001[Music] please yes oh all right [Laughter] [Music] uh [Music] thank you [Music] hi everybody time to go [Music] oh [Music] is it's okay they are oh not yes [Music] aloha everyone it is six o'clock it's six o'clock take my word for it i'm back and i would like to call this information study session of the lansing school district board of education to order will the clerk please call the role dr body dr cavanaugh present miss hodgin she's here mrs lawrence i'm here mrs lil g here mr lopez president mrs moore president dr rodriguez mrs wallace willis i'm so sorry she's here quorum is present thank you very much any public comment oh ma'am okay any other business team necessary or additions to the agenda from the board okay we're going to move on we have
002two presentations this evening first up we have a mission and vision board presentation from the msu team and i would like to invite to join us some guy my old friend fellow sexton graduate go big reds fellow michigan state grad no yeah yeah go green dr brian beverly good evening everyone it's an honor and a pleasure to be with you all this evening um i want to first thank you all for allowing us to present to you all this evening i want to express gratitude for first of all all of your service because there are probably a million other places you could probably be right now with the sun shining in warm weather but appreciate all of your service to our community and to the students my students my my daughters included so thank you
003i want to also commend the effort of the administration team and the steering committee on the strategic planning process to this point they've poured a lot into what will be presented today but not only the mission and vision but also the community input sessions that have gone really well now there was a smaller one at geyer last night but there was a large one with lsea on tuesday night and there's been presentations and input sessions with peac and other opportunities and more opportunities still to come for participation in the strategic planning process a huge shout out to the msu-k12 outreach team who are joining us virtually today many of them are themselves former superintendents and principals across the state of michigan who have led high performing schools and districts or turnaround efforts in schools and
004districts and bring a wealth of expertise to this work particularly in facilitating professional learning but also facilitating strategic planning i'm going to invite you all to [Music] feel welcome to offer your input this is the district's strategic plan that msu just happens to be facilitating the process around okay this is not msu's plan this is the district's plan um so i just want you all to know that your input this evening will be uh welcomed valued and incorporated as we move forward in the process and also want to offer a huge uh thank you to uh treasurer moore who's uh been uh co-chairing uh the steering committee i wanna offer you an opportunity to share some comments as we get started please thank you dr beverly it has truly been a wonderful experience and i'm
005glad that you emphasized that this is our strategic plan because it is and i look forward to the community being a part of our conversations i'm sure that um if you check on our website there is information about our um the strategic plan conversations for the community so please um attend one of the sessions and that's really all i have to say it's an honor to work with you all and i appreciate everything that you're doing i appreciate ben your staff and all the work that's being put into this this is very important work and um our district rocks i'll just say that so um feel free to carry on dr beverly i concur with those statements for sure um we definitely view this opportunity conversational so you know feel free to ask questions as
006we go along offer input and feedback as we go along there will be some prompts throughout to offer you know opportunities for you you know to be more formal in your invitation to to provide input but please you know feel welcome to to uh interject at any point i'm going to turn this over to uh the rest of the team um dr joanne andrews dr tara kentz uh tamara bayshore berg shirley jackson um and several others are of our team have been providing support um and looking forward to this evening's conversation rather than a presentation hello okay great thank you we're going to go ahead and begin by um sharing our screen so you'll just see it now projected um there in front of you and i'm hoping that you all can see our um
007slide presentation deck this evening my name is tara kins great i'm glad to hear you can see it and it's a pleasure to be here with you tonight we're looking forward to this conversation and just so grateful for the opportunity to be engaged in this work it's been inspiring and fulfilling to see the collaboration that we've been able to be part of and also deeply invested in the work that we can see is unfolding for the district and the incredible commitment of the educators and the administrators involved in this process and i'm here with my colleague shirley i'd like to hand it to you thank you so much tara and good evening to everyone who's assembled in that room i should start by saying how grateful we all are that we've been allowed to share
008in this work as tara stated and as brian has said it's been our pleasure to work with some amazing professionals because everyone has been introduced by brian he did a wonderful job of going through our entire team i will move on you can see our names are on the screen but i'll just go on to the next session section i believe which involves the purpose and agenda you can read the purpose it's simply to update you on the work of the steering committee as it relates to lansing's school district's vision mission and belief statements you can see the items on the agenda the things that we plan to cover during this presentation they're fairly clear i don't think i need to go into any great detail of explaining what that all means uh the one
009thing that i should say though is that we're going to save questions to the end which is a little different from the way we normally work but we knew that we had only a limited amount of time and we thought that it might be good for us to save questions to the end however if you've got a burning question that just can't wait please interrupt us and we'll be happy to entertain that question um you're aware of course that we've been working as part of a strategic planning steering committee and i'll let tara talk about that absolutely thank you shirley so for those of you so just so we have a shared understanding to build everyone up to the same page that steering committee includes at least three members of the board it also includes
010individual chair members of the focus area groups and then members from the district administrative team and currently this group meets weekly but has communication throughout the process and is really working as i said earlier in a collaborative way the team from msu's role is really to facilitate the work of the committee so to provide some protocols to provide some ways to continue to help support moving the work forward and lighten the load of that administrative logistical piece so that we can really bring some of the expertise of doing this work in other contexts as well the responsibility of the steering committee is to oversee and provide guidance in the design of the new strategic plan and so as we look at the work for this new strategic plan one of the key pieces of this
011is the vision the mission and the belief statements that guide the work of the district and so the first step of this process was to really review these statements and look at the extent to which maybe they need to be updated or they reflect the current work so when we met with the superintendent the focus was to really gather input first and foremost from the community stakeholders but also from the individuals who are carrying out this work and the focus on the review was to refine which was to make the vision and the mission and the beliefs relevant and refined to the current work so if there was need for some work to be some of the statements to be updated to reflect what that current work is then to do so but if it
012was not needed then it was not necessary we know a lot of great dedicated work has gone into developing these and so it was just to make it current to the extent to which it would be needed so in that way it was a high level review not needing to rework the statements or go back but make some minor changes in some words or phrases that really reflected um the belief of the those who were carrying out this work and made sure it included everything that was relevant especially in light of the current work that's being has been done in the district tara can i interject here for just one second absolutely yes so so thinking about the intention for the review on vision mission and belief statements a lot of districts that engage in
013strategic planning work get stuck here right we know a lot of great work went into developing mission vision and belief statements previously and we wanted to dive deeper into goals strategies and metrics for moving the district forward we want to spend the majority of our time there versus starting with a blank slate on mission vision and belief statements right so just wanted to provide a little bit of context that many districts start that space they start that mission statement work and then they don't get beyond that we wanted to spend some time there update it revise it make sure it's appropriate for the current context but then spend the majority of our time again focusing on goals for the district focusing on strategies towards achieving those goals and then identifying metrics towards progress monitoring the
