaliation my first glimmer of this was when a random special needs student whom i did not know punched me in the head at the entrance of my classroom and then ran away you may recall that many staff members were highly concerned when i went to mr beal's office immediately after school he coldly demeaned me saying what are you doing here why are you not in the staff meeting this shocked me as these were his first words to me no words of greeting or introducing himself not only have i never missed a

069staff meeting but at this point he did not know me although he was aware of what had happened to me this unfortunately was just a glimpse into what was only the beginning of the harassment i experienced under jeff beale's reign when my daughter another retired teacher of 23 years in jackson public filed several whistlebl whistleblowers i was harassed much more intensely from my evaluation being changed by the principle from highly effective to a lower score being sent home for supposedly leaving my classroom unattended humiling humiliating me in front of my students when later video footage proved that this never had occurred to a long life of humiliation in front of my students dozens of bogus meetings write-ups for things that did not occur in meetings that did not exist as a means to break me

070far too much to disclose to you this evening all of the harassment i experienced was documented and proven untrue by endless emails and grievances and by the way if anyone's interested i have it all these dozens and dozens of consequent meetings and bullying under mr beale's reign did not go without me being unscathed and run into the ground the abuse i suffered is a cakewalk compared to those lives that were destroyed under mr beale's abuse of power his recent abuse of his boss ms keisha hamilton at the january meeting board meeting was in part captured so that it has become public however the long line of abuse upon so many has been kept covert and is nothing short of despicable to you members of the board i implore you to not allow the superintendent to

071respond in the manner that he did to keisha in january and to so many others ever again this board needs to hold mr beale accountable to board policies that are already in place thank you i'm joanna perkin recent retired teacher of 23 years was in gps after the january 18th meeting board member keisha hamilton disclosed to me some very shocking and disturbed disturbing news she shared with me me not only the events that have since went public that i also listened to in which keisha was unjustifiably publicly berated lied about bullied and silenced by superintendent bill board members erin white and angela mitchell this was utterly appalling by myself and quite difficult to hear but keisha also shared with me what occurred once the cameras turned off she went on to tell me how superintendent

072beale circled around the table and aggressively accosted her waving his finger in her face while he screamed and verbally threatened her this was compounded by member board member aaron white simultaneously screaming you need to stop talking you need to obey you need to get in line erin white also stood up leaned into board member libby brown saying you need to get her in line keisha through tears shared her concern for her safety and how utter how upsetting and frightening it was to have two men physically and verbally accosting her at the same time with such severe aggression the conversation with kesha rushed back memories of the accounts of countless women within the district myself included damaged by the abu abuse inflicted by superintendent beale through lies threats harassment intimidation and retaliation i couldn't help but

073be reminded of long time former and very well-respected principal pam perlos who experienced beal screaming and putting his finger into her chest while he verbally threatened her she left her keys that day never returned subsequently her pension was wrongfully kept from her this was disclosed to the board and nothing was done i couldn't help but be reminded of teacher penny davis who was vehemently harassed thereby taking the district to court and winning a slam dunk 7 out of 7 jury case once she returned to work we were all elated believing finally harassment would stop wrong the harassment in fact intensified and benny penny was forced on leave and endured severe health conditions and even open heart surgery as a result of the stress inflicted by beal again the board was well aware and continues to

074support beal's lack of accountability continued harassment while squandering elaborate amounts of the district's money continuing to fight penny in court to present day listening to keisha's account of abuse i couldn't help but reminded of my own personal experience of harassment and abuse by superintendent beal which began after i addressed the board with concerns filed several whistleblowers and harassment claims one of those whistleblowers was a sexual harassment claim of 14 girls within the program i was teaching eight of whom had submitted written statements of their accounts of the horrifying sexual abuse they endured when the investigation was done and i made a simple inquiry as to why the handbook was not followed and nothing was done i was written up the message you speak you pay among the litany of concerns iterated in one of the

075whistleblowers i submitted to the board were those of allegations of superintendent bill having slept with a student while he was a teacher in quincy community schools and further allegations of him having held his ex-wife at gunpoint i was in fact the third person to file a whistleblower with these same allegations and concerns the board was well aware of all of this and did absolutely nothing failing their due diligence as mandatory reporters however harassment and retaliation from beale towards me actually began with being screened at a meeting and threatened i was also screamed at in a gymnasium with teachers and parents during a transition meeting from there i was removed from a position i was promised in writing from the high school i had taught the previous 20 years to a junior high known as their

076dumping ground still i rolled with the punches and decided i would affect change in whatever classroom i was placed perhaps most upsetting and most hellacious was what happened once i became building committee chair and began questioning the cornucopa of illegal and immoral things taking place within that program including the lack of security that had been promised in writing by bill three times but never provided in this at-risk environment teachers were crying their daily superintendent beall threatened my employee in writing from there my nights my last year and a half of teaching within jps were spent at school until 8 or 9 p.m with janet with the janitors documenting the daily atrocities and unrelenting harassment the extreme stress and impending smearing of my flawless record of highly effective evaluations forced me into a leave of absence

077i began being harassed within literal hours i was incessantly threatening threatened regarding my employer subsequently fmla papers were denied submission i was illegally taken off payroll my insurance illegally dropped and issued nearly 40 bogus write-ups in other words being on leave did not entail the respite it should have and although i had never sought counseling in my life prior panic attacks that i had also never experienced prior to beal were the beginning of a long line of health conditions including pstd and fibromyalgia which were brought on through the trauma i experienced and subsequently exacerbated through beals continued and unrelenting harassment i wish i could say the retaliation ended when i made the decision to retire early from the district i spent my entire life in but the harassment continues my retirement was held up five

078months because the district lawyer traditionally done by hr quite odd over and over and over again submitted the wrong dates to ors this docu this was documented with them as they found it quite particular and yet still the retaliation continues currently superintendent beal continues to deny my terminal pay and recently sent me a letter which included the first portion of the contract omitting part b which clearly indicates to which i am entitled per the contract through keisha's account of the harassment she experienced from superintendent bill i couldn't help but also be reminded of lisa carroll who left the district she was so endeared to taking a ten thousand dollar pay cut after being harassed by superintendent bill once she allowed a student to put a newspaper article questioning the integrity of him amending the district's

079spring right to align with that of his wife's spring break at that time through keisha's account of abuse i can't help but reminded of my mother the woman sitting here today another teacher of 33 years within the within jps who was also vehemently harassed under beale's reign she has given you a mere glimpse into the despicable and reprehensible abuse she experienced let's just say i didn't have a mother for several years because stress at that level inundates one's entire being the thousands upon thousands of hours spent in turmoil cannot be replaced here in keisha's account i also can't help but be reminded of the two individuals who ended their lives post-superintendent beale's harassment their blood is on his hands the list of lies destroyed under his reign of terror is utterly insurmountable the trend with

080superintendent beal has been years of harassment of dozens upon dozens of women many women of color and one transsexual he threatens retaliates a myriad of integris do the right thing truth-telling hard-working kid-loving women while simultaneously protecting covering and advancing sexual deviance male administrators with failing schools expired certificates and those audacious enough to mimic his lawlessness the elaborate concerns were disclosed in an education consultant chris brown's 18-page letter of concern the board received who yet again completely ignored their due diligence as mandatory reporters the message from the district district has been clear for years we don't have to follow our own policies and women you better sit there quietly and take the abuse or suffer the consequences the scariest concern here is that a superintendent brazen enough to physically and verbally threaten a female principal dozens

081of female teachers and most recently board member keisha hamilton who is his boss has been empowered to do so by a board who is not holding him accountable i am requesting the three board members who were aware of every bit of information disclosed here erin white cheryl simeletti and pam fitzgerald step down as you have grossly failed your responsibility as board members i am also requesting that all harassment claims whistleblowers and letters of concern within the past five years be re-examined and evaluated appropriately and with due diligence [Applause] hey kelly higgins hello superintendent and board members i have previously contacted you all in regards to the new valedictorian criteria and why i believe the new criteria is a spiteful one that should not be enforced i have given all of my valid reasonings for not

082supporting this criteria throughout this process and my statement of disagreement i am here to say that i have felt nothing but disrespect first off starting with the fact that i couldn't even be provided with the response from a majority of the board members i believe a simple response or thank you to show respect and that you receive my email is deserved yet majority of you could not even do that and please do not say that is the president who speaks on your behalf because each and every one of you have your own voice and should use it with your position this is a position that we elected you in in a position where you work for the students such as myself therefore you must and should want to show us respect in my email i

083stated my many reasonings for not supporting the new criteria that of which includes the criteria only allowing one valedictorian taking away the title from students who worked just as hard as the one valedictorian the second reasoning being that the criteria is based on how many ap and college classes one takes this is a huge concern for the criteria as not every student initially had the opportunity to take these classes these students mainly consist of students of color specifically black students along with disabled students a specific example includes the fact that a student in my class the class of 2024 didn't attend parkside therefore was able to take ap and college classes in middle school and those points are now being counted towards the valedictorian rank lastly another main reasoning for me not supporting this new

084criteria is due to the way that it was announced to students such as myself the criteria was created before i even started high school yet not yet and yeah i was not informed of this new criteria until this february halfway through my 10th grade year in fact when the criteria was announced to us our reactions were mocked and we were told that being valedictorian did not matter although there are many more reasonings for me not supporting this criteria i do not have time to speak on the other reasons i simply just hope that you did your job and read my email stating all of my reasonings and explanations on top of everything i have previously stated that is not my main reason for being here today i am mainly here to address what i have

085previously deemed as disrespect after sending my email i was met with the response with nothing but contradictions to my statements a response in which told me that my information was all false first i was told that my statement about a classmate of mine taking ap and college classes in middle school that counts towards the valedictorian rank was false this was not false students in my grade can also confirm this in fact when informed of the new valedictorian criteria students received paperwork stating our current rank this student was ranked at number one due to the ap and college classes they took in middle school while the rest of us were ranked number two and under however the paperwork was then taken from taken from us once we realized this next i was also told that my

086statement about how students were informed of the criteria was false the response to my email stated that my class the class of 2024 was informed of the new criteria at our eighth grade orientation although although there may be slides of this we were never told this in person however we were told that there would be changes to the valedictorian criteria however we were not told what the changes consisted of there are many witnesses to agree with my statement lastly the response to my email stated that i was also false about the criteria only consisting of one valedictorian the response to my email stated that there could be more than one valedictorian i must say that if this were the case i would not be here today except upset like i am i was informed our

087principals and counselors who work under jeff bill and the board members countless times within the past month that there could only be one valedictorian now due to the new criteria i must say that i am highly disappointed in not only the new vatic valedictorian criteria but the response the act of not receiving responses from many board members along with the act of response from superintendent bill in which he felt the need to portray me as a liar in my statements as false and lies i hope that after my speech and holding you all accountable that you consider everything i said and do not enforce and pass the new valedictorian criteria [Applause] selby [Music] good evening my name is amari selby i am the daughter of board trustee shalonda hunt as a former 2019 valedictorian graduate

088of jackson high school i came prepared to share my personal perspectives about the proposed changes to the valedictorian criteria as early as seventh grade i became aware that high school credits were being offered and i proceeded to take advantage of this opportunity and begin my journey towards becoming a valedictorian throughout my academic career in jps i completed five ap courses and two dual enrollment courses that being said i can personally attest to the levels of dedication and time it takes to achieve valedictorian status whilst managing other extracurriculars outside of trying to navigate school through a global pandemic i believe it is imperative that we acknowledge the various students in their home life circumstances that often play a significant role in their academic success when reviewing the criteria for such an outstanding achievement i strongly believe

089that current seventh graders up to seniors should be grandfathered into the current valedictorian criteria as they may have already decided to take high school courses with the goal in mind of becoming valedictorian i disagree with requiring students to participate in ap courses or dual enrollment courses instead i believe the grading scale for valedictorian status should be reevaluated such as moving from a 90 percent to a 94 percent to account as a a i believe in jackson high's academic curriculum and that honors and non-ap courses completed with a 4.0 status should be celebrated in addition to ap and dual enrollment courses in conclusion i would like to i would like the jps board of education to take my comments into consideration when making the final decision about changing the valedictorian criteria thank you thank you um

