001welcome to our january public schools regular board of education meeting um give me a second we'll get thank you very much so i will call the meeting to order as this is our organizational meeting and um in a little bit we'll jump to our election of officers but if i could get a pledge of allegiance if we could all rise for that i would appreciate it i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic to which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much um and miss oxley if we could get a roll call please present here all right next up is the approval of the agenda so i would take a motion to approve the agenda support brown
002and hunt thank you very much question jeff um i need to the minutes to be um adjusted is this where i answer that at or at some other port for the minutes um where are we you would you like to pull the uh the minutes out yes okay all right so can i get uh if i could maybe one more time a motion to approve the agenda as amended miss hamilton miss hunt all right uh and so the uh all in favor thank you very much everybody all right next up is the organizational portion of our meeting uh this happens annually lots of this is um wrote but we'll go through some of that the very first thing though is the election of officers and bear with me here while i get my page opened
003up all right i am uh seeking nominations for the office of president i would like to nominate angela mitchell for president thank you very much are there any other nominations all right hearing none at this time i'll close the nomination process all those in favor for angela mitchell for president please say aye aye aye and opposed me as i'm standing from that vote i don't know that you can abstain miss hamilton is a no no all right miss mitchell madam president i turn the meeting we need to swear you in if i could if you'll raise your right hand okay i state your name i angela mitchell do solemnly swear or affirm do solemnly swear or affirm that i will abide by the bylaws rules and regulations that i will abide by the bylaws rules
004and regulations the board of education of the board of education and shall faithfully discharge the duties and shall faithfully discharge the duties of my office as president of my office as president to the best of my knowledge and ability to the best of my knowledge and ability welcome all right the rest of the meeting is yours okay thank you welcome all right next we are on election of vice president so at this time are there nominations for that i'd like to nominate libby brown for vice president okay are there other nominations i would like to nominate pam fitzgerald for vice president okay at this time oh sorry are there any others so mrs oxley can you do the roll call vote oh just the yeah normal hamilton for libby brown yes this is brown yes
005oh for me we're selecting which vote for okay for pam pam fitzgerald all right miss fitzgerald if you'll do you solemnly swear that you sound like but i will abide by the bylaws and rules and regulations of the board of education and shall faithfully discharge the duties okay thank you next number three is election for secretary so at this time are there nominations for that that's a huge weakness on my part you know that i would like to nominate are we doing treasure or secretary cheryl simonetti our secretary okay are there other nominations for secretary okay hearing none okay oh are we just not okay in favor opposed okay motion carries cheryl all right i state your name i'm cheryl simonetti do you solemnly swear or affirm do you tell him that i will abide
006by the bylaws that i will abide by the bylaws rules and regulations rules and regulations of this board of education and shall faithfully discharge the duties shall faithfully discharge the duties of my office as secretary to the best of my knowledge and ability thank you for your service okay thank you and next up is the election of treasurer so at this time are there nominations for that i'd like to nominate erin white for the office of treasurer okay are there any other nominations okay hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay aaron all right aaron last one my friend i state your name do you solemnly swear or fun or affirm that i will abide by the bylaws rules and regulations of this board of education and shall faithfully discharge faithfully the
007duties of my office as treasurer to the best of my ability okay thank you for your service thank you we are on um line item 21-22-64 organizational resolutions all right so the organizational resolutions again this comes around every year uh so what we're going to be asking for is that the board ratify the following oops excuse me the following resolutions schedule and time place of our 2022 regular board meetings we have 5 45 here in the jackson library on january 18th february 15th march 15 april 19th may 17th june 21st july 19th august 16th september 20th october 18th november 15th and the one non-third tuesday is december 13th and that's because the third tuesday would fall during the holiday break for legal advertisements we advertise with the mlive media group and the jackson blazer and
008the committees and charges uh the pres the president of the board of education shall appoint members to the organized organized committees if you have a desire to serve on one of these committees please let angela know the county school board association which meets the first saturday of the month at nine jackson parks and recreation department the board finance committee the board policy committee and the board district improvement committee we have organizational memberships michigan association of school boards the jackson lunch rotary corporation non-profit network greater jackson chamber of commerce and the jackson county naacp delegation of election duties the secretary of the board of education delegates election duties to the elections officer for the jackson public schools board that is um oh crying out loud am i praying good election officer upstairs laurie near pass yes
009sorry my brain just died on me laurie near passed and then the annual retainer we resolved that brendan beer from the law firm of abbott thompson malden parker and beer plc shall continue as legal counsel for the board during the 2022 calendar year and the administration recommends that we adopt these organizational resolutions as presented okay so at this time i would entertain a motion for the board to adopt the organizational resolutions as presented for the 2022 calendar year soul mode okay thanks erin thanks libby any deliberation just a question um what is the delegation of election duties what exactly does mr near pass do she she works with the the the county clerk's office and for all of our polling locations thank you yeah tonight when does school start in august do you know yeah
