JPS Board Meeting - 02/15/22

001oh there we go hi welcome welcome i'd like to call this meeting to order and at this time i'd like to have you stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you how about the roll call mrs axley miss hamilton president here now i would like to entertain him a motion for approval of the agenda brown support both of them libyan aaron thank you guys all those in favor uh opposed the same okay thank you okay at this point we have the superintendent's report thank you very much and i am excited because it's uh long been a a practice pre-covered uh when we would tour

002buildings to to have presentations to talk about what was going on in the buildings and tonight we are able to to again invite students and staff from dibble elementary to share with us uh the the things that are happening in that building uh miss kuhn you wanna kick us off and let us know what we've got today good evening everyone and thank you for the invite from myself marticuan and dibble it's students so i gave you a one-page paper i just kind of highlighted different things going on at dibble trying to get you engaged this is something that you can walk away with if you have questions tonight i'm here or questions in the future i am there to answer them but i just kind of did an overview and then as i'm thinking and

003driving over here i'm thinking about other things so i jotted down some other things but we're going to start right away with um dibble dibble is a school where we know we have to build relationships we have to know have these students feel safe feel loved at school and then they will excel in their learning and this happens every day at dibble you can walk our hallways and see the students smiling now that the masks are off they're enjoying the you know big big teeth sticking out but something that i do pride myself in that i try to model for everybody is your name's important your name is important i pass these students and and i always say their name i always say their names so i i do i do pride myself i role

004model that your name's important academically we do a lot of different things one thing we started years ago when we were priority schools was the idea of wind time wind time is what i need we all know our students develop at different times their rate of learning is at different speeds and so we have to figure out we're not in a classroom anymore where you stand in front of that classroom have your rows of desks and everybody's learning the same thing same time same day it's not it's not like that anymore so we have to figure out what each student needs and we meet their needs whether it's behaviorally or academically so what i need are support staff we have groups of students that have maybe two kids in their group or five kids in

005their group but they are it's their level of learning and they are learning from retired teachers paraprofessionals the teachers themselves so that is a big part of our day happens three days a week tuesday wednesdays and thursdays and it is wonderful i love it love it love it love it uh daily reading groups just because we have win groups daily reading groups still go on guided reading students you know learn at their own level and they are in their guided readings from their staff from their teachers so that happens every day don't think that win time is just not three days a week we do learn monday through friday uh online programs we have a lot of online programs that adjust when the kids you go into lexia students get placed what level they're at

006and then it moves them up as they pass those levels so that is at their you know at their own pace we are having extended day learning we have 41 students from first to fifth grade right now they stay after school from 3 45 to 5 15 and our staff is teaching them the the highest we have right now is 12 students in the class and that teacher has a paraprofessional in with her so that's pretty much a one on six in the in the after school same thing so we're going we're going all day going all day our staff gets together once a week for their 50 minutes and we call it professional learning time and they meet with each other and they discuss you know hey i did this math problem and it

007worked really well my students were really successful i'll share it with you so they share what's going on with their data they look at their data and uh you know we're not masters of all we all have room to learn so they learn from each other so the grade levels they meet once a week in other plc's that happens on top of academic we also need our creative arts we also need that where students can express themselves other than just two plus two is four we bring in mrs anderson is here thank you miss anderson she brought some of the displays this this is the only bummer part of not being able to be inside dibble looking at dibble because it is covered in artwork and she brought some of it here it is just

008beautiful it brightens your day when you walk down and you see what these kids have produced in art music our students are playing ukuleles they're playing recorders they i've never had students love music so much as they can't wait for go to mr jane's class and learn some more music they're reading notes and of course you know physical education is this week mr bristol our students can tell you we are learning the rock wall and we always wondered what was behind those mats and how it looked and they are learning it this week so academic academically as well as the creative arts is a huge part of these darlings days you'll see the next step is a little bit about the data in dibble the first reading inspect is the rigor that's done on an

009online assessment it's done four times a year and it's um is at grade level so after the last year and a half i think our students have done very very very well there's four different tests so it's not you can't really tell the growth you just tell what standards that they have mastered so it's not like i can compare the first test the next test it shows what standards they have mastered the next one it's fontes and pannell we call it f p that's we see the growth that is when the student receives gets a book and they read a cold read they read that book to their staff and then they answer comprehension questions look at that growth i mean these 10 little kindergartners here i have they went from 22 in the fall

010to 82 in the winter that one is on growth love that love that love that and we'll do that again they do progress monitoring between some students that are like you know lower levels will do it continuously but otherwise if they're on grade level we pretty much do it three times a year all right social emotional learning just not even just for students but adults we need it too we have a fantastic sunshine committee that lifts us up every day because adults need it as well students we go in um the counselor and myself go into the rooms and we talk about feelings it's okay to be angry but what can we do how can how can we help you with anger you know your breathing your your counting all that kind of things we

011go in feelings are big we talk about the big feelings that we have uh birthdays they love to hear their birthdays i do staff and students we do announcements every day they love to hear their birthdays on there they come down for a birthday book and uh we we do the pledge allegiance every day together i started with my oldest kids they come down a couple students and they actually say the pledge of allegiance to the rest of the school the sunshine committee came up with the making donations and giving back to our community and this year we've chose people closer to home the jhs the thanksgiving giving is where we were going to do the first one to end up to be a charity of choice for we gave it to our senior class

012so we raised money that was done just the staff raise money and give to jhs giving we've done toys for tots this last one we included the students for the animal shelter so they could donate their coins you know they could donate coins to this animal shelter or items or something twenty six hundred dollars we'll be presenting next tuesday to the animal shelter that your pennies and nickels and dimes do add up so we thank the students for that we'll be presenting that to the shelter next tuesday uh classroom incentives who doesn't love fun fridays student of the month you know it's so nice to be able to welcome the parents in so the staff the classrooms they get a student of the month and the theme this year pretty much is kindness you know

013this year is like watching you be kind to somebody else using kind words kind gestures so kindness has been the theme and we celebrate we uh invite the parents in they come in teachers talk they have a little write up on them we celebrate they get a yard sign put in their yard be a pride jps thing so and then the kids get to stay and we have little cookies and punch some of our community partnerships uh true community i mean they were just in today saying what more can i do for you what what can we do we want to be in your classrooms we want they're they really are true to jps they they do a phenomenal job jackson district library mrs trumly spends some time there you know so that's a nice

014connection we have girl scouts backpack program the food backpack you know students that may need some extra food on the weekends center for family health and smiles on wheels keeping those teeth clean and of course parent involvement is so exciting you know that we get to have parents start coming in and this is the perfect time because we're coming up to reading month and reading month we get this year to and we invited eb uh lewis he's an illustrator and mrs tromley's going to talk a little bit more about reading month but we also invite parents to come in and be guest readers and so we're very excited about that we're going to do a career day here in the spring invite the parents in their careers to come and talk do a little panel

015with the kids to kind of inspire them to grow up to be wonderful community members um weekly popcorn hope you enjoy your plot popcorn there's more on the table if you'd like and i can't say enough about pto pto they're there all the time helping we did ladies night back in december if you missed it you got to come next year all the vendors they get for ladies night the popcorn the scholarships you know mr jane's like i'm missing a couple kids don't have a recorder we'll buy it for them you know we'll get it for them so they don't go unforeseen so i'm i've talked enough i hope you learned learned a little bit about dibble but really honestly this is true dibble and i'd like to invite mrs trombley and her darlings up

016here i guess i'm supposed to face this way i don't know so a month ago we commemorated the legacy of dr martin luther king jr images on the news and in our classrooms highlighted dr king's speech given in front of the lincoln memorial at the march on washington for jobs and freedom the speech is now known as the i have a dream speech but his remarks that day were impromptu not planned gospel singer mahalia mahalia jackson called out to him to tell him about the dream referring to a theme from previous speeches such as in detroit the address was though was not centered on that famous dream his speech was about a check that america had written to its african-american citizens that had bounced and had come back marked insufficient funds america needs to make

017good on that check and provide every single one of its citizens the fullness of its promise so what could this promise have to do with reading month literacy is the key to success and comprehension is the key to reading as we teach children to decode and memorize sight words to look for context clues in the illustrations or the text we know that the most important thing is being able to engage with the text we talk about making connections by teaching text to world the child can read the story and relate it to something out there in the world around them we talk about text to text the child can relate the story to another story and compare and contrast those two stories and most noticeably noticeably at the age of these little ones here today

018we teach students to make connections of text to self they read the story and recognize something of it that is like their own experience what we cannot keep that promise if children are only given text where the characters do not look like them do not look like their families do not look like their neighborhoods the books are now out there publishing houses and our own jackson district library are committed to providing diverse reading materials for all ages we need to get them into the hands of our children we want our children to read diverse literature to see themselves on the pages see their families on the pages see their neighborhoods on the pages this is a top priority in addition some of our students will be reading about people families and neighborhoods that are different