014work thank you brian that's so helpful and so important and um like you said really so that we're building on that and so that all the work of the goals and the strategies are really aligned with a clear understanding of the vision mission and belief statements so that that needed to be looked at so that the work that comes after that is really connected to fulfilling on those vision mission beliefs um but that that work has been done and so that um it can move forward from there so let me share with you a moment on the process just so that you can have a sense of the steps that we went through the first step was to review the original statements with the strategic planning steering committee and to really focus in on okay
015what are these statements saying what do the words mean what do we mean by high performing for example and as we looked through those statements then the msu team gathered feedback and input from the members of the committee to really hear what resonates um and what are any thoughts or ideas that are important to you that you would like to bring forward then the msu team did a light touch revision of the statements to reflect the input from the committee so we looked at some of those key phrases some of those key statements and looked at making sure they were incorporated into these statements and then we went back to the committee and shared the revised statements with the committee to receive their approval to answer any questions and to make sure that their recommendations
016were really reflected in the work shirley so this is a session about vision mission and beliefs and those are foundational tools that really guide the thinking of anybody who's charged with planning so this is the definition that we were able to um craft for for vision i'm going to talk a little bit about that it really is a description of hope for the district the quotation that you see below is a wonderful way of going just a bit further to have you understand how important that focus is i'll give you just a minute to read it maybe hopefully you had a chance but there we go all right so finding that focus is systemic um vision statements let's look at those for a minute during a really productive steering committee meeting and realizing that we've
017experienced so much since that plan that original plan was developed members offered their thoughts uh on how we might enhance the statement so that it better communicates the thinking of today's lansing district and community so take a minute and just look at that initial statement [Music] and you may notice some things about it and come to some of the some similar conclusions uh as we did now look at the refined statement you'll notice that there are some fundamental changes um in the initial statement in the refined statement both are strong and concise the initial statement was certainly that we noticed though that it sounded a bit more like a mission statement than a a description of what everyone hopes uh the district will become and so that is why we decided that a refined statement
018might be appropriate okay we'll go to the next section um as we worked on the vision in our steering committee we took note of what committee members were saying to us about that vision some of the words stood out in the refined version such as inclusive we added culturally diverse based on statements we heard committee members make there was and intent that we replaced the term global not because we don't realize that there is a global reality in this world but because we were not sure that everybody thinks of global in the same way we decided then that what people really are thinking of when they see the world global may be the terms engaged and purposeful we also looked at the the term high performing we hear it a lot and often people are
019not absolutely certain what anybody means when they describe a school or a district as being high performing so tara and i did a little hunting around the internet and in various journals to try to discover what people mean when they talk about high performing we were happy to find that the michigan association of school boards has actually done a lot of work on that term and found this article and you'll see that there are nine clear um indications of whether or not a district is or whether a district is high performing um and they're listed here now i'll admit that there's a lot on this page and some of this writing is quite small so i'm certain that many of you cannot read it if you're looking at um a screen but we have decided
020that we would provide the link to this article for anyone who wants to read more about it um [Music] tara were we going to put that in the chat follow up with that after this the presentation since my is projecting at the moment great we weren't sure if everybody had a screen in front of them or if you were relying on uh the projected screen you all have hardcover they all have hard copies shirley oh that's that's amazing great uh you have hard copies of what you're looking at but you may want to read the article so that you can gain some background as well okay let's move on yeah and just to add to that surely what you said so well was high performing was something that the group gave some feedback about in
021that vision statement and they said well what is meant by high performing and how do we capture that and so this document really helps further clarify what is meant by high performing and having a shared understanding that when we say high performing these are some very clear indicators that can be pointed to thank you shirley and thank you tara and i have to say that many of those characteristics that are listed there are already a part of lansing school so you may not have as much work to do as some people might suppose yeah it's very true and great that this is shared by the michigan school boards right to find something that's here within michigan all right let's turn to the mission definition next and when we look at the mission definition we think
022okay what do we mean by mission and what we mean is why the organization exists what is the overall goal of the district that we're pointing to and so we have the mission statements here i'm going to read them and then i'll pause and give you a chance to look at the both of them the initial or current statement says it is the mission of the lansing school district to provide educational excellence in a safe and nurturing environment for all students the revised statement reads provide a high quality education in a culturally safe and nurturing environment that supports all students to live purposeful and fulfilling lives so you can see that the initial phrase it is the mission of the lansing school district has been taken off um since we can see that this is
023the mission statement as indicated from the title above and then um the words that are in bold and italics are the words that have been added or changed so on the next slide let me just give you a minute to look at that and then i'll make a few more comments about those changed words okay so the term high quality replaced educational excellence that was another um piece that came up for people of saying what do we mean by educational excellence and is it really high quality is how the kind of education that we're delivering we added the terms culturally and supports to reflect the comments that were brought forward as well really speaking to the the rich culture that's part of the school district and that term is informed by the language of a
024framework known as the culturally responsive sustaining education framework and in that framework we can also provide that reference it has a lot of language to further communicate and clarify what is meant by culturally what is meant by supports and what are ways that that can be provided and then the phrase to live purposeful and fulfilling lives was added to represent the outcome based on the comments about indicators such as the graduation rates lifelong learning and career preparedness all of these different indicators could be seen as pathways to living a purposeful and fulfilling life and so that phrase was added in all right so now we're going to go to the belief definition so uh beliefs are really values that we hold they're convictions and we typically hold them for ourselves for our families and certainly
025if you're an educator for your students as well um this is a little chart that um i hope will help you understand how we worked from the original set of beliefs through to some refinement of those during our meeting one of the things that became very clear to us was the um understanding that many committee members thought that there may be more beliefs than that we really needed to have listed and that in fact some of those beliefs really were talking about or perhaps uh creating a similar sentiment so we thought about how we might go about refining these let's look at the first refinement that we saw as we looked at them we decided we'd group them so that similar themes might be or beliefs that shared similar themes might allow us an opportunity
026to do some consolidation one in eight seem to uh be similar let's go to the next group and i hope you're able to read those there's a lot on this slide as well but i think that you are probably especially since you have hard copies so there were three here that we thought shared some similarities the next group tara we thought four and seven from the original set of beliefs were also sharing a similar understanding about learning in particular and finally this one kind of stood by itself and so we listed it by itself but then as we continue to think about these uh original this original set of beliefs we wanted to come up with some rationale for how we might confine them into maybe a new statement of belief so let's look at