010we do um i'd still august 24th next year yep okay anything else okay all those in favor say aye opposed okay motion carries next line item is 21-22-65 the financial resolutions each year the board of education must designate the financial institutions in which the funds of the districts will be deposited at the current time comerica bank is the district's main depository uh comerica bank charges about forty thousand dollars per year to maintain our accounts uh the benefit is to safeguard the district's funds and to provide investment income the budget impact there is no impact since the fees charged are included in the 2021-22 budget and they're partially offset by our interest income the administration recommends approval of the following depository institutions comerica bank as our primary county national bank huntington bank true community credit union
011baker tilley my class and the pfm okay so at this time i would entertain a motion for approval of the following depository institutions america bank county national bank huntington bank true community credit union baker tilly michael is it my class sorry and pfm okay thanks pam thanks libby any deliberation okay hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay motion carries uh next line item is 21-22-66 adoption of legal reference note all right the revised school code requires school boards to adopt a legal reference note it contains the following the legal name of the school district is jackson public schools jackson public schools is a general power school district under the michigan law the board of education is comprised of seven members who are elected for terms of six years members holding office
012on january 1st 2022 and expiration of their current terms are listed below erin white term expires december 31st of cheryl simonetti december 31st of 2022 pam fitzgerald december 31st of 2024 libby brown december 31st of 2024 angela mitchell december 31st of 2024 kisha hamilton december 31st of 2026 and shalonda hunt december 31st of 2026. members of the board of education are elected in even years in the november election it is the administration's recommendation that the board adopt the legal reference note as presented support okay i would entertain a motion to adopt the legal reference note as presented thank you libby thanks shalonda any deliberation okay all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay motion carries next line item is 21-22-72 policy oh no no oh sorry sorry i'm out of order okay number six
013is the superintendent's report here we go all right um a couple of real quick highlights um for for my portion this is school board appreciation month please know that your service to our school to our students to our employees and our community does not go unnoticed we want to make certain that we say thank you each and every day because we are asked and quite often to make very difficult decisions sometimes they may not be the decision we want to make but we recognize that we we have an obligation to the district to continue to kind of move the district forward so i want to make certain that i say thank you we do purchase books uh to donate to jps schools uh in your name and so there is a list of books linked
014into your um linkedin to your uh agenda i see you are enough by margaret o'hare i am me by carla cuskin the gingerbread cowboy by janet squares dreamers by yuyi morales i am enough by grace byers dragons love tacos gotta find that book adam rubin uh threat of love brian's return maniac mcgee the three questions the rainbow came down rita and ralph's rotten day each kindness the day you begin by jacqueline woodson a big shot diary of a wimpy kid then there's some john lewis books march 1 march 2 and march 3. and then a breath too late one of the good ones and the skies the sky blues so we want to say thank you again for that i would also like if i could to take a very quick moment to brag about
015our early college i know that you have followed this since we started but i got a recent report that marked that 90 percent of the classes attempted in the jackson county early college were passed by high school students last semester by the way that's not just a little bit high that's higher than almost any freshman in any college across our country they outperform college freshmen average college freshman pass rate is 75 to kind of put this in perspective and our students are doing it at 90 percent i want to say that last semester there were somewhere in the neighborhood of college credits earned um and that's happening while students are completing their high school diploma so um i'll send out some more information on that but i want to give a real shout out because
016it's a a huge boon as these students continue to to make their way towards a some post-secondary education um miss ginnetti i think you had a couple of things on your lid i sure do first of all congratulations to the new officers for this year we look forward to serving with you and on behalf of julie william and myself we thank you for your service for all that you guys do we know what pressure you're under we know what stress we know what commitment it is and we just want you to know that we we know how great we are to work with but we love working with you guys too so thank you very much for the time and and that you take away from your families to be a part of jackson public
017schools it's appreciated um first of all you know it's count we're certain it's enrollment time so it's kindergarten roundup so we just met yesterday or today i can't remember which and we will be once again having kindergarten roundup in april um with all of our partners so we have a number of partners from the library to the jackson all of our our preschools we partner with the center for family health the ymca jackson saves you name it they're there we actually will have an ell table this year which is first for us so we're very excited about that um for those who do not speak english as a first language we have a lot of information for them as you guys have requested that we do more of those things so that's one of the
018things that we will have this year that we're very excited about they are planned for april as usual we have seven elementaries as you know all of them are held at night and you'll start to see all the promotion billboards everything that's out there that i normally do plus a few more things interviews and things like that and then there's some you won't see because we do a lot of digital communication and digital ads that don't necessarily come up in your feed because it may not be something that you're looking for but otherwise there'll be the normal print ads and everything in um so you'll get to see that over the next couple of weeks as we round up towards kindergarten roundup and young fives so we will be doing those in person outside as