019from them and theirs and find out that that is just fine societies make humans of into the others by dehumanizing it literature can return their humanity in the eyes of its readers dibble's reading month theme is in living color i'm old i knew that what the theme was what we wanted to do but i was struggling for a catchy little title when i was in the grocery line and i saw an article about a show currently on tv called in living color which i've i've never seen but i remember when color tv was new and shows were advertised as being in living color and suddenly tv looked more like real life and was more relatable dibble will of course be challenging at students and adults to read more but we will also be challenged them

020challenging them to read widely read about people from all walks of life from times and places you are unfamiliar with we welcome artistrator that's what he calls himself artistrator e.b lewis to our school on wednesday february 23rd he will be doing three presentations to our students and encouraging them to find their passions he will also be doing an evening presentation at 5 30 for families e.b lewis grew up in philadelphia and was encouraged by an uncle to follow his passion for art mr lewis has illustrated over 70 children's books some of them are in the hands of my little ones over there and his some of his illustrations as sorry 70 children's books and has some of his illustrations from these books as well as others hanging in museums and private collections around this country

021and europe this will be mr lewis's third trip to dibble mr lewis has taught past groups of students many tricks of his trade such as artists and illustrators often don't meet or talk to each other but work through their publisher his beautiful book on the other side which i think is in oh aidan's got it aydah will you hold the book up his book the other side by jacqueline woodson looked quite different than what the author imagined but she was thrilled with the results mr lewis also has mentioned that whenever a character does not have a specified race he always portrays the child as african-american he wants children to see themselves in the books that they they read we invite you to drop by dibble on february 23rd and check it out for yourselves i

022have brought some of my friends to meet you and we have two things prepared for you we have the poem hey black child by you sonny eugene perkins this poem is a mantra that determinely creates a new way for black children to think about their lives and their futures and although it's a bit early we have the song haru gakita it's a famous japanese song welcoming spring so this might not be the right word right week to sing it but but the song is saying spring is coming spring is coming where is spring coming to spring is coming to the mountains spring is coming to the village spring is coming to the to the meadow and then the second verse is about birds coming and the third is about flowers coming please enjoy our little

023performance you want to have him introduce himself they're so cute they're going to go down we're going to go down and have them say their name say your name nice and loud one more time [Music] isaiah makes messier rodriguez tj ayden rodriguez tawkins jayla remington james canning jabrino also harley jai nice job all right hey [Music] you know what you want to do if you try to do what you can do hey let child be what you can be [Music] what you want [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] these are five and six year olds that have done this in the last probably two weeks so another minus three snow days [Laughter] so another round of applause to these darlings thank you mrs trombley and i also want to thank our parents for

024sharing your beautiful sons and daughters with us thank you thank you very much [Applause] thank you miss kuhn thank you parents for again as ms kuhn said sharing your children with us we are excited about what's happening at dibble um and so i want to make certain that i uh i extend that thanks are there any questions uh from the board for ms kuhn while i have her here it's just a statement some may not know that there are papers to comment in the back and that they give those papers to you so i don't know if you want to make that official but if you are looking to make comments the papers are on the back shelf and you do need to give them to um the acting chair today and that's pam thank

025you okay next up in the superintendent's report is uh dr william patterson to talk about the secondary update thank you mr beale i just wanted to say uh congratulations are well done to dibble as well kind of brought me back to my elementary principal days if there was ever a bad day in the building i would just go down to the kindergarten classroom and as you can see it makes everything better so those students are a bright spot in the district and i love to see them perform all the time so exciting just a couple of things going on at the secondary level i try to grab just a couple things going on at each building at jackson high i want to give a big shout out to the jackson high wrestling team who just

026won the district championship so so excited for jackson high i understand and i'm still trying to verify first time in uh school district history right so state championship or district championship and wrestling so another thing we're excited about at jackson high is the implementation of advit advid stands for advance via individual determination it's a way to help students close any existing achievement or opportunity gaps and make sure that they're prepared for college advet students are taught to articulate what they don't understand and learn how to seek out the resources that they need by learning critical thinking inquiry and self-advocacy students are empowered to own their own learning these students will begin peer mentoring which is exciting with hunt elementary students during the third trimester currently we have 22 students enrolled in the advent program they

027take it as elective and a big shout out to about laurie smith who's taken that group of students under their wings and i know there are several other teachers in the district that have been trained so we're looking forward to following those students and growing that program so hopefully we'll have some more news to report on avid down the road for you at jackson pathways they have uh guest speakers speaker series that come into pathways regularly these speakers include law enforcement culinary specialists and open entrepreneurs i'm sorry tongue twisted future speakers will include business owners ceos and directors of community programs so really trying to gear that program up to connect students to the community so i i love all the things that mr lewis is doing in bringing in people from the community to

028talk to our pathway students so so excited about that and also at pathways we're still running the tops program tops stands for teen outreach program and so the program empowers teens to build a foundation of healthy behaviors life skills and a sense of purpose so each week students are treated to a curriculum which includes healthy relationships communication and assertiveness critical thinking um goal setting decision making etc so really excited about our students being involved in that again empowering the students to to make good choices and and to own their own learning so at middle school at parkside there are running their african-american their fifth annual african-american excellence award banquet which is taking place saturday february 26th they have over 125 african american students and jps has partnered with the naacp and in jackson college to

029recognize and encourage these students as a part of a black history month as well so that's so exciting to promote the success of 125 african-american students that are that are exceeding in and at middle school at parkside and as you have heard parent involvement they had perkside had the knappet program on monday i talked to jeremy yesterday in today they had over 100 parents come in and and walk you know through the classrooms he sent a few comments or feedback he received from parents which include i like seeing my child in school nice to see how classes are ran being able to see my son in school atmosphere having the event is a great thing seeing how my student interacts with peers and teachers so lots of good things i know mr white was over

030there shot a picture of my daughter and his son in the class and and i made it over there later in the day so thank you for that uh sharing that picture um and then um i just wanted to give a shout out to um aisha henderson at 4th street she is an amazing counselor if you haven't heard she's been at 4th street for a while now and is you know been that rock helping students deal with their social students social and emotional needs she is also a second time publisher so she was recently highlighted on bart holly's show for her her new book the psr kid so i'm just doing amazing things and and so i'm excited to have her at fourth street for that program and those students over there and then just

031south central michigan virtual is still just growing as many of you know we started off with 40 50 kids and it's up to 496 students right now i was over there today talking to mr parker they're in the middle of count so a lot of work to be done to count those 496 students but he's doing some amazing things over there if you ever get a chance to go over there and and check out the program we love it and it's still growing so if you have any questions about any of the secondary program or something that you'd like to see in the future months please let me know or i'd be happy to answer any questions now thank you dr patterson you're welcome and then miss baker if you will uh share with us

032kind of an elementary update what's going on okay thank you very much um i think i'll start with some highlights uh there's some there's some fun things that are happening in all of our buildings elementary school buildings we recently celebrated 100 days of school which is a big thing in elementary school lots of kids that look like they are in their 80s walking around and doing some other fun things we have our after school cafe program up and running in all of our elementary buildings and we have about 366 students that are engaged in that right now and still adding so that's for grades one through five three days a week napat also was celebrated at northeast on monday and i understand that that was a nice program there they are also doing an olympic

033celebration event throughout the building for the entire month um so they're they're excited about the things that they're doing there um as you already heard dibble the students at dibble and the staff members raised about 2 600 for the animal shelter so we've got students that are helping to take care of the community and we've got some some new staff on board that are helping to assist our students as um they they are are faced with trying to make up time for um that you know the the challenges we faced with clove over the last two years so cascades just hired a new dean of students and a new behavioral interventionist hunt cascades and northeast each added a second instructional coach this year to allow them to really focus in on k2 and 3.5 we

034have 17 retired teachers that agreed to return to jps to help to provide interest interventions to tier 2 students and then we've got several schools that are sending their students out to the dollar center to do annie's big nature lesson um and so we've got a few teachers that are getting trained right now it's a a week where they go back and forth to the dollar center and they do science and social studies mostly science lots of math it's a it's a really rich experience we're excited that our kids are are benefiting from that many of our schools are doing monthly pbis or positive behavior interventions and supports um celebrations uh including louis montessori and sharp park sometimes you'll hear them talk about the extravaganza those types of things you've really got to see one