027what we came up with when we thought about what we were saying and what those two meant we found that the common theme of quality education was quite apparent and did a consolidation that led us to the statement all students and their families deserve a quality education aimed at career college and readiness this was based not just on those beliefs but also on statements that we were able to document during our meeting with the steering committee we heard that a lot then as we looked at the next three a common theme was trust across the community even where people might have some cultural differences or some differences in weight in the way they they think in general about how schools operate uh and so we decided that people in the community and people on our
028committee felt that diversity is a strength and that it's an asset that we all value not just for our schools but for the entire community these next two share the common theme of learning and what it means to be in a learning context and people we kept hearing people talk about how people in general but especially children students in our schools learn best when they they feel safe and that safety is embodied in an inclusive environment so inclusive became an important term for us as a part of that belief statement then there was a theme about what students need and how individuals are valued within the institutions that make up the lansing schools and so uh a statement that was already one of the original beliefs just needed a bit of tweaking and that's what
029we did and we came up with positive relationships that word positive did not appear in the original set but we added that because there are many kinds of relationships but if they are not positive they may not be relationships that honor individuals or work for the situations that we'd like to see in schools so positive relationships are based on mutual trust teamwork respect for self and others these were all sentiments that we heard over and over and over again and they replaced the term collaborative which is another term that we hear a lot but which isn't often explained so that people can understand on a very base level what we mean by that and finally the belief that all the individuals have the capacity to learn and grow is simply a universal belief that everybody
030on our steering committee could get behind so those are the five that we ended up with after a careful conversation and consolidation thank you so once these statements were um completed then the strategic planning committee had the chance to review the changes so all members of the strategic planning committees indicated a four or five out of a one to five protocol to indicate their support of the revised statements that reflected their input so we brought these statements back to the committee we shared with them the process we revisited some of the notes and some of those key ideas that were brought forward and ensured that any questions were answered and that the committee members indicated that the statements reflected their input and what they had requested be brought forward and so the protocol was what
031numbers one to five and a four or five meant a high level of support and agreement that they could get behind these statements and that these statements reflected the spirit of what they were hoping to have communicated um and so everyone indicated a four or five when we brought these back for review to show their support we just want to share with you also that this is part of this broader process that's continuing to move forward and the community has the following information available on the lansing school district website there's a lot of information on the strategic planning process there's links for there will be links for a survey and information about subcommittee work and how to participate and provide information and feedback and then dates for the future input sessions as you review this
032school district website and the information about the steering committee we welcome your comments and your feedback it's also a place to kind of keep track of the progress and up things the work that's happening and then this community input has just been a cornerstone of this work and i have to say i had the privilege of participating in input session earlier this week and was so impressed likewise i felt like the participants were so grateful how much of their voices are being taken into consideration and how they have this opportunity they really felt like for many of them that this was a movement forward in the work for them to be able to be participating in this way so the community input session dates are here on the screen they're also available on the website
033and so these are being shared broadly for others to attend and provide their input so we have reached the point where your questions and comments are are welcome and we'd love to hear them before we take any questions though we have to say how much of this process uh caused us to appreciate the transparency uh and the honesty that we experienced as we talked with members of the lansing school district who share the seats on the steering committee with us there was no guessing we didn't have we don't have to wonder ever what people are thinking they are very forthright about uh telling us what their opinions are and how things are sitting with them and so we're developing such a high level of trust that it just deserves mentioning so at this point i'm
034not sure how we'll we'll do this um but we are we welcome any questions or comments you have at this point thank you mr lopez thank you madam president the first thing i want to ask is that how how is the work that was done by the dei committee who came up with a with a mission how was it looked at in terms of our strategic plan remember that when we did all that work it was supposed to be something that that would be very important towards a strategic plan and we did develop a mission and i wonder if you folks looked at that mission and compared to what you're bringing here so i want to see how how that work that was done is is being included and and use this this guiding post
035for this uh plan that we that we're talking about so i'll i'll take a first stab and please uh trust you more if you have some comments please share as well um during the steering committee process and some of the meetings dr adniel participated and shared with the committee the the outcomes of that dei uh committee work so it has been incorporated into the process but understand also the process isn't over it's an ongoing moment right like we're still we're just now at mission and vision and belief statements right and so as we're working towards the goals and the strategies towards those goals the the equity audit and the findings from that audit will definitely inform the goals and the strategy so first yes it has informed the mission vision work but it's going to
036continue to inform the work uh moving forward yeah i i just um i would like to see the the mission statement that was developed from that work and compared to this and see how it lines up and see how we can move forward with that um tara do you mind putting that back up again uh it was on the screen for just a minute and we'll we'll put it back up so that you can look at that one more time yes and i understand that the the question being asked is really the equity audit also had a mission as part of it is that true and the question is how are we aligning some of that work from that equity audit mission with this mission um updates that we're seeing here and so i think
037those are some notes that we will take and then take back to our steering committee and really reflect on looking at the two of those and making sure that um that those ideas are incorporated in this mission statement do i understand the question yes yes great yeah it's very important thank you okay we can definitely arrange a side by side um we're planning to participate in the the board retreat in july and so i could see that as an opportunity to have a further conversation around that for sure so just just a comment we did spend a lot of time how to uh how to uh really embrace you know the the equity in that mission and so i think it's very important for us to look at that and and use some of that
038if i would say if not all of it because it was very uh intensive work and i know that rachel can can vouch for that and and see how we can come up with a mission statement that that does reflect that work thank you [Music] mrs willis thank you i just wanted to um reference back to the beliefs consolidation chart first i just want to appreciate the um rationale column because it's really helpful to bridge that gap and that's that's a really um helpful way to present this information just a really quick question there's two asterisks um in that middle column um where it says staff students diversity is our strength those two asterisks apologies if you told us what that meant and i missed it and i'm just curious what those asterisks are referencing
039you know at this point i don't even remember why we put those asterisks down we were very very honest with you it had something didn't have anything to do with the statement itself it had something to do with how we were trying to pull things together though how they were grouping them yeah i think if i remember that these two with the asterisk here read straight across to the diversity of our strength and an asset for our schools and community and the bottom one relationships um with the blue arrow feed down to positive relationships asterisk were combined to the one that reads straight across on the table and the bottom one was then became its own belief statement so those had some common theme but then we kind of saw how they could contribute differently