019we've done last year and doing the shirts that say class of 2035 oh i don't even know if i'll make it that long so we're very excited about that it's also enrollment time so you'll see a lot of push for our enrollment in different areas that again you may not see simply because it's not something that you're interested in but we do a lot of geo fencing and geo tracking with our ads online in a different couple of different areas we are working on our website and that will become live here pretty soon and then i just kind of wanted to update you a little bit on the eop which is our emergency operations plan as we said in our last meeting we are moving towards some specific goals for our committee this year we
020got a little behind about a week behind because of the coveted numbers but we have now scheduled all of our meet so so we sent out a form to all of our principals and all of our teachers and every person who is in a classroom to tell us what to tell us about their doors in their classroom this is one of our first priorities is to look at every single door in the district so we now have received most of those forms back and we will be going out as a team to every single building and doing a full day inspection of every door of a classroom or common area to see where we need to be so we can go towards our universal um what are those called paracords for the doors but we're
021also looking at you know just the hardware do they push in do they push out there's a lot of things that we'll be looking for on a checklist and so cabinet will be out with each of the principals and we'll be doing that work over the next month so we have scheduled all of those thank you michelle to get those done so we look forward to that part that's going to be a big piece for us and then from there we'll be making a plan on what we'll be doing next and how we'll be making sure that that's all taken care of so as we get through that we'll keep you posted on that and other than that i don't have much else that we're doing we just attended the mlk breakfast and as you
022guys may know the college mlk celebration was postponed and it is in march now and um our principal monica pierce will be honored at that so if you are planning on going or haven't seen michelle yet for our ticket please let us all right that concludes the superintendent's report for the month of january okay thank you we are on to number seven the consent agenda so at this time i would entertain a motion for approval of the consent agenda thank you libby thank you pam any deliberation okay all those in favor say aye hi oppose okay motion carries we are on line number eight uh citizens requesting to address the board there are several i can call you up one at a time and you can have the table in the mic here you have
023five minutes and um and then there's just no back and forth angela when will we be doing the minutes would that be later for the adjustment action okay thank you yep okay so the first one is gina hastings you can come on up okay thank you for having me oh okay thank you okay i did notice since you mentioned that that the speakers are um here are allowed to remove their masks to speak why is that well it could be that we all know that masks interfere with communication and that's why you let me take my mask off thank you is it easier to understand someone who is speaking without a mask on i think so you can see facial expressions that a mask would hide i think that's important so that's why i'm upset
024that you are requiring them for children masks are bad for kids health when kids wear masks carbon dioxide builds up in the dead space volume of the masks that can lead to hypercapnia which is too much co2 in the bloodstream it is pointed out that most of the complaints reported by children such as irritability headaches and relax reluctance to go to school can be understood as consequences of that elevated co2 in their bloodstream and psychologically the long-term harm to kids from masking is potentially enormous masking is a psychological stressor for the children and it disrupts their learning covering the lower half of the face of both the teacher and the pupil reduces the ability to communicate in particular children lose their experiences of mimicking expressions which is an essential tool of non-verbal communication positive emotions
025such as laughing and smiling becomes less recognizable and negative emotions get amplified bonding between teachers and students takes a hit overall it's likely that masking does exacerbate a child's chance of experiencing anxiety and depression which are already at pandemic levels themselves finally we all wonder did jps's mandates work did the cases of covid go up or down after your mandates went into place i'm looking at that data now and i will report back at the next meeting thank you thank you hey thank you okay next up william hastings hi my name is william hastings i'm a jps parent i'd like to begin tonight by thanking the school board for the many many positive things that are happening in the jackson schools at j jackson high school in particular whether they be the committed staff excellent
026teachers or the wealth of extracurricular programs and other academic offerings the opportunities available here in this building for the engaged and truly motivated students are very impressive indeed i would also like to thank the board more specifically for their recent decision to not close the doors of jps after the recent winter holiday as was the case in the lansing ann arbor schools with hindsight of the 20 20 20 21 school year it's become very obvious that there is a huge price to be paid in student engagement and basic learning and basic academic competencies when zoom calls are the norm and not a rarity so credit to you for keeping the doors of your schools open so far keep it up it is vitally important that the doors of this school remain open as the order
027and structure of the school day are as important to kids from poor and chaotic households and communities as they are to the academic high flyers and to everyone else in between so thank you again board members and superintendent beal for keeping jps open for business and not succumbing to media driven or politically motivated hysteria i challenge all of you to review the masking policies of the district specifically in regard to how they socially emotionally and psychologically damage the youngest students especially i've previously presented academic data to you supporting this view which i will not repeat here but your responsibility to the youngest students is profound and the effects of masking should not be glossed over i would direct your attention to the recent inauguration in virginia of governor glenn younkin a republican who won election