090jen copen tapping sorry i'm messing up all these names yeah coppin thanks um hi members of the board nice to see you um i'm here tonight to share an amazing opportunity and urge all involved to quickly approve the project that i am here to tell you about um i'm the science teacher at 4th street learning center and i've been teaching there for six years now world record holder um thanks thank you about five years ago i started a garden program at 4th street with some of my students with the goal being to be able to eventually grow the program to share the food that we're growing at school with the community we started with a small patch of daffodils and we have expanded to fill four raised beds with vegetables since we've started the students

091have learned about plants and their importance not just as a food source but in medicine industry and culture last year we made and sold natural soaps using herbs grown in the school garden it's a program that gives students purpose knowledge life skills and social opportunities as much as i've wanted to take it to the next level and grow enough food to really make an impact we just don't have the space or the financial resources while we do have access to the historic greenhouse at parkside it's not suitable for growing food due to the presence of asbestos and it needs other expensive repairs i've obtained grant money to keep the garden program going each year so far but it's a scramble and i end up paying out of pocket for a lot of things here's the

092exciting part two weeks ago dr patterson forwarded me an email from vista grand villas which is a local retirement community they have obtained a grant from the michigan health endowment and the plan is to place garden hubs around the city and distribute food to those living in isolation or with food insecurity they want to take an intergenerational approach to this by bringing the elderly together with youth living in the same conditions this program would this would boost the garden program to what we have always wanted it to be at 4th street and parkside i jumped on the opportunity and i have met with the team at vista grand villa the day after i got the email we got together they are excited to move on this and they'd like to build two new greenhouses at

0934th street and parkside provide which would be enough space to provide food for up to 80 people they would also provide funding for the garden program for up to two years maybe more if the grant is renewed they will assist with providing volunteers and transportation for students which right now it's me so that would be great more kids could stay if they had a ride home many of the students at 4th street and parkside belong to the demographic that's targeted by this program and i just think it would be really empowering and life-changing for them to be able to participate in such a project where they're actually helping people in their neighborhood and in their homes tim swope the project director at vista grand villas has let me know that it's really urgent that we

094move on this right away they already had somebody fall through so their grant holder is really pushing them they want to start building this week so i am here to ask you to please anything that you can do to help me get this project going i think it's a huge opportunity to really bring community together at the school and i think fourth street's a great place to do it so thank you [Applause] [Music] okay next up is amy gish this is a delegation thank you grady he's always got my back good evening i'm amy gish this is rebecca kerr we've been asked to speak on behalf of our delegation which includes former union leaders from the jackson education association some who chose to write letters of their own and those who gave us permission to

095include them in our presentation and several individuals we helped over the years i'll start with my letter i'm glad to be here this evening because i now have the pleasure of meeting keisha hamilton in person i'm amy gish a retired teacher and former union president board policy states the board of education believes that a staff member should be able to work in an environment free of threatening speech or actions keisha i too was vehemently threatened and harassed for doing my job it started in 2013 when i worked for a principal at parkside who created a path of destruction to distract others while she was busy embezzling money from school funds this superintendent was new at the time and set the tone for his career that year by supporting the administrator and turning his back on

096faculty he too became a tormentor to many self included once the threats and harassing behaviors start they don't stop unfortunately the reporting system is designed so those with unscrupulous motivations can box in their victims and continue to violate them over and over again when you report to the school board you get rerouted to the superintendent and other administrators i even requested an investigation by a third neutral party per board policy but was denied that opportunity unless i turned over all documentation to members of the superintendent's team and met with them beforehand being targeted and traumatized over and over again impacts students they pick up on the stress add to that the times i've witnessed colleagues being threatened and harassed by the superintendent by administrators and that compounds the impact this superintendent has a history of

097yelling at people falsifying narratives intimidating students not answering questions changing the subject to avoid a topic blaming people for doing things they have not done giving directives that are inappropriate denying teachers therefore students basic materials denying services to those in great need not following school board policies plain favorites abusing the absence of a nepotism policy allowing faculty and staff who have inappropriate relationships with students to quietly go away putting down teachers work requiring some teachers to do unnecessary time consuming tasks etc once you have that target on your back it's always there this superintendent has been enabled to act this way by board members who have chosen to do nothing in response to his dangerous and unprofessional behavior pam fitzgerald cheryl siminati erin white you have received information over the years that you have chosen

098to ignore in favor of supporting the superintendent jps was found negligent in the penny davis court case that includes the board how are some of you still on the board you must be proud of the superintendent's reckless and nasty behavior because you have continuously scored him as being highly effective penny's then principal jeremy patterson who according to court testimony tormented her feverishly was deemed highly effective by the superintendent since he does jeremy's evaluation this is beyond disgusting behavior fast forward to your application to have penny's case heard before the michigan supreme court and justice bernstein asks you've lost at every level what do you want i'll tell you what you want suffering you have the ability to abuse your power and you do just as this district neglected to investigate that parkside principle with a

099troubled past who stole from our community this district also chose not to investigate the troubled past of this superintendent our community deserves a better school system than what we have struggled with for years in order to get there we need a new superintendent and board members who are willing to do the job they were elected to do with fidelity we also need some administrators to step down bullying threatening harassing and intimidating faculty and staff shows just how incompetent they are at their job resignations accepted consider this yet another whistleblower complaint thank you a teacher starts the school year prepping many things their classroom lesson plans assessments and of course those special name tags imagine going from 21 students to 37 students in the course of five weeks especially when your class has only 25 desks

100and chairs you don't know when new students will show up it could be in the morning or after lunch the superintendent mr beal has said no one can say no to new students no matter class sizes even if your most classes are overloaded at hunt and very low at other buildings mr beale comes to talk to the second grade teachers a month after school starts he corners me against a beam in the lunchroom at hunt during my planning period he says 37 is not really more than 25 wrong it is when you can't move around your room to help students when you want to work in small groups and when you don't have enough math workbooks enough reading books enough of anything you should remember i have the right to reassign you if i want

101to at that point my head said it would be easier but my heart said i would never do that to my students nothing changed until the end of october when the union threatened to file a grievance and finally one and a half more second grade classrooms were added my end-of-year evaluation said quote if you spent less time on union issues your students would do better not bothering to factor in 14 extra students for three months this was a workplace environment where you are threatened and punished by trying to help students i had a role as representing elementary school on the executive council i advocated for general education students dealing with mental illness trying to get help for these kids especially two students who were in second grade i brought up a few ideas including students

102from jackson college and baker that might need hours and that might need hours for their program mr beale dismissed my ideas out of pocket and the ideas of students needing mental health help he laughed changing the topic almost immediately mental illness and teacher safety in the classroom were two other issues brought up at professional council by myself and another female teacher both were dismissed by mr beal saying there was security in teachers that they that there was security and teachers were fine yet at the same time teachers were taking leave for stress and for having students threatening them with glass shards students running away from schools running to the bus garage and hiding on buses teachers having desks thrown at them mr beale at these meetings would listen to men but dismissed females in the

103room time and time again jps turned into a toxic workplace where students were not the main focus it showed as actual enrollment numbers steadily decreased over the last 10 years teachers are not encouraged to ask for help or to share ideas again this shows as jps now has to offer a signing bonus to get teachers to actually come to jps i quit teaching and quit jps after 19 years don't believe the hype jps has lost many good teachers due to mr beal and his philosophy of bullying women and disrespecting those who chose to express an opinion that differs from his amy gazzowski jps teacher from 2000 to 2019. i have to say that many teachers found it difficult to come here tonight because they said that this being in this building triggered a lot of

104emotions for them this was written on behalf of a former teacher with permission it's called self-serving leadership in action and it was written from my point of view again with this teacher's permission several years ago i attended a meeting called by superintendent biel the advisor of jackson high's student-run newspaper who at the time was lisa carroll was present as was the school's principal for instruction superintendent beall was very upset that a student chose to run an article about our spring break schedule change and the fact that the change lined up with ann arbor school's spring break schedule where the superintendent's better half worked at the time the schedules are public information and the writer gained additional facts about his story since the superintendent's initial threat to squash it he added the facts and the story

105went to print needless to say that angered the superintendent during that meeting the superintendent spent much time going through that issue of the reflector news glancing over almost every article and demeaning lisa and her students for their work belittling and degrading throughout lisa was in tears and i felt her pain you don't treat teachers by dehumanizing them and you don't slaughter student work especially when they are defenseless at the end of the meeting superintendent bill gave a directive to lisa from now on chris giannatti is going to conduct a prior review before each issue goes to print the pride of a student-run newspaper was crushed by self-serving big brother the additional facts that student writer uncovered for his article came from an interview he set up with me many faculty members asked a few of

106us teachers to start a petition to keep our spring break as originally scheduled i was also one of the teachers who hand delivered the signed petitions to the superintendent in his office that student writer under adviser lisa carroll should have been congratulated for staying with a story of his interest and uncovering the truth the rest of the story self-serving leadership in action jackson public school board members i recently read an article on mlive about the current jps superintendent being investigated for harassment i'm not surprised that this has happened only that it took so long for it to happen to someone willing to speak up about it four years ago i wrote the jps board about some significant fact-based concerns about the current superintendent who chose to engage in bullying practices by not only canceling an

107education initiative that i had been facilitating free of charge to the district but the initiative still lives with the support of one brave administrator and a new group of teachers who are focused on doing what's best for the students i received a single response to my letter from one board member indicating the extent of the action taken by the school board which was to talk with the bully i encourage the board to re-read that letter which will which you will find in your email inbox from zorrister15 yahoo.com which has an addendum which with additional information i learned since initially writing that letter that shines a brighter light on the need to find new leadership for jps make note that not only the addendum but the highlighted portions of the original letter which merit additional inquiries

108by a third party investigator it saddens me to read that four years later the bully is still bullying and he continues to have help from certain board members specific to the article i read erin white by association those that are encouraging aaron to bully other board members and failed to publicly denounce his inappropriate and unprofessional behavior at the end of the january board meeting are also complicit in the abusive behavior perpetrated by the same bully that they are in charge of evaluating the current superintendent deserves some blame for his behavior and the culture in the district the leader generally is the climate that drives the culture especially in districts with weak school boards i encourage this board to hire an independent third party to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the leadership of this district determine

109if the school board is meeting its obligations to properly provide oversight to district leadership and everything in between it's important to note that because of the bullying and cancel culture i experienced as a tax paying community member who lived in the district i moved out of it the hypocrisy of a district whose slogan is where community comes together but its actions is the district leadership level and are the exact opposite is not one that i was willing to support with my tax dollars yet as an educator i still feel obligated to advocate for a better education system for the students attending jackson public schools i've been an educator for almost 20 years now spending the last 12 supporting schools as an instructional and data coach i have worked with school districts of every size and

110demographic from the district formerly known as detroit public schools to tiny litchfield public schools one of the districts i supported at one time was jackson public where i helped three buildings leave priority status as one would expect from the breadth of my work i have had the privilege of working with some of the most positive forward moving cultures the misfortune of working in some of the most negative and caustic ones and the calm that comes with working with the middle eighty percent some characteristics i have observed of the negative cultural cultures include but are not limited to unhappy teachers that don't feel respected or listened to building in district level administration that are not certified building in district level administration not following policies and procedures district administration bullying harassing and in general engaging in cancer

111culture practices to drown out or eliminate voices that run contrary to their individual and generally misguided vision of our time thank you very much alison reeser [Applause] [Music] hi there good evening i'm alison reeser i'm an educator here at jps i teach here at jackson high school health and pe but i'm here on behalf as a parent today for my son braden who is a 10th grade student here at the high school and one of those 4.0 kiddos that was affected by the meeting just a few weeks ago i did send an email to you guys uh earlier today um i just feel as though i would feel better if i was at least heard even if it was just for a couple minutes so i'm gonna go ahead and read the email just to

112make sure that you saw it there were a few of you that did respond thank you very much even in the short notice so i appreciate that um this email is my parent voice in regards to the reform policy for the jhs valedictorians that was rolled out a few weeks ago about a month ago a meeting was held for all jackson high students with a 4.0 gpa my son included these students were assembled to be informed that there was criteria presented for the narrowing down to only one valedictorian many of these students had no idea that the changes were made and this experience was devastated after watching 19 valedictorians cross the stage last year and many more co-valedictorians if you will sharing the spotlight in years past students assume their 4.0 gpa meant something and

