Lansing School District Board of Education Budget Hearing and Regular Meeting 6-15-2023

001assistant good evening it is 5 30 p.m on Thursday June 15th and I would like to call this public hearing meeting on the fiscal year 2023-2024 budget to order and ask that the clerk please call the roll Mr Richardson Dr Kavanaugh Mr Lopez Dr Rodriguez Miss Willis present Miss Moore present Miss lilji Dr body Miss Williams she miss yeah Miss Williams is here she is not present at her seat at this time sure or Miss present thank you um with that I would ask if there's any additions to the agenda for which I see none so that brings us to our presentation this evening and I will turn the floor over to Mr Ling and Miss Adams good evening as this as our public hearing that we're supposed to have or required to have for

002uh presenting our budget for next year and then in the agenda for the regular meeting there will be the motion to have it adopted so just as a reminder at this time there are some assumptions to the budget that we have because we don't know everything from the state and we'll go over a few of those things and then we'll discuss our revenues for projected for the year expenditures and then showing some four-year Trends and then open for any questions so what uh some of the things we do know is that the retirement rate from the state for ORS is going to be an average of about 31.34 percent for next year there's many different categories that depending on when an employee started in the retirement system so that's an average of what we do

003for budgeting purposes and then as far as what the health cap for hard cap for health insurance what were eligible or allowed to pay is increasing by 4.4 percent there's confused I just go ahead yeah okay oh okay and uh for property taxes we're going to be delivering nothing has changed this year I kind of mentioned we'd had the board approve the levies for next year last week and again our general fund operating tax is 17.4478 Mills uh 4.1 for our debt and 2.5 9575 for our singing fund all right and then some of the things we don't know state aid adjustments so the per pupil increase for the foundation right now we're budgeting at 400 per pupil um we've uh I think we've mentioned a little bit as far as what has come in

004from the legislative offices that the the between the governor or the Senate and the House Representatives they're three different amounts we kind of took the middle ground a little bit lower just to be conservative so at this point we're budgeting for an increase of 400 per pupil and our general fund state aid Revenue and then enrollment we're projecting at 95.25 so projected loss but again it's a conservative low amount for what we're expecting to be at revenues again are made up of several different categories primarily or for the local revenues it's primarily the property taxes again we probably get about 27 million or so for property taxes Revenue in our general fund uh miscellaneous Revenue some various uh Oddball things that come in usually it's around six seven hundred thousand in revenue and then we

005also have some revenues from facility rentals and leases State revenues primarily state aid and we get some special ed costs through state aid also as far as reimbursements and then Federal revenues is also ingomic Medicaid Outreach then we also get some directly from the ISD for special ed reimbursements and funding through them we also have some transfers from other funds which is primarily indirect from Food Service then of course all of our grant funds local grants state grants and federal grants of course the big ones are the the federal grants the title wines the reap the read that sort of thing and Esser of course that's we've received most of those funds or spent down a lot of those funds we still have some to spend now for next year and then so what we

006have projected for our budgeted revenues around just over 189 million for next year of that local Revenue expect to be around 30 million state revenue uh just under 86 million federal revenue 71 million from the ISD about 18 million the transfers from over funds again that's the food service and direct costs about 114 000 and then all the grants which is composed of all the grants that's when you see Federal up there that's not that's not the federal grants the grants are all inclusive in that just under 55 million so federal state and local grants in there and camera is going to discuss expenditures probably the best budget we've ever presented in my opinion so I just wanted to let you know how proud of it I am for Staffing we're estimating over 103 million

007dollars for wages and benefits this does not include the grant funded staff for departments and schools discretionary budgets we have 35.7 million and then the grant budgets equal the revenue of 54.8 million for our estimated Staffing by bargaining group you can see each of the groups on the left hand side the total FTE is on the right hand side and the FTE is a combination of general fund non-grant and Grant funds so we're looking at a total of about 1228 FTE for next year for our general funds Staffing and enrollment these are the trends that we've had for the past several years for next year you can see that our staffing for the general fund is 929 FTE which is a reduction of about 90. that doesn't mean that we are losing staff more likely

008that is just a shifting of Staff into grants for example all of our kindergarten teachers are returning to being split funded with General and Grant funded for enrollment the estimate is 9500 as John mentioned which is a reduction of 196 based on our April Blended count and our total expenditure budget is estimated at 193.5 almost 6 million dollars with grants at the 54 million point eight which again matches the revenue the discretionary budgets at 35.7 and the wages and benefits at 103.5 million dollars four or four sorry four-year financial analysis the First Column tells you the type of Revenue the next two columns are fiscal year 21 and fiscal year 22 audited financial statements the third column is the budget amendment number two for the current school year that we just brought before you a

009couple of weeks ago and the fourth column matches the resolution that you would have received and would be adopting this evening with revenues of 189 million and if you go down and expenditures of 193.5 million we're planning on using 4.5 million of fund balance in this resolution but as we discussed at finance committee I fully expect where we end this June 30th to be better than budget amendment number two which then means when we come to you for budget amendment one next year those numbers should be better than what is being presented to you tonight as well they're conservative and it's in the best interest of the district to do so and so I guess the big highlight of this is our ending balance for next year is uh 41 million projected yep and we'd

010be happy to take any questions that you might have Dr Rodriguez thank you thank you very much um good news um I supposed to know that but especially educational students I know they will receive so much money for every students the money we receive for a special education cover the special education students or we had to use other managed to cover to serve them yes we receive money for special ed students but the general fund subsidizes what we pay to cover the expense of educating special ed students a special ed student typically costs more than a general ad student to educate do we have any numbers so any how much we had to add to the special education budget I don't have them now but once we're done with this fiscal year's expenses we can

011definitely provide something to the superintendent to share with you any other questions from board members Mr Lopez you said that the fund balance oh first of all thank you thank you for the report you said the fund balance for next year or the initial is 41 million plus but that is inclusive of of federal funds that were given through the covet uh situation there's funds I mean they're including net balance right the Asters in cover grants so yeah so so what is a real general fund balance for next year if you take up all those extra Monies and and so on and so forth because that that can impact people see that we have all this money what are we doing with it right and I just make sure that people understand that it is

012not all General fun it's answer funds and other federal funds that were you know part of covet relief so I'm going to sound like a financial nerd as I respond to you the fund balance is truly our general fund fun fun balance right now the 45 million but the way we got there is by using Esser funds to cover costs that were either non-continuation costs or we're allowed to use current Staffing costs and be funded by Esser so that saved the general fund non-grant money over a couple of years so that's how we've accumulated our fund balance we've charged things to Esser that we're non-repetitive in nature primarily okay moving forward looking at next year's budget there's 20 million of Esser funds in there there's also 20 million of Esser fund revenues in the budget

013so the revenues equal the expenditures we can't draw down funds unless we've expended them so what I I guess I'm trying to say and probably not a very clear manner is that the 41 million is our current fund balance it is a legitimate real number and we got there primarily because of Esser funding right yeah and one thing I'd like to add uh is it's a really great question uh that trustee Lopez is asking because you look at the number and you go wow the district's got you know all this money the problem is it's one-time money you spend it it doesn't come back so the idea that we can be really thoughtful about using that fund balance to create some programs to do things some things is really great but sadly because of Esser

014this was a kind of a one-time increase that will probably never happen again I mean I hope not because it would mean that there's probably another pandemic but I really appreciate uh Guillermo bringing it up because for those of you kind of watching at home it's great that we have it it's a really nice just in case fun fun but sadly it's not going to be we're not going to get it back you know once we spend it it's it's going to be gone so right and and I think that affects a lot of things not only the perception that we have money and we're not spending it but that we might be able to enhance certain programs or create programs that are going to be needing money in the future and we're not going

015to have that money so I think we just need to be like you said thoughtful about how we spend the money and make sure that the community understands that particular you know find item that it is what what you have said you know it's there but it's one-time expenditures and we just have to make sure that that we do the best with it as we can thank you Mr Lopez I really appreciate the question and Miss Adams I really appreciate the way you answer that because what's key about the situation is that we have a larger amount of money we were able to move into savings but not because we failed to fulfill our basic financial responsibilities and duties right like we didn't take money away from operations or or functioning and so there's always

016that that question of um let me rephrase it this way it's the responsibility of the district to be to be mindful about the future to save and so I always say that that's important that um that we address that so thank you are there any other questions from board members okay see none thank you very much for this presentation so as board members we will call um it's the responsibility of the district to hold a public hearing and offer opportunities for public comment or feedback on the proposed budget and then it's during our regular meeting that we have the opportunity to adopt the budget as proposed so that brings us to our next agenda item which is public comment nc9 I will take a motion to adjourn it's been moved by Dr Rodriguez supported by

017Mr Lopez all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed same sign wonderful at 5 45 we are adjourned but time is 6 p.m on Thursday June 15th and I would like to call this regular meeting of the Board of Education to order and ask that everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance will the clerk please call the roll Mr Richardson yes president Dr Kavanaugh Mr Lopez Dr Rodriguez Miss Willis president Miss Moore present Miss Lil G present Dr body Miss Williams Quorum is present thank you and Dr Kavanaugh did inform me that she would be absent informed the board should be absent this evening but she does look forward to seeing us at our Retreat later this month that brings us to the additions to the agenda for which we have

018none that brings us a public comment on agenda items for which we have none which that brings us to our highlight of this evening which is our presentation from Dr Ruben Martinez on promoting academic achievement good evening with me is uh Dr Carlton Evans this was going to make some preliminary remarks and then I'll make my presentation thank you thank you Dr Evans my name is Carlton Evans and I want to thank you all for this opportunity I've lived as an adult 50 years in the in the area all of my kids graduated from the Lansing school district and I am an equity consultant with the firm McDuffie Evans some of my past clients have been the State Health Department the Michigan Public Health Institute the Ingham County Health Department United Way and also the

019Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta Georgia I am a member of the North Star Alliance for justice uh the North Star Alliance for justice is a Statewide Organization for targeted um advocating for targeted measures to help communities historically impacted by enslavement territorial theft genocide racial and ethnic victimization and government repression we Advocate targeted measures to make these communities whole in the state of Michigan and this is our mission the organization was born from three black brown Summits at MSU the people who attended were surveyed in education was their top priority that is why the North Star is concentrating on education as its first priority we are building relationships with local school boards and board superintendents and we have started with Lansing first three members of Northstar participated in the systemic Equity review completed by Equity

020consultant West Ed two members of Northstar are members of the Lansing school district's Equity advisory committee and two members are before you now we are here to present the merits of installing a multicultural education curriculum in Lansing schools we want to strengthen our relationship with the Lansing school system and we want to build relationships with other school systems as well we want to be a partner with you and not an adversary president Willis superintendent children members of the board thank you for your time this evening we really appreciate it as Carlton mentioned at the Statewide black brown dialogue Summit we rank ordered the challenges facing minority communities working class communities and so on and education always Rises to the top they know that education is the way out of the poverty that many experience and