028last fall in a state that joe biden carried by 10 percentage points just 12 months earlier a prime mover in this state election was the large-scale efforts of parents who felt locked out tuned out and ignored by their local school boards on issues concerning the basic privacy and safety of their children and deep concern about how leftist ideologies pushing the lgbt agenda and critical race theory were taking precedence over academic concerns literally the first act of government yunkin after he was sworn in took office was to sign an executive order banning critical race theory and the teaching of other quote inherently divisive concepts in the public schools this is an issue that will need to be comprehensively and thoroughly addressed here in michigan in jackson by jps parents this school board and other interested parties
029this issue is not going away anytime soon i can assure you finally i leave you with a small contribution towards your excellent laundry initiative program which highlights how good ideas that positively impact kids in need are always welcome less ideology and more pragmatism is always a winning formula for schools as well as individuals thank you hey thank you uh next up um is it helen or helena i'm 11 years old and a couple months ago i spoke here regarding the mask mandate and i also spoke at the county commission meeting regarding the mass monday as well i am wholeheartedly wholeheartingly against this it has now been two years and the facts concerning the dangers of the masks are quite clear and that is they do not work in fact they are so unhealthy and cause
030pneumonia as well as other illnesses that can be very that can very much portray the symptoms of this copit i would think that most people understand that viruses do not do not keep going and going they die out at this point i know that this is not about a virus it's about control i need to see my friends faces i need to be i need to i need to be able to understand my teachers in order to learn and grow shame on you people this is a decision for my parents and or doctor not the school board of education finally i just want to voice my dismay with this lbgq plus or i mean and crt critical race theory agenda in the schools and the fact is that it is everywhere i look and have
031to discuss in my own classroom again this is a topic that my parents should be talking to me about i am in no way judging others however i do not like being confused as this as this thing is being shoved down everyone's throats in closing no one should have to ask to breathe the air god gave us unmask us please thank you for your time god bless you hey thank you um next up marilyn actor doll hi everyone wasn't thinking that i was going to speak tonight um and then i had no idea that there was a mask mandate my dad went here i went here my two siblings went here my kids went here some of you know me i see libby you know my kids and william um there are so many studies
032i didn't bring them with me i think you've probably seen them that there's no statistical evidence that masks work there's numerous studies i'm sitting back there i kind of even laughed to myself i have my glasses on and they're fogging up and i had to keep taking them down the masks are 0.4 microns and the viruses are only 0.1 so it's like taking a mosquito going through a tennis nuts i don't know if it makes people feel better to wear a mask i know that that has been something that it gives them something because there's so much fear but i am a licensed professional counselor and i had to go and change my office because the office i had they wanted me to wear a mask with little tiny children and i i couldn't do
033it and so i i had to change my whole office you know i think it's real interesting also i've i've had covet i'm 65. i kind of really didn't know i did i kind of had a little bit of arthritis pain and my mom was 94 and she survived covet and my whole family has had covet and they've survived and i think there are treatments so um when i was getting a master's degree i subbed pam i think i talked to you as years ago but from 2005 until 2008 and i actually liked it kids would run to me and say will you be our sub because i would come in with my mary poppins bag and i'd read them a story and give them a moral story at esops you know and i'd be
034the wolf when i teach them how to you know shouldn't be lying and the boy that cried wolf and i had an awesome genghis khan story and um honestly i don't think i i even i'm retiring i was thinking gosh i'd love to go back to you know substitute teaching again and i thought oh my gosh i don't think i could wear a mask all day and i i just don't think i'd be effective with children either so um thank you so much though i know that you're not getting paid to hear all of us speak tonight but i know all of you really helped my kids you know i just to this day i'm so thankful what you did for my son nick thank you i usually don't cry well actually i do cry
035every day so i'm gonna cry now so anyways thank you for your service and everything you do okay thank you uh jennifer bittinger thank you um last month when i attended the the meeting here um i just felt compelled that i had to express my great concern and personal anger that our public schools are supporting and promoting the so-called vaccinations for our young children we expect the leaders of our education system to research the facts and not and act accordingly not go along with the rich and powerful that are behind the pharmaceutical industry and media i i realized that there is so much misleading information out there but the truth is out there if you research it and search for it even the government organizations now are are being forced to put out the truth
036the facts that first of all the mask which people have been talking about like like this wonderful woman said are ineffective for doing it so why are we doing that why are we pushing that on our society why are you all here in a mask i still can't understand that um and but as far as the vaccinations that is the extremely dangerous thing um the facts are that very few children had serious complications with the virus going through until our government decided to push the shot onto them and now there are so many reported deaths of our children actually reported to us on on on sites there are so many that probably aren't reported of our children and many more serious adverse health effects following the shot and all this after they are now publicly