113carried on business as usual mind you these are the best of the best students at jps 4.0 students not only but also your honor society kids leadership kids athletes and volunteers after the meeting many were in tears and now have high anxiety because their 4.0 is minimalized and the rules seem to have been changed mid through their high school careers some even mentioned they wanted to leave our district at the conclusion of this school year my son included and as an educator at this district it hit me hard i want him here i want him to be in the same building that i teach so i was crushed with that one and so that was one of the biggest reasons i decided i needed to at least write this so i was heard the next

114day i had a conversation with mrs pierce about this and i feel my voice was heard but moving forward i wanted to be certain that this decision that was affecting my smart and capable son as well as others who expressed their disappointment in the zoom parent meeting held a day or two later parents felt just like me the way it was rolled out was unacceptable or not acceptable and it just didn't seem grandiose enough especially since it was in the midst of a global pandemic i was also intrigued since the 8th grade students register themselves for their jhs classes while they're at parkside did they know the decisions they were making about their classes would impact their entire future high school career especially if being a valedictorian was one of their life goals i even

115remember asking a counselor how important are ap classes and i was told yes they're good but something along the lines is they weren't that important i'm an educated woman and didn't realize that ap classes were going to set the student out in front ahead of my son's 4.0 since he only took a regular class last ninth grade year instead of the ap not to mention the college classes being more important than their high school classes in this model do we not want these kids in the building are regular classes a step down and not worth taking i'm confused and as a teacher i still have a lot of questions about this grandfathering these kids into the changes seems like the only option and i'm speaking for the 2024 kids my 10th grade boy you're already

116grandfathering grandfathering these rules to earlier graduating classes therefore we realized the process could have been better the 2024 class of students have deserved to know these changes were supposed to affect them before school started this didn't feel like it happened maybe starting with this year's 8th graders is a better option they'll be sure to understand the changes being made it's like we changed the rules halfway through the game for these 2024 kids and again these are our smartest and most capable kids in the district how could they miss it as a parent educator in our district not knowing this information felt like a slam in the face whether someone thinks i'm stupid for missing it or not fully comprehending this i still am a respected educator in the community and a proud parent of a

117jps kid we missed it if we missed it how did our not as involved students and parents have caught this information thank you so much for your time and i appreciate you hearing my voice hey uh william hastings [Applause] uh [Music] brett kavanaugh harvey weinstein count dracula joseph stalin sorry guys you're all going to have to hit the showers you will never apparently hold a candle to arch fiend jeff beale so i'm told in other news in other news and there is other news first and foremost i would like to offer my congratulations to the assistant superintendent or should i now say superintendent william patterson congratulations major congratulations um being named superintendent is a tremendous honor but it is also a tremendous challenge i took a minute to glance at the education dashboard for your

118new district sorry i can't really look at you as i'm speaking just how it is um 21 of kids proficient in math and english grades three through eight 21.9 percent of 11th graders proficient in all subjects on the m-step so 57 percent of kids in this district are rated as economically disadvantaged which means that if even even if every single one of the kids in the economically disadvantaged bucket are not proficient even then a full half of the remaining kids would still have to be necessarily not proficient that's the lakeview school district that's your new challenge it is not a light or easy one as discouraging as these numbers are they align actually very closely with numbers at jps at jps only 22 percent of 11th graders are proficient in all subjects on the m

119step almost every one of these kids will eventually enter the job market which is far more skewed to excellence not mere proficiency to excellence in science tech technology engineering and math then the job force was even 20 to 30 years ago to say nothing of the era when most of our parents entered the workforce the world truly has changed and is changing even faster how can one possibly dream of participating in a highly competitive global economy rooted in math and science as well as other academic skills if one cannot meet a baseline of minimum proficiency after 12 years spent in in in the school system the members of the sport in their current positions and mr patterson in his new position have share a profound moral responsibility to address the baseline academic performance of their

120students none of none of us and none of you have the luxury of distractions anymore none of us none of them whether they be the educational fad of the day or the new effort to pump locism into school children from the very first day of kindergarten i know what's coming out of the the jc isd and i will not hesitate to call what truly is it is it is rot in his moral poison and his educational cancer race race race sex sex sex gay gay gay played on endless rewind rinse and repeat for kids who are definitionally incapable of reading and writing and doing simple math definitionally not my definition the definition of the educational standards of the state of michigan this must end public schooling is not a new enterprise we know how to

121teach kids the basics and which personal and familial and social influences boost success in schools and which do not it's time to drive all distractions and political agendas from the realm of public education how could anyone look at these numbers and think any distractions teaching fads or political political agendas are acceptable let alone desirable and i would just add i would just have to add that this board has unfortunately effectively deleted the valedictorian and and the salutatorian honors from the school uh valedictorian is meant to be a singular honor and not a glorified participation trophy um this school and the next graduating class will possess a true actual valedictorian and salutatorian but you have collectively chosen to not recognize him or her deliberately choosing not to honor the very finest student in the class is

122symptomatic of a much deeper malaise thank you okay next we have um nicole johnson sorry still covet um good evening a megalomaniac by definition is a person who is obsessed with their own power jeff bill has a persistent documented history of leading through fear and intimidation fostering a hostile work environment for anyone outside of his circle of sick offense curated through favoritism and nepotism evidence by the fact that under just leadership the district lost the retaliation lawsuit on appeal which resulted in an award amount of 388 thousand dollars payable to the employee painted monies which if awarded surely could benefit students at jps little did i know that the climate and culture that facilitated that loss of the retaliation lawsuit was fully intact when i joined jps in 2018. i pride myself on my closely

123held values of not doing and not asking anyone else to do anything that is illegal immoral unethical or unsafe holding these values and working under jeff beale were incongruent at best and hostile at worst one example of hostile behavior by jeff beale is the fact that during the month of november 2018 in the presence of john rudel former jps cfo and myself jeff bill claimed that he was quoting a parent of a jps student when he said the n-word in its entirety i don't know how else this could have been received since i am clearly a woman of color an african-american woman to be specific and in the presence of john rudel a white man jeff beale a white man felt it was appropriate to say to me the assistant superintendent of human resources it

124is also noteworthy that at a minimum the then board president angela mitchell and vice president aaron white were emailed the attached three-page response to the written write-up jeff bill issue me as evidence that the board has had ample opportunity to address his behavior but has instead elected to provide him with a sixty thousand dollar pay raise for additional duties of leading human resources eliminating any and all checks and balances no doubt bolstering his brazen attitude towards anyone not willing to blindly follow his lead which has led to numerous misuse of funds as detailed in the aesthetic in the attached response lastly and as further evidence of jeff beale's incompetence in managing district resources i ask how is it possible that today march 15 2022 the scmv educational leader is not certified by the state of

125michigan a clear violation of the revised school code and exposes the district to fees by the state for being out of compliance eight additional pages attached as proof i will continue this for the remainder of my time with the written write up in an attempt to follow your directive contained within to provide you with the written plan for how you will meet these expectations and acknowledgement and i understand the requirements of my office assistant superintendent of human resources please accept this communication as my written plan and response to the written reprimand to be maintained within my file i respect your position as the superintendent of jps and thank you for taking time to clarify your expectations in regards to my arrival and departure time to reynolds hall with all sincerity i know my place and

126i understand it is my job to make your job easier while undocumented in the written reprimand i would like the record to reflect you verbally suspended me with pay today friday november 15th i would also like the record to reflect that i decline your offer of accepting my resignation now in exchange for salary continuation through the end of the calendar year i will also like the record to reflect that you verbally your time next up we have the tasha taisha carter [Applause] [Music] [Applause] tasha carter good evening um i don't even know what to say really um i have prepared a little speech but i think for the most part most of the people who have spoken tonight have um i mean they they've shared examples of continued bullying and harassment that's crazy to me

127but anyways prior to last month i hadn't attended a jps board meeting since 2014 and at that time um i'm an alumni my kids are alumni and he or my son i attended the board meeting because i was totally devastated because my son who was a student athlete would started varsity in the ninth grade and because of a jps administrative error it made him ineligible for ncaa d1 college scholarship and i didn't have the money we were banking on him to go um to college and things worked out he went to lcc he he had national um or went to the national championship he went on to cover stockton and even secured a professional um contract so things worked out but i'm just saddened to hear that so many things are still just so bad

128at jps i i mean and a lot of people have spoken about jeff bill's behavior but you as the board are accountable last month i i sat here and what i watched on video in january the the the body movement the the reactions to people it it's ridiculous like you're supposed to be professional you're supposed to be role models to the youth and you sit up there and act irritated unacceptable and then what i witnessed after the attended in person last last month and what i witnessed in you pam i i don't there's no back and forth this is my time and i'm claiming it okay so you walk i mean you were sitting right there and i watched you as i was talking to aaron walk past that person that person that person that

129person around my son who was hugging libby to say what everybody knew all right i mean you wouldn't close chambers everybody up there you know what claim closed chambers is right you go and close chambers so that we can't hear what you're talking about so for you to come out here and walk around everyone else you did i sat here in fact aaron said calm down when he realized that you what you did so you are inappropriate you can sit there with your arms crossed but you are inappropriate yeah and don't yell don't say anything because this is my time and you know i we are going to continue to show up as residents our presence will we will show up and we're going to speak up every time when you are inappropriate when we

130email you you should respond the young lady who was here earlier i don't know which of you didn't respond to her but by my god i mean the youth are making outreach to you and you can't even respond back i don't understand i don't i don't understand as a professional working as an adult there's things that i can't say to my boss and i'm very verbal um i mean there's there's ways to be professional and i have not seen or i've witnessed some of you not exhibit professional behavior and it's i'm just here to say it's unacceptable and i'm open to talk to every one of you i made outreach to you aaron and you told me that because of the investigation that will take care of itself i wanted to have a discussion with

131you and about your accountability as a jps board member i pay my taxes i vote and if i have questions for you i you i feel like you could at least give me that courtesy and that really that really applies to any and every one of you and i just also want to speak on the valedictorian issue i my heart goes out to the kids but if there is going to be an ad hack i do think what my recommendation is is that sorry the youth also be included in the ad hoc thank you okay mahesha jones [Applause] oh hello everyone my name is maisha jones i want to apologize for everyone who follows my wardrobe tonight i just left taekwondo so i'm a little sweaty but you all know my wardrobe is always usually

132up to par back to priorities um i just want to acknowledge a couple things i know i talked last time about the valedictorian and just the really concerns and inequities in that process and i know you've decided that diversity equity and inclusion is a um is a priority of the board hopefully you'll have some education on what that means and then you'll understand that the process you've created is very inequitable to the students if you're going to start judging their performance in seventh grade then the seventh grade class is where she you should be making the change not now not eighth not ten ninth eleven 12th is just it's not inequitable i also want to acknowledge and tasha has already spoke on it but what i saw last week after the board meeting i would

133encourage everyone to please stay until everyone has left the room because on camera we can catch and find things which is why we all are here and i'm feeling confident and voicing our concerns but when the camera goes off immediately when the board ends there's a lot of stuff that y'all don't know be happening like last week when pam came over so let's clarify a couple things in aaron's speech he literally said like i said in closed session and repeated something he said in closed session which is against the rules but he said that but pam didn't say nothing to him but she sure switched on aggressively across to keisha and used the most unprofessional voice and body language and i just looked at her like i don't know why you think you can do

134that like the nerve of you who do you think you are to disrespect another human being in that manner like i think in my professional opinion the attributes and behaviors we've heard about all night from um the superintendent are a learned behavior that's been accepted by the board so the very two okay the two new i'm gonna say some no so don't get eat cause some people's feelings might get hurt i'ma say something else we have two new board members this year keisha and libby one should not be the only person shalonda we elected you too and we want you to use your voice here we need you to use your voice here we selected you as a community for your voice not for your looks not for your popularities but we need you to

135speak up and that's important for our community it can't just be keisha and libby you have to stand with keisha and speak up about these issues we need you now everybody else who've been allowing mr bill to do the work that he's done family and friends in the community i think they all need to be gone why are they still here if they've allowed him to do the things that he's done they're all best friends with him no one stands up but the last two people then perhaps it's time to replace them all now it's not a personal thing it's not a like it's not a love thing i don't have no personal opinions or respect for a person but if you are doing a job and you're not doing your right and you haven't