040to those two refined statements perfect i'm tracking thank you okay dr rodriguez thank you madam president um first of all i had attending all the meetings every monday from two to four and i had to congratulate the team from michigan state university because they are not there to impose they are there to listen and to create with us what is going to be the best for our district i hope that this collaboration we practice what we are saying here ourselves and the second i and one of them it just came to me today because i am not going to say something here i didn't say before in our meetings that wouldn't be fair but today when i came here and i studied that a little bit and then one of the goals or one of
041the beliefs you have learning is essential for success in a global society that is copies actually for the previous one but in the mission statement that disappear and we have engaged purposeful citizenship that i think that we maybe had to think and how we replace and we put terms they are in the mission statement also in the beliefs um the other one learning occur best when students are in safe environment um even you have in the mission statement [Music] and we have something about nurturing i think it's in division and then nurturing is related to culture and related to climate and i think the not only safe but also good climate is important for the students to learn that we have see where we introduce this environment of the whole school and the whole district
042to create the kind of citizens that we are talking about i learned that that was a session just to collaborate and to talk to so it was no exactly to ask questions but i don't have any questions per se but i think that we had to back to the mission statement and incorporate whatever we can that we don't go that far for the mission statement or the luncheon school district understood thank you brian or shirley did you want to respond or would you like me to or did we just want to hear the comment at this point i think i received the comment um thinking about reflecting on um common language between vision mission and then the belief statements to making sure that there's a common thread and terminology throughout i i heard that um
043and i also heard a call for um greater clarity around culture and climate and my dr rodriguez is nodding his head okay i'm gonna say no to you it's okay then it's fine other comments or questions from board members thank you dr beverly thank you i i would would be remiss if i didn't acknowledge uh the members of the administrative team that have um played a huge role obviously superintendent sheldon has been great um sergio kek has been wonderful jessica benavidez has been helpful susie corbin and john mcgraw has been absolutely a rock star throughout this entire process so i just want to give them a hand too please and if i forgot somebody my apologies thank you all dr beverly rachel has one more question sorry not so fast while we have you i
044know that the purpose of this um conversation was about our mission and vision statement but i also in moving forward in that formal um opportunity for collaboration can you just give us a highlight of what um some of the subcommittees are that you guys will be working through so that we can just sort of hear um so the the establishment of the subcommittees are still being informed by those input sessions and so as those are ongoing those will identify themes from the input that we receive and then the subcommittees will be reflective of the themes that we have gotcha okay so stay tuned certainly gotcha all right thank you thank you thanks dr beverly thank you all catch you later thank you and also our thanks to the team from michigan state who works with
045dr beverly thank you so much for being with us this evening um and i'm sure that we will talk to you soon thank you everyone moving on to our second presentation for this evening we have a bond and sinking fund update i see some familiar faces in the crowd i will invite everyone who's a part of this to join us at the tables in the front and i'll let you introduce yourselves good evening um i just wanted to uh again uh thank the community for their support in passing our bond last week and [Applause] which means that as we talked about a few weeks ago if you remember we talked about some of the numbers from the bond of the c fund the past that this now allows us to include some more information in
046this presentation that um we're thankful to be able to include at this point in time so um so as you recall we just again a couple weeks ago talked about the the numbers and what the dollar kind of figures that we spent for the last um five plus years and now we kind of want to just give uh our partners that have been involved in this a little bit more to show some of what they have done um and uh we have uh peter wright yes yeah peter steve from c2a uh architects uh paul twigg from barton milo who is the technology consultant on the projects and in virtual and unable to join us personally you know or in person is rob crowell from christmas company and i'd be a remiss to not acknowledge that
047he has a sex congratulations you're welcome john what what high school did you go to john b sexton thank you just in case there was any confusion rob is one year older than me just for the record yes so uh i just wanted to point out there's in the packet that you have there there was a couple pages that were updated and added late so you'll see those loose in the end so just you know that's why they're kind of sticking out there but um now you don't need to listen to me anymore we'll let uh i think uh steve and peter go ahead thank you very much so tonight we just wanted to give you an update on uh [Music] i have the projects arranged in alphabetical order just so that nobody gets preferential
048treatment sorry all you big reds so and some of these i will go pretty quickly through um the scope is somewhat repetitive in some of these cases and i won't read every bullet point but for example atwood is a good example one of those so this was a project existing school where in addition to the classroom refresh that we were able to do throughout we were also able to do hvac updates replace the windows and especially giving them egress windows we created a barrier-free toilet so in many of these projects even if i don't touch on it if we got anywhere near a restroom facility in the building we made sure we brought it up to barrier-free standards and in many cases provided some sort of a gender-neutral facility also for students in the district
049so that's a great asset that you now have in that along the way in the case of atwood we also upgraded the electrical service to that and completed a repaving of the parking lot so in the case of the windows we now have make sure that we have operable windows that are egress capable in all the classrooms and the new louvers in this photo are you know representative of the new uh heating system that is within those classrooms and then of course we have a new parking lot hard for me to church up hound a parking lot make it look pretty but we do know it is part of the curb appeal that many parents and staff members look at when they're evaluating a school district averill new tech very much a similar package of
050work that got done hvac upgrades new windows renovated to the class renovated classrooms and also renovated restrooms and you can see some of that there dwight rich school of the arts so a little bit bigger project here the big thing was renovating this and as part of the vpa program so this got a completely renovated auditorium and dressing rooms to support that that were located now in an accessible area previously they were in the in the lower level which was not accessible now they are at on the main level in an accessible area new windows in portions of the building we took the wing that was in addition many many many years ago down in the southeast corner of the building and renovated that to create uh better sized and better age appropriate kindergarten classrooms
051and also some additional lower elementary classrooms we renovated the cafeteria in terms of finishes to give it a look at make it look less like a prison and more like a fun place to be as part of the vpa program we were able to do uh um hvc upgrades also dance choir and band anybody on the board got a big passion for dance maybe yep and um we were also able in stretching the dollars we were able to uh as you'll see we replaced the bleachers in the eastern gymnasium but considering they were fairly new we were able to take those bleachers and relocate them over here to uh dwight rich and make those dollars go a little bit further so so this is our new auditorium you can see a little bit of the
052before and after taking out the ceiling opening it up warming it up with some wood tones windows including tinted glass and a variety of million patterns that you now will be additional people to know this they are spaced out and to represent the major chords in music is that what the layout is based on and and of course this here is the lobby outside of the auditorium and we'll touch on it later but you know provide some furniture to have some breakout spaces for the students so they don't so there are other areas within the building where they can uh take a respite and enjoy it especially the nice new daylight that's coming in there now and you can see the color patterns of the tinted glass the greens and the clears and the blues
053playing out there on the ground of course you mentioned the new band room a new dance studio and this is uh one of the kindergarten classrooms much larger very much open and age-appropriate at eastern high school the big thing there was the addition that included four science labs to support the science program including biotechnology that is the sort of boomerang shape that you see sort of bottom left bottom right is where we renovated a large portion of what was a couple classrooms to turn it into locker rooms in shower room space and then also an addition for a new uh practice gym or auxiliary gym and a fitness area um the we also renovated the existing cafeteria added more daylight into it so students could get a view of something and then expanded it into