035of those too to to know how special they are and kids really enjoy that but it's a way for us to really celebrate those positive behaviors and to encourage kids to want to attend the next one everybody attends one of those everybody attends that when it happens and it's just it's really wonderful um also we have been participating in a partnership for success grant with the isd this year it's just cascades and louis and so what they did is they went through and they surveyed our fifth graders i believe and um they're looking at what assets each of them actually has and um so it's it's really focused on building the assets that students have with them to make to help them to be more resilient and to have an easier time facing the challenges

036that life brings along so with that information they kind of saw where there were places that a lot of students really need support in building some assets and so they were given monies that they could use to for programs that they can do to to build those assets within the school we've been doing a lot of professional development um so we've uh we've got lots of training happening or happened towards the beginning of the year and strategy is to encourage positive behavior and also to help students with those social emotional skills and mental health issues so positive behavior interventions and supports is in place in all of our k-5 buildings and and we swear by it it's just really good stuff and then also restorative practices um and so that's something that our that our

037staff members have been working with that we find helps us to give students some of the skills that they need to problem solve when they have issues with somebody else to talk about their feelings and then also we find that it's a great way for us to deal with issues as they arise as opposed to having a student have to go home on suspension so it keeps kids in in school where we need them to be um we've got three schools this year that are doing a the treatment part of a racial equity and discipline for black students program that we're doing with msu and that combines that pbis with racial awareness and knowledge intervention so those those staff members are participating in seven three and a half hour sessions with msu they're looking at

038pre and post data to see what the impact of that training is and we will be including the rest of the schools next year as treatments this year are their controls um in math we've been working with we've got a cohort of students from every or teachers from every grade level that have been going to work with marco with aes math so he comes in and he works with a grade level every grade level has a day with him and they work on powerful instructional strategies but also engagement strategies and they help them to align their instruction with their inspect assessments that's just been wonderful sharp park is much farther down the road than the rest of us with that work and they're seeing just some fantastic results from that so he also comes in

039and he does design deliver and debrief sessions with teachers and what he does is he goes into a special or into a classroom that we've kind of pre-arranged they say hey marco i need to work on fractions and he helps him design the lesson deliver the lesson as everybody watches and he demonstrates those engagement strategies and those instructional strategies and then they debrief afterwards and he's done that several times this year it's very it's been a really powerful experience for a lot of our teachers um we're doing a lot with literacy right now those wonderful lli kits that we purchased the level literacy intervention kits we've had training in the buildings for those we recently implemented fastbridge and that has been a big lift but it's a wonderful program so teachers had pd to learn

040how to administer that how to read the reports how to select the intervention and then how to use that program to progress monitor students they can also use it to group they can see which group of kids need this specific intervention and then deliver it so it's really good stuff um the essential literacy practices is sort of our north star for our k-5 literacy instruction and um we've what we've been doing with that is there are ten essential literacy practices things like reading aloud and family involvement and um having having selecting literature that is extremely engaging for students and so we focused in on four of those this year and we have through our plc times and other ways we've given teachers time to do those modules and so we're moving down this down the

041road on that one as well the essential literacy practices are really important they're considered to be the minimum standard standard of practice just like a doctor would have that there's a minimum standard of practice that we all need to have and so this this is these are those research-based practices that we have to have in place and so um we're really um serious about getting getting that into each of our classrooms and getting really good as good as we can get with that um parent involvement um as marty says we're very excited that coveted numbers are down and um you know we're able we're seeing more parents able to come in or interested in coming in so we've got the weekly popcorn in the pto meetings and the planning and all of that happening um

042we had recently the the knappit event um lewis has done their second science night family science night um that happened last week and then we've got a ton of things that are getting ready to happen for march's reading month so that's it's always fun we uh we have people that come in from the community it's community members it's family members um and then we also have great big family nights where we do activities to celebrate literacy and that's all i have for the elementary report thank you lots lots of great things happening are there any questions for either dr patterson or julie i do for you julie the social emotional trainings um the two mention those are for who students teachers who is that for teachers and then um we do have our social workers

043working with students they go into the classroom and they do um they do sessions with different grade levels how long have we been doing that they've been doing that all year the social so is it social emotional training this is new for this year okay oh no we've so we've got it's we're we've got different programs going in different schools so for example like northeast has been doing the caring school communities for a long time i think they're probably in their third or fourth year of implementation with that um and that is wonderful because it's got they have the circles um that they do every morning and then they the restorative practices those restorative circles are the first place they go when there's an issue um so we have we have different kind of programs

044that are going in different places but we've been we've been doing those those programs for a while now i know also at um i'm sorry i'm not using my microphone um we do a lot with restorative practices at john r lewis i know that they are using them extensively at cascades um we've we're it's some level of implementation in every building and then uh the social emotional that's a big piece that a lot of our our social workers take on so they will they'll go in and do social skills lessons with students um and then they'll also they have small groups where they pull students that are working on specific things like making more friends or if they've got if they're having anger issues how to deal with their anger those types of things we're

045probably measuring the impacts of those or do we have records of that we could definitely look at you know what are what our suspensions and and everything else is but i mean what we're doing is i don't know that we've collected data on on what what the impact of that has been we've been doing it for a long time trying to make sure that we are finding ways to keep kids in school and to find alternatives to suspension so it'd be nice to know how that's impacting our staff and students yeah definitely thank you any other questions all right next up um in the superintendent's report is a conversation on the section 98 b benchmark assessment or progress report this is new this year it comes with the school improvement changes that is also new

046for this year so william and julie spearhead our school improvement efforts um candidly when we get in and we can look at you know any of the scores for any of the buildings uh i know the board has had an opportunity um the scores are are striking you know they're they're not where we would anticipate they would like them to be but i think they are where we anticipate some of them to be we recognize that covet has interrupted learning and that many of our students have not had a traditional full year of school in over two years uh so to to recognize that students are behind or below grade level i think that's not simply a jackson public schools concern i think that's a national uh conversation and certainly something we hear echoed uh

047around our state but we we are required to share this assessment and and a little bit different and i'll let william and julie talk to this for just a second but this talks about grade level approach versus growth and i think that what this talk lends itself to is a conversation because what we recognize is if students are behind by more than a grade level it's it's very challenging to expect a teacher to provide instruction of more than a grade level in a given year uh they they have fourth grade we would like them to teach a full year's worth of curriculum in that year but we recognize that students are behind and so this really begs for us to to really create a sense of urgency around the partnerships we have with parents um

048specifically attendance we hear that uh regularly in in all of our buildings that attendance becomes a very real concern i know a conversation even here at the high school talked about ascendant attendance just a couple of months ago and how can we we encourage folks to be here but um how do we get more students to participate in the after-school programming how do we get students to participate in the summer school programming those boot camps in the fall before school this is only half of our 98 b requirement we'll be back with this in in june when we have to post the other half of of the data to show where we're at so this is our mid-year snapshot and it is exactly that a slice of data in time but if there are any

049questions specific to the data i know we're using the inspect assessment which is a brand new assessment for us this year we took we chose that assessment because it would help us measure where our curriculum was at where the holes in our curriculum we're going to we're at and where our instruction was missing in order to be at grade level so i'll let i guess if you have questions for william or julie on the school improvement process or on this they would be perfect to answer those right now miss semenetti well i was just wondering if you could just take one school for example and go through the sheet with us and explain the numbers sorry thank you sorry about that all right um so if you look um at the sheet the very first

050thing that you'll see for table a is the goals that were set in september um and so some people you'll you'll notice on some of the sheets um were very ambitious about how many students they were hoping they would be able to get to grade level by the mid-year and by the end of the year um table b shows the percent of students who met that goal disaggregated by a subgroup and so you could see according to economically disadvantaged if there's special education english learners are um by gender um are african-american white hispanic asian and other and then sometimes you could see that uh we'll have we'll either have a zero or a 100 there a lot of times what that means is that there was one or there's probably one student or two students

051in that subgroup and that's why the numbers are strange like that and then table c shows it by grade level and table d it really is just showing what what that looks like for all students for reading and for math um so when as superintendent bl talked about we kind of we we expected that these this was going to be kind of rough because we know our students are not at grade level i was actually sort of surprised by the percentages on some of these because we knew that our students a lot of them are are at least a year behind at this point and to see them making that kind of progress towards um being proficient at grade level or mastering those grade level content standards is is is great but we know that

052we've got the other thing that shows us is that we've got some places where that's not happening and so that this data is it's really helpful for principals to see where support is needed whether that means the teacher needs additional support or that there are students that are really struggling that need additional supports put in place it's also used by teachers so they get together with grade level in their grade level teams every time we do one of these administrations so we do we do it as as mrs q and mentioned four times a year and we look at that data and we have a conversation around it so if we've got two teachers that gave it and they have very different results then they could say to each other what did you do with