136done it right in a long time you should be replaced and that's just the the the sum of it pam i really hope that you learn how to be a nice human being because what i saw from you now i've been hearing stuff about some things that people experienced from you of color and the ways you treated people i can't speak to that because i wasn't there but i saw what you did last meeting and that is not okay and we will be watching you at every board meeting to make sure that your disrespect is not happening anymore and we will be holding you accountable talking about it and if we have to keep that video recording it we will see because what you did last week was not okay and you can't continue to

137act that way that's all [Applause] hey i'm david quinn davida so sorry my name is davita quinn and i am a community advocate i work with a lot of children i work with a lot of senior citizens and adults i work with some of you sitting at these in these seats and the things that has been said tonight and the things that's going on one of the reasons we talked several months ago when i was here was about being able to have an open session where people in the community can view video and see and hear what's going on at board meetings some people don't even want to know what's going on at board meetings because of things that has been going on the last two months it's just unspeakable we're talking about you all

138were chosen you went out and you campaigned and you asked this community to vote you to these seats and the things that some of you are doing in these seats you need to be recalled this year election or whosoever seat is up you shouldn't even run again you should just walk away and go do something else because being in the public and helping other people especially children that's not not your forte go find something else to do because i don't see how i don't even think you like people maybe you don't like a person of a particular color and i surely hope that's not the case here i surely hope not all the backbiting all the backstabbing i've never seen such horrendous things going on but at the end i forget you all are a

139product of who you work for you all a product of some of the things that you've been through historically here in jackson you are product of what you've been doing so you just think it's good and it's correct to do it's not correct to do and it's not right some of you i know you weren't raised that way but you just keep doing things because what other people do it because you think you get away with it that it's okay to say what you're grown i can say what i want to say i can do what i want to do you're public figures it's just uncalled for and if any of these allegations that has been raised here against you are true and some investigation come out you've done the things and you've been bullying

140and you have did these things that's on record mr bill you two need to step down and any of you people that's been sitting on this board along with him now your smiles just turned to frowns you need to step down too you all know what i do in this community and what i stand for and i'm gonna tell you if it's not right i'm gonna call you to the floor and i'm gonna tell you i don't owe nothing to nobody in here when i came to jackson 13 years ago i came here who i was when i leave jackson i'll leave here still who i am if you're wrong you're wrong it doesn't matter who you are it doesn't matter how high you are it doesn't matter if you're wrong you're wrong and you

141need to be held accountable for the things that you do and you say and that's that we are nat jones [Applause] okay last august i'm going to go ahead and read it last august i encourage the board to reach out to the latino community and board member keisha hamilton did exactly that for which i am thankful i am also grateful for the board's decision to investigate the superintendent comments to miss hamilton causing her to feel unsafe miss hamilton has faithfully advocated for students and their families as well as their teachers in this community i was able to come to the board meeting last year before i took set the superintendent has been using intimidating comments for years and has been getting away with it he primarily uses his tactics on female faculty members in particular

142teachers myself included to the point of forcing us into early retirement or leaving the district the intimidation tactics need to stop it makes us all unsafe our community deserve better it does not need a superintendent intimidating its female subordinates and board members we are here for the education of our students we are not here to be intimidated by the superintendent board members like keisha hamilton is what we need board members who are willing to advocate for students and their families as well as their teachers thanks for your time and have a blessed evening [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you we are on number eight bond items the first one is 21-22-92 jhs sure cornell sample yes the second the second i have zero children in your district i'm a single father of five i'm shaken at

143what i'm hearing i'm sitting back here watching your guys's micro expressions seeing who you take serious who you don't taking pictures of you guys on your phone well we got people up here spilling their heart out to y'all i can see which one of you guys i can see where your loyalty lies everybody in here can see it it's it's not hard to see had any of these allegations i wasn't there for anything have any of these allegations been with anybody else they'd have been gone they'd be terminated every single person it doesn't matter what you do why were you why are you guys letting this happen this is ridiculous now i gotta worry about my daughter growing up to be a teacher at jps are you serious i live less than half a mile

144from the school and i drive my kids a half hour away every single day that's ridiculous from my heart i'm a concerned person i'm a concerned community member in closing your days are numbered and i'm not saying that in a cocky way or nothing this cannot happen we will not let this continue to happen because just like that that young high school student who came up here and spoke to y'all that's our future so when y'all don't take our future serious okay we got stuff to do and what we're going to do is we're going to take you guys out of those seats and put people in those heats of care [Applause] okay we are on the bond items line 21-22-92 jackson high school media center furniture bid marcus thank you the bids for the

145high school media center furniture were received and presented to the finance facilities meeting last month february 23rd and at this time we are recommending awarding the bids in the amount of 129 538.98 as presented from our architects at tmp okay thank you at this time i would entertain a motion awarding the bids in the amount of 129 million 538 1098. sorry no i'll put my glasses on yeah we're not spending that much 538.98 as presented so moved second okay thank you libby thank you pam any deliberation okay hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay motion carries next line item is 21-22-93 sharp park academy bid marcus again bids were received as we move to the part of the final projects through the bond for sharp park so again i will go

146through and read all the trade awards that have been vetted from our construction company and then we'll recommend the awarding of the bids for demolition chrisman constructors 97 concrete choice concrete 573 masonry davenport masonry 601 960 structural steel division five metal works 310 hundred twenty six general trades cook jackson one hundred thirty thousand nine hundred forty three metal wall panels mcdonald roofing fifty six thousand one hundred forty one membrane roofing mcdonald roofing 238 doors frames and hardware oscar brick 90 aluminum glass and glazing reliable glass 148 560 metal studs drywall and acoustical walker commercial interiors 115 300 floor coverings kristoff and suns 254 painting lenco painting fifty thousand five hundred thirty seven lockers brainerd enterprises fifty seven thousand six hundred manufactured case work architectural systems group ninety five thousand eight seventy lifts nationwide lifts twenty

147five thousand eight hundred plumbing in hvac positive trades group one million one hundred thirty six thousand seven hundred thirty electrical will see electric 654 500 earthwork de excavating 517 thousand 43 dollars paving american asphalt 128 000 even total contractor trade awards five million two hundred ninety three thousand three hundred and one and then with contingencies allowances and um other construction fees the bottom line is six million eight hundred ninety six thousand 763 just a few notes as we've discussed in previous months out of that amount approximately 66 percent have been awarded to recommended to be awarded to local contractors again that within 40 mile radius of the district and then again we also have um information on on who was notified and invited to bid and all that kind of information out of almost 550

148trades notified about nine percent were minority-owned businesses zero bid on the projects however it goes only about ten percent of those notified even submitted bids this time around so at this time we'll recommend awarding the bids and that amount okay thank you marcus so this time i would entertain a motion awarding the the bids in the amount of six million eight hundred ninety six thousand seven hundred sixty three dollars as presented so moved second thank you cheryl libby thank you um any deliberation so just i wanted to say marcus i'm sorry keisha one second libby could you turn your mic off sorry just wanted to say thank you for including um you know the information as far as um you know how many minority owned companies bid and if you do that each time i

149would really appreciate it definitely just want to highlight that thank you okay anything else okay hearing none all those sorry one question i'm sorry was is this this money that's been used for that was this um what was taken did we already gather money for this is this kind of like was already planned what is this money from this is the bond project so this was what the voters voted on okay i thought awesome thank you thank you okay all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay motion carries oops now we are on number nine discussion items the first one is 21-22-94 d-e-i coordinator and that is the board yeah miss hunt i'm gonna lead this conversation just to start but i really turn this over to you you you brought up the conversation

150of a dei coordinator uh with me in the end of january um plus or minus and uh we talked about this as far as something that really should come before the board not not in the manner of should we or shouldn't we have a dei coordinator but really to talk about what the scope or to set a job description committee together i mean obviously our district doesn't have a current dei coordinator so this is a discussion item for the board it's there's no action and i don't know that there'll be action i'm going to say this next month unless we know kind of where that job description looks like so it's it's not a matter of not doing it untimely it's simply a matter of not until we're ready so miss hunt i guess i'd

151turn this over to you if you want to kind of share your thoughts and then the board can discuss as as needed thank you jeff just to piggyback off what jeff said we met as we do every month and there's been a lot of conversation about the training that our faculty and staff as well as the board has been provided and what is the outcome what is the desired outcome of that training i came to him with the idea of creating a position a job for an individual with knowledge passion and understanding district-wide to address our um issues within our education system whether that is a coordinator a specialist a director it's a need it's an imminent need that we would need to consider and while there's not a position in place my proposed idea

152was to create an ad hoc committee to develop roles and responsibilities an individual that would work closely with the superintendent to address some of the issues some of the gaps that we have experienced in our classroom settings with our parent involvement with our community with our teacher to administrators all of it interconnected i think it's important that we don't just have the training but we create a role for someone to work closely with everyone what that ad hoc committee would look like would we would you know seek out those interested individuals and um come together with some strategic goals objectives realistic some action steps that we can implement right now based on the training that we've already had and then have this as an ongoing process this position would be an individual that is in

153the trenches in our classroom settings starting from early pre-k all the way through 12th grade and beyond preparing our students with the awareness of what diversity equity and inclusion is talk early talk often has been used in many other aspects of providing educational tools to our students this is an opportunity for us to begin early with diversity equity and inclusion i think it's a role that would oversee the development and implementation of the strategic goals this would definitely be something new but a requirement of what our district needs any other aaron no i understand it's a great idea and i appreciate you know i think you mentioned that me to me a little while ago and and just thoughts on like the job description are you are you thinking that the ad hoc committee would

154also participate in creating that job description absolutely absolutely yes and we we want student involvement teacher involvement administrators community involvement we want everyone all of those specific areas individuals represented those areas to be a part of this ad hoc committee so that we can ensure that we are addressing every area that is impacted by the inequities of our education system some question about this um and it might be for jeff you know because i don't know that we on the board per say no if you do know you're welcome to answer but what does dr mark's um what what was he hired to do dr mark's the the contract in in and i'll send it to you again specific the contract specifically uh centers around cultural proficiency so his work centers around educating our staff

155about cultural proficiency working with cohort groups around that that subject he's not a dei coordinator specific but but again like i said in fact targets again a very a very specific scope of work now i know that um you know even with dei obviously cultural proficiency is a part of that you know um that awareness just for the record also i would like for everybody to know that i do support the idea of creating a department you know because not one no one person can you know uh accomplish the ideas that have been presented which i think are good just so we know but um so i do support the idea of a department but i'm also wondering even what dr marx has done and what he's doing in the district what have been the

156outcomes and maybe we don't have that answer and that might be part of the i don't know if it's um uh we're getting a feedback because your mic is on if i want to turn it off but um again we know we've been having this conversation we've been raising this issue of what are we doing with all the data that we already had um you know from our uh equity report you know i've raised many of those issues you know since i've gotten on the board what are we doing with that data you know we know that dr marx came in uh here august and thereabouts and began doing the work that he's doing which are all good things but while we're having these people in here my fear you know with um this department

157that should be created again i support it is that we won't do anything with it we won't allow them to affect the changes that they say need to be made so i and so i don't know for sure what dr marx is doing or what type of success or lack of success that he may or may not be having you know do we have data that says you know he's proposed these ideas because again i'm a dei specialist i'm an expert in that area i recognize that cultural proficiency it's a part of dei you know that's that diversity piece in there if whatever he's teaching we don't have data on as far as how it's impacting our community how it's already changing us i don't know that our school district is ready for a department

158like that now um again these are a bunch of layers you know to this to this conversation as to what he's bringing to the table how our staff and students are receiving it how you're holding him accountable um we talked a little bit about this because i actually went to questions and you know we shared it on on through email and jeff mentioned um you know accurately that he's not a dei expert which not being in that space is difficult to also have him um reporting to you or any position reporting to you changes that need to be made um so i don't know that it would be appropriate to bring you know you got to have a space that is ready for this you got to have a superintendent who's ready to hear from

159the dei expert to receive those changes and be willing to put them in place so i don't know that we're ready for that um i think that we could learn if we're ready for that um by understanding what dr marx has done um how those changes that he may have been suggesting um how they've been implemented how those things have been received so we need the data we need to know how is this stuff being received how are you taking whatever suggestions and then the other piece to that is that we have this equity report already from five years or five years ago now that had plenty of suggestions in there already that would have ripened this district for a dei department which again i support you know in a cabinet level position i support