021we know that if they do not if the children do not get a good education their lives will be negatively impacted for a long time if they don't rise above that so we are here to talk about academic achievement we know what the challenges are in terms of academic performance here in this district and we want to be able to contribute to the Improvement by providing a a direction the resolution passed by the board on July 20th 23rd 2020 is a major initial proactive step in addressing equity curricular and cultural issues in the education of students in the district the equity audit was substantive who I participated in it and shed light on critical areas that need attention and need to be changed the work of the equity committee is critical for bringing about changes

022in those areas focusing on improving academic achievement among all students is the next critical step students must be served parents must be served and of course the school district must serve the entire community and focusing on academic achievement lists the work of the equity committee we propose that the way to improve student academic achievement is through Multicultural education so the logic is improving academic performance The Logical question is how through Multicultural education we have presented our ideas to the administrative executive team we have presented our ideas to the officers of the board and now we come before you to present it to you and also to provide a vehicle by which the community as a whole can learn about the work that we are doing let me start out by talking a little bit about

023the purposes of Education it is to formally socialize students to become mature and responsible adults to function in a democracy that is part of a global Community all of you know that we are living an interdependent era in which nations are interdependent in which people are in the lives of people are interdependent and we need to have our students understand that they are Global Citizens it is important to ensure that they develop the technical the creative communication and social skills to achieve that kind of maturity and responsibility it is important that they engage in the acquisition of knowledge but also in the participation and construction of knowledge these are bright meaningful human beings that can contribute to knowledge because they bring experiences to the classroom they bring understanding and all we need to do is

024really facilitate that growth and their contribution we are very much interested in ensuring that they are also engaged in personal development this is a critical part of any young person as they are maturing it is critical that we provide Ways by which values are clarified it is critical that they adopt a set of ethics and it is critical that they engage in some uh examination of moral character we live in a moment when a lot of these issues a lot of these assets seem to be missing among our leaders not only in Michigan but uh nationally and globally so let me speak a little bit about the key factors that influence academic achievement and we know there are a lot you know socioeconomic factors external factors that uh the the district cannot control but in

025terms of what it can control uh is to provide a relevant curriculum one that touches the the hearts and minds of the students themselves we need to provide a culture in which the students can Thrive we need to provide learning climates in which the students can can Thrive and we need to have school integration with external communities particularly the parents we know the parent involvement is one of the most critical factors in student achievement so education shapes the frames of meaning that students use to make sense of the world around them human beings are oriented toward the world around them through meaningful frames that's how we interact with each other and that's how we make sense of the world around us so they need to have relevant learning environments that motivate them to learn and

026to achieve academically so what is Multicultural education you know it's a concept that's being ventured about but if you know what it really is it's a comprehensive approach to education that addresses Equity that addresses pedagogical techniques addresses curricular changes addresses climate addresses structural policy and Leadership dimensions of schools and educational practices it is a very comprehensive holistic approach what are the components of Multicultural education well at one level it's content integration there must be the integration of different group histories cultures and knowledge within the curriculum this is what gives the students a sense of relevance that they see themselves and have a sense of belonging in this in the curriculum we talk about Equity pedagogy that is using a mix of teaching styles and approaches that work with different groups that we're trying to educate

027it's not just one size fits all there has to be teaching methods and materials that challenge negative stereotypes and promote Prejudice reduction and there has to be promotion and understanding an investigation of the different factors that are at play in knowledge construction and how the students themselves can engage in that process of knowledge Construction so what is the evidence that we have that Multicultural education promotes academic achievement well studies show that Multicultural education increases students educational aspirations if they see themselves in the curriculum they become more engaged and they their aspirations increase multi-cultural education makes learning more relevant for them especially for those members who have not historically been included in the curriculum and who have not had the same opportunities in this Society students who identify with their ethnic origin and of course by

028extension members of other groups have higher levels of self-esteem if they have higher levels of self-esteem they have a higher sense of purpose in life I have myself have conducted these studies and they have higher levels of self-confidence all of these contribute to students engaging and being motivated to learn as they go through the education process high school students who have taken ethnic studies courses tend to increase their School attendance and improve their GPA they're excited about going to school students who take ethnic studies courses are more likely than their counterparts and these studies show if they you know compare those who are in those courses and those who are not tend to graduate at a higher rate from high school and tend to enroll in a college or university after graduating from high school

029so we have so there is empirical evidence that this is taking place and also Multicultural education reduces Prejudice amongst the students because they learn about others they don't approach others through negative stereotypes or stereotypes they approach them with knowledge about them and their cultures and an appreciation for that there are several levels of Multicultural education and of course in implementation of a multicultural in educational initiative takes time and there are levels but you know we can talk about how that can be achieved full implementation has several stages beginning with with what goes on today right what do we have today the con what I would call the contributions approach that is focusing on Heroes on holidays and selected cultural elements right we're coming up on the Juneteenth but are we treating the history the substance

030the meaning of Juneteenth in in meaningful ways right what was it about the next level is the inclusion of selected content Concepts and perspectives without changing the structure of the curriculum so it's an additive approach right but ultimately what we want to get to is the point where we have actually transformed the curricula so the next step comes with the curriculum being transformed and students being able to engage in aspects of the world around them through the perspectives of other groups taking the role of the other can I see the world from the structural location of African Americans and can they see the world from my point of view Native Americans Asian Americans immigrants and others right that's what facilitates growth both intellectually and in terms of personal development ultimately what we want would be

031the final stage and that would be a multicultural environment that exists in all of the schools and students are able to critically examine social issues in their communities in our society and be able to consider actions and perspectives to be able to address those kinds of issues I want to close by saying that adopting a multicultural education by the board is very very important it would build on what is already being done it would address structural cultural and pedagogical issues adopting Emotion by the board that calls for Multicultural education initiative to be implemented district-wide is of critical importance to improve academic performance by the students establishing a specific task force that includes experts teachers administrators members of the equity committee students and parents to develop a plan to achieve a multicultural educational environment throughout the

032district the schools the classes the courses and so forth is the ultimate aim and I think that this District could become not only a model for the rest of Michigan and make the educational processes here in Michigan improve you know Michigan used to be in the top uh 10 5 level schools I mean states in the country now it's not even at the middle it's gone down so we're moving in the wrong direction and so we implore you to be able to to adopt a resolution to establish a specific task force and help move this District forward in providing a model for the state and also for the nation with that I will turn it to my colleague Carlton Evans I'm going to just lift up a few of the things that my colleague Dr

033Martinez mentioned he mentioned the word Equity I'm going to read to you the definition of equity that was established by West Ed Equity is the removal of systemic barriers and the creation of policies practices and cultures that achieve fairness Justice and Liberation for marginalized students families community members and Educators in our educational system there is no place where racism is more present than in our classroom our school is our reflection of us there is racism in our schools because one of the pillars of American society is racism a multicultural educational curriculum is not a magic wand Against Racism but it will be a catalyst that blunts some of the wrongs of racism three of those wrongs are a lack of Engagement accomplishment and low self-esteem of students of color do not see themselves reflected in

034the instructors before them or in the lessons in history being taught this gives explicit and implicit signals that they are not worthy of being reflected feel if you were a white child and went to school and the teachers did not look like you and the lessons in school books did not accurately reflect your history Multicultural education does not erase the history of white people a multicultural education curriculum would actually help the white students as well when white students do not see teachers of color in front of them and do not see people of color represented this teaches them that people of color are less than and it reinforces the negative perceptions and biases that they have already learned from other sources like their parents relatives and media and then in their interactions with people of

035color they treat them as less than all racial groups deserve recognition all year long and not just one month of the year the history of people of color is American history America would not exist in its present form without their contributions America would not exist without us yet there are white supremacists intentionally and systematically trying to erase people of color from American history laws are being introduced and passed trying to hide the truth making it illegal teach the truth we should be free to teach and free to learn the truth yet it would be irresponsible to change the curriculum without first I turned off the slides oh it's on the side okay my bad it just turned off in front of me yet it would be irresponsible to change the curriculum without changing the culture

036because culture eats policy I'm going to repeat that culture eats policy there are some very good teachers in this system there are also some very bad ones not intentionally bad but with deficit thinking and other biases that have that they have inherited due to just growing up in America teachers must be willing and accepting to teach in a multicultural paradigm there needs to be constant mandatory training for teachers to achieve this I say mandatory because that shows that management takes this seriously the teachers will not take it seriously if management does not this means changes in the evaluation metrics and the metrics used to hire new teachers some teachers will resist or even quit so be it a multicultural education curriculum is about telling the stories of everyone indigenous latinx black women all marginalized populations

037it is about telling the truth it is about doing what is right social justice is binary change happens or it does not is simple instituting a multicultural education curriculum is the right thing to do and I end with this quote from the talmud do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief do justly now love Mercy now walk humbly now you are not obligated to complete the work I repeat that you are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it foreign thank you for your time are there any questions or comments thank you I'm going to take a point of privilege I don't usually go first with my comments but I think it's important that we lift um the critical nature of this work first I want

038to thank the two of you for your tireless work efforts and drive of this of this critically important work I appreciate all of the behind the scenes work that you guys do that's unnoticed and unrecognized to really push through the importance of Multicultural education I'm going to stream together some quotes that is right from this book I don't want to take any credit um but I just think it's important that to that this bear is be repeating so historically the more powerful segments in society have enacted policies in accordance with their interests and their views of society and because of this the education system codifies those existing power structure and structure and education needs to be restructured to be able to Value the background of all students and I think that that is a clear

039summary I heard an illustration recently about slavery and the illustration was imagine slavery is a boat so you when a boat goes through water What's Left Behind the boat awake right and so a lot of people like to say well the boat passed the wake of what was left behind slavery continues to touch us all over society and I think it Bears repeating the definition of equity that this board approved with our partners at West Ed is that Equity is the removal of systemic barriers and creation of policies procedures policies practices and culture that achieves fairness Justice and Liberation for marginalized students families community members and Educators in our education system and when we talked about this when we adopted this Equity definition we said that was a call to action to continue to do

040work to dismantle systemic racism that we see in our system and so I really appreciate this presentation as an opportunity for us to double down on that um on that promise to continue to do this work by considering adapting um moving forward with the Multicultural curriculum I'm actually going to give the floor to Dr Rodriguez first because I would like for him to share with colleagues what he would like us to consider um so we're here in the presentation today and we're going to consider action at our next board meeting so I want to lead that to Dr Rodriguez and then I'll go to Ms Williams thank you president thank you for be the first one in talking this important night and this important month and the presentation be done an important day like it's