053fractions because i just we tanked it let's talk about your instructional strategies and then they can grow their practices that way it also gives us an opportunity to see what needs to be re-taught if everybody bombed it we need to reteach it it gives us a chance to look at it and say do we have this in the right place in the order of instruction this year do we need to change the the pace the pacing guide so that maybe this is the wrong time of year to introduce it maybe they need some other pieces so it helps us to look at the effectiveness of our instruction the alignment of our instruction the pacing and then also to identify which students have similar needs so we use it for a variety of things along with

054all of the other assessments that we do with our students is there anything else i can add to that or so i was a little confused on how to um understand 4th street learnings um chart and then jackson high and pathways i think that the the paragraphs must be it's not graphed like the other one it was that one yes so there's just different different reporting um requirements for the secondary um buildings so the the high school specifically jackson high school and pathways only had to give a little bit of a narrative and basically all they did was restate their goal where they wanted to be mid-year and end of the year and then kind of told where they're at in that process and we've seen similar results right and i and if we actually

055broke down the data parkside was obligated k through 8 to break down the data the same way as ms baker just explained but i would assume that we would find that data to be pretty similar across the board even at the high school level and forestry learning and then fourth street learning um was the same yes um one of the um things that we found at fourth street learning was just um is getting students in and getting them tested so that's one of the things that we're trying to focus on over the rest of the school year we brought all of the students back to 4th street so we have about 49 45 to 49 students over there so we're looking to improve just the number of students that are testing because it it was

056hard to kind of get some of the students to test so even the results are are not as reliable we want to get those numbers up to get a better data set and again to help the instruction right to talk about alignment what are the students need to know what do they already know and then where some of that teaching should be throughout the year so and that's where the real work comes in is moving forward is just that alignment and then as ms baker said how are we teaching that right i saw miss baker you did really well with teaching that standard and and yet my students didn't do as well let's collaborate and and come up with a better lesson plan or a better approach thank you you're welcome excellent are there any

057other questions for julie or william all right hearing none that concludes the oh i apologize thank you very much um actually i have sad news to to share and i would ask for a moment of silence if we could we've had two two folks pass away within the last month since the last time we talked the first one was a student alea wilson at parkside and then the the second was one of our alumna al glick who obviously has shared a lot with the school and his passion i want to say that that our counseling team our crisis team was excellent with regards to to leia elea's passing she was classmates with with our kids a current student and we had counselors social workers from around the district and around the county on on call

058for that we had folks meeting with staff because it's not just the the students who need who need to talk or who need that support so again my hat's off to them but if we could have a moment of silence for elea and al i'd appreciate it thank you and that concludes the superintendent's report for the month of february i do that a lot just prepare yourself um the consent agenda do i have a motion to accept it some move cheryl thank you second support erin thank you is there any discussion the consent agenda is this where i make that correction okay yes so i have a correction that needs to be made from the meeting minutes last month a nomination confirmation it was not shalonda hunt they nominated pam fitzgerald it was sheryl simonetti

059okay we can make that correction in the minutes um so i think we've got a motion and we'll make the correction in a second so i think we're calling for you all in favor say aye aye aye opposed the same it passes thank you um now we go on to citizens requesting to address the board i have several up here and i just want to run through a coup a reminder that each person is allowed to speak during that period of time uninterrupted by others and each of you has five minutes in which to address the board by yourself okay now being the english teacher for 40 years it's enough medical order how's to do that jennifer bittinger wow i get to be first so nice to see you all i feel like i'm meeting

060you some of you for the first time i'm so thankful um that you finally we have removed the requirement of the ineffective masks for the health and social improvement of our children and community thank you so much um it was good to see the children here tonight and i wish they could have stayed to hear these um important words which are not spoken in the media or at the schools i believe um as far as i know jps is offering and promoting the covet 19 shot through the school and i just wanted to read this important data about that according to the cdc the death rate for children under 19 from coven 19 is statistically zero in other words children are not dying from coven 19. according to cdc not one healthy child has died

061of cova 19 in the u.s all children who have died had underlying co-morbidities therefore healthy children should not be vaccinated according to the cdc the coveted vaccine will not prevent infection or transmission of cova 19. according to vares a reporting agency there have been 19 532 deaths from the coveted vaccines just from the vaccines alone according to the w.h.o who there have been at least 2 million 457 000 adverse events worldwide this is one million more cases than all adverse events reported over the last 53 years of all vaccines administered since 1968. according to cdc and fda coveted vaccines pose risks of myocarditis blood clotting neurological damage and death to name a few predominantly in adolescents according to historical medical data fifty percent of people who get myocarditis will die of a heart attack or

062require a heart transplant within five years especially children these are all facts from our government and cdc's so with offering and promoting this dangerous shot to your school children please you will have that permanently on your conscience you can either eliminate this activity at the school or at least make sure students and parents are aware of these known dangers thank you so much thank you next we have tasha carter good evening my name is tasha carter and i have a lot to say i'm very passionate so i wrote it down just to give you some context i'm a lifelong resident here in jackson michigan i was born and raised here graduated from jps my children graduated from jps i now have grandchildren attending jps i have a host of family and friends who have children

063who attend jps as well so i care about jps for years school officials and teachers have stated parents aren't involved enough that is and has been a true assessment for a long time i won't get into all of the reasons why that is some are justified some are not so much but i want to elaborate on though is how the school board and other officials are contributing to parent disengagement i stand here today to say that i personally voted for keisha hamilton because i knew that she would ask what parents and supporting adults of children who attend schools in the jps district want to know even if those questions lead to hard conversations especially surrounding diversity equity and inclusion those of us who voted for her also knew that existing board members would find fought

064with her doing so there's a quote by bishop t.d jakes change comes from disruption as the school board you should want to hear and solicit parent voice and feedback any method of communication you need to be transparent and accountable you should want to implement measurable metrics and goals that promote accountability highlight opportunities and publicly display outcomes so that you can make meaningful and actionable decisions that lead to steps to improve and to reassess identified issues over time what i witnessed last month at the school board meeting was and is unacceptable your unprofessional display of your body language when questions are asked and suggestions made to improve current decision making and processes it was ridiculous and to target keisha or to say that she has an agenda other than to improve the jps system when she

065and libby are really the only ones challenging existing norms and status quo it's absurd you all should be holding each other accountable and asking these types of questions the fact that jeff wants a closed session to discuss what unfolded publicly in front of all of us last month is a perfect example of not being transparent and accountable unless of course he's afraid that this is a personnel issue which honestly it probably is perhaps pain for a consultant someone versed on developing smart goals is the most appropriate action to progress jps forward as needed if when a suggestion by a board member to make go smart is considered a personal attack on the superintendent's career i also want to point out that training without application is useless you can require training all day long but the

066proof is in the pudding when there is applied learning until staff are required to apply learnings actions won't ever change that is with any position in any industry you need to train apply reassess retrain apply pdsa cycles are continuous maximizing training with measurable learning applications should be on the superintendent's radar as priority this is the education industry none of this should be shocking why do you quiz why do you test why do you give exams it measures outcomes and identifies opportunities this process applies to students all day long why would it not apply to the superintendent's role or the school board overall especially after this pandemic the residual effects from the last two years we need measurable goals at the same board talked about you know how um the scores were going down i mean

067you need to benchmark you you need measurable goals you know in addition to establishing smart goals in general i would personally like to see more specific or concrete action taken regarding the equity assessment that was done a couple years ago why hasn't there been any action plan developed why aren't and weren't smart goals implemented to address those issues that were identified tangible goals could have been established as an area of focus from that assessment honestly i wouldn't care how much you made if jps was operating at exemplar status we're not there we are improving but we're not so we need measurable tangible um actionable goals and um i i'm interested to see what the final board norms will be and how limiting that will be as it relates to public voice and what the board

068members can ask because members who are appropriately representing the best interests of students in this district ask questions lastly this is a public announcement for everyone present today watching or who we'll be watching later there are two seats eligible on the school board for replacement this year if any of you are ready to ask questions and to disrupt status quo i highly encourage you to run for one of those seats thank you [Applause] all right okay uh mr william hastings um good evening um i'd just like to thank the previous speaker and uh i think she made some some very good points and i think some of my points i'm coming from a different direction but some of our points and goals do intersect so um so the question continues to go on unanswered what

069exactly is the role that critical race theory instruction is playing in the jps school system it's very obvious there's a concerted effort emanating from the jackson county isd to immerse school administrators in this woke and very racialized ideology now a very interesting question was posed to this board at the last meeting concerning the so-called equity training ongoing this question was posed by another board member her question was well we've had these training sessions and we've had these meetings with and we've had various services provided by dr jay marks what's the follow-through how do we measure or quantify the impact of the presence of dr marx so i paraphrase here but i believe that was the essence of a question the board member in question is i am fairly certain is a proponent and a supporter