160that idea but um if we haven't taken those suggestions that are written in there clearly because i read though what 60 70 page i forget how many pages it was the full i read all of it all those suggestions that were already given to us if we haven't already begun implementing those then then i don't know that this is an appropriate uh creation because again we've got to be ready for and if we're not ready for it if we create this then it's going to just be a fail it will still be asking the same questions what are we doing you know what we're getting a lot of learning and not doing anything with the learning so it i appreciate the you know um bringing this up and i hope that we can continue the

161conversation but we need to know the data we need to know what's being done what's what's been done with what's already been given you know from the equity report what are we doing with that how are we implementing any of those things and then also what dr marx is doing you know what what has he done how has it come across we need to know his survey uh data points you know we just need to know so that we can uh you know make sure our district is ready for something like that which again i do support keisha i think there's value on what you just said i think we should consider taking the audit that was done approximately five years ago in addition to the data that has been most recently provided or most

162recently um presented by dr marks combine those those information tools or whatever and then build up on that so i think that we're not in any way shape or form disregarding the previous audit so i think we should take the audit take the information based on dr mark's analysis of the temperature that he has been able to come and know and find and understand about what we've already done so i think he has that information he has that information for us if he can provide that to us coupled with the previous audit that has already been completed i think we're at a great start to begin some action steps while dei cultural competency cultural awareness is a journey we have to start somewhere we have started somewhere we need to begin the action steps and

163i think taking the information that we have with dr marks because it's recent data we have a we have a starting point one last thing i'll add you know because we're talking about an ad hoc group to um you know decide on um you know the the job duties and etc whatever it's very important that experts be on this ad hoc group you know um while you know and i'm i'm grateful because i see on our uh agenda that we have a forum by dr marx is gonna do in april you know which is you know absolutely what we need to be doing we got to have community voice um the the ad hoc group needs to ensure that it's it's uh including experts in the field of dei um and dr mark's obviously he

164definitely i agree with each other should be a part of that conversation so um like i said i'm supportive of this idea i think it should be a department that no one coordinator can accomplish you know this at all you know at all um but it should be a department with a cabinet level position you know a full department but we need to spend some time working on this and again you know i appreciate even the conversation that we have you know all this data already and then we're in a good space we were in a good space you know four years ago when they gave us the data you know um so yeah maybe we're in a gooder space i know that's not a word you know but maybe we're in a gooder space

165now um but you know i'm just concerned that we create something that won't really you know do anything more than what we're already doing so that's just my biggest concern if we can create something that will do something different then i would be in full support cheryl um shalanda i appreciate you bringing this forward i'm in full support of us moving forward with a dei coordinator and i can't help but sit here and think okay so what are the next steps because i don't want to walk away from this table without knowing what the next steps are in coming up with this ad hoc committee again i don't have a immediate answer for you cheryl or anyone else sitting on the board i do know that it's something that we need to take action on

166immediately part of that probably would be talking to dr marks you know our next step would probably he now part of his goals things that he's doing at the in this district should have been he should be recommending that we create that we already created this he already should have been create saying i'm here for a while you're going to need this when i leave you know we all know that you know a teacher can't teach you know uh one thing to a student and then you know expect that student to know for the rest of their lives that's why we built up on education you know i'm saying first second third grade we build upon it um the idea that he's coming here teaching cultural proficiency um he should already be recommending you know

167what you're going to need a department level position you're going to need a department you know of of dei coordinators working within this school so he should already be recommending that and he would definitely be the next step i think as far as a conversation with him again coupled with his data as to what steps we take next so just to be clear because i'll make sure i'm hearing and i i'll take some immediate action um i will i reach out to dr marks and invite him to be a part of our committee discussion we can send out some opportunity for a wide variety of stakeholders to participate from parents students teachers administrators you know to to participate uh keisha shalonda i don't disagree that having experts in the room to help develop the the

168conversation is important uh i i i certainly have no objection to that i think that's that's probably spot on which is again why we're in this this conversation today while we're in the space um and uh so i'm i i will talk to dr marks i'll try to get some dates that committees can meet um shalonda to your point much like i suggested that if we um if we hold a committee for the valedictorian conversation it should be a short we we should do this in in in rapid succession because we don't want people sitting out there waiting for answers um and because of the the necessity i would suggest you know probably we try to get this work done you know within the next 45 days so that we have an opportunity to bring

169someone on and and i'm not going to discount a department conversation that's something like anything else i i don't know so my suggestion would be that that we have somebody available to to come on or our job description so we can bring somebody on rather so the work can certainly begin before the next school year that sounds like a job for the school improvement committee but however you choose to do it please keep me in the loop about that absolutely okay thank you we are moving on to uh discussion line item 21-22-95 board goals and this is for the board i think cheryl um was the one that reminded us that we haven't done this like we have before so do you want to well start i mean it was back from when um you

170know at the beginning of the year when we had superintendent goals so every year we have created board goals um so i think it needs to be done it should have been done by now and whether we do it here whether we do it in a separate meeting i know my one recommendation on a board goal is that we finalize our board norms and then live up to them and i think i know miss mitchell and i were looking at a facilitation potentially around that i know i think we've got a meeting even tomorrow um but i'll be able to bring something back or or have miss mitchell send something out to the board to potentially schedule you know a workshop to have this type of conversation so so uh just on this board goes

171i did have questions on it because since i've been on the board and it's been over a year we did not you know we did not do board goals last year um i did ask jeff and he because i wanted the information so that i can have some expectation of what we're um expected to you know expect from this um you know any paperwork or or meeting notes or anything we have nothing um so i i like the idea of some board goals you know because uh goals help you you know strategize and plan to go somewhere um but do you remember what the goals were for last year yeah actually we approved it at the may meeting last year and our goal we had one goal last year was to participate in district diversity

172equity and inclusion initiatives thank you i do remember that thank you okay so we can um we'll work together to you know set up hopefully our schedules will coordinate i know that's the challenging part with us um about a separate work session to to do this and facilitated by someone else with the maybe we can do like the norms and the goals all in one anything else okay we are moving on to action items the first one is 22 21-22-96 the valve victorian criteria that's mr beale and mrs pierce yeah i i've spoken that to this um i don't know quite a bit tonight um so with regards to the valedictorian for the class of 2022 okay those those students graduating in just a few weeks the the requirement to be valedictorian is based strictly

173around a four-point scale and all the students regardless of courses that they take um were were expected to meet that 4.0 and if they did they would earn that that honor of valedictorian um because we could not locate communication for the class of 2023 i feel it is appropriate to recommend that we delay implementation and i'll make sure we clear this this is not new standards we delay implementation of the standards we adopted in 2019 until the class of 2024 where we do have documentation that that that conversation took place um i say that with the caveat that you know i'm i think it's appropriate to pull together i think monica is going to work on that a representative committee to be able to examine the the language and examine if the the academic rigor

174component that was implemented is still valid today and make a recommendation to the board again to that point and i i hear the passion and i understand the pain and the frustration that i'm you know i don't think anybody's trying to cause i don't think anybody's intentionally trying to cause this um we haven't changed are we looking at changing the board so so what i would do is i would i would recommend that we delay for the class of 2023 and before we change anything miss fitzgerald my conversation would be to have a a representative group the same way we made the change the first time make a recommendation to us so that would be i just think it would be it'd be disingenuous for us to invite community members and parents and students to

175formulate the committee and then disregard or set aside their work simply because it was uncomfortable today so so so with that being said and i'm i'm not i'm not suggesting that it's that it's not frustrating or challenging today i think that what we should do is examine or have a representative group from today participate and take a look at the the the requirements and make a recommendation to us just like we made before so before i would say we would vote unilaterally i would i think the appropriate piece is to have community input like we did before but i do think and it is my recommendation that we delay implementation for the class of 2023 um and and that's the that's the the immediate action that i i think needs to happen tonight okay so

176at this time i would entertain a motion to um for the class of 2023 to delay implementation by one year and then convene a committee to revisit the language second okay thank you pam thank you libby any deliberation yes erin i think i think as what just was stated that the clear action is to delay 2023 i just i mean i'll be honest with you i'm uncomfortable with 2024 and i think there's some sincere gaps which was really acknowledged through full transparency i think by the administration that there was some gaps and we've heard some parents that were concerned about that eighth grade transition into parkside and i fully understand that as i just kind of did that in my own experience so if there's a way to like solidify that the committee can also

177maybe a part of this evaluate 2024 i would feel more comfortable voting for that so that that is 100 the intention and it's not just the 2024 i think it's 2024 and 2025 it's all of the students currently enrolled in jackson high school and and i won't tell you that communications was perfect um you know i think again ms pierce shared i can only share with you when i asked her to provide me evidence of communication she was able to do so where she wasn't able to do so is why i can clearly make a recommendation today but again before i would set aside the voices of the the the community that participated i think it's appropriate for us to to follow that same process if we were going to to make it again and

178i i i would anticipate in fact i think it would be expected that an an ad hoc committee would make a conversation for 2024 and 2025 and then really moving forward okay keisha let me where you might say something okay i haven't wanted to cut you off okay so some of the things i think that we um need to consider when it comes to the valedictorian status and the changes that we're um proposing one who was on the committee so i am you already know i'm a firm supporter of parents teachers and students you know and being a part of that process and making sure that we hear their voice um also though we have a um you know a cultural competency individual now and that you know the title is different a little bit

179but anyway so dr mark's here we also have um our equity report data we also have m-step data that lets us know um demographically by race where our students you know and how they're uh performing in jps so in this conversation i'm not sure which group you know or if any of the groups was taking a look at the valedictorian changes through a diverse equitable and inclusive lens which is very important if we're going to be a district that says that we value those things especially we're talking about creating a department it would be silly to create a department a court coordinator or anything else of the sort if we're not going to flush everything we're doing through that lens so in the midst of talking about changing the valedictorian status um aside from all

180the voices that we heard you know and that we've been able to get email uh communication from i don't know the word that we're fully considering you know the rigor that's required the dedication that's required the commitment that's required from any student of any level to keep a 4.0 status for four full years so that's one thing um aside from keeping that 4.0 status as ms higgins did mention when she came up um well-resourced children and our data reflects this well-resourced children fare better and not just our data you know this data around in any school district children who are more well-resourced they fair data children who are less well-resourced fare worse our district as a city district um in the you know of the biggest city here in our county we service the largest

181group of black and brown individuals so you know i want to be very clear that black and brown people excel all day every day and can it and you know and and do especially specifically considering the things that we have to deal with we are amazing but we're also human beings who struggle when we are under resource and we are under resources in jps now again jps is not responsible for those um you know what how our children show up to us so please understand the difference you know what i'm talking about here but they do show up to us and our data reflects that under resource position that they hold we are effectively if we were to continue on with this rigor status you've got to make ap classes and if you and you

182also have to do early college classes to kind of get an edge over those ap students um we're effectively saying well-resourced students are eventually going to be the only people we see in the valedictorian status that does not sp that that's contradictory it's a dichotomy it's it's it's completely opposite to a d a community a school district that one has the highest number of black and brown students in in this school we have the highest number of black and brown students in our district it's completely um disingenuous to our process to them it's a slap in the face to say we're going to make an exclusive group of people who can make it to validatory status especially when we have individuals who at their at their very best they're um coming in a two you

183know and i don't know what the levels are i don't know if we still have one two three four levels so you know when i was in school here at jps where i went two three four i was a three three level student i was not trying to be valedictorian anyway so but but hats off to you you know black magic right there anyways though um but with that in mind um any of our students who are coming in if you are at if at your best at a level one you know we have our special needs students who are putting their all into coming and for them it's a it's a struggle but any student you know special needs or otherwise who are coming in and saying i'm gonna give my offer four years

184and get a four point on every single class that i take for four years and my best was a two a level two class and we're effectively saying with this new rigor component that's not good enough for this status now you know um i have chilled six children and one of the first words that i taught my children to accept and learn was no it was very important my children learn how to receive no because you know you're going to hear no a lot you're not going to always get what you want we re we recognize that while you are trying to attain to something and you may not get it that doesn't mean that we no longer um you know uh that we we would take the whole thing away because one student was

185disappointed that's not how you handle that suit needs to learn how to hear no you know and we as an educational community need to be willing to teach those students that um so the idea that we would change is to this more rigorous component effectively shutting out the very best that our students you know at a level two who can't take an ap class who don't who are resource enough to take a college class who aren't resourced enough to take a dual enrolled class who don't have the home supports to be able to do that but yet still show up to school every day and say i'm gonna take this level two class and i'm gonna give him my all and then comes in with four points oh for four years how dare we take