041going to be Monday that is historical before and it's also historical today if you do right we'll be historical in the future then congratulations to you to everybody that worked on this task for a long time by the tax in front of us is big you are asking for a transformation a complete transformation and they require intelligence discipline and time they think that district has all these three things my first question to you is what is actually you see that this District had to do you already mentioned some but maybe repeating that one that this District had to do to accomplish the goal they think everybody dreamed these days nobody nobody is going to say we don't need Multicultural education we need it ignoring each other for more time is going to destroy us we

042cannot ignore each other we have to appreciate a love for the future of this country and you put now the first stone of this bill building and we are going to need you helping us in doing that then my other question is are you willing to come back or be able to have other people help in that District to move on because that is not a task with one individual it's a team work on many teams the superintendent has to create in different buildings in different places and move that is going to require two or three years it's not going to happen tomorrow but unleash the move or learning and how to be different to each other can start tonight we don't have to wait until tomorrow then my first question what did you dream

043that this board because that is education for me and for all of us I really didn't I was thinking about curriculum but no that is not curriculum only that is more than curriculum I mean I can create a curriculum and forget it the curriculum is do you know the curriculum do you know how to teach do you know how to accommodate accommodate that to the students then many things about bad if you don't have the culture and the climate the our mission statement says in the in in our mission statement to create a schools with climate and culture that promotes education promote learning and I think you are telling us in order to promote education and promote learning and student achievement and parents participation you have to go maybe in that direction no maybe we

044had to go in that direction then back to the question what do you dreamed what do you think we can move are you willing to come back are you willing to to help us in that process one of the handouts that I've provided you with uh on the back has some resources that can be tapped as we move into the Future Would we want to come back absolutely we do not like to initiate something and then walk away uh you know I have contacts all throughout this country in terms of higher education people who do this kind of work so I'm happy to share that with you in terms of the specific ask once you pass a resolution once you pass a motion what we need because this is bigger than the curriculum this is

045about the transformation of the educational process and for lack of a better term I use a multicultural environment because it is more inclusive of all of these Dimensions because uh in a multicultural environment is much uh multi-dimensional includes all of the things that I mentioned before and so I think what we need is a very specific task force to take on the challenge of developing a plan with the support of the board and with the leadership of the superintendent I think we can move forward and I think this task force that needs to consists of HR it needs to consist of the administrators teachers parents and also students and also members of the equity Advisory Board and also they're like there are two C's there's curriculum and culture you can answer to the new curriculum

046but if you haven't changed that culture it's not going to happen okay and that change in culture starts with yah it starts with leadership because if you don't take it seriously The People Under you will not that's why I say the teachers need continuous mandatory training Dei training so that they can understand the significance the significance of this and why it is necessary and why they should do it we all need to look inside of ourselves and be introspective why did I do that why did I think that way and from that you learn and you are enlightened you know better and when you know better you do better that's what Dei is okay it's not some office over here okay Dei is all of you all of you are responsible for Dei it's not

047just the Dei office as a president I want to thank you for what is going on here tonight the officers the rest of the board members are the superintendent that is historical we are creating a better launching right now right now on our conversation it's not to take away from any anybody anything we are adding more to a personal life in improving everybody to do better in the future what Majestic we can be if we can do that properly it's going to be not easy promise you that it's not going to be easy but is doable if we agreed to do it together thank you thank you mother president may not be easy but it's exciting thank you Miss Williams president for us I think you heard me a few weeks ago when you all

048did the Dei uh presentation how this kind of made me feel but I want to backtrack and say that we've already started if you look at your board the board right now we are a multicultural board multi-generational multi so this is the starting point we have all we're all different we're all unique from different backgrounds different cultures so we have started on unknowingly to us but we all appreciate each other our differences and respect that so starting here kudos to all of you um outline of the curriculum or program tools you plan to use in doing this program or implementing upon approval do you have something like that already ready no we want to engage people who will meet this who are the stakeholders in the process so that we all move forward together uh

049it you know what has happened in the past is the the expert model the expert comes and tells us what's good for us but it doesn't always work for us so we need to have all of the stakeholders engaged or at least representatives from them our leadership and man's teachers parents students but you didn't say community because the community can cause backlash while everybody else is on board the community is still a big component of that how are we implementing the community and that not just in the district but we need people on the outside to understand the shift in the culture of what we're trying to do and I agree with that strongly community members have to be involved everyone has to have buy-in so I agree with that exactly it was just a

050uh an admission on my part question is what what is your Empire when do you see upon approval of the board because of course you can see I'm already there what are you looking at as far as implementation I really don't think you can put a timeline to it no I mean starting starting period that's what I'm thinking uh as soon as the board if the board passes a resolution that tells the rest of the community that you're serious about this and you want to move forward then we can talk about how to build the task force and who should be involved I'm personally looking for resources to pay the people on the task force for their time uh because I think that's a helpful incentive but I I hesitate to put a timeline on

051it I think the establishment of a task force under the the guidance and Leadership of the superintendent is is critical um it should receive a charge from the superintendent and be given a timeline and I would say that a plan should not take longer than a year to develop and it should then begin to be implemented uh post haste depending on what the components are thank you as well for getting this going and Mr Evans I speak for a living and I got to say first off I have to acknowledge the gift of your Cadence and your tone it snaps me every time I appreciate the passion in this when you guys were here last time I asked about a model and it didn't seem like there was one but as fate would have it

052today I'm coming here from a meeting with Ann Arbor School District and they have started an equity plan that blew me away earlier today actually on our notes today it just says promoting academic achievements so sometimes I feel like I'm in a simulation like I didn't know these two would be related like this but I was wondering are you familiar with what they've been doing and the work that that that's going on there and I wonder if it to you an expert is like you know as onspiring as it was to me and they gave me a I left with a book we got this and I started reading it today and I was just wondering if you've had influence with that I am not familiar their work but I'm open to learn more uh

053I'm a side a scientist by by training uh I I do something if it works I do more of it if I do something it doesn't work I push it to the side okay so I would love to see what they're doing and we can't do this alone for sure I would like to if you could leave your email I actually got their plan here and I can forward it to you um just to see I'm not qualified to know if it's any good it also you know and you guys have been in rooms before it sounded magnificent so thank you the second question probably the more uh tangible one is thank you are you all working to uh affect the standardized test scoring of all this as we change curriculum I'm curious how this

054meets with the way that the state and the government in general are going to test our students on their curriculum knowledge I'm I'm not a teacher that's why when we talk about the task force we want teachers involved we want HR involved we want the community involved uh parents and also students so so I can't speak on that level I'm a subject matter expert when it comes to equity the professor is over here maybe maybe he has a comment is that a concern that hey as we change this we're going to have to also work to change the way these tests look we have through me Alma we have worked with the State Board of Education to address some of the revisions that we're trying to be made on social science area we put a

055halt to that we know that forces will probably bring them back we are working with the uh the superintendent at the state level they have a windows and mirrors initiative which is about promoting the inclusion of different materials in the classroom and so on and and they're developing presentations to help teachers you know the state cannot impose on you what this should be like but it can provide resources and we're helping them develop some resources I think that they are with us on this we are with them if you look at the publication there with the blue cover the Summit that we organized had representatives from the state talking about the mirrors and windows initiative and so they they are with us and they will serve as a resource thank you I I look at

056a board like this if we can't make it work then who can and if we do make it work but it looks like our test scores go down I think that would be something we gotta address concurrently it seems right that's a heavy lift but we can begin making changes at the local level sure so uh it's good to see you guys uh thank you so much for making this presentation I asked uh president Willis to let me speak because before you leave I want to say thank you and you both know me well and you know how committed I am to this work and I just think how powerful it is that with a board that is giving every indication that they're super supportive uh with an executive team that I know is incredibly

057supportive and the work that you've done already I think uh to the points that are being made Lansing can become the model of how this works um you know you will see I mean I can't believe I'm gonna say this but like if you look at this blue thing there might be a paragraph of what I said at their Summit um I'm I'm pretty clear about how important this stuff is and I very much appreciate what trustee Richardson said about test scores because what's been great is that historically when children find themselves in the curriculum when children find themselves being talked about being positive their test scores do go up and so the hope of course here is that we can do this here well and really show how important this is that relationship with

058staff the relationship to a community to a community is powerful but also in the curriculum and so I look forward to what we can do and I very much appreciate both of you both being here because I know that you will not forget us and that if the board so chooses to move forward we'll be able to do this collectively for a long time we also appreciate your openness and support and we appreciate the openness and support of the president and some of the other officers with whom we had an opportunity to discuss these issues and we hope that the rest of you with whom we have not had the opportunity to speak will also get on board and help us make sure that our children are prepared for the future that bewaits them thank

059you Mr Lopez thank you madam president first of all thank you for the presentation very much you know just historically um this school district and the various boards have listened to presentations on culture and climate and curriculum and that every time you know there's some commitment but not total commitment okay and so on and so forth so it seems like at this time today with the support of superintendent wholeheartedly support and and this board that we might be able to put them all together um it's like a puzzle so it has a lack of trying but trying just doesn't get us anywhere you know we have to be committed and so therefore I appreciate the support we're getting and from the community because you know change is going to come anyway you know look at

060Lazy lancic is is a great City with all the the refugees coming in from all over the world we have migrants and immigrants that come here and settle down so this even you know will will happen but do we have to wait till then no so I think we we need to move along and pass this resolution as soon as we can so that we can start the the wheels in motion to effectively do a job well done thank you much thank you thank you thank you and to board members uh part of why we don't have the resolution uh soup yet today it's because Dr Rodriguez and the superintendent and I were working just around that specific language about the task force and who's going to be it and are the right resources there

061because we want an actionable this is going to be pass hit the round running and so what we're going to do is make sure you guys get that language have opportunities for feedback to to put into that so that we have um uh be able to adopt emotion that that really moves us forward I'm going to make this final comment as well this is a hill that I am willing to die on and we are pushing this forward with or without community support because as Mr Lopez said change is happening and sometimes change is hard and it's okay at the loudest voices don't like it and I'm okay listening to loud voices that don't like it because we're going to continue to push through what we know is right so I'm just going to say

062that you guys can all vote me out from being president if you disagree that's fine no big deal um any other questions or comments Miss Moore Madam president yes ma'am I support you okay any other questions comments okay first meeting in we're not meeting in July 1st meeting in August we don't have to wait that long we could do it at the retreat okay we can do it at the retreat oh no problem um any other questions comments all right thank you very much thank you for your time um now the superintendent thinks he's going to top that presentation banking uh so we're going to talk about banking I'll invite you to the presentation table no we're definitely not are you uh are you even cognizant all of your all of your actually hold on