070of crt while i am obviously opposed opposed to it for a host of reasons however we can both agree as the previous speaker mentioned as well that there must be an empirical means of measuring the impact of what is a very very handsomely paid outside consultant does anyone actually believe that polling students faculty or community for their perception data how's that for an oxymoron perception data is a meaningful end goal that has any real world utility to anyone can anyone say with a straight face that this expenditure will positively impact the flesh and blood poor and struggling students of any race that walk through the halls of this school every day in any way whatsoever so to go back to to the question that was posed last month when and how do we measure the

071actual real world outcome of dr marks and the many dollars expended to bring him to jps i think there's really just two likely answers the first is there is no way to score measure the work of this expert authority therefore you're paying something for nothing other than a dose of wokism you could get for free by watching a few hours of msnbc or or alternately one could easily score the impact of dr marks by using readily available empirical data sets that measure the academic performance of your students over time data sets that are easily broken down grades and test scores by group and subgroup are readily available to all the members of this school board are they not they're available to you but they're never in the packets they're rarely discussed tonight listening to the

072remarks of miss baker and mr patterson was the first time i've actually heard academic performance alluded to at a board meeting in six months time first time so um you know going through the package tonight there there's there's just reams of data and financials of course your fiduciary duty to perform i understand that revenues expenditures bond issue reporting a whole page on the jhs stadium upgrades alone but where are the grades where are the test scores where where are the academics where are the benchmarks where are they is isn't this your your your primary goal your primary mission what is the baseline for what your for the students are trying to affect what is the baseline and what are the trend lines [Applause] thank you we now have greedy higgins good evening ladies and gentlemen

073there's a good month to say i have a dream but i don't i teach my children nowadays to have a plan and in doing so myself along with other parents and guardians of future valedictorians of jackson high school comments are as follows we would like to know who presented the change to the jackson school board to have one valedictorian instead of several as it has been in the past we would like to know who stuck in the motion and how each school board member voted and when was this done i don't even remember it no one gave me any information on this big change that none of the parents know anything about i look at this as a breach of promise in trying to take place with the uh and taking place with the administration

074because my daughter as a double student came to this school one year and watched people walking across and she said daddy that's what i want to be and the valedictorian standing up there it was several of them and she loves to study and i say you could be one of those too you just keep doing what you're doing you know we have physical athletes and i would like to think we have academic athletes and that's where she stands when she does her work and she has 25 questions that she miss one or two she wants to know the answer to the one or two that she missed because she's seeking excellence in what she wants to be a doctor and there are many kids young adults in jackson high that wants to be highly professionals

075such as doctorates in medicine engineering law education and several more the economic challenge students are trying to level the playing field only to be told we are going to change the way the game is played you know that that's pretty messed up when a child pledge allegiance as you might put it to say all right jackson high is going to do this for me and do that for me because certain administrators that know of these families and these students as to say come on to jackson ohio we'll be glad to have you and you know who you're getting you're getting highly trained students that are willing to give you their all to make that a because that's who they are and i've had a couple of student a couple of administrators to try to in

076influence my child that a c is okay a c is not okay not in my family it has never been okay all right especially with my brain can act upon making an a and you're gonna tell me a c is okay never never that's like a football player being physically in this uh or her game that they wish to uh succeed in saying all right just scored three points and we're going home while the other teams got 50. okay so never tell one of my students that a c is okay at this point my children's and i'm not just talking about my daughter her name is kelly higgins my children's health has been put at risk anxiety and depression runs of rapid with these young adults and there was one administrator talking with these children

077a few days ago and these children i don't know what's going to happen to them at this point in time because they pledged for this school to do what they said he was going to do and now they're not holding up to their their uh point so will the will you change because the fact is that 2026 if there is going to be a change should be the date a change to take effect because even the freshmen that's here at the school right now should have the opportunity to be one of these valedictorians and i was saying the students are very are truly being suppressed so i would appreciate if you guys got back with me on some of these questions and [Music] let me know exactly where we're going to go from here thank

078you mr higgins this has been a discussion going on and the superintendent will get with you okay absolutely [Applause] our next speaker is myeisha jones [Music] okay um good evening everyone i feel like everything i wanted to say has been said so good thing i didn't prepare a speech and that's not my smile i just speak from the heart so um i just want to acknowledge first and foremost i previously was a student of jackson public schools back when i was in seventh grade and i was expelled from all of public schools based off of decisions poor decisions i made but more specifically based off of a school system that didn't support me or have resources for me and there was this teacher that i had who volunteered to come to my home every day

079and allow me to finish seventh grade mrs q1 and i just want to recognize that it wasn't the system yes [Applause] it wasn't the system that saved me if you looked at the system in jps they would have identified me as a horrible student and said i had a lot of learning behaviors but now as i sit here today with a master's degree in strategic communication and leadership it lets me know that i wasn't the failure the system was the failure and because of that i decided to go back into the system and help to positively impact some students that may have been suffering from what i suffered through and when mr patterson talks about the top program that's being implemented throughout jps i am the top teacher so i've been teaching in jps for

080the last six years helping students with their social and emotional issues and really understanding how to be leaders and make positive decision and goal setting and so as proud as i am to impact these students lives i've been very disappointed in what i've seen especially as of late when it comes to the board meeting when it comes to this situation with the valedictorians so for those of you who don't know a lot of people look surprised um whoever decided that there's only going to be one valedictorian and then they told the 10th grade students students who have been working hard since forever um that there was only going to be one valedictorian and the one valedictorian that's being chosen is based off of work that that student did in sixth grade so i was very

081concerned why they wouldn't change the process in sixth grade when students start doing work that matters that just didn't make any sense to me i was like that's weird um and so hopefully that's considered and i'm so glad that everybody's talking about that um and then we might as well get to the one thing everybody's been talking about uh the last board meeting i was very concerned you know i talk to my students all the time all of your students about making goals and when i heard specifically about the goals surrounding diversity equity inclusion and as a deni specialist and advocate the first thing i thought was like what does that even mean and so if you ask my students to set proper goals they won't sound like the goals that i heard at the

082board meeting and i'm concerned more than the questions that keisha always has but i'm so concerned that nobody else has these questions like with respect what are you doing as board members when you don't have these questions and then i was really disappointed wherever i was like well jeff you're doing a great job and i think sometimes we let personal relationships jeff is great jeff is nice but this has nothing to do with jeff and we're letting personal biases get in the way of the work that impacts our students and that's not okay it's okay that you like somebody and respect them but it's also necessary that you hold them accountable and mr white the comments that you made towards keisha first of all we're just so disrespectful keisha has never challenged jeff she's always

083challenged the work that's being done that impacts our students and you directly that was i'm so disappointed in you like i've seen the work that you've done in this community over the years and the work that your family has done and it's very disappointing to see how you act it and more or less you don't ever ask any questions you just everybody's mad at keisha for asking questions that we all should be asking not to target jeff but so that we can all grow as leaders if i was in a leadership role of something and you can't ask me anything about top ask me about the data the proof the um all all the stories i have right the qualitative and quantitative data you can ask me every single board meeting i'm going to have

084the answers for you put me on a stage okay but when keisha asks questions that makes sense everybody's upset that she's asking these questions she doesn't use derogatory language she doesn't use anything inappropriate but yet you thought it was okay to target her and say she's creating a problem for someone personally when she's asking questions that the community has the sha i feel embarrassed that you would be representing our whole district and the lack of everything that was associated with that stuff the time's up oh i didn't hear the people okay thank you everybody for your thank you for your time [Applause] next we have kendrick lane hello hello i like to be official in my time so you have to excuse the uh dyke directness but uh and right sir you should be embarrassed

085with your actions embarrassed uh the thing is when kisha presented that information it was professional it was articulate it was it was very clear i mean i i i banged my head against the wall trying to figure out how you took offense to that you know and then it hit me it's the same thing i've seen in all aspects of business all aspects is is pushed by ego you will not be one of the primary veins that pumps into the heart of the education of our youth in in the the steering wheel is pushed by your ego this isn't your clubhouse you have a job to do man the fact that the fact that you and then and then for for you to carry yourself as the leader and to address you could have stifled

086all that jeff you could have stifled all that but you chose to play right into the hands and oh well keisha i was like no he is not going to do this and you did that was weak as a leader you should carry yourself in a manner where you're open to all this man this isn't rocket science at all this is not complicated you if you have a job to do and you are you are truly invested in your job you truly care about what you do then do it man don't sit here and play this little ego game and oh man she you literally tried to create a false narrative by accusing someone of creating a false narrative that was mind-blowing to me and you ma'am you went to her personal page and carried