186that aspiration that desire that hope that that that thrust that's education that's what we are here to do to to to to um to inspire our children for more the idea that we would take that away from them with a rigor component effectively making this an exclusive club that's exclusive that's not there's nothing inclusive about that so i'm really hopeful that you know as we are considering this um that we won't do that we won't you know accept this rigor component now i get that we don't want to disregard the committee who came here did that committee have was it looking through a dei lens was it looking through a culturally relevant lens was it even a culturally relevant lens would tell us that that's the wrong thing to do was it looking at the

187data did it did it recognize it you know um statistically speaking data's data wise that our students of color black and brown students of color you know fare worse in jps did it recognize that in in its decision-making and if it didn't we need to disregard their voices because we're still harming our student body and we're here as an educational community to make sure that we are um building up our students and and making sure that they have that desire that aspiration that inspiration to reach for hire and reach for more at whatever level you know whatever ability they have um when they come in thank you okay thank you anybody else i just want to say that i support um the motion for us to delay the implementation and um i'm optimistic that the

188ad hoc group that will be formed will be more diversified i don't have the knowledge of what the the previous group consisted of but i am very very hopeful and i'm speaking from the lens of a parent of a valedictorian former valedictorian and i know what challenges we face as a family i know um we didn't always have the resources to purchase you know those ap um those those testing those ap tests that would help her be prepared for college and we had some supports but we weren't always in a position and so valedictorian status is very very important to me because i am a parent of a of a student that for five consecutive years five consecutive years maintained straight a's every opportunity that she could get to take a ap course she did

189i remember the endless nights of studying rising at three four o'clock in the morning preparing herself for a test it's a lot of hard work and i am a black parent a black mother a single parent with two daughters my youngest is currently in eighth grade at parkside and she currently is a straight a student on track to continue our family legacy of maintaining valedictorian status so it's very very important to me personally i support the young lady higgins that came in today and her her passion around the information that was provided or not provided i think it's very very important that as the board that we take into consideration the voices of our community the voices of our students and the voices of our teachers that have students in this district because i do

190believe the height i've had a great experience i am alumni i have a daughter that has graduated and i have one that is currently in jps school district and we are satisfied with the education that she is being provided so i do have one other statement um i would like to make a motion to amend this motion um i understand that we're trying to delay it by one year we do have a motion on the table right yes the motion on the table is to delay the 2023 and then have a committee to revisit 2024 and begin okay so i'd like to make a motion to amend that motion that we make absolutely no changes at all and i recognize that we're saying until we get a committee together um it very easily you know

191very easily could you know slip into 2024 and um you know no committee is convened and then these changes are these students are held to this new rigor component so i'd like to make a motion to amend this emotion that no changes at all be made you know ever you know until you know um we do have this this committee and the reason why i'm saying that is because again i recognize that we're saying you know by 2020 you know just for one year because if with this the way it's written we could still change this to rigor components and say we just haven't had time to but we're going to convene the meeting so i don't want any changes whatsoever to the um uh to this uh valedictorian rigger components a second week we

192can okay i'm i just i'm going to make sure i'm clear because there's a lot and i apologize um so what i heard and please correct me miss hamilton is that you would prefer that we make no changes at this time until the committee meets is that accurate so i'm reading here number two it says for the class of 2024 and beyond all language above will apply as communication was shared and they have been notified of their status um committee convened committee to revisit language to provide additional clarity this is what this motion right now is saying um i'm saying no changes whatsoever period so especially you know not only for the class of 2024 but and beyond you know but no changes at all okay um so i apologize my and then in my

193recommendation was for number one i don't know that i read two i apologize too i i said number one and three after we were talking so i don't know if i was clear i'm just i just wanna make sure that that um make sure we get the correct motion in the minutes and that's what we're voting on so if if i could if you could just help me out one more and i'm not i'm not trying to be difficult there's no problem um on this paper it says based on the report earlier from mrs pierce administration is recommending each of the following so one two or three is no difference in this each is saying that this is what we're recommending in that in that motion that you all originally created i've amended that motion

194to say no changes at all because again one two three you know four sixteen none of them make a difference because each of them are recommended in your change so that i don't know if that's where the confusion is at but i'm saying that each of them were recommended and i'm saying i don't want any changes at all okay so so are you recommending that we'd make no changes for the class of 23. i think we already have that established that there are no changes for the class of 2023. um it says that the class of 2024 is when those changes were taken back i apologize the class of 2023 falls under the new guidelines so we're not voting on changes the changes were voted on in 2019 the recommendation is to delay the implementation

195of those and so 2023 would fall under the old language which is a straight four point okay so let me let me correct that then okay so i amend my motion to say let's go back to what was before 202 2019 whenever it was that they made these changes let's go back to just a straight 4.0 status for all students that's how i'm in the the motion i would like to make a motion that we amend your emotion and that from now on anybody with a 4.0 status becomes validatory okay a second i think we've got a motion in an amended it's amended to say that we are going to delay implementation or i i don't know that was throw out implementation for all students at this time so so my motion are we talking

196about mines i am i'm trying to okay so my motion is that we um go back to the the whatever changes with the when we had a 4.0 status that's what valedictorian status amounted to that's what the guidelines were that's my motion i want us to go back to valedictorian guidelines or a 4.0 status that's what i'm amending your emotion to gotcha okay so we had a motion to to to make valedictorians straight for point um and a second by libby uh is there any other discussion i'm sorry i was confused any other discussion cheryl yeah i mean i'm concerned that if there was a committee i don't know if it was a year-long committee back in 2018-19 that made a recommendation this is a policy on the books i mean can we i don't

197i'm not comfortable voting to change that policy without convening a committee of appropriate people involved students teachers administration parents i personally am not comfortable making that decision i don't mind delaying the implementation i think that's a step in the right direction to get all of this clarified but i'm not comfortable changing the policy that's currently on the books i like all of the recommendations that you mentioned that the committee should embark upon as well i mean i look at monica's presentation and there's obviously support from the from the school administration i i am 100 uncomfortable with implementation right now but i think we're pretty clear that the committee is going to and did we i guess another concern would be like the timeline so that like she he should make a point about is it's

198going to go on forever which i think is a good one so if the 45 days is kind of the threshold or 60 days tops that the committee can reconvene talk about 2024 whatever partnerships and connections we make so that the right people are on the committee to look through that lens i think that's all that's all respectable but i've i'm i i support the way it's written and also what monica and the administration have presented it certainly should be delayed again and i've spoken to this kind of at length i'm i i'm not fighting any of the conversation i'm not delaying you know i'm not saying let's not do something for 24 or 25. um if we go back 23 years and that's the data that i have and so i apologize a committee

199met to make a recommendation around the valedictorian language in 1999 that was changed a committee met in 2005 to make that recommendation the recommended change and at that time shifted away from what the 2000 or the 99 committee presented so it's not uncommon it had and well well so and that's again we were reaching that critical point where it was impacting new students a committee met in 2018. i'm i'm not proposing a year-long committee miss hamilton but i we have a history and i this is only my my own my standpoint and people could take it for whatever it is there's a motion on the table we have a standpoint that our committee of representative stakeholders make a recommendation to the board um so you you can set aside that if if you like but

200if we're going to make a change whether it's to revert back to 4.0 and again i'm not opposed to that um or if we're going to delay implementation for 2425 or start with eighth grade and there's all kinds of options on the table literally the the the page is blank and we can write whatever we want into that but my advice and please take this for whatever it's worth is that we've had a history of how we make these changes and so i would i would i would be doing a disservice if i didn't suggest that we allow the pub you know our stakeholders to have input into that so that and that that's where i'm at i've said my piece okay so i think we have the amended motion from keisha second by libby

201what happened well that's what i'm wondering someone read it but there was not emotion that anyone for the first okay okay so we have i'm not clear on where we're at currently in currently yeah yeah can we do the original one that i so the way i would take it is that the original motion died without support miss hamilton made uh miss hamilton made a an amended recommendation that one had the support of miss brown i think we've had discussion on that so if i am correct at this point we're looking for a vote on miss hamilton's peace or do you want to do a roll call though okay okay all those in favor say aye aye and i okay opposed aye okay motion does not carry i didn't vote i didn't vote and i'm

202just not clear on what the decision that we're that we're trying to make leaving it alone as it is i'm afraid if we leave it alone it'll never get better i'm terrible about this just read the motion again yeah read the motion again okay so i would entertain a motion for the club oh so yeah what was just voted on and i apologize because i know we've been kind of back and forth on this what the motion was and what the vote stands is bear with me here is that we would revert to the 4.0 valedictorian status for all students regardless of graduating year right that's ms hamilton is that a fair representation yes and then and then miss brown supported it um so at this point um you know i does that clarify it

203for you ms hunt and i apologize yes the best way i can connect the dots is that we are reverting back to the criteria in which my daughter graduated at her 4.0 yes well roland is saying that she yeah she did not right now has it has yet to vote so she's in that position can you do a roll call mrs oxley everything is being delayed as far as what's been presented i'm talking about the original i'm just trying to help her understand the difference between what kesha presented and what was what we were about to do to what that committee decided three years ago the committee decided not until a couple more years have passed everybody knows it ahead of time even though it is in the handbook you know i don't even sit

204down and read the whole handbag no no i wasn't so that's what it was is either stay with the far point until whenever or just take the one that the committee already had passed through the board and made policy that was supposed to start next year but move it back so it doesn't start next year until all the kids like you mentioned the eighth graders are really really aware of it so there's so nothing would happen for the next couple years but they know it was coming and that these guys didn't really with the pandemic and stuff no it was coming are we voting i support all right so four three four three i believe the i believe the vote was four three is that accurate so four three against so the motion fails is

205there another motion on the table with regard to the class of 23. microphone just make just a threes of things i don't have to think number one okay for the class of 2023 delay implementation of language by one year due to kova 19 the transition of leadership in the fall of 19 and other things we acknowledge that there could have been better communication to the class of 2023 so that's putting it back one year and for the class of running for and beyond i think we take out we take out number two okay and convene a committee to revisit language to provide additional clarity we may want to amend that portion of it or add to that that the work would need to take place within the next 45 days and put an expectation that

206that committee would report back to the school board no later than the june school board meeting trying to make it more palatable i just don't want them to rush i want them to really think it through and have time to ask well i think that you gotta you gotta have in there that the discussion of 2024 and probably 2025 is vividly in there okay i would make the motion that we revise the language to add that the committee's task is to not only update the language but also the clash year implementation for 2024 and 2025. so aaron you mind clarifying that as far as 2024 2025 what what would that mean in this motion so the it it adds to the plate of the committee so their current task is to update the language and

207provide additional clarity i think that additional clarity should be spelled out more and most of the fears that were presented tonight were for classes that are one to two years after 2023. there were very clear cracks in the communication that those parents are not a hundred percent sure that their student was communicated to so while the committee and what they what the work that they did and the merit that they did is still supported by jackson high's administration you i think it's i think it's i just lost my thought but basically go ahead all right so i'm gonna try this one more time i i think i'm i think i'm closer to getting home to where the board is sitting let's see how this works the recommendation of the superintendent and i'll use my own

208spot on this would be to delay the implementation of the 2019 the current valedictorian criteria for all current high school students that would mean for the class of 23 class of 24 class of 25 that means miss hamilton it would revert back to the 4.0 status for all current high school students reconvene my recommendation would be also to reconvene the committee because as i spoke to earlier that's how we have historically changed the criteria let that committee and and and i will i will say this let that committee that represents today speak to what the valedictorian criteria can should be or would be and let them make a recommendation to the board no later than the june meeting and i know you don't want to rush it but we're going to have eighth graders coming

209in and so the conversation needs to be we need to make certain that our communication does not falter and and i will freely admit that our communication has faltered with regards to current valedictorian criteria right with current with the pandemic and the kids not being able to like get to their homeroom and get the information from school and see the posters you put up you know things like that not having that done i really think it'd be important to ensure that every single parent of every single eighth grader coming in knows what they are and i am going all the way to signing a paper just like we do if they can get their shots from the nurse or whatever so they know we know that they know they know we know that they don't