063before them [Music] interesting if you can put it onto the experience Mr superintendent I will I will yield the floor to you sorry I think we're just waiting for some technology so [Music] um great all right well uh good afternoon or evening I guess um okay uh yeah that's um well uh first of all thank you so much uh clearly we'll we'll not top the presentation that was just made um we know how important what we just spoke about were and I'll certainly in my superintendent's uh kind of comments I'll talk more about it but in order to do the good work we do need money and so if we're going to have a conversation about how to be the best stewards of our money possible we thought that it would be really pertinent to

064invite Brian and to invite um a conversation about some different ways of thinking um at no point do I want to ever bring up something that is different without giving the board ample opportunity to have conversation and to listen to experts uh in these fields so I'm going to yield over to a man in a full suit which belies the fact that of course he is a banker so I will allow uh Ryan to go through it and we certainly will not top that last presentation but we'll we'll do our best on on trying to provide some funding so the the purpose of our discussion tonight is is really just to give you a a bit of a background on some of the cash management opportunities that are available to the school district currently we'll

065we'll kind of go through some of those ideas of what you're currently doing going to propose a different way of doing things and that proposal involves a a Consortium that's that's actually your Consortium meaning the school district's Consortium it's called the Michigan liquid asset fund it was started back in 1987 by masb the school boards the school business officials and the superintendent Association and and why were they so involved with putting together this this investment Consortium is was to to Really provide an Avenue for all school districts within the state of Michigan regardless of size to reach out to professional investment management and and to raise the level of security uh within the state of Michigan to to reach that that higher level security which is a triple A reading by standard and Poor's so

066it's it's trying to to really help all school districts reach that and we're going to talk a little bit more in depth if you could page forward please couple pages and one more so this is the next two pages just kind of go through what your your current organization or current structure Banking and cash management structure is um it's 100 percent on the bottom part is the fifth third checking accounts uh and right now your state aid is going directly into a Fifth Third checking account and then up above is the hybrid accounts those are the the mylaf accounts and we're utilizing those currently for for different trust type uh pieces uh some of the bond issues and whatnot and then if you go to the next page what we're proposing is to put it

067all underneath the One Umbrella of my laugh um and we're going to go through in the next section about why does that make any why does that make make some sense and the criteria to evaluate this whole process if you go to the next page please um when you when you talk about public sector investing and you you realize the state aid comes into you and and job number one is safety preserving the balances that come in so if you receive if you receive 10 million dollars in the state You're darn well be able to put to work 10 million at least 10 million dollars uh because you don't want to lose any of that principle right so job one is safety make sure we're preserving Capital the second one is making sure we're able

068to pay the bills so liquidity so every couple weeks you're you're paying payroll making sure we have sufficient funds to make sure that we can make that that payroll or payables things of that nature so that's job number two job three is is honestly uh I'll even jump down to the last one cost making sure we're doing this at a reasonable level of cost because again we're we're using taxpayer money to fund their different programs and then lastly really is is yield some kind of return on those Investments so that's the hierarchy in the public sector investing in cash management if you go down the next page we'll start giving a little bit example and I don't want to get into the weeds and start debating over you know 50 cents here or that what

069we're trying to do here is just give you a broad stroke idea of what do you receive so this is 13 million dollars roughly is what's uh deposited at Fifth Third Bank currently it doesn't matter which bank you're using these same results will play out the larger banks are all charging in the same range so 13 million dollars they give what's called earnings credit this earnings credit can be used as I'll call it in-house money you can use it to pay for your services okay you know it's not interest it's really just in-house I can I can pay for the check writing ACH all the different activities that I do at the bank this is what it's used for so it's really in-house money uh you get on a monthly basis you're getting charged about

070five thousand dollars a month in fees the biggest majority of that fee is is really the deposit Administration charge so you get charged for having your money at the bank I know it's kind of silly but it used to be called the FDIC charge uh you're no longer allowed it since 2008 because of the last financial crisis you're not allowed to do that so this is just kind of a layout at the end of the day the effective return on that 13 million dollars is less than a half percent okay so that's that's keep that number in mind then you turn to the next page you say what what could I be doing otherwise and and what what real in reality what's been happening is the Fed has been moving interest rates up and a

071market-driven uh yield is closer to at this time five percent we're at four and a half because we're using an example from uh several months ago but four and a half percent was the the current return um the there's no earnings credit per se uh it's just interest earnings so it's years to do with right off the bat so we're changing the tune from being in-house credit to only offset against fees to actually interest earnings I can take it's tangible and I can pay for programs with this and if you see if you're looking get getting down to the annualized number the total that you're earnings that you can get on this 13 million dollars is now over a half million dollars so 586 000 of Interest earnings versus effectively zero uh because you can

072only use it to offset fees so this is this is a substantial increase okay and remember that that funnel that we had or the or the the filter that we were looking at earlier safety uh you're moving from a arguably a double a rated Bank to Triple am which is the highest rating available first by standard reporters for this so you've increased your your credit ratings uh as far as the safety of the bank liquidity they're both the same they're both equal overnight available you look at at cost and and we certainly the annualized fee analyze fees on this uh eighteen hundred dollars versus over five thousand dollars uh because the fund pays for the majority of the fees uh for for the school district so that's a that's another big plus the fund which

073is a Consortium built for for school districts and at the end of the day the the the yield or the return is the the net 596 thousand dollars uh or 500 yeah almost six hundred thousand dollars of Interest earnings and this is the kind of thing that that you know again I I call it you know that it's at least a triple winner you know the the win-win-win-win uh on on all those accounts that we look through as far as the criteria that we're evaluating this on so again I'm not I'm not a salesperson in the sense that I'm here to sell you on something I'm just trying to say there's a great opportunity available for all Michigan school districts to join this Consortium you are in the Consortium currently my laugh uh but you're

074only using some of your accounts and this proposal is to take let's go all the way let's put it all into into my laugh uh for that for that diversification the fund is roughly uh at this point close to six billion dollars uh in in assets so this is not a small little fly-by-night type organization it's been around since 1987 and again the governance of this fund is the schools so the the three organizations I talked about the executive directors are on on the governing board it's not run by us it's run by by school districts they're the ones that that manage it we're the ones that execute it uh pfm Asset Management been I won't go into the the following Pages because I don't want to eat up any any real more time I

075just if you want to look at it for your own uh you know uh feel Goods about it it is uh we are a public sector investor throughout the country uh well over 200 billion dollars nationally uh this is what we do and this is what our name is is is uh staked on is is making sure we keep safety number one um is there anything else I need to add so yeah that's an important part uh so when you're when you're with a bank the bank provides FDIC insurance and at FDIC insurance is limited to 250 000 dollars on interest bearing accounts per tax ID so when you go in there if you have 10 accounts it doesn't matter you only get 250 000 uh one time for interest bearing accounts and one time

076for non-interest or transaction accounts so the most you could get out of FDIC insurance is a half million dollars as you can see you have 13 million dollars the vast majority of it is uninsured Now versus my laugh it's not it's not a bank it's not FDIC insured but what you do own is a percentage of the underlying Securities and so all the Securities are allowable by the Michigan school code so you own a percentage of these Securities and that's your interest in the fund so you don't have to worry about whether a bank goes down or not it's really all the underlying Investments that we're we're making sure we're staying on it again that's why it's important having the governance of of other school districts that are responsible for that portion and just add

077our firm has never had a loss in the fund in in any of our for any of our clients uh relative to a a loss relative to a credit risk so just want to make sure that and that's that that doesn't predict the future but it's just an indication of the past that over the last 40 years we've never taken a loss for a client so to to give some kind of perspective uh if you remember a couple of months ago some local banks were going bankrupt they were going down and there was a moment where I kind of ran up to the second floor and I was like so can I pull out the money right now because we don't know what's going to happen and thank goodness nothing happened but it got me

078thinking about is there a creative way to be even more safe with our money and make money and what's fascinating is in a lot of states the big school districts will actually just kind of put out to bid their money so you basically do an RFP and you say to the banking world what are you going to give us for giving you billions of dollars and sometimes you know they come back really well sometimes it's a little weak but school districts have tons of cash they have a lot of cash flow the fact that Michigan smartly amazingly set up this entire structure just to support school districts I was shocked and Brian can tell you um I asked them in the room and I was like is this for real and he said yes and

079I was like why doesn't everybody else do it and his response was I've been asking myself the same thing it does feel scary I want to be very clear everybody in the audience everybody in the in the Horseshoe everybody in the Deus is used to going to a bank we've all heard of it third and we have a wonderful relationship with Fifth Third and in fact my left and Fifth Third are Partners in all of these things but the idea that only 250 000 of our money is protected makes it really scary now the government has shown an unwillingness to let anybody lose money ever and so what's happening is that they are backstopping some of the banks but the idea here is we win as was said on every step of the way we

080win by getting actual cash in terms of in uh interest rather than just getting a fee for credit basically oh you know it costs us money to bank with you you're going to give that back to us you're holding 13 million dollars of our money we should be getting interest and so with this relationship we would do that second is if anything really does go down or there is a worry are a lot of our principal is protected which is incredibly important the rating here is higher and it's run by schools which really allows us to be thoughtful about integrating our systems so I am not a banker I am the superintendent um but I've spent a lot of time really digging deep into how incredible this is and I wanted to really make sure

081that we had a true Banker to express asset and I really am not asking certainly for the board to make any decisions right now you all know me well enough I always want to give you a ton of information especially if it's new especially if it's different but if you just stepped back and said I was starting a school district and we had money where should we put it the first question you're going to ask yourself is I want to put in the safest place possible great that would be this the second thing you're going to ask yourself is hey can I make any money off of my money because we have quite a lot and I've heard of this thing called interest it would be nice if we could make it this is about

082as high an interest rate that we can have under safety and then the third thing when it came to liquidity I'm going to twist it a little bit it's not just liquidity but it's liquidity for our systems because mylaf is built for schools they actually can integrate with the way that we get money from the state so one of the fears and John and I talked about this initially was man is this going to be a problem when we get the money from the state does it then have to go to one or um you know account then to a third account then a fifth account no it turns out that actually you know my left has been waiting for a school districts to say hey let's do this so you know I want to

083defer uh or especially for questions but regardless of what we do now we should always be asking ourselves if we started from scratch what would we create and we would create something like a my laugh and it's been pretty impressive uh you know I was joking once I was like well can I just put my own money in this and clearly the answer is no um but that idea that you know you always ask yourself like is that a school you would put your own kid in the question I would ask is is this a bank account I'd put my own money in absolutely and what I really appreciate also is that the understanding of We're the owners of it as well which is a lot different than in other kinds of banking so I