087carried out that this obliviousness to your own act the obliviousness to your actions you insisted on stating and talking about numbers and figures and all she was talking about was expanding and reaching for more innovative ways to do your job properly yes yes so so i'm gonna keep this short but the thing is from this point moving forward understand that the way you have done things that will no longer be tolerated this will not this will not continue to go on for you to carry yourself like that publicly at that you should be embarrassed of yourself embarrassed so every time i even get a whiff of that type of energy you will see me every single time because there needs to be more people that can translate the underlying message in your actions you know

088what i mean i see you for what you are do your job sir [Applause] and last because your name starts with a t is fred trexler well mr beale i would like to commend you for the superintendent's report tonight it was really informative to hear what's going on in the dibble school in the high school in the elementary schools and i appreciate that in fact i would like to hear more data about how the students are doing particularly the achievement gap between white students and black students and everything in between apparently this is a problem that needs to be solved we'd like all students to have the opportunity to achieve what what they are capable of and i think some students could uh be raised up and we certainly don't want to have low expectations

089i think one of the fellow addressed that about having his daughter told that a c was okay when she's probably capable of more than that well we know that critical race theory is being used in the jackson isd and throughout the jackson county schools the question is is it improving anything is it improving the achievement gap i think a more personal approach and certainly emphasizing equity which means equality of outcomes that's that's a stupid thing to do we want equality of opportunities and we want to increase the students use of their abilities throughout the country parents are opposing critical race theory being used in indoctrinating their students and so i ask that valuable resources that jackson public school has not be spent to bring critical race theory consultants like dr j marks to jackson thank

090you [Applause] thank you no other public comments so this time we will hear about the ghs phase three bids and this is something for action tonight uh mr roman is that correct rob i'm going to invite you to come up to be able to answer some questions we uh marcus you want to lead us through kind of the process and the money and we'll go from there sure so recently we've gone through the bidding process for the last phase of the high school remodel all the recommended vendors and trades have been interviewed and vetted and i'm going to run through each uh each category and the recommended trade for approval tonight for building demolition chrisman constructors out of lansing 372 thousand eight hundred eighty dollars concrete choice concrete out of clarksville michigan two hundred eighty

091nine thousand nine hundred and ten dollars masonry davenport masonry from holt two hundred thirty nine thousand general trades cook jackson out of battle creek three hundred eighty four thousand seven hundred and sixteen dollars doors frames and hardware oscar brick out of battle creek sixty nine thousand eight eighty five metal studs drywall and acoustical cook jackson battle creek 162 floor covering integrity interiors from lansing 176 dollars fluid applied floor epic grand rapids michigan fifty nine thousand specialty athletic flooring floor care concepts from wyoming michigan forty eight thousand six hundred ninety dollars painting lenco painting from adrian ninety four thousand five hundred twenty seven lockers elite storage from collierville tennessee 124 777 plumbing and hvac miller dalton from jackson 817 electrical will see electric jackson 589 total trade contractor awards of three million four hundred twenty nine

092thousand seventy one dollars and then when we factor in contingencies and allowances um the total uh amount to be approved tonight or that we're seeking approval in the amount of four million four hundred and twenty five thousand one hundred twenty eight dollars and before i turn it over i'll just mention that a little over 2.2 million or 67 of these awards are what we consider local contractors or within that 40 mile radius of of our district here all right thank you very much marcus um i would take a motion or i guess i apologize pam that's okay we're looking for a motion to approve the bids as presented to approve the okay shawanda second let's be first schwann ii okay all in favor aye oh i'm sorry discussion we have a question or a discussion

093just wondering it's been it's been a while since we've i think we publicly talked about like what local means and i know years ago we talked about local being anywhere from 40 miles radius i think a lot of people may have questions though on like the actual jackson county if you could maybe help us understand what what are some obstacles that you have faced with what some community members may consider local versus what we understand to be 40 miles and just what are some of those and how are we kind of working through them sure so local is within 40 miles is what we've established and that was established with the district right on the very beginning so we had conversations with the district to identify what do we want to consider local a portion

094of that then is there's a targeted approach so in the very beginning and this is continued forward we worked with local associations contractor associations we've worked with the local unions really to try to identify who those contractors are if there's contractors outside of our network we wanted to try and understand who they are a regular basis i still meet with them still talk with those associations in those contacts to try and bring in new companies obviously we've been working through this for four years now a lot's changed companies have started up we want to make sure that we're giving those opportunities to still come after the work as well we carry a database so we actually track all of the contractors not only just local but also contractors from across the country and within michigan

095obviously that will actually go out and target those contractors specifically so for example our electrician will see electric that's an electrician that we met through those contacts we will go directly to them when we're bidding to make sure that they have all of that information as a local jackson trade contractor they've worked on a lot of our projects and have a lot of opportunities to work in the projects because of that so we've kind of overcome it i guess in a lot of various ways is the easy way to put it so does that answer the question okay i have a question for you yes ma'am um so just some understanding you do the bidding process or you were awarded the bid what um you do the bidding prop you cover the bidding process or

096you were awarded the bid who are you no problem i'm sorry i'm with csm group i'm sorry so we actually facilitate the bidding process okay thank you another question for you sure um and this is something i talked to jeff about as well and we've had numerous couple conversation numerous conversations actually about this process sorry i want to make sure i stay in the mic from what i understand jeff is saying we don't have a specific diversified bidding process so we don't specifically look for minority owned or black owned organizations um black and minority-owned organizations to uh bid with us we and do we do that or don't we help me understand we absolutely do do that we do that thank you so i was unclear on that um we keep track of who's bidding

097yes we keep track of who gets the bids yes we do we keep track of who's not getting them and why they're not getting them when you say who's not getting them so can you clarify that so if we're keeping track and obviously you don't have this data in front of you right now so i'll you know grant you that but if we're keeping track of who gets the bids then and if we see that all of our bids are going to white owned businesses um then we'd have to ask ourselves why aren't you know again if other organization now this is i don't know who's really supposed to answer these questions but just so you know i'm just okay but um so you're not feeling like you're on the spot or something but you're

098all right um if again we're keeping track of all of our who's bidding and then we know who's getting awarded these bids we'd have to ask ourselves why are black and brown businesses not getting the bids because it sounds like we have more so white owned businesses or help me understand am i wrong on that or is it that's something you need to bring the data to so we do have a targeted approach for minorities specifically i think that's what you're trying to get to is black and minority on yeah sure yep so we have a specific approach to that um we actually partner with trade associations um so west michigan um actually have west michigan minority contractor association is one of them they're local to just west michigan um we actually work with them

099to identify other companies one of the things you'll notice on here so we try to break up the project to make it so all contractors have a fair shot at getting projects minority union non-union all across the board if you look at flooring for example on here we have you'll notice we have three different flooring contractors that are being specifically awarded that's part of the targeted approach we do we know the demographics of those three uh for example i can get it for you i don't have it right in front of me though i apologize no no problem you didn't you mean you didn't know that you were gonna have these questions but um so and maybe this won't answer the question or maybe this is something that you can bring back later but i

100would like to understand um and it's or to know do we have a process in place so that because a lot of times minority-owned businesses black and minority owned businesses because they have not been around as long they have you know these other barriers that are in place they are kind of even though they are allowed to bid and we kind of go out and look for them and let them come in and bid because they're just not at the same space as other organizations though they can still do the same job and do a good job at it they're kind of knocked out the way already um different different um uh cities and different places like that around here for their bidding processes they will have a in their process they will create a

101like um scale uh based on the fact that you're a minority on it will kind of give extra points for uh that and then add that into like the process so i'm speaking you know however hopefully you can kind of make some sense of this a little bit if we don't have that okay good thank you if we don't have that in place the minority and black owned businesses will never really meet whatever standards we have and it sounds like we don't have anything like that in place so from the actual bidding aspect we can't have a point rating system and that's because of the restrictions that we have for bidding itself um so we have specific requirements that are law by the state of michigan that we have to follow and abide by um

102there's certain requirements that all trade contractors doesn't matter if you're minority if you're a union if you're non-union doesn't matter they all have to follow those from there we have a vetting process again it's irrelevant to who the trade contractor is we'll put all contractors through the same um betting process to make sure that they are the most competent and responsible bidder which is the key word for that so when it comes to minorities specifically we do have an approach that we utilize for that we track businesses that are minority businesses we do specifically target those businesses and try to make sure that when we're going out to bid that we are inviting them we're getting them the information if they are having questions things along those lines we do actually have right on our

103bid form which has to be submitted with all bids it states right on the front of whether they are a minority business or not and it actually lists out all the different types so whether it's women-owned black owned etc um so we do track all of that we do have a targeted approach um it's not like we're just sending it out and just hoping right we do specifically go out for that oh thank you it would be nice the next time that you come in and maybe there's something that jeff can do sure to kind of have some background some specific data on who you know was approached you know specifically or however that's done and then who you know made the first cut and you know it'd just be nice to have that information