037stating that the shot is not a vaccination it will not keep you from getting the virus only it will only put harmful things into our children's bodies so many of our parents and citizens have been coming to me and crying and crying out to the public for help so i just ask you to please check the facts please educate yourselves please take a stand to protect our children from the harmful shot and educate them with truth thank you very much okay thank you and next up catherine i don't want to mess up cheers maker good evening i'm not here to talk about masks or covet and as as a former board member my heart goes out to you my name is catherine curesmaker i live at 1116 south durant street just behind the new cascade
038school to the south of cascade school is an acre of land with very old oak trees this acre of property was included in the sale to the isd when they purchased frost school on 12 december 14th my neighbor pointed out to me that there were 10 trees with ribbons around them said caution and he told me that they were going to be cut down to put in a parking lot and a bus pass through for the isd i contacted kevin oxley superintendent of the isd to ask if the parking lot and bus pass-through could be moved to the south side of frost school and he told me that that property was owned by the county so i talked with steve shotwell who's the chairman of the county commission and asked if the property on the
039south side of frost could be sold to the isd to move the parking lot in the bus turnaround so mr shotwell suggested that there could possibly be a land swap saving the trees and he excuse me he asked that i write a letter to mr overton and himself explaining the situation which i did on january 4th the jackson county audubon society big tree coordinators monica day and peg clevenger surveyed the trees are white oak and bur oak and using a widely used calculation to determine the tree age they found that the smallest trees in that lot are 191 years old that dates back before michigan excuse me became a state the other large trees are 300 years old which means that they were here around before we were a nation the trees can live up
040to up to 500 years of age they are healthy trees they are not diseased these trees are drought tolerant and fire resistant and when we had that category zero tornado a few years ago those trees withstood that great wind and they were not damaged our neighborhood has a high water table and jackson county is the headwater of five rivers these mature oaks provide an ecosystem by absorbing water through their roots one large tree can soak up a hundred gallons of water a day that that's one of the reasons why when you built the new cascade school you put in a holding pond on the north side of the school when you dug the foundation if you plant 10 trees for each one that would be destroyed they would never make up for the aged trees
041in the impact they have on the environment in cleaning co2 one mature tree can capture the same amount of carbon emissions as what driving a car 1500 miles in emits one tree can absorb up to two pounds of air pollution a year there has been no environmental impact done on removing these trees the issue that if those trees are removed the neighborhood would flood after a good rain cascade school would flood after a good rain cascade school is on the same level as that acre of land so i come to you today to urge you to maybe contact the isd because there are i'm going to say three members on the direct board not the members that you have selected thank you who feel that it's not necessary to worry about these trees and the
042environment or the neighborhood so i would suggest that we all be good neighbors as mr oxley would say and call him and ask him to save those trees if not for the environmental sake for historical sake thanks hey we are on number nine discussion items 21-22-72 policy 8321 criminal justice information security the first reading mr beale all right um 83 21 so every i won't say period i'll just say periodically the state does an audit of our fingerprinting process and they did such an audit in august it was a clean audit they were very pleased with our our procedures the only recommendation that they had was a minor change to our policy 8321 and they would like to add one sentence to this policy um our policy is good in all respects and the only
043change that they are asking and i i'm bringing it before the board has to do with transportation and so it basically says that anytime we transport um digital or physical media specific to fingerprints that all transport will be in a locked container or sealed envelope that is literally the addition to this policy and so i would recommend this this is first reading i'd be happy to have any discussion on it if you have questions you can hit me up over the next month but please know i'll be bringing this back for action so that the next time the state comes down to do an audit and they say hey last time we were here we made this recommendation we could say yep we were on it so that's my recommendation at this time there's not
044a whole lot to this okay thank you uh we are on number 10 action items so first we will do the minute yep the minute one that was pulled 21-22-67 hamilton um so just one correction on here i was quoted incorrectly under the superintendent evaluation for last month 21-22-61 it says miss hamilton questioned why the rating went from highly effective to effective and would like the community to understand i commented i didn't question i understood why he went from highly effective to effective and i would like the record to reflect that i commented that that's what occurred not that i questioned it okay i would entertain a motion to approve the minutes we we have to as amended we have to prove a change in the misquote we're going to prove the amended minutes so
045so we're going to make that change to say commented instead of questioned and then we'll approve the minutes as amended okay so moved okay thank you keisha thanks libby any further deliberation on that okay all those in favor say aye aye opposed okay motion carries next line item is 21-22-73 superintendent goals jeff is me okay okay okay okay so the superintendent goals for 2022 jeff will create there's three goals the first one jeff will create a friendlier more inviting and inclusive volunteer policy which will include a volunteer handbook easier and prominent access on our webpage as well as a formal invitation to to appeal for every eligible denial the second one jeff will create and provide individual professional development based on the needs of the building and the needs of the instructor this was an