084don't know if yeah just one other just thoughts that that occurred to me as well so you're not the only School District in it right uh it's been around since you know 87. uh there's close to 500 members so that isn't all School District so it is it's exclusively for public sector investors so think about municipalities Lansing Board Water and Light you know all those types of entities are allowed to be in it uh nobody else no corporations no individuals so it is exclusive to public sector investing uh because that that is the Mandate of the trust the underlying trust uh also wanted to say that that true law is the is the legal counsel for for the fund uh standard and poor we talked about that Ernst young is the auditor for the fund

085so this is not this is not again this is not a fly-by-night organization this is well run it's been run for you know decades uh and and it's and again the fun is never absorbed a loss uh as as well so just want to make sure that there's you know full information and I'm open to any questions you may have because it isn't it isn't a bank it's an investment fund just everybody pooling their assets together and then we invest for them Mr Lopez yes um the the other point in your front page by the way thank you for the presentation it's good it says uh you talked about that no Bank guarantee talked about that what does may lose value mean so the in in theory uh just like when you invest in a

086bank you could lose your money there the same thing could happen with the underlying Investments so effectively let's say we we have uh you know well we got five billion dollars let's say today uh we turn around and invest all that into Securities commercial paper U.S treasuries repos all these different Securities and then we have a bunch of restrictions the weighted average maturity that fund can only be 60 days or less we have to have 10 percent of the funding cash 30 percent one week or less there's a bunch of criteria that we have to invest by but in theory what could happen is the same thing that happened with Silicon Valley is we have five billion dollars today and then everybody decides they want to get their money out today well we have to

087sell all the Securities depending on where where that security is depending on where interest rates bobbed in between uh and and whatnot depending what else is going on you could end up on the sale of the the Securities end up in a lost position so I guess basically we're we're in the stock market no absolutely not that that's a real that's a great Point uh so the school code only allows you to invest in the fixed income securities and specifically high grade fixed income securities so like I said U.S treasuries uh U.S agencies um commercial paper uh Michigan State the state of Michigan bonds you're not allowed to invest in corporate bonds uh they're they're too long and too too much risk in the mind of the school code you're not allowed to invest in

088any equities any kind of uh anything else it's very limited by the school code yeah just to finish my question is that the market goes Bottoms Up We're not in it we're over here uh you're you're you're in the market but in a very small safe segment that the state has decided this is a safe place for you to be because they are as well engaged in making sure you preserve your principal yeah the the way to think about it and again this is why I want to spend a lot of time because it can get a little it's not this is not typical is when we think of the market you're saying okay I'm going to buy Apple stock right I'm gonna buy a share of Nike I'm gonna buy a company and those

089prices can go up or down you know Apple goes up Apple goes down it we're not putting our money into that what we're putting our money into some of it is just straight cash and again it's not even our money we're giving the money to an investment group that is so limited to what that they can invest in is the likelihood of failure is much much smaller than even what banks do with their money that's the thing that's so interesting here is that they're investing in things when he talked about commercial paper this is stuff that is going to mature in 30 days in 60 days so even if something like that bond is problematic you're you're going to know you're at risk very quickly one of the reasons why not to get too down

090this road one of the reasons why the bank uh Silicon Valley especially had to go bankrupt was that they put a lot of their money in 30-year treasuries the price of those treasuries changed then the people that wanted their money out of Silicon Valley says give me my money then they said well we have to sell these bonds at a loss the nice thing about schools is they're not really asking for all of their money because what would they do with it all and so you're not going after these individual accounts like a company or whatever we would put money in all these other school districts put money in it's the likelihood the risk is so much smaller than even putting a money in a bank and I know that's weird right because we think

091you put a money in a bank it's super safe this actually is even safer so yeah that's fair okay Mr Richardson it's good no no okay when we did Mr sheldoner's uh review a couple weeks ago when we the time we spent on financial stewardship was very little because I think it's one of his super strength superpowers even um question on two things um and and to follow in the disaster scenario of a bank everything's so bad that this is less bad than all of the bad so in the cataclysmic event this is this is the coolest water of the typhoon um what I'm curious on is two things one commercial paper I assume is all it's not layered paper it's all the same risk wise like grade paper commercial paper yeah so the the

092school code requires it to be A1 P1 or better okay so those two there's got to be the highest grade cool available and again commercial paper can only go out to a maximum of nine months yep uh so everything is really focused in very short term very safe type Securities love it uh second thing is by the way the whole idea of this when I first met Kim McDonald we started talking about I couldn't I love the idea of not paying fees like we should not pay fees and then also have millions and millions of dollars so that's fantastic but the rate I see a round number on there I don't know if that's just for chart is that that's not prime or Library what what rate is what's dictating that rate what index it's

093it's not dictated but it follows fed funds okay so if you're if you're looking at at the overnight fed funds right now is between five and five and a quarter they just met this week and decided to keep it where it's at uh but it is it's Market driven it's not based upon the bank's desire for for funding and so they can manipulate the interest rate depending and right now they're paying they don't want it yeah so they're paying 0.75 earnings credit not even interest um and that's that's kind of the game you get out of you say now I know I'm going to be following a a an index if you will it's not exactly because we're buying longer than fed funds but but in general that that's the concept appreciate you thank you

094Dr Rodriguez thank you maybe you already answered that question what was the criteria to select 13 million 793 dollars so so that's the check we get from the state every month ish so what he's what we're using as an example is every month we get a check from the state it would be deposited directly into this and yes it goes up and down but we usually have a little bit of a float anyway so I mean I could defer to Kim yeah is but like usually we go as high as about 15 and as low as about nine or something like that so it's kind of an average but that number that 13 million that's the check we get and then we stay the same all the time well depending on how many students we

095have in the district and you know that kind of stuff yeah is no reason to have 20 Millions no this is just the money we're getting from the state yeah yeah yeah now we do have and and you know it's a great question you know we do have other monies in my life already that's our like investment side this is kind of our daily the money comes into our checking account what do we do with it it gets to sit here and be more protected than in another bank that might go bankrupt or something like that it's a great question I crossed it off because Mr sheldoner talked I assumed by the way it was the Clearing House this is the reason everyone doesn't do that but it sounds like that's not the case is

096there anything we're going to find out in like six months somebody watching this is like hey you guys here's this other small inconvenience of doing this it's not Clearing Houses it's not that it's you know I to be honest I I used to work for Fifth Third Bank I was the one that brought my laugh into Fifth Third Bank so the the the fun needs an underlying bank and Fifth Third is still that that supplier of banking services uh the fund is is really sitting on top of it and all we're doing is looking at the net flow every day and saying okay we had 10 10 million going out the door so we have to sell 10 million off oh we have 20 million coming in the door then we have to buy 20

097million more of Investments that's all we're doing so the the underlying Bank is still the same bank that you're you're with it's just you won't leave funds there every night instead it'll be invested and that's where you get the big benefit is getting away from being on the bank's balance sheet and now we're into the investment World we're able to to earn you know better returns as well as increase the safety level from a credit rating standpoint but to your to your question you know I've been doing this since 2009 I did the bank site as well you know from 2000 to 2009 so I'm I'm aware of both sides I don't know of anything I I can't you know strike me down if but I I don't know of anything that that could potentially

098uh be in conflict with what we're talking about tonight there's no surprises uh it's it's it's out there it's been been working for decades and it's just it is a it's the reason why I left the bank is because this is a no-brainer that that was kind of the comment you made it's kind of a no-brainer yeah thank you I'm thinking back to a comment you made yesterday during the finance committee Mr Richardson about the large percentage of the population that doesn't do well with asset management and that is me so I'm really happy to have this presentation for this and don't worry that's why we as a committee um take care um and so I'm really happy to have this presentation I I think the key is we have an opportunity to earn money

099on money we're receiving anyway so if it's safe secure as it can be um I appreciate that yeah this is for a superintendent didn't we um you said that we do invest some funds in my life did you find any information you know the data that said why we didn't invest more yeah I mean I think well there's a couple of things one you know that this district is in kind of the best fiscal shape it's been in a long time I think that years ago there was a sense of worry and a sense of protectiveness you know if you've been used to not having a lot of money you might just say just keep it there like let's because if we invested in something that matures in let's say nine months then what happens

100if something bad happens between now and nine months now that we can be really kind of creative and thoughtful about the money you know we have this the essers money we have some stuff in our uh general fund now we're able to buy commercial paper so we're buying let's say bonds for GM that expire in three months we're able to do that now because we don't need every dollar to get through to the next paycheck you know this District I mean you you know better than I would did there were years where we were kind of living paycheck to paycheck and now we're not living paycheck to paycheck and so now we can start to do this the cool thing about this program is it's still the paycheck but instead of it being deposited into

101an account that's not earning interest it's being deposited into an account that's not only earning interest but is safer so one of other I'll be honest with you the one of the reasons why you won't necessarily utilize this during low interest rate times it is Market driven so when fed funds goes down dramatically it went down to zero the fund is basically paying zero but it's still Triple A rated uh you still have other options to invest longer that produce the additional earnings but I want to make sure it's clear that this is not not something that that's pegged by the bank or by the fund it's basically the market the Market's saying interest rates now are zero you earn zero interest rates are five percent you earn five percent right and you can still

102be waived in that scenario certainly we've certainly under your direction I know we'd move in you know it doesn't happen very quickly that it would be back to zero or even the low numbers it's been the last five or six years but if for for whatever reason if we left it there do we still benefit from not only the protection but the waived fees yeah I was going to say the the Consortium still pays for the fees the the vast majority of the fees so it's again it you're still winning on three three counts let's say instead of four and and the other thing that probably you probably can't say but I can is if it goes down to zero the banks aren't paying us anything anyway so you know this is a way to

103weigh the fees doing all this stuff and if we really needed the money back you'd give it to us so you know if we it is it is at the end of the day there's no contract between my laugh and use so if you decide I I'm done with this you can pull out at any time yeah well then the reason I asked the question was that we have been investing money in certain accounts uh more sometimes than others sure so that's why my question why were we not investing in this and and doing the other I mean we were investing a lot of our money in my life I mean I can defer to John and Kim here but you know my left was was usually one of the things we put money in

104uh was yeah and the the bond proceeds so like you know when we put in when we get the bond we have that extra money that's waiting for us to build stuff we usually use it we put it in my laugh so we we've had a relationship with them that's why we knew about them that's why I knew about them and so I kept saying well why don't we kind of do more uh and then there's other money that we have uh that we invest in through fifth third to buy basically bonds but I don't know John if there's anything else that we're I mean that's thank you yeah so um just to reiterate uh whenever I've talked about hey we've we uh received all this interest revenue from Bond proceeds is from this program

105um we just haven't had necessarily the excess general fund balance to be able to do that so we have started pushing a little bit more back but uh excuse me we're into the fund to be able to push and we haven't always necessarily been able to push out to the the 90 170 270 day terms to even earn more interest on the general fund side so that's why we're looking at putting all of it in because now we have more flexibility to move the funds around and have it more liquid and then not having to push back and forth between Fifth Third and my lap okay thank you [Music] any other questions comments this evening thank you thank you for your presentation appreciate it as the superintendent joins us back I'm gonna stall a little