104sure we can use that for you not a problem thank you yes ma'am so so actually rob what i'll ask you to do is send me a list of all of the contractors that were that were invited to bid or rather we specifically contacted um and then i'd like to know which bidders bid the project um and so that would be the ones who made the cut first is who bid and then how you because we we vet those low bidders we don't typically vet every bidder so if you can if you can submit that to me uh in a file i'll pour that out to the board by next week yeah that's fine and i do have statistics i have numbers i don't have exact contractors or like who bid what i have that

105right now if you like i want the demographics and it'd be nice like even if you did i need more than like one contract you know i mean it'd be nice to have something to compare to so you know more than one journal yep i can get that i'm going to try to provide you every so we bid that several i think you you saw the list there's several different areas that were bid out right so it's um and i apologize let me reopen it up here um sorry everything from demolition to flooring to lockers to electrical and so on and i'll get i'll get a list from rob of every contractor that was contacted and every contractor that bid underneath all of those so so it won't just be one contract it'll be specific

106to each bid each bid package perfect okay now let's take a vote i'm just terrible you're doing great i'm very loud i don't really need it okay all in favor say aye opposed the same pes okay thank you very much yes ma'am and that jackson high construction rob will begin beginning of april is that the anticipation yeah we're shooting for probably more like mid april is when we're targeting yep so um and uh we will see rob again uh in just a few months as we uh actually will we have bids back from sharp park so bids are out currently right now um for uh sharp park and those bids are due back next thursday and uh so rob will be vetting the the again the low bidders and we will bring that for recommendation

107in march okay thank you again very much okay number nine discussion items non-unit employee contracts get you marcus i got this one oh all right um so every year we have a group of employees primarily reynolds hall employees although they they don't fit underneath a an association meaning they're not part of the jea or the the administrators association or so on and so every year we bring you their contracts again for for renewal and we are recommending a one year renewal with a two percent raise and a one percent annuity where applicable um the total dollar amount um fiscal impact is for thirty four thousand six hundred and sixty-five dollars um the uh the group is bear with me here one second under contract currently through 2023 june 30th of 2023 and this would extend

108their contracts through june 30 of 2024. so we are seeking a recommendation uh to approve those uh no we're not this is a discussion i apologize so that that will be before the board for action in the month of march does anybody have any questions for me at this point uh if not you can help me down and i have one question i thought i was going to be asking it to marcus but um just as far as consistency goes is this pretty much the same predetermined two percent raise that mr beale got last month that we approved yes these two percent increases for the non-unit folks have been historically the same for the past several years and then that two percent is compounded on top of your current salary rate of pay so this

109would i mean each year each year so next year's result was approved last year this is extending it to that third year right 23 24 correct okay thank you here again marcus will you discuss the summer tax collection agreements all right so again this is for discussion tonight and next month we'll seek approval every year we have tax collection agreements with the with most of our municipalities to levy and collect our taxes and remit them to us they're one year agreement so our our agreements with summit blackman napoleon and liberty township expired in 2021 since we intend to levy 100 of our taxes in the summer we need to have another agreement for those collection terms which are listed down below so the municipalities have provided the approximate number of parcels in their municipality and

110then the rate that they charge per parcel which has not changed in the last several years it's remain remain flat and the amount you see there which again is allotted for in the in the budgets that we present each june for the following year so again this will come up again next month for the board to approve but we wanted to bring this before you guys tonight to get a first look at it and if you had any questions that we can we need to look into for you any questions on summer tax no okay thank you we will go now to action items jeff all right the first action item up tonight is policy 8321 this is an update if you recall we had an audit by the state of michigan back in uh

111december early part of december and uh with regards to how we control and manage fingerprints um and so they they really looked at our policy they had no issues with any of our actions or or how we were operating but they had one recommendation it's a pretty simple recommendation it's in here for transporting fingerprints or when we are transporting fingerprints the they would like us to change our or amend our policy to state that um when we do transport fingerprints that they will either be in a sealed envelope or a locked container while in transport and uh so that's the only change to the policy this is a second time you've seen this uh and it is the board uh the recommendation superintendent to approve this policy as provided can i get a motion for

112approval so moved second second thank you let's fight about it okay all in agreement say aye aye oh what was the discussion any discussion on this the summer texts okay hearing none now oh i'm sorry this is the palace you have the summer text nothing on the policy okay all in favor say aye aye those opposed the same thank you okay now we're in food service equipment purchase marcus all right so we have been working on a spend down plan for our food service fund balance so the food service fund um is uh mostly governed by federal dollars and there's a fund balance so there's you know some rules and and guidelines that we have to follow and you can't have too much of a fun balance in the food service fund so we we

113have a little bit of excess fund balance that we're looking to spend out so we have gone through the district and looked at a lot of equipment upgrades that that we've been in in need of over the last several years and attached there's a list of food service equipment needs that we have gone out and receive multiple quotes from different vendors in consortium we have a summary sheet there for all the different items and the total purchases are 484 thousand 601.83 cents that will be paid for 100 out of the food service fund to help spend down that excess fund balance that we are seeking approval for tonight okay do i hear a motion thanks lib second support support now discussion on the food service thing okay i'll just say one thing go ahead so

114i loved the fact that i was at the finance committee meeting when we went through this and it was in a bit more detail and the one thing that i said to bran at that time was if this was my kitchen i would be so excited so i think it's i think it's so great that we're replacing all these items absolutely okay i guess i'd just add this is really only the first half approximately there's a much richer project or much more detailed project on replacing some walk-in coolers um and and this is part of a spend down plan that we we have to submit to the state uh so again this we brought it to facilities and finance and there's you can actually go in and kind of look at each item if you're

115if you're in the know of how many heated coolers we're providing but um but without a doubt this will probably provide some much needed upgrades for our food service department we have a great food service provider and i'm just pleased that we're doing this um unfold right more discussion any more discussion okay now vote all in favor say aye oppose the same passes thank you okay marcus next one oh next one you okay hold on transportation transportation yeah marcus all right so our current contract with mets transportation expires at the end of this year so we went out four bid for rfp again we invited several transportation carry carriers i think we had invited four different vendors and three of them wound up submitting proposals we reviewed the bids and we are recommending at this

116time to continue our current relationship with mets transportation for a new three-year contract and the amounts listed for each year one two and three in your summary sheet so we would recommend that mats be awarded the transportation contract for the next three school years to stay with mets for three more years in transportation i'll make them all soon shalonda support okay share a little support thank you any discussion no i i do have one question mark it's in the notes part so is there really any difference in these notes like once is only includes mechanics for mets does it also include full service i mean what does full service mean and what does just includes mechanics mean so full service from what i found could mean different things depending on the vendor right one vendor

117full service included mechanics and taking over parts ordering for the district another vendor meant just adding the mechanics to the to the equation i think one vendor had asked about it and we said we would be interested in looking at an alternate bid for mechanic services those are provided through edgestaff currently and then one vendor provided two alternates for full service and buying our bus fleet so it really it means different things to different vendors at the end of the day we obviously have have a nice bus fleet that we've been maintaining through the bond and through the general fund for the last several years so we really have no interest in giving that up obviously um and at the end of the day um it really just wasn't worth it to go to a

118higher contract and a new vendor for for what we're getting no okay i'll in favor say i oppose the same passes thank you and now this one is yours right here we go all right um so masb sends out information all the time and i'd like to recognize and thank ms hamilton for kind of finding this one in the email that we got masb board of directors elections are coming up and there's a deadline that we are up against so we as a group either need to select who we want to elect to the board of directors for masb um or not we that that's this board's decision um but what there are three candidates from our region and those their packets and write-ups are in your board packet um if you choose to support

119any of them and we can get a vote that tells us or directs us who to vote for on your behalf then michelle oxley will log in on march 2nd at the appropriate time and cast the ballot on your behalf the the three candidates are guillermo lopez from the lansing school district he is the incumbent i'm going to get this one bad susan marlin zeisser from monroe public schools and michael mcveigh from saline area schools and so i guess i would entertain if there is a motion to support one of these candidates and then a we can entertain discussion if we get a motion in a second and go from there i make a motion that we support susan marlin zeiler zio sir okay discussion i'll just add the reason why i thought she was

120a good choice she's pretty engaged on our facebook page actually all three of them have facebook pages and pretty they're somewhat engaged but she's really engaged she's focused on mental health she's a strong advocate of public education she seems solid so that's why i was suggesting susan just in reading the bios i would have chosen the same candidate as kisha okay nothing okay all right there's no more discussion let's go ahead and vote on favor opposed passes thank you okay now number 11 is board comments uh i did want huh yeah yeah i did want to um remind us it's one comment for board member this is not the point of discussion um speak once and then listen like in school when you raise your hand speak once and then listen um okay michelle go