054what was a former little used stage and again made it all that barrier-free accessible so anybody can get up to that elevated level there media center got some upgrades we talked about there's a small classroom addition that went on towards the north and then renovating the office just to freshen up make it a little bit more welcoming you can see uh in the before photo the previous stage in the wall that was closed probably all the time now we've opened that up giving them a difference another spot where they can sit and enjoy lunch there's a there's a bar along the front where students can sit there and look out on across there and out into through the new windows to the outsides this is the courtyard that was created with the addition of the
055new science classrooms and you'll notice the post there in the center of the uh concrete paving that came from the former eastern so had a chance to walk and meet and integrate with the eastern alumni and find the things that were important from the old school and integrate that into the new of school the new auxiliary gym plenty of daylight uh but diffuse light into it so great space to practice and then that sort of boomerang-shaped uh science lab for physics chemistry biology and biotechnology and then you know this was a former space that was already in the uh building uh sort of a linchpin between the where the media center gym and the classroom wing is uh honestly all we did here was put in carpet and put in furniture but it took a
056space that was not well used before and gave it a little bit more back to the students so they could do something with it and again another breakout space of an area where they could hang out and feel safe and comfortable and then one of the science labs here very flexible you'll notice all the tables and chairs are on casters so it can be reconfigured we located power in the ceiling so again they don't have to be tied to a wall if they want to group them all together and they need to do it like to do an experiment some more in the middle of the room they have the ability to do that and in the corridor around that we've provided breakout spaces where students can gather and then given them the technology both
057uh high-tech in the form of large monitors low-tech in the form of dry race and of course in addition to taking over the former patent guild to turn it into the new eastern we also got the opportunity for the district to give them athletic fields something they haven't had in a while with the highlight of that being the new synthetic multi multi-sport field and the track and field events that surround it concessions and team buildings uh replacement tennis courts and then a new softball field along with dugouts and supporting space for that yep a couple different uh ticket areas so when the big games happen we can uh really uh separate either home and visitors or just give better traffic flow to all this visitors arriving this is the team building and concessions and of
058course the field from the aerial i'll note that that large slab that's in the along the bottom there that was uh planned for the uh district's food truck so when there are large events the food truck can come out and supplement the existing concession building that we created and we now got two spots to again handle those that greater capacity tennis courts was the softball field beyond everett high school again supporting the uh vpa program the major project there was renovating that wing towards the lower left corner to support that that meant or included renovation of the auditorium and the stage and the rigging uh an addition for band and dance and art and also creation of a scene shop that used to just be on the side stage but is now a full scene
059shop uh directly to the rear and then renovation of the former um spaces that were used for band and choir and keyboarding to create a better choir area renovation of the keyboard room to get a configuration that's more suitable for how they want to teach and then taking what was formerly art and dance and converting that into a new video production studio along with these components we also created a secure vestibule a new front door for the building and then renovated the cafeteria and the servery it was great to in this case and in a couple other cases we were able to take advantage of the food service fund to again supplement what the bond had raised and go and stretch both those dollars to go a little bit further and get a little bit
060more for the project also we're again hvac updates throughout the building and revisions to the clinic so the new auditorium with the control booth beyond making the stage accessible new lobby uh outside to support all this all the visitors to come and see all the great shows that we expect to happen there cafeteria a lot of angles and v-shapes representing the vikings i know they should have been big red our new servery uh i wish i had this when i went to school you got what was in line you didn't get choice it's amazing nowadays uh the art room in the art room edition again some fun shapes in terms of lights on the ceiling but importantly tables that are on wheels so that they can be reconfigured and grouped for the various types of
061projects that can you know to support whatever the teachers are looking to dream and do and then great windows to inspire them keyboard room choir dance by the way claire mentioned to me she's probably never going to leave the district she loves her space so much of course band and really it this creates a focal piece for visitors and parents when they come there's now something by the parking lot that really is a a nice factor to excite people our secure vestibule and of our clinic north elementary uh renovating the classrooms there was the main project that we uh undertaken a reminder this was a originally built as a special ed building and then transitioned into becoming uh a traditional classroom building but it was designed in the era of the open classroom so there
062were no walls the classrooms so acoustically i i lived through one of these in one of my iterations it was sixth grade it was mr keel was my teacher new windows hvac upgrades uh we got put a new roof on we replaced the parking lot um a secure vestibule and a new welcome center so again the uh the original office was in that center core and anybody while the entry was secure anybody who was let in then had free access to the rest of the building so by moving the entry or the welcome center closer to the entry giving them some glass windows it really a big improvement on the security one of the classrooms this is one of the project labs uh since there aren't dedicated science or art or music rooms in these
063we have these spaces called project labs that have uh materials and surfaces designed to support a variety of activities again locating that power in the ceiling so we've got ultimate flexibility as to where things can be configured and then making sure that we had appropriate utilities in addition to the electric but also providing multiple sinks in case this does become an art use or we're doing a wet science lab new entry is some uh you can see the glass so that people in the office can see visitors approach without having to use a camera our new parking lot [Music] uh and coming this summer a new outdoor classroom so some highlights of this picnic structure where classes can go outside and be out of the elements there's a raised flower beds for planting there's a
064greenhouse structure we've got a berm that surrounds it that will be a spot where kids can you know have a small amphitheater type setup and then several breakout areas around that so uh if be they rocks or a group of logs as you can see up towards the top again where teachers in there and anyone helping them can you know do a little breakout groups and uh you know maybe gather you know four to six students together and have a lecture yes uh number nine is the greenhouse yes so this is not meant to replace that garden no yeah it's more north of the property yes the community garden yeah thank you for the question pagnil biotechnical magnet school this was our first major project for the bond former fairview so this project involved a
065classroom gym and an office additions the site was completely reconfigured so that we could better separate auto and bus traffic especially with uh saginaw highway being on both sides of that site and a sleepy residential street fairview right next to it again creating some project labs and hvc upgrades a new entrance that's welcoming for parent drop off lots of windows to the inside and more importantly so you can see how the former gym was turned into a couple of project labs an example you see here new secure vestibule where if you're let inside to here you are uh held here until you are either buzzed into the office or if they recognize you buzzed into the school or teachers who have appropriate credentials or other staff can of course go right through we also provided
066several areas for breakout spaces where students can gather or teachers can take their students and do learning one at this space happen to be was the former library but also with the new classrooms we also created several small group rooms again so internally breakout areas for them and our new gym serves not only as the gym but also the cafeteria and that grassy field is your stormwater detention system because it is all underground for student safety post oak academy this was a two classroom edition along with a servery and multi-purpose room edition hvac upgrades windows and then again similar to atwood turning the former gymnasium into some project lab space well it wouldn't be great to be somebody's the mother of somebody's kid let's say eddie who might be going there this yay again providing