210that kind of thing i just want them to know i can certainly make you know again that may be part of the committee's recommendation and i again i'm simply trying to find a more palatable solution so we can we can solve or resolve some of the concerns that we heard tonight some of the concerns that our parents and students have have brought to us that would be i'm hoping i i crafted that to a more palatable language yeah it makes more sense so it makes more sense yep um so i can support most of that you know and i know i'm not sorry can you guys turn your mics off that aren't like i can support most of that um i love the idea of us you know delaying everything for all current jp j

211high s students so that part is i think solid um i love also the idea of um convening a group of people to you know have their voices heard again we need to be making sure that that dei piece is in there because that's key to um you know valedictorian status and just education period so i don't know that the same committee needs to be reconvened you know um even if they are reconvened we need to make sure there are you know current voices on that committee again and also with that dei cultural competency you know whichever time we want to use that that piece is in there as well um and and then to the point of not rushing this because i agree with that as well this is march you know things go

212fast especially by april you know for for schools um we could give this a year we could say you know let's have an answer by you know let's delay it for the eighth grade class coming in there's no reason why we have to rush it we can delay it for the eighth grade class as well whatever their class number is um to give ourselves some time so that we're not rushing this so that we give this it's due diligence so let's also include in there you know not to make any changes for the eighth grade class also to give ourselves that due diligence you know that i could support so so i have made a recommendation um but at this point there isn't emotion so i guess if someone would like to make a motion

213and i'd like to make motion that we follow the number one recommend that's what jeff just proposed what jeff just proposed yeah can you can you say it do you think right now they did it through the high school okay through the high school kids are currently in the high school yeah and that recommendation may say we need more time yeah so so it doesn't tie our hands but um and i'm not trying to speed this thing through or erase it under you know directly i don't want it to dry i said that but i don't want to drag on either i want it to be because i'm sure the people that did this in 2019 would not be thrilled to know that all their work went for naught so so we have a motion

214by ms fitzgerald and support by ms mitchell once again is their discussion on the motion okay mrs oxley will do a roll call vote since we've had some confusion no i believe we need more time we should include that timepiece in there and not you know do this for the eighth graders either so no no yes no okay uh motion carries so at this point the valedictorian criteria is reverted to a straight 4.0 for all current existing jackson high school students um again i recognize a split of yes's and no's and i would simply say this committee will bring a recommendation that recommendation may be for more time that recommendation may say we don't have enough um information yet um but the board has will have another opportunity to speak to valedictorian in june is

215that fair so okay next line item is 21-22-97 non-unit employee contracts jeff all right every year we we add a year to our non-unit group these are folks who don't fall under a union or association um some of these folks receive annuities but the recommendation is for a two percent raise cost of living raise and to add one year uh to their to their current contract uh so they uh and then uh one percent to annuity where appropriate so the total fiscal impact of this is 34 and the employees included are jamie brandt julie baker jessica carter scott coons lois stunning jack fairley christian eddie rachel henry jillian jones marcus leon laurie near pass michelle oxley fred parker william patterson um although we'll be talking about that benjamin pierce diana stewart jessica southwell and john

216wright okay i would entertain a motion for approval of the contracts as presented i have a question before we do that oh okay and then that'll be next okay thank you aaron thanks cheryl okay libby deliberation yeah so i wanted to find out if this two percent raise and one percent annuity increase is similar to the k-12 contract actually i think you'll find that most of our k-12 steps was higher but we we passed the most lucrative contract we passed a three million dollar contract for our teaching staff last june so the answer to that is most of our teaching staff will receive more than this okay thank you okay any other deliberation just a comment um i am concerned you know we had a lot of commentary tonight from the public um one of

217the things that really concerned me was just um some of our teachers leaving um for various reasons but one of those reasons being you know for pay or not for pay um and i did ask jeff this in the email as far as how competitive are our rates so i get it that we're saying we're the highest paid in the county um but without having um anything to compare that to to confirm that um we don't really know if we are the highest paid and jeff mentioned that he's um was unable to get that information so i'm all in support of you know raises and you know the the uh two percent uh cost of living raise so i'll be voting yes on this but um it would feel better having all of the information

218to be able to compare um versus just taking our word you know jeff's word for being the highest paid i did find some discrepancies in teacher contracts and we're not on teacher contracts i recognize that we're in non-unit employee contracts um jeff is our expert as our superintendent um so having all the information available to us helps us to make a better decision helps me to make a better decision so like i said i'm in support of this i might be voting yes on it but i do like to be able to have documents to compare it to to see are we actually the highest paid are we are we a competitive rate because again we're losing teachers and students and then part of retaining them will be making sure that we're competitive hey pam

219yeah we're not losing students we're the only uh school district in our county that had that kind of an increase during the pandemic um i isd the isd is where i have gotten that kind of stuff before you can get right on their website and pull up teacher contracts for any district or for the county and also each school district has teacher contracts right on the internet okay anything else okay all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay motion carries next line item 21-22-98 walk-in cooler freezer operation center marcus we've been talking over the last few months about spending down an excess fund balance in our food service fund and one of the projects that we discussed was replacing our walk-in coolers and freezers to start this process we've decided to bid out the

220one at our operations center which is our main freezer and cooler for the district so bids were received um we went out for bid we asked for bids we had contractors come to ask questions and look at it we received one bid from green energy mechanical in the amount of 206 thousand dollars even which we were recommending for approval this time and again that would be paid for out of the food service fund okay thank you marcus at this time i would entertain a motion awarding the bid in the amount of 206 000 to green energy mechanical as presented thank you libby thanks aaron any deliberation okay hearing none all those in favor say aye sorry quick question for you it's a little short on getting my mic open so um i don't know how

221much information the community has as far as what these um these blinds are i will be supporting this motion just so we know but um kisha we're on the cooler freezer oh okay sorry okay did i miss that okay i'm sorry sorry people it's great okay motion carries so uh next line item 21-20 oh did i get everybody out i thought we did no oh sorry okay okay all those in favor say aye opposed okay motion carries yep okay next line item 21-22-99 blinds for hunt dibble northeast jackson high school and sharp park marcus blinds and several of our buildings that were just mentioned have you know been evaluated and being recommended for placement just due to their age and condition blinds classroom blinds in the buildings are considered a security feature as well as

222temperature and light control for classrooms so if you remember last year we had some unspent at-risk dollars that we're planning to use and this is one of the projects that we're planning to do that throughout the district so we have gone and to keep the district standard throughout consistent throughout the district we've been sourcing them through the same vendor same product so you know it's all the same throughout the buildings and at this time we're recommending awarding the bid in the amount of 288 thousand seven hundred dollars to product resource company to complete these projects all of which should be done this year with the exception of sharp park which just needs to be coordinated with the rest of the renovations going on in that building okay thank you marcus um at this time i

223would entertain a motion awarding the the bid in the amount of 288 thousand seven hundred dollars to product resource company as presented thank you pam thank you libby any deliberation yes just one comment um on this i also will be supporting this one um but i just when we found out about this again i don't know how many of you have the agenda before you but you'll see that it says at risk funding mark is just mentioning that um i did get some clarity on that and what what is at-risk funding was my question um in addition so this is jeff um his response to that question of what is responding what you know how can we use these funds we use it for several different things in addition to the other things that we

224use it for you also can use it for after school tutoring summer school kindergarten camps classroom supplies and materials as well as furnishings so i'm hoping to have some more conversation on how we spend on at-risk funding but i wanted the community to know what that what at-risk funding is when i bring up this comment later thank you okay anything else okay hearing none all those in favor say aye opposed okay motion carries next line item 21-22-100 2021-22 to budget amendment marcus all right so our second budget amendment comes around this time of the year and as you know again this is a snapshot in time you know in december we have our student count and a lot of our revenue finalized so we can pretty accurately predict our revenue this time of the year

225is when we take our kind of first look at the expense side of the equation so we've gone through and done that so at this time we are looking to add if things were to hold about 4.6 million dollars to fund balance which would bring our fund balance up to just over 22 percent and again we're going to look at this again in the next few months and bring another final amendment as we draw closer to the end of the year and get a little bit more accurate picture of where we'll land so at this time we would recommend approval of the second budget amendment okay thank you marcus at this time i would entertain a motion for approval of the 2021-22 second budget amendment as presented so moved thank you aaron thanks pam any

226deliberation i remember 2018 us being that seems like sub five percent with the fund balance and really in state emergency levels so you know just trajectory over the last few years has it's good to see that i would agree that's an amazing number um all those in favor say aye opposed okay motion carries all right last action item 21-22-101 investigator retention agreement the board and i will welcome mr beer maybe not if if mr beer if you can give me just a second because we are online i'll make sure everybody has an opportunity foreign thank you todd all right good evening everyone um i'll try to keep my comments brief and then i can answer any questions anyone might have just by way of recap following last month's board meeting i left with the task

227of locating an independent investigator who would be qualified and capable of performing an investigation into the allegations contained within ms hamilton's letter that she had presented to the board at the last board meeting i had a conversation with a number of people discussed a number of items with respect to whether they would be appropriate including frankly availability to complete the investigation in a relatively timely fashion um that included a number of lawyers including a couple at the law firm that i'm ultimately recommending you move forward with um i presented or i i tried to provide a biography with respect to miss swem um threw miss oxley to the board so that you could read the background of miss swim but from my perspective the reason i talked with her is she has a very long

228history of performing similar investigations within the state of michigan she is a long-time partner at the troon law firm which is the largest firm in michigan that's specializing in representing k-12 school districts and matters such as these and others she has performed a significant number of similar type investigations as well as investigations of other types involving employee complaints or or student related conduct or other education related investigations and she has the ability to complete the timeline that i was hoping for to summarize that she would be performing an investigation regarding the memorandum that miss hamilton shared with the board dated february 15th 2022 this would include a review of any video or audio tape it's available at the board meeting interviews of miss hamilton interviews of mr beale as well as interviews of any other

229witnesses including board members or staff that may have been present at the time of the alleged incident she would complete a report relative to that investigation it would also include frankly i'm reading bullet points but re-examination of miss hamilton and mr beale in the event that she feels that's necessary preparation of an investigative report which she would then provide to the board with recommendations for course of action um i will tell you that there is a fairly substantial charge associated with those services her hourly rate is 315 dollars per hour which is frankly fairly standard for an attorney of this level and from this firm i know that's shocking it's often shocking when people hear what lawyers charge when they're charging at an hourly basis but um i have a case right now with a

230lawyer out of the detroiter that's charging 575 an hour so it could be worse um she will be charging for mileage um because i know it's going to be a question i will tell you that i don't anticipate she will be able to complete the investigation for less than ten thousand dollars i think it could cost significantly more um that's approximately 30 hours of work between travel time she's located in lansing michigan here and the time spent interviewing and collecting data and reviewing and writing the recommendation in the report i suspect that will be a minimum of 30 hours of work potentially more but i have a high level of confidence in her ability to perform the investigation in a professional manner and to render an opinion that you can use to make it a

231decision about how to proceed um does anyone have any questions regarding miss swem i will tell you lastly i do i have not dealt with miss swim a great deal personally i frankly have represented teachers and administrators individually where ms swem was the investigator i thought she did a very good job and a fair job i have a partner who is the president of the marshall school board she provides counsel to the marshall school board on similar matters and he recommended her so i have a high level of personal confidence in her ability to complete the work any questions or concerns from anyone on the board go ahead and you might have answered them a little bit with your last statement um this attorney yes or her office do we know if she has any

232relationship to anybody on this board or any of our family members well i will tell you that i'm not aware of any um i mean i have been or my firm has been the council for jackson public schools for decades frankly um and so i do not believe that the district has a past relationship with miss swem or the truman law firm i know that the district is not currently a retainer client of the truman law firm she told me that so frankly i don't believe so i'm certainly not aware of any no so we don't know if she has any professional or otherwise relationships with anyone on the board none that i'm aware of but i can certainly confirm that prior to retaining her if you'd like yes thank you i'll do that another

233question for you yes um so andy i think you answered this already you said you don't have any professional or personal relationship with her either i don't i've i've never met her personally thank you i did i mean i've obviously talked to her on the phone over the course the last month but prior to that have never never dealt with her at all she's never represented me i've never been her partner i don't i don't i mean frankly miss swan is a very well-known attorney in the education law setting i do i have i met her do i know her have i seen her speak yes do i know her personally no thank you one more question for you um how much involvement will you or your office have with ms swam in the midst