121ahead did you say me i was aaron i mean cheryl did you save me from me did you say for me to speak or something did you decide and hear you go ahead thank you okay um so just so the audience knows i did suggest that this comment um be placed in a different space on the agenda but they chose to have it placed here so just so you know i'm so too the jackson public school board of education the jps community from board trustees keisha hamilton and libby brown the subject matter of this comment that i have tonight is regarding harassment and threats from jps board treasurer aaron white this letter is to address the harassment and threats and refusal to follow a request in an appropriate time frame suffered from the hands of

122former president and current board treasurer aaron white toward colleague colleagues kisha hamilton and libby brown jackson public school board trustees which occurred on january 18 2022 immediately following the january 18th 2022 jackson public school board meeting treasurer aaron white aggressively approached board trustees keisha hamilton and libby brown to inform them that he would continue to address in the same manner referring to his recorded comments during the official meeting any concerns we discussed which treasurer aaron white deemed inappropriate this happened again like i said after the meeting board trustee hamilton requested and even demanded very clearly that trustee white walk away and that she did not want to talk at that time this is third person speaking because i am kisha hamilton board trustee treasurer white refused to honor her agency space autonomy and chose not

123to respect her request by remaining planted in that space he insisted on invading her space and aggressively relaying his message of contempt anger and disagreement with board trustee hamilton's performance in her role as a duly elected jps board trustee again this happened after the meeting you all did not see this because the cameras were off treasurer white after forcing an audience with trustee then turned to trustee libby brown and insisted on informing her that she needed to get her in order referring to board trustee hamilton both board trustees hamilton and brown were both so impacted and concerned after this encounter that they reached out immediately to masb for guidance and support and how to address this incident jps board policies and administrative guidelines which are found on our website if you ever want to go

124look at it uh po0144.2 c and d under that uh guideline states as members of the board of education board members will strive to improve public education and to that end they will see states render all decisions based on the available facts and independent judgment and refuse to surrender that judgment to individuals or special interest groups d of that same policy says board members will encourage the free expression of opinion by all board members and seek systematic communications between the board and students staff and all elements of the community while healthy disagreement and discussion should occur at the board table at no time it is is it appropriate for a fellow board trustee to bully and harass a colleague especially when said official is operating within the purview of their duties and responsibilities i request

125that treasurer aaron white sincerely apologize for him his intimidating unprofessional and threatening behavior and that he give assurance that he will not violate the board member ethics as outlined in our board policies and as accepted by this board of education thank you thank you lib i think it's uh wonderful that we are inviting the schools uh back again and that the kids the kids can come in and show us what they've done and what they've been learning in each school and i thought that the performance tonight by dibble was excellent so glad that we're bringing it back all right i definitely want to give some kudos to really parkside but i think it would be impossible for me not to to speak on on that and i i recognize some folks here and some of

126you i don't know you very well and and i would encourage you to reach out to me if you want to know me further that's totally fine with me i'm humble enough certainly to say that if i offended kisha in any way shape or form or and i've heard the word like attack a few times and that was certainly not my intentions so i do and i had already planned on apologizing for that publicly and personally to keisha um but i i would also say that the content behind what i said well i would agree that my body language was probably not in order so i can see why the perspective would have been what it was but the content of my message that day while it was very brief goes far beyond the board

127or the superintendent goals far beyond and i would encourage anyone that wants further understanding i would certainly help you understand my perspective better i clearly get why in a board meeting and a snippet why perceptions would be what they are but keisha i have no intentions on having any public rift with you private riff so for that i do apologize but also the board understands and many other people understand that the content behind what i said there's there's certainly some some validity behind that and then beyond that i parkside i i just say hats off to the effort that they put on and i know that covid kind of put this effort on the back burner and that's the national african-american parent involvement day which began in ann arbor by a really great man and

128a great family i've had some community members ask me why is it called national african american parent involvement day and i think it's important that it is intentional on what it's named and what it's derived from and what it should be but i think the the amazing part of it and the blessing is that it's very inclusive and when you look at what happened at parkside it was really that it was a it was a collection of different ethnicities and people from different walks of life and i would never shy away from anyone asking me the urgency behind getting parent involvement specifically african-american parent involvement i think it's beyond critical christa jarvie principal who champions that effort at parkside along i can see christy dillon here and really their whole leadership mr patterson mr berkey

129and all of the vendors that came out that day hopefully mrs jarvie if she's championing that effort continues to get the support that she needs as as next year comes around and that's an event that i really think we should really really highlight more thank you i want to thank william patterson and julie baker for the data the information that you provided to us the work that is happening within our district um and the transparency about the numbers and being open to new innovative ways to try to remedy what the um what covett has done to our students their learning journey and everything above as far as the teachers socially emotionally i really appreciate all that information that you provided and to our audience tonight i am happy to see so many individuals represented here

130tonight we have these meetings once a month it is very important we want community voices i encourage you to continue coming i appreciate the comments that are being made we want to see change in our district thank you and i look forward to seeing you again and then just the academic excellence from our students at devil very very impressed with the presentation from our staff and how they are standing behind the hype thank you um i wanted to bring an article to the board's attention that came out in the citizen patriot on january 25th so it was after our last meeting but it's talking about uh student enrollment in the state of michigan and in the fall count this year the entire state lost over 53 000 students and it's every district across the board

131almost every district and just thirteen thousand of that alone was kindergarten kids parents who held their kids back from entering kindergarten because of the pandemic because of covid so we budgeted to lose students in the beginning of the year and not only did we not lose students but we gained about 25 heads in our district this year and when everyone across the state is losing and 53 000 students in the state of michigan i am proud of jps for the fact that we are maintaining we're building and we're growing and i think that you all should be proud of that too i have the article if anyone wants to read it um and then i do have one other thing i was a little disappointed to find out late this afternoon that there was an

132item added to our agenda today at the last minute i too wanted to add an agenda item it was last night it was no one's fault but my own that i did not review the agenda until last night and i noted that board goals were not included and i really wanted to add that to the agenda but i personally felt that less than 24 hours notice to add an item to everyone's list of things to do when we all work and have families and other obligations i thought that that was not fair and so i was disappointed to see that there was an agenda item added this afternoon i just had a couple comments um the first one cheryl i read that and i uh cut it out and i was so excited i did

133not highlight it it's already yellow um i was excited that our district has been losing people most our little students for years and years and years and every year we budget for a loss and in the midst of this pandemic and of all the schools problems and all the businesses closing i was ecstatic that jps gained kids for the first time in a long time and what a horrible time in which to be able to do that i can't imagine what we could do when it gets better with the covet situation and the second thing i want to talk about dibble a couple of milo a couple of my uh many children and grandchildren went through dibble and they still go by the school now and say they're a stipple dinosaur they used to be

134double dinosaurs um i was excited about the books they chose i was extremely pleased with the poems that they presented and i was hoping that more of that would happen because i think people are so afraid of offending one another that they just don't talk about race and it was so important to hear the celebration i really appreciated those choices that's it nothing for me no nothing else going on so let's go to 12 and this is a new business closed session it is a personnel issue and while you can stay here the board will be across the hall to discuss it i need a motion to go into closed session so move baby second support from cheryl all in favor say aye all opposed okay passes so we will be back and you can

135stay or not you whatever comes up all we're going to do is for me oh um anything else are we all ready okay let's go okay at this point i need a motion to go back into closed session or open session i'm sorry i am tired it's past my bedtime i'll make that motion keisha oh i thought i heard from down there there a second lip all in favor opposed okay um this would retain a motion i will enter we have to make okay after extensive discussion is there any motion to be made regarding um the next move so based on the conversation that we had in the closed session i do make a motion that we uh secure outside uh sources to investigate the complaint that i raised against superintendent jeff beale a second

136any discussion on this as i mentioned in there in my line of work it's i'm in human resources and i've been in that environment for a while um it's it's totally standard for there to be an investigation and as legal counsel recommended third party neutral to the situation would probably be the best course of action that's what i believe okay thank you um i don't have a problem with an investigation but i'm uncomfortable at this moment without being able having the opportunity to review the documents that are being sent to us along with the policy so i personally would like to see us table this until such time that we've been able to review the documentation we have a motion and a second is that the end of the discussion okay all in favor of

137having a third party investigation say i apologize you want a roll call okay okay uh miss hamilton yes mrs brown yes mr white yes no motion passes 4-2 could i get a motion to adjourn there a second you're in support okay thank you we're adjourned you