106bit because he's next on the agenda um we are going to have a report report from superintendent everyone it's a pleasure to see all of you um that's more than I ever want to talk about banking certainly during during these meetings but you know this is one of the first times that we're speaking in the Horseshoe when school's been out so you know not necessarily speaking about certainly uh specific things about what happened at you know Kendon yesterday but I think it's really important for me not only to acknowledge the Juneteenth on on Monday but to acknowledge the presentation that we had this afternoon this is an incredible School District its strength is its diversity its strength is the community and I think sadly education in and of itself is sometimes built to again as

107Rachel read which was my quote uh which is ridiculous I've never had anybody actually read my own words out loud um is that we have to acknowledge that education in and of itself is structured to continue the power Dynamic that currently exists and at times we have to say we're gonna figure this out and change things up the banking conversation I'm going to do something different that's better for the district the conversation about Multicultural education we do it not because we think it's cool it's hip it's new we do it because it's right and we do it because it actually is better for children and the the holiday on Monday is an example of how long it's taken this country and still need so much more to go to finally start to acknowledge important days

108in a culture that isn't necessarily the dominant political culture um you know I they used a quote from the talmud uh as a Jew that you know I I recognize it quite well but I think of our own family's tradition of Passover the story of Passover is a celebration of coming out of slavery and it is a meal that you have and the entire meal's purpose is to talk about coming out of slavery and why that's important and that was you know 3 500 years ago I think um depending on who's counting but the idea of creating a tradition the idea of creating a narrative the idea of creating a holiday to sep to to celebrate an emancipation to celebrate uh coming out of bondage it's so sad that it took till two years ago

1092021 for the federal government to really acknowledge it but you know things take time and that's kind of the deal and I want to acknowledge that that will be Monday but in some respects it's it's every day because we're still suffering as Rachel talked about the wake uh the wake of history and so I really look towards the community listening to this some of this stuff is scary it is changing we're moving a lot of people's cheese we really are but when you put a child and Children First it makes it a little bit easier you know there's an old line that was usually used in my family which was if they're not shooting at you you're doing something wrong so we know that people will come after uh us for maybe making some difficult

110decisions but to acknowledge as a district the importance of Juneteenth the acknowledgment the importance of creating Traditions to celebrate but also tonight not put away this idea that history isn't fraught with really bad stuff and the crazy thing is is right now as was mentioned in the presentation there's a movement to hide this stuff kids are pretty smart you know they know they know what's going on and if we continue to create a history that's not real we're never going to learn how to make things better so you know I don't have uh Transportation numbers to give you because there's nobody in school right now I don't have other things to give you but I think it always behooves me as superintendent to share the timeliness of what's happening and so I just ask that

111this entire Community you know not only celebrate Monday a but also understand the significance of what Multicultural education can be because as as uh Reuben and Carlton were saying everybody's in that that's that's the power of this is that everybody's story is told and that instead of just taking a dominant look of History only using certain narratives you're allowed to see yourself in history and when you see yourself in history you start to think that you can do more and that's incredibly powerful so you know I don't want to belabor the point I know we've already heard two presentations um but I just do want to thank everybody for uh indulging us in your willingness to going down this road because it will not be smooth it will be fraught with choppiness and bumpiness because

112when you make people uncomfortable there's a fear but again if we come with love and respect and empathy I think we'll get there and as I've really said since I got here is our goal is to become the best school district and that means not just test scores and graduation rates which are on the rise I'm just saying but uh as we heard from the 98b presentation and our graduation results but the best school district the the better school districts are one that treat everybody with respect do the things that are right but also have the hard conversations with the folks that maybe are not serving our kids the right way so with that we do I think have a did you know because why not um so Jenna I turn it over to you

113and uh let you go uh thanks Ben the crpbis program uh has something as something that's been around in the district for many years now and it's in most of our schools and we put together a quick video to Showcase some of the great work that they've been doing this year [Music] to me it's that s in crpbis that's so important the support supporting our children to learn positive behaviors and then rewarding them when we see those positive behaviors to me crpbis really starts with relationship building and one important thing that I like to do as students is just get to know them but also let them get to know me so that I can see what's important to them so I can build my kind of reward system based around what they like because

114if they don't like a reward they're not going to work hard for it and one thing we like to do in my classroom is work towards whole class rewards where each individual helps to build into that reward so for example we'll do an academic award so the class Works towards getting a whole group award like maybe reading on Epic or doing imagine math and every student gets a chance to participate and they encourage each other through that as well every time we are walking the hallway or being nice to other people people the teachers see us doing those stuffs they can give us G3 tickets the person that they picked they can come and get a prize from the price closet I think at Petco we have done a fantastic job of making crpbis fun

115we have a school store we are currently doing Raffles the last two weeks of school they have really caught the attention of the students I'm hearing even from the big kids because I teach kindergarten I'm hearing that the big kids are really drawn to some of the prizes that we have just fun creates Community which is something that is important for students to do alongside their learning to me it's it's a really a whole wide School approach and where we're really trying to be conscious about taking the students emotional security and to play when all of our decision making it's about creating a positive environment rather than a reactive one and an environment that just really encompasses diversity for all of our students and inclusion by like saying you're very nice and I like playing

116with you and you could tell your teacher that and you might get a G3 ticket and go to the prize closet and get a prize to play with thank you one of the things I I love about that curriculum is it doesn't say Don't run in the Halls don't scream don't yell it says do these things and we all know developmentally that's the better approach for actually guiding and changing Behavior so I love that that brings us on to our routine matters which is our first committee report of the evening finance committee from Miss Lil G thank you madam president uh the detailed Treasures report for the period of May 1st 2023 through May 31st 2023 is attached to this agenda and here are some highlights the beginning cash and investment balance was 35 million

117186 247 dollars receipts totaled 23 million 583 364 dollars while disbursements equaled negative 19 million ninety nine thousand nine hundred thirty one dollars net entered fund transfers totaled three hundred forty four thousand thirty six dollars in interest from fund Investments to the student and bond funds as well as journal entries to remove the due to do froms in all funds there is a maturity of five million dollars from my laugh that will be fully processed on June 1st the monthly transfer to the general fund for the 2022 and the 2019 Bond expenses was seven hundred seven thousand three hundred twenty dollars the ending general fund cash and investment balance on May 31st 2023 was 45 million seven hundred twenty one thousand thirty six dollars the general fund's cash and investment balance is seven million seven

118hundred fifty one thousand five hundred thirty eight dollars greater as compared to the same time last year and now I'd like to outline the donations received during the month of May 2023 the total donations were four thousand seven hundred thirteen dollars and fifty cents we had from Barbara Patterson for the Elizabeth Wilbur scholarship fund 686.93 from Amazon smile we received a total of Sixteen dollars and 57 cents and those were donations for Beekman Thomas and Danielle Gonzalez for the Lac scholarship fund was five hundred dollars Marisol Garcia also for the Lac scholarship fund was five hundred dollars the black bud and Ecolab donation to The District was ten dollars and the Lansing promise gave us a Readiness Grant of three thousand dollars and that was used for high school students to tour hbcus so again

119those total donations are 4 713.50 we want to thank all the generous donors who gave to us in the month of May and Madam president that concludes the May 2023 treasurer's report thank you any questions or comments for a Treasurer Treasurer Lil G thank you just a reminder that the receipt and approval of the treasures report is on um is on tonight's agenda next is our facilities committee report I'm going to turn over to Mr Lopez who I think is going to be turning it over to miss Tokar um circumstances and um if you have any questions I'll ask Christina she's ready okay um so do you have any questions on any of the best recommodations I do think that we should perhaps just highlight each of the bid recommendations and then note yep and

120then note that there's an additional recommendation that's just in our on our agenda this evening that doesn't necessarily have a bid packet so absolutely thank you Miss Lopez um and this was um or recommended as I think the soldiers is oh I'm sorry all right you didn't hear me well I'll go over it again sorry so um the first recommendation is for Food Service conveyor dishwasher replacement um a quote was received from Trimark Marlin LLC for 82 000 147 dollars um 52 cents was it Soul Source or not or just we just received that no it's not sole source but it's on the approved list of vendors that we use for this type of purchases okay so it's been recommended this is from from the Food Service fund right yes it's this entire amount is

121coming from a food service any questions on that okay second one is um Food Service exterior service door replacement remove and replace the exterior service door in the food service area at Hill Center three vendors responded to the bid Grand River Interiors Trumbull group and JC builders uh the recommendation is that we um contract with is it convertible Grand River builders yes for um an amount of 33 170 dollars again that's for replacement doors any questions okay I was gonna say yeah one thing to note this is a food service need it's an exterior door that will be primarily used by food service but fun fact because it is that exclusively used by Food Service we have to share the expense with general fund so we're going to pay a whopping 331 dollars of shared

122expense out of our general fund because we're not allowed to exclusively bid it out for Food Service fun facts okay with that explanation is there any question okay moving on uh the next recommendation is for a food service line replacement this is removal and replace uh the serving line in the Food Service cafeteria area at North again I received one bit from Trimark Marlin LLC this is from Bedford Park Maryland and the proposed amount is 43 830. with 80 cents again it's a food service expense any questions okay thank you the next bid recommendation is is for heel flooring replacement of flooring in Hills CTE classrooms we received two bids one from superior flooring of Corona and one from DF flooring from Flint the recommended bid is for for DF flooring for a cost of

12386 464 dollars versus 90 970 from Superior questions yes go ahead fund it must be General Alfonso so it's fun yep that part didn't get updated I'm sorry about that we'll make sure that gets fixed this is being paid for out of capital funds to prepare the new CTE High School spaces for the new classrooms that are opening in the fall it's it's okay did you say general fund capital projects capital projects fun okay all right any other question um okay thank you and looking at those two bids when you add the numbers together superior flooring comes in a lot about two grand cheaper than via one so why not just choose one um right uh well this next recommendations specifically for the Pleasant View and and we'll talk about that so we have a

124recommendation from Pleasant View flooring a replacement of fluorine in Pleasant View classrooms in hallway we had two two bits one from superior flooring for fifty eight thousand eight hundred ninety two and one from DIA flooring for sixty four thousand fifty five the recommended bid is is DF flooring at sixty four thousand five five five so the question is sure quite that description happy to answer that and it's actually right in the document under comments just so you have it in writing as well um is that superior flooring actually missed a classroom in their bid so they did not have a complete bid for the work to be done is could have been larger so since they did not complete it or to submit a complete bid well let me go to the other one that