234of this investigation honestly i expect to have none i expect her to i expect to direct her to witnesses i would want your contact information frankly miss hamilton because she'll want to start with speaking to you and then my intention would be i would have little to no involvement until i received the report and then provided the board that would be it now is there a reason why her report doesn't come straight to us i actually it probably can if you'd like it to yeah i can probably ask that she just forwarded to the board into myself all on one occasion i don't that would be awesome i certainly don't need to receive it prior to you thank you one last question for you um you mentioned the different people that she would be interviewing

235is there a reason why she does well she won't reach out to possible community members who are here well my feeling is that when i asked her to investigate i provided her frankly with a copy of your letter and she developed the starting points i didn't my feeling is she will talk to anyone who has information relative to the complaint that you had prepared i i frankly her question was has this the board policy requires the complaint to be submitted in writing and there's a process that needs to be followed i provided her with your letter which she felt satisfied the writing requirement and she felt this was where she should start based on a review of that letter and she also asked me to provide several different policies that the board has we use

236neola policies here at the district as most districts if not all districts do in the state of michigan so she's very familiar with them but she wanted to confirm what they said and this is what these five bullet points are what she recommended starting with i have no idea who else she'll talk to because i suspect she'll talk to anybody that she is told has information relative to the substance of the complaint thank you i just didn't know if those were the only groups since they were stated or if they were if that and et cetera and others it doesn't say that i guess i should say she does say interview witnesses present board members administrators to learn factual basis of their observations so i think she's going to want to talk to anyone who

237may have information relative to what happens so not having community members enter doesn't mean that she won't speak with them no i think i suspect if they were present at the time of the events and set forth in the complaint she may want to speak to them yeah i imagine it might even be difficult to reach them but i just didn't know that was the extent of it thank you she'll probably frankly ask you as a part of the investigation having done these before one of the questions will likely be who was present when this occurred and who else might be able to offer me information that would be germaine to the investigation so i'm sure you'll have an opportunity to provide those names thank you any other questions concerns comments okay one last one

238did you did you give us a timeline already oh i'm sorry i didn't but i did ask her this question and she did one of the reasons that i felt like she would be a good candidate is she is prepared to start the investigation the week of march 21st which would be next week thank you so if she's starting next week do we know how long an investigation of this magnitude typically takes well depending on the timeline of the available witnesses i would think it could be completed within a matter of weeks um you know i would think that ms hamilton and mr beale will obviously be fairly readily available but who else will need to be interviewed as a result of the investigation and their timeline could potentially impact that i do suspect that

239it will take her a couple of weeks to generate the report that she provides the board as a result of the investigation so i would guess you're probably looking at a period of four to eight weeks for completion miss swem is very diligent i'm confident she'll have it done just as soon as she can prepare a report that she's comfortable standing behind okay thank you brendan no sorry it's from the board sorry no you can't i'm sorry yes so at this time i would entertain emotion if i'm if i may um i'd if it helps i've kind of written down what i'd like to see in the form of emotion that you could approve okay it's fairly simple it just says i'd like you i'd like authority i need authority to retain her and i'd

240also like the board to give me permission to execute on behalf of the board any retention agreement she may present i did ask her if she wanted me to have one approved by the board she said she didn't think that was necessary as long as the board had approved that she could do the work but in case they are presented with one i don't want to have to come back and have it approved again i won't agree to anything other than the hourly rate that she has quoted and and the investigation that she's going to complete as i presented it here today but that way if she says hey i just need something i'm saying you'll live up to that end of the retention agreement from a standpoint of the fee that i quoted and

241things i'd like to be able to sign that on behalf of the board so if i can approach it's short it's six or seven sentences but i thought it might help yes thanks please somebody needs to read it lots of words okay so i would entertain a motion to retain lisa swem of the trune law firm to investigate the allegations contained within keisha hamilton's um memorandum dated february 15 2022 to to permit the board of education's lawyer brendan r beer to execute any agreement with required by the trune law firm which is consistent with the terms summarized by mr beer at tonight's meeting thank you pam libby were you the second okay thank you okay all those in favor sorry deliberation deliberation um a question for marcus um where would this fee come from in

242our budget there is a line item for attorney for legal fees or whatever so we would look to include that in our next amendment that would be something that we would budget for okay any other deliberation yep um i'm concerned about her possible professional or otherwise relationships with anyone on this board or their family members um in making this vote today um how will we know when i'd like that to be a part of the motion that you know ensuring that she does not have any professional or otherwise relationships with anyone on this board or their family members um and then also that um she is independent of your office as well um that would make it where i would be able to support this motion we want someone who's independent um fully um so

243those two things i need to i would like to know whether or not she has any professional or otherwise relationships with anyone anyone on this board and also that her investigation will be independent of brendenberg's office him and his office now do i need to make a motion for that to amend his i will i'll make a motion to amend um attorney beer's motion that ensuring you know and and you know that if and if if it's found to be true that she has no professional or otherwise relationships with anyone on this board or their family members and that also um she is independent completely of brenda beer in his office um that we then follow the rest of his motion that he made so that's the amended motion i need a second okay all

244those in favor of the amended motion okay opposed okay motion carries i think you still need to vote on the motion as amended that's the one we did okay i thought you just voted to approve the amendment of the motion that had been made but i don't want to over complicate no i mean i i i believe the intent was okay miss hamilton made an amendment to the motion okay the motion libby seconded it and if i'm correct everyone you voted the intent was voted on that motion as amended correct yes very well i will confirm i with ms swam that she has no relationship with anyone on the board prior to moving forward but i will contact her tomorrow in hopes of getting the investigation moving next week so that we don't lose her

245availability so thank you everyone okay thank you brendan all right we are on number 11 um board comments so keisha do you want to start and we'll move this way yes thank you so um back to that um at risk funds um i'll be reaching out angela and jeff for the april meeting that we have a added to the agenda conversation around those at-risk funds i've had a few teachers reach out and mention that they could um really use some research some financial resources to outfit their classrooms with different things that they need so i love the idea of us being able to do something with that at risk fund to ensure that our teachers are getting what they need in their classrooms also and the last thing the fourth street learning and this is

246just to jeff as well um i'd like to to see your response you know what we're going to do about miss copeland mrs coffin's response and i don't know if there's something for us at the board you know but um i do want to be kept abreast of miss coffin's request regarding the uh uh the garden thank you the garden um but otherwise great meeting hey thank you libby i just wanted to make an announcement um to the community and the board that the bobby lay scholarship and this is uh picked at darius williams church second i believe and [Music] they have they're getting a lot of money in terms of scholarships and nobody's applying for the scholarship so bobby lay and so they're really requesting that um you know the parents tell their students

247or you know the students are told um so that they can apply for this because there's a lot of money that just goes you know it's just held for the next year we might as well use it you know that children might as well use it do they have a flyer that i could have to get out to the kids i think they're they're in the middle of getting together flyer so as soon as i get it i'll let you have a copy okay thank you shalonda another good meeting in the books i appreciate being a part of this team i do want to make mention of the teacher that spoke about the greenhouses and such and she mentioned transportation as needed so if we can consider making that a priority concern also a lot

248of our community was present tonight a lot of things was said i would like for our community that is watching and those that were present today to also be cognizant of our students that are listening and create a balance and sharing the good as well as those challenges that our district are facing hey erin i'm also okay cheryl yes um this is not the first time that i have started my board comment with the fact that i'm extremely saddened by the events that have played out in social media since our last meeting social media is not where you will find the facts come to a meeting watch a live stream read the minutes in my nine and a half years on this board i have encountered a community of people who support jackson public schools

249and those people show their support by sending their children to us by voting yes on an 86.7 million dollar bond project people don't vote yes and open their wallets to organizations and leaders that they don't believe in this board and all boards before this have been working hard to bring this community together and we do everything we can to provide the best education to our kids and this work did not start 14 months ago and no one person has made this progress happen i'm saddened by the members of my community who berate any individual not because of what you have personally experienced but because of the twisted narrative that you find on social media yes we need to get back to the place where community comes together but the antics on social media are not

250the answer my 94 year old mother-in-law likes to joke that she read it on facebook so it must be so she's a very wise woman do your homework that's all i ask okay thank you pam yes i had a couple things it's kind of piggybacking off what cheryl said did i want to remind people that saying it doesn't make it so and the next thing is that jeff and this board were not in place when the teachers lawsuits began many many years ago the issues were inherited and already going through the courts so it's not a whole lot you can do when you try to close the barn door after the horse is out another person commented about using cell phones um i would be appalled of course if somebody up here on the board

251was actually using a cell phone for you know putting things on or whatever but when i had my computer open and i wanted to look up for example i wanted to look up valedictorian and it is latin which i knew after taking four years of latin which is not a very often spoken language um from 1751 that was me using my cell phone and i think that's okay i would be offended however if people were just using their cell phones for you know social purposes so i just think it's important that what seems to be true or seems to be accurate anyway is not always and there's a lot of history behind things that i think people don't understand and even the thing about me scooting past people to go to the board i was

252asked by the attorney to make sure that new people knew these guys aren't new people i didn't tell them because they knew um but i think there's things like that those are things that bothered me because that wasn't all what i was doing but it's not just me i just want you to understand that when someone's it's much easier to float a rumor than think one my grandma used to say that so remember that when you hear these things or you read things on social media or someone's trying to take out something from years ago um just be aware that things are not always as they seem and the because somebody said it doesn't make it real okay thank you okay thank you and i would just like to say i love all the great

253things going on with jps and things that are coming back around now that covid luckily has settled down like reading month and the book fair and field day i was very excited about that sharp park presenting tonight it's nice to see the schools presenting again like we used to i was able to read it cascades and hunt this month for reading month so that was fun and i'm super excited that sharp park is next on the docket and last of the bond project so i feel like it was yeah just yesterday but it's coming to an end so that's all i have real quick yes uh just two things very quickly um so we have uh the greenhouse conversation we have supported ms coppin with the greenhouse for years i i don't see any reason

254why we won't be supporting miss coppin with the with the vista grand village just kind of as an fyi so i i'll read the particulars of the grant but make certain that she gets that answer in a timely fashion so but at this time i would anticipate and the board should anticipate that the board should anticipate though that we're going to move forward with the greenhouse conversation and then miss hamilton uh with regards to at-risk funding um we spend several we spend millions of dollars every year of at-risk funding and i think what i'll probably do if it's fair is i'll have marcus reach out and why don't i set up a time for you and him to to be able to go through kind of that line item of where those at-risk dollars go

255because they do fund up a host of things across the district and i i couldn't even begin to name them all but i hear what you're saying and like i said if you don't mind i'll i'll put you in touch with mr uh leon to specifically go through kind of what at-risk funding covers um sounds good um but i would still i'll still be asked to have a conversation with the board on that next month because you know some of the things that you indicated in your letter also um miss coppin and and that greenhouse funding please keep me in the loop on that okay we are on number 12 new business august board meeting date and i know cheryl you wanted to discuss this so i had something come up since our january meeting

256where we approved the board meeting schedule for the year and i will be out of town on august 16th and not able to make the meeting and it also happens to be the last week of summer break before school started so i thought maybe there might be others who might want to break that week but i my request is is it possible to move that meeting either a week earlier or a week later and certainly i understand that if there's even one other board member who can't change the meeting then i would retract my request okay should we just float that one up there yeah so um so i personally am not available the week before or the week after okay so i guess can and if it were a different day than tuesday or

257no i'd have to look at my schedule and i could do that right now if you want but um i know i do know that on tuesdays i'm not available but which day are you proposing right that whole week i'm not i'm out from the 10th to the 21st but um so i'm not choosing any particular day so i'm not finding time in my schedule i keep a tight schedule okay it sounds like we'll leave it as it is scheduled now okay number 13 the calendar uh things we have coming up april 18th as a community forum with dr j marks at the parkside auditorium 6pm um april 19th is our regular board meeting here same place same time and then may 27th is graduation day for jackson high school pathways csmv how are they

258going to be this year i'm going to be handled this year graduation will be returning to whittington stadium on dungeon field weather permitting and if it is a rain day there will be three ceremonies though from the different schools yeah yeah everybody will graduate the same day on the same field across the same stage all right excellent okay thank you um number 14 adjournment so at this time i would entertain a motion for adjournment okay okay i think pam libby all right any deliberation okay all those in favor aye opposed okay thanks you