067some breakout areas for students an entrance to the gym so that it can be used after hours without having to open up the entire building that is true at any of the projects where we added gyms we made sure that there was a way to access the gym after hours and have access to restrooms without having to open up the whole facility uh make it a little easier on the district which steve is probably nice for people using the gym for sports but also nice i imagine on election day yep everybody can come in in and out through that entrance and there's a restroom there and they don't have to bother anybody else in the building riddle elementary uh similar in scope if you will to what we saw previously at atwood and april in
068terms of again hvac upgrades new windows classroom renovations restroom renovations sexton high school should have been in big red our our project our main project there was a addition and renovation to the cafeteria uh along with that we renovated the welcome center office area and created a secure vestibule entry there and then added a connector between the annex and the main high school so now students no longer have to walk outside to reach their classroom they could stay through they could just go through that connector this was a project was actually done in three phases with like a first year project of a parking lot replacement a later project of re-roofing and then finally the cafeteria edition a big thing we tried to integrate into all the cafeteria projects was making sure that we had
069a variety of seating options for the students so they weren't necessarily sitting just at cafeteria tables all the time especially for the high school kids i think it's particularly important that uh sexton was honoring the historic nature of the building and having uh finishes in a palette that honored that history of the building and this is the new welcome center lexford montessori we are currently uh in the process of starting the reconfiguration of the site that's going to be going on we'll be adding a new parking lot to the south on land that the district owns doing some other site improvements we had previously via the sinking fund we were able to do some curb appeal stuff along the front side in terms of landscaping and just adjustments to the existing landscaping to improve sight
070lines make it look more managed we renovated classrooms let's create a secure vestibule again hvac upgrades and windows this is an example of how we were able to take what was unmanaged and overgrown uh landscaping lower it um make it give it more curb appeal i'll say all the landscaping that was designed was designed to be xeriscaping which is requiring no irrigation after it's established so there's not an additional maintenance from that factor um yes much like your lawn you do have to maintain you do have to cut it but you do at least don't have to water it and our new secure vestibule inside there is also a lar a lot of furniture purchased across the district um this furniture that uh a sample classroom that you see here you know we're focusing on
071age appropriateness so make sure that the the chairs and the tables were of the right height for the students that would be using it we wanted to make sure that it supported a variety of uh teaching configurations also make sure at the upper levels make sure that it supported a variety of postures so students could sit at a table height or perhaps a cafeteria height they could perch uh they could also it was also about uh making sure that staff knew that it was okay to flip the chair around and sit backwards in it because the chair was actually designed to be sat in that way and then making sure it's it's mobile and flexible so it is future proofing it as much as possible so furniture that previously looked like that we gave all
072the teachers new desks which included a lectern that was height adjustable they could use how they wanted they could either nest it next to their desk or they could use it as a lectern to teach from or they could put it out in the center room and say this is where your your homework gets picked up and dropped off and then this is a good photo showing just how that desk can be at the lower elevation lower grades could be reconfigured in a bunch of different ways paul all right thank you oh my god most of the technology projects were finished in the first two years of the bond it you know like most projects it's important to get a solid infrastructure there to build off of so new network new wireless district-wide those replacing
073an aging phone system that was difficult to support and not only was this important from a bond standpoint but it was also fortunate for the district from a timing standpoint if you think about it it was all completed a year or two before the pandemic nobody knew that you were going to need to do that much online learning nobody knew that all of the devices were going to be coming in and while there were certainly a lot of challenges it meant that the district could be you know nimble and know that they had that infrastructure to build off of we also worked over the next couple years with the rest of the bond team doing their building renovations modifying that infrastructure clock systems gym new gym sound systems etc one of my favorite stats up
074here that you'll see is the you know 84 miles of cable that had to be added to support these systems and that's not even the cables that were put in outside it was just that's just the cables above the ceiling the things that you never see that allowed us to then focus on classroom technology and again it's it's a little more commonplace now to think about things like interactive displays in classrooms but in 2017 that was not common and you were one of the first districts in the state and the largest district in the state to invest in that in every classroom and the reason for that was you the district made a decision not to just buy tools for teachers but technologies that would help create learning environments for students and you know an
075interactive display is just the largest ipad you've ever seen so putting those in every classroom was something that students and teachers could quickly use and collaborate with we also put gave a lot of thought into that student use you know as you see in this picture from dwight rich every classroom has height adjustable displays it can help for the like my kids you know the the height challenge kids or the younger kids but it also helps with older kids because you can raise it up and everybody can see over the students whether you're in the front or in the back we also wanted to make sure that technology was mobile you know we couldn't afford to necessarily put displays ever where we wanted but in all of those great collaborative spaces that steve was showing
076pictures of wanted to make sure that there was at least some technology that the students could move into those spaces security was also a focus you know um the district already had a very good security system you know you had access control you you limited than the the way that staff and visitors could get into the buildings the secure entrances steve showed was a very big piece of that but so too was adding in some systems like video surveillance throughout the throughout all of the buildings expanding the way that visitor notification could be handled as visitors come into the buildings improving the access control at the hill center and you know people don't always think of public address systems as security but when issues come to rise having a good reliable sound system to be
077able to communicate throughout the district i'm sorry throughout the building is one of the most important security features so it was completely replaced at a handful of buildings in the high schools in all the areas that were renovated or received new public address systems as well so with that i'll turn it over to rob to update you on something good evening everyone can you hear me okay out there yep rob all right super so uh thanks for letting me join virtually tonight um watching all those slides go it was really nice to walk down memory lane thinking back you know five years on all those projects is pretty special but what i'd like to do next is walk through just a few short slides we've been asked to kind of digest all those amazing things
078that happened at the schools throughout the district to translate that into kind of a metric of of what was the value of that work what was the dollar uh associated to it and then spread across the geographic regions of the district so we're going to talk that a little bit um so as yep next slide thank you so as if any of those uh npr marketplace fans in the audience as kai rizdal says let's do the numbers so here is the the 2016 bond expenses and what we're doing is is spreading these investment amounts across the force you know quadrants of this of the city north south east and west that's generally defined by sort of the line that would separate north and south is sort of 496 or the river you know if you're
079north of that or south then the east west dividing line is sort of the cedar uh corridor that runs north south the old old 27th so those are the general ideas i mean we may be able to quibble a little bit on what school falls into what one but in general terms those are the areas and uh the graphic here shows bi-school in alphabetical order within the region so north is sort of that reddish orange color south is in the blue east is yellowish and then the west is in green off to the right is a it's a titled not applicable n a those were were dollars invested that generally weren't specifically associated with one particular building so there's kind of just a catch-all pot there on the end so just to see um you