125also has a discrepancy in the cost sure the Pleasant View renovation painting uh paint classroom classroom hallway at Pleasant View the the first recommendation was the large company for thirty thousand four seventy five second one was from Rico Mireles painting at 26 000 and the third was a painting painters for sixty three thousand so the recommended bid is for the large company at thirty thousand four seventy five versus twenty six thousand from Rico Mireles so that's a question sure um so happy to talk about that one as well so we're doing two you can see we're doing two painting projects and two flooring projects with these between these four bids some at the CTE spaces at Hill and some at Pleasant View for additional preschool classrooms that we're putting in there we are doing a

126large painting project with Rico Morales painting on the hill space and at the same time needing to do the painting um for Pleasant View and so since those are both large projects and working to get that done so we can move in new furniture and prep those classrooms and have them ready to go by the Fall we divided the work between those two companies to ensure that it would be completed before we opened up school in the fall so that is why you'll see that the large company while it is a little bit larger of a bid for the Pleasant View spaces we went with them because the RICO Morales painting company is already doing a large painting job at the hill CTE spaces so we divided the where up to make sure that we

127can have all of it ready before school opens questions no questions okay and then the last one is for um for the Hill CT classroom Renovations painting paint classrooms for Hill City spaces there were three bits one from the large company at 37 415. one from Rico Mireles painting for thirty five thousand four fifty it went from 18 a painting painters for 150. so the recommended was a little bit of Rico Mireles for 35 450 dollars and again that's from the fun that we talked about previously any questions on this one okay yep the only other the last thing that will be a separate it's not a bid recommendation but it is a separate recommendation that's on tonight's agenda is to add um we did a large bid process late this spring to go through

128to get all the everything prepped and ready to go for all of the work that we're doing in all the schools over the summer after we started that process there was a decision that was made to add three gsrp classrooms to Dwight rich and so we couldn't include the work that needed to be done there in the bid process that had already been started now we know how much that's going to cost us so you have an additional recommendation tonight that's separate from the bid recommendations to add in that scope of work with the construction companies that are already working with the rest of the projects in the district this summer yes and this is um the finest line in the bid format but it's in in a like an invoice kind of form like

129a change order type change order type of thing and um you've heard the explanation from Christine Christina do you have any questions this is for a total of 347 thousand eight hundred sixty three dollars and 44 cents total bit okay and I and I understand this is something that that needs to happen approved today because uh working is to be started as soon as possible in order to get those classrooms ready for uh for our students here none okay that concludes my report Madam president all right thank you and I just want to say to my colleagues I appreciate you guys hanging in hanging in there today for the marathon but we did want to get all of the critical the time critical things approved today which is the price we pay to take July

130off without meeting so it's okay um that moves us on to our consent agenda our consent agenda this evening includes the approval of the June 1st regular meeting minutes and the June 8th information study session minutes as well as the receipts and approval of May's treasure report may I have a motion information session as well as the church been moved by Miss Williams supported by Miss oh thank you it's been moved by Miss Williams supported by Miss Moore all those in favor please signify by saying aye opposed same sign Ocean passes eight zero that brings us on to our new business so the first thing we have is the consideration and approval of the bid recommendations that were discussed as part of the facilities report may I have a motion president Dr Rodriguez I moved

131that the board education up through the bed recommendations are presented it's been moved by Dr Rodriguez supported by Miss loji any additional questions or comments see none all those in favor of approving the bid recommendations as presented please signify by saying aye oppose same sign motion passes eight zero that brings us to Item B which is the recommendation that we add the 350 000 of work to the change order may have a motion exactly in it it's been moved by Miss Williams supported by Miss Moore any additional questions or comments seen on all those in favor please signify by saying aye opposed same sign great motion passes eight zero that brings us to item C and D which are kind of together which is included in our packet because it's a two-part process of the

132solar agreement once the distribution uh the best way I can say is the distribution agreement and the utility scale agreement I I Mr superintendent do you mind giving us an overview of this uh not at all uh I will defer the first part over to Christina to take us through the actual contracts and then I'll give an overview of what we're doing for the district yep so mine's gonna kind of basically be an overview as well but I just kind of wanted to remind everybody a little bit earlier in the spring um of last year we hired greenlink Education Services which is a Professional Services firm to come in and help develop Energy savings green initiatives those types of things in the district so now we're starting to see some of the fruits of that

133um you know that that work together as a team so um what we have tonight for you are two different requests and they're a little bit separate because of the types of work that is going on so they're going to see two different Professional Service agreements they're both for greenlink education both of them are still a part of the project to work with Border Water and Light to Garner solar energy air solar generated power and give it and not give it sell it to bwl we're not giving it to them um and in the process of doing it in the process of doing this this will also help to lower the energy costs for the district and generate revenue for the district so no final decisions on the overall project are being made at this

134time because we're still working through the process with bwl but a full board briefing will come in the very near future where the overall projects each one of them and everything that will take place in the future and then once those discussions are done with vwl so we're still working through that process um what we propose is that you you as a board approve the project so we can continue working with bwl to strengthen that relationship and work on closing um those potential deals and they could start as early as next week so I guess that's kind of a general overview and I'll let Ben go into it a little bit further sure uh and certainly Christina feel free to jump in so you notice that one is called utility scale and the other one

135uh is about distribution so to remember we're thinking of two different separate but equally important ideas with solar one is in essence what's called kind of behind the meter so this idea that we're going to build solar near our schools on fields you know it's not going to be kind of in the way but you will be able to harness that energy and reduce our costs incredibly I mean we might even be able to get to Zero Energy costs for some of our schools which would be incredible the other really cool thing about this project is it's not just about saving money or making money is that when we're discussing things with bwl it also comes with educational programming for our actual students so it's kind of cool that they'll be able to see it

136and work with it and understand it Etc in addition as you might know we own a large corn farm that would one would think in the middle of nowhere but it's actually in a really good location for bwl so we are having a conversation uh about possibly working with bwl for that so it's utility in the sense that it's not near a school it's not behind the meter it's not kind of being part of that and so bwl and we really appreciate this is bwl kind of sees these as a little bit different one is hey can they help support the stuff for the schools and then hey can they support this stuff that's really not for the school per se but it's on school land so we had to separate the contracts out with

137our kind of or organization that is helping and if you remember one of the great things that this organization did was that they created the RFP so that we can bring in really important solar power folks so that we could then bid with bwl we as a school district weren't able to just go to bwl and say trust us we can do solar and they go what are you talking about so we were able to bring in some really top talent to thou uh go and I can't certainly breach the confidentiality of where we are with bwl but I can certainly say that we are really happy with that relationship uh their CEO all the way down has been always very supportive of the relationship between the school district and bwl and we look forward

138to continuing going down this path but in order for us to go even further down this path we need to kind of get this ball rolling with these contracts so I don't know Christina is that good and just to remind everybody the corn farm that we own is on the north end of town on the corner of wood and State there's about 94 Acres up there yeah we do hmm fun facts okay all right any other questions or comments this evening nope nope I need a motion Miss Lil G I move that the Board of Education accept and approve the green link GLE LSD solar agreement distributed generation do you mind making both motions and that the Board of Education accept and approved the green link gles LSD solar agreement utility scale supported by Miss

139Williams just to clarify this is a recommendation to adopt both item C and D on our agenda this evening any questions comments uh Dr Rodriguez thank you very much um yes but I got my Reserves I believe in the future energy very much 100 or more I don't believe the beauty of the city is to put solars in the fields in our these in our schools I don't know how much energy this is going to produce by the beauty of the city and the land of the city close to the neighborhoods can be used for Community Recreation Community entertainment Community culture and I have my doubts I want the process to go through but in the end I have my doubting how I am going to vote because I think the beauty of the city

140and the since the community wants to have been to their house maybe there are no solar panels thank you Mr President thank you I think that that's and besides the the land is is pretty out of the way where the land is understanding when we're doing more adjacent properties to school that is within the city limits I can certainly see that concern um Dr Rodriguez two things I'll just know and ask her for the superintendent to consider this one I'm curious if pwl has been in conversation with the city about this Venture because you know they are the subsidiary for the city and I'm curious how that that Dynamic has been going just for us to talk about at a future time and I'm I'm also hopeful that there'll be some opportunities to integrate um

141the panels into some functional spaces like they did at MSU and they made them parking covers so it was functional so I'm just throwing that out there yeah I'll I'll comment on both uh the first one the city is very well aware and in fact to the relationship that we have with them they've actually reached out to us to maybe actually help them uh with some more things so yes the city is well aware they know what we're doing and to the point that Dr Rodriguez made is at this point this is about can we move forward uh with these conversations where they're actually placed on certain land that you know I'm happy to bring to the board you know but just you know if you picture you know some of our schools they have

142these huge huge Fields multi-multi Acres that are not really used as much as as one would like you know you're not talking about getting rid of a soccer field or a basketball court or anything like that when when the schools were built they were built sometimes on 20 acres 25 acres and so the idea that we could maybe really substantially help our costs but also be good to the environment might be a good thing so absolutely I hear you loud and clear there's a beauty in the city we would never want to ruin it but we also think that there is something we can do and then in terms of you know other ways of using solar we're always looking at anything from the carports to Rooftop but those tend to be quite expensive and

143as you all know some of the roofs of our school I wouldn't necessarily want to put anybody on it let alone a solar power but we always always are thinking very critically about how to use space for the best use for kids if we were going to take away play areas or play spaces for kids kids certainly that would not be our first thing but but I hear you loud and clear and we'll share kind of the the designs once if if it's approved by by bwl absolutely and I appreciate it and I appreciate you bringing that up Dr Rodriguez any other questions or comments this evening seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed same sign motion passes eight zero next is the adoption of the fiscal year 2023-2020

144for budget resolution as a reminder for folks who may be just tuning in the district did hold our obligatory public hearing on this budget for input and feedback from the community earlier this evening we did not receive any substantial input or feedback and so we have a recommendation to present the budget as presented may have a motion Madam president Miss Moore I moved at the Board of Education approved the 2023 2024 budget as presented it's moved by Miss Moore supported by Dr Rodriguez are there any additional questions or comments I think this is one of the first years I'm excited to adopt the budget but I'm even more excited to see what it looks like in the fall after we get our enrollment and find out what our foundation is um any other questions or

145comments seeing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed same sign motion passes eight zero next we are on to item F consideration for us to move into closed session may I have a motion Dr Rodriguez I'm with the board education company to close the section for a strategy and negotiation sessions connected with the negotiations on collected bargaining agreement so I'm removed by Dr Rodriguez supported by Mr Lopez any questions or comments all right I need an uh two-thirds vote on this so I'm going to ask for a roll call vote will the clerk please call the roll Mr Richardson yes Mr Lopez yes Dr Rodriguez yes Mr Willis yes Miss Moore yes Miss Lil G yes Dr body Miss Williams wonderful the motion passes eight zero and at 7 59