046area of concern on his most recent evaluation a report of the professional development provided and the training completed will be provided to the board of education and the third goal jeff will continue to implement a district-wide initiative around diversity equity and inclusion the initiative will develop district-wide goals that will create a rich experience for all of our students greater equity and access for our families and a system of support for our staff okay let me give this more paper so at this time i would entertain a motion for approval of the 2022 superintendent goals thank you pam thank you cheryl any deliberation yes okay um so um and we already spoke jeff and i did on these so he won't be surprised at these comments um but the top goal actually i have comments on
047all three of them so you know if we want to take one at a time as far as for commentary among each other but for the first goal he'll create a more inviting and inclusive volunteer policy um one second i think it's libby libby could i get thanks i think that's the feedback okay that better thank you okay so um on this volunteer policy um jeff made it clear when we spoke that he had difficulty with um having more volunteers because of cope which makes absolute sense because we don't want you know extra people in the buildings etc um so it's hard for us to measure this goal at least during that time you know last year not not this was a goal but it would would have been hard heck we've been measuring it
048um with ovid i'm sorry over omicron and colbit still being here the measurement of this goal is going to be almost impossible because we won't be really expecting people to come in because we're still in the midst of covet and omicron and whatever else might pop up later on throughout this year so um this this goal is not going to be measurable um it's now the the idea as far as creating a um you know more inclusive and inviting volunteer policy which you all remember i think it was august or september i um brought that to the table that i would like for the um this board to make a better you know and more inviting a volunteer policy i'm in agreement with i like the idea of us doing that when we had our
049meeting on how to do that jeff himself found you know some more inviting uh examples to choose from and mention that you know a matter of copying and pasting the language changing our the names out which i agreed with could be you know that's how easy we could get this uh you know volunteer policy updated which i agree with there's no reason to recreate or you know reinvent the wheel when um other people have the wording that you want that being said creating um you know making a more more inviting and inclusive volunteer policy is simply a matter of copying and pasting at this at this point for this goal primarily again because we are in the midst of covet um people are not going to be coming in to volunteer and so we won't
050be able to measure this goal i do think we should still update our policy but making this as one of his goals would be pointless because again we can't measure it and creating this updated version is a matter of copy and paste it might take you know four days to do that i would suggest that we go back to um student enrollment and retention as one of his goals for um to change that one out we value we graduated here june 2021 um 212 students at jps we have a district count of roughly 4 678 students northwest graduated 205 students which is just seven students less and they have a district count of roughly three thousand six hundred and twenty so they're you know at least a good thousand more than a thousand students less
051than us and graduating just seven students less than us that's concerning for me and we as a board should be concerned about that as well because that says something about what's going on in our district we don't want to be another albion in another five years where where you know we have to farm out our students because we don't have you know because people aren't choosing us we want people to believe the hype and the hype should be the people are choosing us and that's not what our graduating class is saying so i would suggest that we change that goal to and and make it measurable we all know about the smart goals specific measurable achievable realistic and then within the time frame not only retaining our students but i would like to see us
052add 50 students now if that's not if that's unrealistic then let's come up with a number that is realistic but um enrolling so keeping what we have right now 4678 and adding an additional 50 students to that i would like to see that be a goal because again this one is um it's it won't be measurable and it's uh and you can't even really accomplish it this year because of colbit do you want me to keep going for two and three because i have commentary on those two as well okay um so two his goal for jeff will create and provide professional development based on based on the needs of the building and the needs of the instructor this was an area of concern on his most recent evaluation so my personal uh evaluation of
053jeff this was not a concern for me um professional development of our teachers i am aware just like everybody on this board and all of you all sitting in the audience that you know there was much that was not being done during covet those last those two years 20 and 21. so that was not a concern for me um professional development occurs realistically all the time for teachers that's just that's just a part of you know kind of like the process that they go through yes we weren't able to do it during covet you know during that time because of covet which made absolute sense so that i wouldn't have and i did not grade him low um on that because that would be unfair to say you know professional development is not being offered
054and you didn't give professional development when you couldn't give it because it wasn't being offered so um the professional development that now things are opening up and so you know we should be able to do more more out there with it and so i'm glad that jeff is you know considering just starting back up but again you know it was going to be happening anyways i would like to see us focus on professional development with our staff teachers and whoever and everybody that's touching our students emotional support so a lot of times staff development and jeff mentioned the specifics or some examples of different professional development that he will be looking to get the student the teachers and different ones and they were around academics which makes sense we want our teachers to you know