080know there was some some different spread across the different regions and this is important as we were you know very thoughtful in that process and where those investments were made but then also an understanding that the the citizens of lansing just uh with a resounding uh percentage of support um past the next bond i'll show you you know how the future bond we're planning to look at here in a slide or two but this was a key factor in that discussion and the steering committee was part of the 2022 bond was very deliberate in understanding where these investments had occurred and how to make a good a thoughtful decision on where investments should be um located into the future too so this is just the snapshot of 2016 the expenses and if you can advance
081at one we'll also like to show you the 2019 sinking fund so that was a separate program that was occurring you know a few years overlapping with the 2016 bond there was a very good effort undertaken to look for synergies between the two programs so if work was ongoing at a building as part of the bond it is you know a very efficient method you know if there were other needs on the building that were not defined by that bond scope it was it was very easy to integrate that in um to utilize thinking funds for some of those so so you'll see a couple buildings here like everett for example uh while the bond project was ongoing the design incorporated some sinking fund components as well and then using the economy of scales and
082uh coordination of efforts um so that some scope was was we were able to add into that from the sinking fund so again same uh regional breakdown across north south east and west here but just showing how the funds were distributed across the city that way geographically if you advance it one more this is looking to the future in short and it shows a good representation of how areas of the city that saw significant investment before the east you know with the the conversion of what was patent mill to the new current eastern the significant investments to what was fair view to create the new patent gill the east saw a lot of investment and as a result there were some portions of the city that did not see quite as much it was a
083really deliberate act um by the steering committee to consider that and look to buildings outside of that region to make sure that you know the resources are as evenly distributed as possible so as many students are positively impacted um as possible so some of the major bars here just in the north region that's the sheraton road and willow those are the two new schools that were quite often discussed in the camp in the informational period leading up to the election in the south that large bar is not hoped so the oldest school in the inventory being replaced there and then the large bar in the west that is the luton spanish immersion program out on the west side of town so there is also the medium-sized bar there you don't miss that in green sexton
084investment as we talked about it a lot of times in the informational process but the love perception is there as well and then all the smaller bars those are indicating uh mainly the adding the cooling adding air conditioning to classroom spaces throughout the district if you advance one more i think we've got kind of a combined total here so this is uh nesting all those three different funding sources together uh and showing what that looks like in each sector and it really does i think captures a pretty pretty even distribution across the city so i hope everyone feels that they're seeing the support you know in their facilities it gets a little bit nuanced here that there are more buildings in some regions so it's not just a straight analysis here but but generally speaking
085i think it is very safe to say um you know the people involved in lining all the scope up identifying the needs throughout the district in each of the facilities and then getting that support uh leveraged to the investment has really been a successful process so great fun great work through the 2016 through the sinking fund singing fund will continue as we get underway to the 2022 bond uh the themes continue and bringing great improvements uh to the students to the staff is really an exciting thing and here's just a few charts that help show where that went so with that little summary i'd be happy to yield back to the group and [Music] i'll hang on if there are any questions thanks rob and everyone this is really interesting rob just a quick question
086on the 2022 bond budgets page you mentioned the short bars by and large represent hvac improvements in those buildings do buildings like gardner beekman eastern halleck riddle and wexford are those buildings already air-conditioned yes okay in general terms yes yep that's a good answer for it there may be some nuances in the onesies and twosies but yeah that's generally why okay and i know um i'm gonna round my numbers it looks like sheridan road is about 25 million luton is about 30. and i know when we're talking about those kinds of millions of dollars i can't believe i'm saying this but five million dollars is not that big of a deal um not that big of a difference i should say but can someone give us a little bit of insight as to the kind
087of the difference between sheridan road and luton for example is luton bigger are there other intricacies that we don't know about rob would you like me to take this uh either well i've got a couple yeah see if you want to start there's like two main factors but i'll let you go and and there's probably the two same two main factors that rob was probably gonna mention uh and the planning for the bond it was primarily as we're pricing these it was based on two things uh depending on the teaching stations and therefore the size of the building so square footage of the building makes a difference and then planning for when was that building going to get built so mount hope is going to get built sooner than luton so we had to include
088an appropriate amount of escalation to address what our construction costs going to be three four years down the road did i did i steal your thunder rob you did it wonderfully steve that was great size and when they occur okay thank you other questions from board members mrs willis thank you one this is wonderful these charts are absolutely wonderful to have because it's like i know and i know where all the projects are but to see those stacked bar graphs is very helpful i also really love the pictures the showing and that whole double vestibule entry for security like didn't realize how important that was so we started getting them in our buildings and i was like fun fact we shouldn't have had it where there was this much space between when people were coming
089in buildings and where the offices were like i now that we're starting to have those it's just it's yeah thank you now my question is when the bond projects i'm totally i'm good with you know that's part of our bond series we had to write what we were spending that money for the bonds that's great sinking fund we had more flexibility with and once upon a time when we were helping decide where to prioritize funding for uh the 2016 bond we got like a notebook that had a ranking of all of our buildings and like age of roofs and age of boilers and age of parking lots and where are our hot spots right that's how we focus i'm curious if we have an ongoing portfolio to sort of let us know where we stand
090um because you know while five million dollars may not seem like that big of a difference like that could be all of our sinking fund allowance for a year replacing one roof on a building and then we're stuck and then we again are in that issue we have deferred maintenance which has created an issue that we were found ourselves in in 2016. so i'm just curious what our our long-term plan is for the remaining seven years we have right we have seven years left on the sinking fund in this much need so john yeah you can take that sure um yeah so as far as like the documents we had the the um analysis four assessments that we did for the bottom the singing fund um there were separate um databases for that and we're
091looking we are working on consolidating that that's one thing we're doing so it's one living document um we're working on so that we can have that updated continuously too so um but that is you know uh part of the plan to prioritize the projects throughout the remaining years of the singing fund using that as that that tool for that okay it's been a while since the board has seen that um so when you do get that comprehensive document completed if we could get absolutely a copy of that we'd appreciate it thank you dr rodriguez thank you thank you very much i'm really fascinated to go over these buildings these pictures and and how brilliant is is what you have done but um of what this community led us to do with the buildings and we
092create a culture of this community both in jazz for our students and that is great uh you got the words for what creek you had in 2019 thinking fun and you have also with creek 22 band budget um do you already started working with cricoids is going to start now there is some work that is has been designed and we'll be starting this summer in preparation for like the 2022 bond uh some classroom renovations uh in addition as part of the 2022 bond we'll be doing hvac or the district will be doing hvac work over there at westford are we is going to have more students do we have enough capacity for all the students that i'm going to go to west for in 2020 to 2023. my understanding is yes okay and the two
093the other one is patting your um academy how big are the classroom there how how much the capacity that we have in this classroom how many students can accommodate there uh well there's what i can answer that a bunch of ways they're they're approximately you know for an elementary school classroom you want to go about 900 square feet um code would tell you or well the state of michigan would say that that's a 25 student classroom code would tell you that you at 900 square feet you can put 45 students in it the reality is it's probably more in a 30 student size classroom and you can tweak it up a little or tweak it down a little for that so and then in the new buildings and i don't doubt that you have architects