146we are in closed session okay foreign the crew gets enough time to get us back on the air all right um we are back into Open Session the next item our agenda is report from secretary and announcement Dr Rodriguez thank you Mr President I had to inform the the school itself but really there are so many summer school programs and this is opportunities that did you go to the Sea the website for more information you are going to have opportunities to be educated and to continue your education during the summer then vacation learning is what it's all about a school of reading and dance party and rocked the black studio in the real town 6 16 23 another opportunity lunch in June 10th 30th anniversary celebration Saint Joseph's Park June 16 20 30 23 and

147June 17 23. Lance in June 10th 5K run walk on role is going to be June 17 23 23 and wjw Sexton High School the next board meeting is going to be June 30th in the eversole center we need to be there by seven o'clock and we will continue meeting the whole day of the Saturday if we behave very well we will be back home then I heard that we had a really a good Retreat the benefits all of us and on the school district at this time I don't have any board meetings for July unless you decide something different during the retreat thank you very much Dr Rodriguez I had invent sometimes appreciate it that brings us to public comment on non-agent items I believe our first registered speaker is no longer with us

148for the evening so I am going to invite Priscilla Ellis to the podium to address the board as a reminder you have three minutes to address the board and the board does not typically respond to public comment good evening my name is Priscilla Ellis and I work at Eastern High School on March 18 2022 I was put on my first administrative leave of absence being informed the administration was choosing to seek non-renewal of my administrative contract pending my 2021-22 evaluation and allegedly due to lack of communication with staff and administration by the end of March of 2022 I was locked out of the eye observation platform between May and April and May 2nd of 2022 I re requested a closed session with the board through Union representation to discuss the non-renewal of my contract May

1495th I was called back off of administrative leave as an administrator on special assignment by HR to work on the textbook project the job duties entailed taken an inventory of the textbooks at the warehouse and throughout every school except Everett High School I requested access to the eye observation platform so that I could do my new evaluation for my new position and that's when I discovered that my 2017-2018 evaluation for my administration had been removed May 23rd um I received I did a second request for a closed session by reaching out to select board members and District leaders on May 24th I was called by the union rep to meet and under the rest I signed a resignation letter to accept a teaching position May 25th I was put on a second administrative leave of

150absence until my contract expired on June 30th of 2022. November 3rd of 2022 I obtained my evaluation ratings listed in the rep system from HR and noticed items that Disturbed me on my 1718 administrative evaluating rating which is no longer visible in the eye observation platform and frankly in my opinion it appeared to me that someone in the administration who had access to the evaluation platform had changed it or was in the process of changing it during the time the decisions were being made to terminate my administrative contact contract and by the 17th and the 20th I reached out to the HR twice to address this issue and other things transpired by April 21st my attorney Mr McWilliams requested to meet with the superintendent and members of administrative team to address these issues along with

151other concerns detailed in the attorney's letter to the superintendent I don't know if you've had an opportunity to see that but please do request that from your lawyers and regrettably the response to my attorney's request has been for the administration to lower your up rather than have a meaningful meeting to discuss what really was happening and what could be done to address the problems so I'm asking you as a board to look into that for me please thank you thank you for your comments Missy the Miss Ellis that brings us to our next agenda item which is comments from board members Mr Richardson thank you long day and I got two one's going to be a little longer one will be pretty sure um this uh I ended up in the seat because of this

152week last year which is uh we do a tour with Lansing students I'm a part of Apex Academy for the last like 13 years we take all the football players that sign up we do this business immersion tour and we take them along to all the businesses that me and this group of people that I'm with are affiliated with and last year I watched Jaleel Canty who's the head coach of Everett football uh he brought his whole staff there and every one of those kids including Jaleel was an apex kid 100 of his entire staff and I realized he was living my life and I was like I've got to get involved with something more officially Atlantic schools but living in East Lansing I did not know I could run for the board but as

153I turned over enough rocks here we are this year next week we're doing that same tour and one of the kids who I reached out to see if he would help me with my presentation he says hey do you know that another school district is you guys have talked to us about the certification over at haptics about software engineering and Grand Ledge got all 60 of their kids in the program and Lansing didn't have any can you help me figure that out and so we can't it is what it is it exists and I wasn't a part of the board when the decisions were made on how that was going to go I've talked to the superintendent about it it doesn't look nefarious or anything like that but he had told me well if it

154comes to Waverly let me know because I will transfer and that's what brings that up to me tonight is like damn we would have a kid leave over this extracurricular opportunity that we should be able to figure out here and so I just wanted to put that on when they talked about uh barriers To Deni and what is school four one of them was to be technically proficient and so our CTE program is going to be great we'll have kids that want to be chefs and firefighters and stuff but the haptic Studio the learning lab all of that stuff is all about jobs that are in the future we take these kids and we show them how to make podcasts how to do how to create video games how to create like digital learning platforms

155no code Solutions all of this stuff that's very interesting to them they're digitally native and so it makes sense for them to be a part of that and that program that went to Eaton schools in Grand LED specifically is a paid for certification 60 of these kids in a couple of months will be certified to develop and make video games and go work for Unity if they wanted to which is like the brand standard in the training of that so there's nothing we can do about that but I just wanted to put that out there like as we talk about all this other stuff that's one of them diversity includes what can we keep our kids interested in and so Caleb Thornhill who him and his brother and his dad and his dad used to

156be the senator our uh the Sergeant at Arms at the Capitol all of them were captains at Michigan State football Caleb wrote a letter um to Senator Anthony about expressing some stuff and specifically when I read it I just kind of you get emails you send them you know you read them you don't do much with them but as I read that one I'm like oh this is our I don't want to mention the kid this is exactly our kid he's thinking about leaving our school district because it looks like there's better programs elsewhere and so Kayla wrote to Senator Anthony last month our group is aware of children leaving due to lack of opportunities exposures and are looking for reasons to stay passionate about opportunities in building a better Lansing with the training and

157Innovation Center which is uh the next level what I think they're trying to do over at haptics we could reverse this trend as someone who still runs a non-profit servicing all three Lansing Public Schools uh called the Apex Academy I can attest to the dire need for opportunities for our young men and women to gain exposure expansion and experience in this digital area and so I just wanted to plea that out to city council to this board to Senator Anthony to anybody however we got to figure it out we cannot afford for kids in Grand Ledge to get this kind of leg up on our kids we can't afford for kids in Waverly or any place else to have that so this is just my plea so that as we're looking at diversity and inclusion

158and all these other things and curriculum all this stuff that we heard about which is great remembering one of the things they said school is for is being technically proficient in the world that will exist for them that was on their presentation all right so that's just a plea Mr Richardson Connecticut really quick absolutely when you said all of their students are going to haptics all of the Apex students in another district is that who you're no we bring we bring 40 to 50 Lansing school football players on an expansion tour every year okay the businesses that we have an interest in Fair there is a certification at one of those businesses that develop software and that certification went to a different School District okay that which we thought initially would be 15 kids ended

159up being 60 kids there was a big huge article about it in March and so that ship has sailed you know I'm not a spilled milk guy like that ship of sale but there are other opportunities to expand this how do we figure out what can we do these kids there's more kids that want to do this than be firefighters I think we all know that there's more and all of those are great so whether it's at LCC or haptics or we build something whatever it is CT it's the the placement doesn't matter to me as much as the people right here that lead the community have to be thinking about that kind of stuff and we didn't grow up in that way so we often don't is there can I ask another question I

160know we will frankly do this is there a reason why Caleb as the leader of Apex didn't bring it to the board or request support and wanting to do something if there was an expansion yes Mr Thornhill works for the NFL and lives in Miami Florida USA so his non-profit just happens to be here in Lansing Michigan got it okay thank you yeah so so that's a plea the second one is not going to be popular um and it'll be brief which is um less lengthy but I received a complaint from someone in the community last month about their perceived uh poor judgment that the superintendent took on action and so I requested with our leadership group hey we should go into closed session which I do believe is the appropriate way to talk about

161this and we weren't able to get that done so it's not the end of the world but uh I saw the complaint I looked into it with my limited eyes and in my personal review I believe it's valid and I believe it's inconsistent with what the role in qualifications are of any superintendent and I think it's a minor thing that I was hoping we could talk about as a group and we weren't able to do that but I do think it's still very important for this group to address that and figure out how do we do uh and what do we expect and what are the boundaries of that and so I was asked to address it with Mr sheldoner specifically and not here which I couldn't accommodate because in this scenario he and I

162both believe in bureaucracy that's something I know from our existing relationship we are not peers when it comes to behavior and discipline so it has to be done bureaucratically in my opinion it has to be done 4matically and so I'm not going to address what the thing is publicly because I still hope that there's a way for us to talk about this because I don't think it needs to be this big of a deal but to me it's a pretty clear error in judgment and it's not the end of the world but it's outside of the role in capacity and qualifications in my opinion of what a superintendent does and should do especially when we have counsel for that that's my okay any other comments from board members Mr Lopez yep thank you um this

163is for uh clarifying something for the community I know that we can enroll Children online right it's open online for those who may want to go to a place there's a place the Welcome Center is that still open for people to go there okay and the reason I say that is just to clarify what I told him is that but folks some folks cannot do internet okay so and they were also thinking because previously could go to a school and enroll their kid in school in that particular school we don't have that now right the schools are not open this summer for enrollment or anything of that nature I mean the thing is to go to the Welcome Center okay yeah all right so that that's that's that's good I I just want to make

164sure that uh that there is someone at the Welcome Center to enroll kids and uh as well as the internet um they were looking at jsrp uh positions and I don't know if we have any left but but they can go there or or online and if they need help you know they can always call on us to kind of uh guide them through that process but just for the public to know because I've been asked this a couple of times is yes there is the Welcome Center for a person in person registration and obviously the the internet and the website thank you Lopez I appreciate you saying that because I had to enroll online and still had to go in for help because I couldn't figure it out so I appreciate that that there's

165a need in the Welcome Center staff are very friendly I went into the Welcome Center and so and I saw Mr Keck nod his head that if you're an in-district student looking for gsrp we have room yeah so just wanted to know that brings me another question are we able to enroll kids that are not in the district for jsrp yes but there's a process where they it's a it's a priority list so I have encouraged some non-district um families to enroll as well but there is a priority for yeah the other thing is transportation right that's those sort of two things right right yeah right I mean they can enroll but they need to bring their child to school and find their own transportation good let's uh we think we know everything but we

166don't know everything all the time thank you Here Comes board members seeing that I need a motion to adjourn please Rodriguez supported by Lopez yes we did all those in favor for a journey please signify by saying I I'm a PO same sign at 9 10 we are adjourned