055uh be where they need to be so they can properly teach our our students but what we're not focusing on which and which covet and omicron and this whole last few years have shown us is the emotional support the ability for our teachers to be able to connect with these students at a deeper level an emotional level to connect with parents um the disagreements that students and teachers are having with each other that parents and teachers are having with each other we're not focused on that type of professional development if we're going to make this as one of your goals i would like to see the professional development be specific now and then not only specific again we're talking goals that have to be smart so they need to be measurable we need to be
056able to say at the end of the year when we're getting ready to do jeff's evaluation okay this was your goal you know what was the result of it so you know it'd be easy to say we had a bunch of people go through these professional development classes okay now what did that do for you anybody who's running their own business you know that when you put someone through some type of training you expect them to operate or to operate through it and within that new training you expect them to to do something different you expect them to do better well not only do i want to see our teachers do um emotional support and these might not be the best terms for the type of trainings but training for emotional support mental health relationship
057building um after they do that training i would like to see us survey our students and our parents and say do you notice a difference between the way that you're that your teachers are dealing with you so that we can measure what these trainings are doing for them it is one thing for us to just continue training and and different people do that all the time just train train train train train which makes uh for the recipe for uh for disaster and failure to begin to occur but what are we doing with that training so i want to see if we were to change this to emotional support mental health you know awareness training on how to engage with students relationship building between parents and students t i'm sorry between teachers and parents teachers and
058students then um i would like for us to uh you know evaluate that send surveys out how is this how is this working for you as parents and to students the last one is jeff will continue to implement a district-wide initiative around diversity equity inclusion this initiative will develop district-wide goals that will create a rich experience for all of our students greater equity and access for our family and a system of support for our staff um i mentioned this last year when i first got on the board jps has gone through an equity audit i think four years ago now it might be five years ago now four or five years ago it's more than three years for sure that jps has gone through this equity audit which included you know statistically all the things
059that were wrong all the things that you know they included things we did good and they included a lot of things that we did we're not doing good which is why we had this auto we you got to get a baseline of where you are you know i mean it shouldn't be uh you know a bad thing to realize that you know i need to improve so this equity audit showed us all these areas that we need to improve and we haven't done much with that except gotten more training just more more more book reading now to be clear you know i understand jeff jay marks is here i i don't know if he's a doctor or not a is he a doctor okay so dr mark's because i want to definitely make sure i
060give him his credit his due but dr marks is here and i understand that he's doing a lot of professional training he's an excellent okay he's he's amazing he's going to give us some great information um the quality of the information is not the concern as much as doing something with it so here we are again with another professional development goal that was very similar to last year's as far as we're going to get more training around dei which my point last year was what are we doing with it and so i see that we're saying here we're going to develop district-wide goals my concern is and we don't have examples maybe you brought some examples but my concern is we've gotten this training we have specific specifics in the equity audit that we could
061be doing to change and to address these equity audit areas that where we came in low here we are we another year out where this whole board has gone through training you're going through training the the district is going through more training and again training training training and we're not doing anything with it so if we're going to keep that goal um and i understand you're planning to have these district-wide meetings when are these meetings going to be set up you know and then and then how soon will you begin to implement whatever comes out of it and i would like to have some examples jeff maybe and we talked about this so hopefully you have brought some some examples of different areas now and i appreciate you when we talked on the phone you
062mentioned that you don't want to come up with those goals yourself you want to allow the community to have input on that now mind you we're talking four years out from an equity audit that already suggested that we have community input parent input student input on how to improve we were supposed to be having a school improvement something going on which died out you know i'm not sure what happened with that um but here we are you know facing another year of talking about meetings but you know we should have some ideas now like i said i do think it's appropriate to make sure that we're including the community and the conversation but when are you planning to have that meeting and how soon do you begin um and intend to jump on the the
063goals that are created and what's what are some areas that you are specifically looking at you're the expert here you've been like i said through all these different trainings you know we've got four years out what are some specific areas that you're looking at that's what i would like to see as far as how we can measure um this goal because none of these goals can be measured right now you know and we need to be able to measure they should be specific measurable achievable realistic and they should have a time frame on them thank you okay any other deliberation cheryl i would add a couple comments um in my recollection of our discussion on the volunteer policy i certainly think i agree that maybe the appeal for every eligible denial may not be very