094that are going to read the designs very very well are you planning to consult on some teachers on some education people that can help and develop these new buildings absolutely and every and every one of these previous the bond issue in the previous projects there was always an input group that included staff and administration uh especially i want to say like at sexton we got a chance to include students uh mr bogan selected some students that we integrated in the design process and they actually helped design the cafeteria and helped select like a color palette that they thought was appropriate and worked for them so yes i asked this question because i have people from the community asking me how you involve the educational community and the development of these projects finally do you have
095any recommendations for maintenance we already have few years working on that how we maintain the schools properly and and this kind of thing that we don't have to in two or three years from now something wrong could happen how we do maintain our building properly sure so as part of the the process and what is uh required of the contractors doing the work uh they have to provide closeout documentation um and they have to have provide existing or drawings of the work and part of that closeout documentation includes um recommendations for how to maintain all the materials that were used and mate and maintenance schedules for that and also they had to provide training to the district on so especially in if it's an electronic or mechanical piece of equipment how to use it how
096to service it how to run it on the day-to-day so that's all part of the design what contractors are required to provide thank you very much and keep going thank you for the question mrs willis oh just a quick question this is for you madam president i'm assuming that we have suckered our our facilities committee into being stuck through seeing through this bond as well just saying i'm just curious [Laughter] facilities committee members who remain board of education members i believe will be happy to serve on the facilities committee last i checked it was blood and blood out so i was just checking what i was just curious about was just ensuring that we were going to maintain that process of um bids going through facilities committee and then coming through us for ongoing procurement
097just confirming that there will be an opening no don't think i so you're interested i thought accepting resumes i i heard that if you were on the bfc you know dirt on the bottom past you you had to continue on okay still all right we got brian beverly back here if that's the case i don't see you monday recognize you [Laughter] any other questions from board members thank you uh mrs not really a question just a just another big thank you um and when we get a comprehensive report like this it really helps us to speak with confidence when people question things and so really appreciate it thank you yeah my pleasure thank you missy for your input on our dance projects i echo miss lolgie's comments thank you everybody see ya monday at our
098next bfc meeting rachel you're invited thank you very much thank you we do have one registered for public comment i would like to invite miss denise fitzpatrick to the podium ms fitzpatrick you have three minutes within which to make your public comment typically the board does not respond to public comment and you can go ahead whenever you're ready okay and i appreciate the opportunity to speak to you um i realized i did not realize that this was a special board meeting and that we were supposed to make our comments at the beginning of the meeting so i appreciate you getting the opportunity to speak to um on a totally different topic this is kind of a rebuttal to the report that you received regarding special education quality the quality of our special education programs and
099i felt very compelled to give you maybe a different perspective first of all i just want to ask does anyone remember we're in our first year post pandemic have you asked yourselves is it really a good idea to come back evaluate and make harsh judgments about the quality of our special education programs and services i certainly wouldn't be evaluating any downtown leadership uh despite any mistakes that may occur this year at this point in our recovery i think it's safe to say that evaluation of teachers programs buildings and administration can be very contingent on a variety of factors at best data should include consideration of subjective testimonials of seasoned professionals parents and advocates like me my name is denise fitzpatrick and i have been a teacher with the lansing school district for 46 years i
100retired after 42 years but i still work daily as a substitute at beekman center i should also include that i have worked as an advocate for my center-based students and their parents statewide for over 30 years after raking my school over the coals demoralizing our hard-working staff and minimizing the quality of our programs it's time you hear witness from someone who has more experiencing more experience than a passing walk through of classrooms with a checklist with due respect for any attempt to improve support and quality making underestimations of the work your teachers are doing on a daily basis with their students post pandemic is unfair and inaccurate let me just do this for a second let me reassure you that our students can and do learn despite often overwhelming challenges let me also testify that
101teachers teach despite mandatory expectations miss fitzpatrick i'd like to offer you two more minutes thank you despite mandatory curriculum trending timelines workloads and never-ending menial expectations at beekman we are fortunate to have a principal who continues to support his dedicated staff but it feels as though the district who once viewed us as a gem and some of you know that now seems to forsake us really one thing all good teachers and parents know is for every negative reinforcement or correction that may be needed it is important to balance with at least five positive exchanges to boost motivation for learning and improvement lately we are getting a lot of misleading unfounded negatives with very little positives anyone who has ever been in a classroom knows that it is unfair to have someone come in once or
102twice and determine anything substantial can we improve absolutely there's always ways to improve increasing time spent as much as possible on task with educational goals and developing innovative ways to enhance learning are always the intent of conscientious teachers give your professionals respect they are there every day for their students despite the unfortunate persecution and subsequent poor morale it's happening folks students are learning and achieving individual educational objectives important to them and their families because of dedicated teachers who appreciate them i assure you i see positive inspiring interactions happening daily with staff and students if you need to hear testimonials from appreciative parents i would be happy to contact those parents for another perspective also i know from attending numerous statewide hearings parents want to have a continuum of special education choices for their children based
103on individual often complex needs they are choosing center-based programs because they have centralized equipment support staff and opportunities for necessary enhanced individualized learning they also offer support for meeting the social emotional and medical concerns of our students do not discount what we have to offer it would be quite impossible and fiscally irresponsible to replicate in all neighborhood general education buildings in conclusion what happened to being kind to each other after the pandemic with staff's shortages should we be anything but supportive of each other as we recover and soldier on for the students in our district no matter what is thrown at us be assured the staff at our center will continue to live up to beekman's national legacy as a school dedicated to do our best to make each student achieve potentials thank you misfit
104patrick any other comments from board members this evening mr lopez yes um as you may may know uh there was the uh hispanic celebration happened uh tuesday yes and i'd just like to commend claudia cabrera who's the spanish liaison who did a tremendous job of keeping us together and and and running the show very well she did a great job so i command her a command mr keck whose headset department and of course the words that our superintendent shared with the students and dr rodriguez were inspiring and i've heard feedback already from some of the parents so i just want to thank everybody but in particular claudia cabrera i think she's rodriguez right smart smart person and certainly uh a credit to our school district thank you thank you mr lopez any other comments from
105board members dr body thank you madam president one week from tomorrow evening is the uh annual mayor's ramadan unity dinner which is a celebration of diversity and is a way to raise money for the greater lansing food bank we've been doing this every year since 2007. [Music] um with the exception of of course the pandemic we have to take a couple years off uh so if anybody in the community uh wants to attend there are still tickets available and if anybody on the board or the et wants to attend i have tickets with me um and it's it really is a great event if you haven't intended i encourage you to to come and bring your families and bring your children there's plenty of space for everyone thank you thank you dr body the food
106is amazing at the ramadan dinner i'll meet you next thursday right no meeting next thursday right any other comments from board members okay our next meeting will be two weeks from tonight which will be may 26th with no further business before the board we are adjourned