064measurable if we don't have volunteers and if we don't have denials but i think certainly creating a volunteer handbook and website prominence is certainly measurable we either do it or we don't i mean i i think those are pretty black and white we should be able to measure those and then as far as the professional development goes um i believe that jeff's comment is totally accurate as far as it being a concern on his most recent evaluation it was the lowest score that he got on the evaluation was on staff development and i think that that needs to stay okay anything else okay all those in favor say aye opposed what are we voting on uh these goals are we changing them are we just leaving them as they are that we're saying there was
065some yeah there was a motion on the table for these goals that i read so all those in favor aye opposed no okay motion carries okay we are on number 11 board comments so keisha thank you um so last month i brought up the issue of um jeff's in his uh his his evaluation he was requesting a increase in pay and also an extension on his term i mentioned to the community at that time and to this board as well that i had questions on why each year jeff was getting a raise and i wanted to talk to a lawyer to understand if it was fiscally responsible and just to understand what was actually going on to really have a second pair of eyes look at it and see if what i thought i was
066seeing was what i was seeing i was able to speak with our masb lawyer and he did confirm that what i thought i was seeing is what was occurring there was an addition you know a raise being requested that was not listed in the contracts each year which just speaks to a lack of oversight on this board's part to recognize that these numbers were changing each year um one year there was a typo for sure um you know that one year did there was it was just seemingly seemingly anyways i can't say for sure but it did seem to just be a simple typo um but of the seven years well 2014 to now seven or six what is the seven years um of the five years that i questioned one was just simply a
067typo i just thought it was important to let the community know that that is what i found again i was not questioning the legality of the raises because i recognize that if this board is giving them to him if this board is not focused or or paying attention to the different ways that the numbers are changing that's really just on us but i did wonder if what i'm seeing is correct and if it was fiscally responsible or not our lawyer was more focused on the legality of it which i kept trying to explain to him that was not my issue so we couldn't really get to the fiscally responsible part but it was it has been occurring and hopefully this board will take better notice of that you know in the future thank you libby
068i'd like to thank um tatter even though i couldn't participate in the dinner he all brant always brant always puts on a good uh excellent dinner and i'm glad that we have him in charge of food services and just wanted to give a shout out to all his good work you know i just want to give kudos to the progress that's being made unfortunately i think there's a very clear agenda that comes up board meeting after board meeting of a direct attack on jeff's career i think it's fair game if there's anything whatsoever that we that we find with the superintendent that we call out but i've been contacted by numerous community members from all different walks of life that see the very clear um agenda right now and it's incredibly disturbing and i would
069say that it's a complete waste of time um mostly for the people that supported you and voted for you and i am talking about you keisha thank you aaron for calling me outside know that is it my turn um okay i have three things first of all you'll see at the bottom of your agenda that the ambassador auction this year is going to be online so it's not a dinner at auction but the ambassador auction and i was contacted again to see if the board was interested in donating a basket we've done it every year and to pam's request we have a history of offering chocolate so i hope that you would all be willing to support a donation to the basket for the ambassador's dinner if we keep it chocolate we can discuss that
070if you can either bring your item to michelle will bring it to the february meeting and i'll put the basket together for the march online auction and then i would like to be sure that we put board goals maybe on the february agenda and the most important thing to me for board goals would be to finalize our board norms and then to live up to them and then the other thing i want to say is that in 2021 i was able to earn my level 3 masb certification and i don't say that for myself but i say that to thank mr veal because without the educational offerings we had in the past year i would have never had the earned credits to achieve that so thank you mr beale i just wanted to say how
071well i think things went the whole culvert thing obviously has disrupted well the world not just us but i think that our vacation time the kids coming back transitioning in went much more smoothly than it would have without tons and tons of preparation that has been done in the what-if categories what if this happens we'll do this what if this happens we'll do that and because of the preparation because of the paying attention to history um i wanted to thank you jeffrey it was wonderful to have things run so smoothly the kids knowing what to expect and parents know what to expect thank you i don't have any comments tonight okay i too would just like to thank jeff for all your continued hard work for the district it does not go unnoticed i think
072your goals are great and i'm very glad that you're the superintendent here thanks for all the board appreciation stuff the meal was great and happy new year um all right i'm i'm gonna make comment keisha to your this is a second board meeting in a row where you've questioned whether or not i have received raises for which the board has approved i have provided you with those numbers and now i'm going to request that the board call in our district council brendan beer who i did put you in touch with so that he can walk you through the contract so that it will help you understand that every year every contract the raise that i got was the raise that was approved by the board of education thank you um jeff i already said thank
073you nobody i'm gonna i'm gonna make a statement no because i'm gonna make a statement i'm going to make a statement no we are number 12. there is no new business [Music] um it was legal what you were doing february 10th is the jesus correctly annual meeting dinner you need rsvp february 13th thank you is the next meeting and march 11th is the jhs viking ambassador online auction so at this time i would entertain a motion for adjournment support thank you okay meeting adjourned thank you have a good night you