Lansing School District Board of Education Regular Meeting 4/7/22 LIVE

001good evening everyone it is six o'clock p.m on april 7th and i would like to call this regular meeting of the lansing school district board of education to order will everyone please join me for the pledge of allegiance thank you very much will the clerk please call the roll doctor excuse me dr body mrs hodgin mrs lawrence here this is lil g here mrs moore present dr rodriguez president mrs willis thank you very much any additions to the agenda this evening i am going to make a motion right now to um make rachel willis vice president and robin moore treasurer of the board do i have support it's thank you uh do you accept yes yes thank they you have the choice any discussion will all those in favor please signify by saying aye any

002opposed motion passes thank you very much you can keep your seats for now unless you want to move right just keep your seats for now thank you very much ladies thank you now we've got a full slate of officers again um and no addition to the agenda public comment we do have a couple of people who have registered to make public comment one person who has registered to make public comment on an agenda item i want to remind members of the public who are with us this evening there are blue cards in the back of the room there are also copies of the agenda in the back of the room if you'd like one we have two sessions of public comment right now we will take public comment on items that are listed on the

003agenda uh at the end of the meeting we will have public comment on non-agenda items so that will be your opportunity to make a comment on whatever you would like to make a comment on so i would like to invite maria enriquez to the podium miss enriquez you have three minutes within which to make your public oh right up here to make your public comment and typically the board does not respond to public comment go ahead when you're ready i'm here to support florencio hernandez for the position on your board i believe he be brings some of the best of the latino community he's smart he's young and he's ready to do whatever it takes to make education a better deal for the kids thank you very much we will move on to presentations first

004we have the board of water and light first step presentation i'd like to invite representatives from bwl to join us at the table in front and i will turn it over to dr rodriguez president thank you you and the board and the superintendent for having these two presentations tonight i like just don't take any time because they have few minutes but the two people that are going to be doing the presentation is going to be mr michael flowers who is also the board member lincoln county hall department and mrs don planar who is responsible for the step and many other things in the boron warren light and we have within one student that is going to be the best presentation that i can hear from thank you very much mother president good evening board members

005thank you for having us here tonight i'm here to talk about the lansing board of water and lights first step program uh as dr rodriguez indicated we have two representatives uh don planar she's our training analyst she basically runs the program for us and dominic brito he was a 2016 first step student from lansing eastern high school and now he has been working full time with us since that point in time so about yes he just uh went his fifth year last month with lansing border water night he has a desk top help me out dominic support tech and as far as i know he's been in the area stayed in the area has purchased the house uh is back in school at lcc and that's what this first step program is all about getting

006kids into a program like this first step stands for school the training and employment program this program started uh back in 2008. art is it okay if i had my mask off i'm sorry okay this program started back in we've been going consistently for 13 years we did take one year off back in um uh two years ago for the pandemic i'm just going to go through a brief history these are our partners that we currently work with at the board of water and light honest program of course lansing schools lansing community college dean transportation local 352 ibew hope schools waverly schools big brothers big sisters is a is a new partner of ours and capillary michigan works in fact uh all the partners except for big brothers have been with us since the beginning

007of the program from a history standpoint the board of water and light has been around since 84 and about 137 130 437 years as the public works and now we evolved from just the public works program into what we look like today is one of the largest municipalities for electricity water production distribution um in michigan in one of the 20th largest around the country we employ approximately i know i'm getting ahead of you here dawn we have a workforce that's over 700 people and on the chart up there it kind of shows why we're doing this program we're trying to develop opportunities to develop skills for young people we have an aging population that approximately 30 of our employees currently can retire any day so in order to replace and succeed that population we need

008a program like first step basically it's a paid based uh work based program kids come in they work 30 uh correct if i'm wrong don they work uh 15 hours a week they make 15 an hour they get a two thousand dollar stipend at the end of the program to go to a michigan college they can use this money in conjunction with any other tuition or any other scholarship money that they can receive basically uh program uh process how do you get into the program kids go they have to fill out an application we we go out to the schools in the spring later this year in april may we'll be going out to the schools lansing school we bring in 12 10 to 12 kids each year lansing ever since the inception of the

009program has had more kids populated in this program than any other district in our territory we draw from lansing waverly haute east lansing alchemists bath that's it right now but over the years when we brought students in that said lansing this year out of 10 students we have five from lansing normally we've averaged between eight and ten students in our program from the lansing schools as a students that we talk to them in the springtime we try to direct our attention at assemblies at the schools talk with the schools administrators and with their um counselors we talk with the kids about the program for the senior period we talk specifically with the juniors then we send out information throughout the summer time uh one of the forms of communication that we found more relevant than

010in in the past has been social media platforms we try to hit them on emails text messages and other forms of social media we do direct mailing to them in the fall when the kids return back to the schools we go back out to the schools reinforce the program we're targeting the seniors at that point in time because the application process is for seniors only and for their second semester of the school year they do the application they do an essay we vet those applications the essays we ask for references they have to have a certain gpa to get into the program we check their references we send them over to capital area michigan works to help them with interviewing techniques and how to develop in order to get into our program and be successful

011in the program they come on site and as they come on site we set up interview processes with them we actually give them a tour where we take them out to our different locations we have uh eckerd station our real town plant uh dye water distribution various areas where we'll take the kids out we'll tour them around give them a real life experience of being out in the facilities meeting people within the programs and actually seeing supervisors and mentors that will be working with them when they come on the job students working in the program as you can see that's one student with their mentor another one working in one of our control rooms monitoring systems and looking at processes that that we work on throughout the day as i mentioned we get a two

012thousand dollar scholarship uh money in this picture here in the past we've had the students attend lansing promise dinner and um have them meet different people in the community and get them networking and learning how it is going from the school during part of the day working part of the day and other opportunities that are in existence one thing i forgot to mention that as a students the three hours that they work on site these are elective credits that they can get from their home schools and did i go through that fast enough for you dawn questions dr rodriguez asks us to come give an overview of this program it's something that we're very proud of and that we've developed a template for other organizations to be able to use the same sort of format

013to help with their recruitment processes and succession planning and their programs thank you very much any questions yes ma'am um where does the funding come from to pay the students for their training out of my budget does it okay you'd be paying employees either way right right okay and to that point um when we recruit or we go out and advertise the dollars that we put towards first step program mentors uh the cost per student is extremely less than what we spend in recruiting dollars on the back end of things and and i forgot to mention during this program over the 13 years we have actually hired over 6 36 kids into full-time employment with the board of water and light working from our power plant to our distribution electricians as dominic has succeeded in

014his efforts we just had a young man top out as a journey electrician last year we had a young lady top out as an instrument control systems protection person and these positions pay very well and it keeps the kids here in the area all of them are in school in fact the one young lady just finished up her bachelor's degree any other questions mrs willis i don't have a question as much as a comment of just thank you for this presentation and this overview i know every june we get our invitation to the graduation and recognition ceremony but i haven't had this in-depth review of the program so just wanted to say thank you and happy that this is an opportunity for our students thank you mr president it's a comment to a few years

015ago you had a student from everett called hernandez who was also employed by the by the border warrior light after he spent one year in the program and now is graduating from the university of michigan as a psd program then then we have very successful stories we need to support the program in the schools we need to have more freelancing and maybe you improve increase the number of the students you know the i always ask for that absolutely you [Applause] thank you so much for being with us tonight we really appreciate it our next presentation is from our old friend justin sheehan who knows exactly where the podium is either one wherever you want doc do you want to talk about drugs thank you very much i do appreciate the boring warning light for the

016presentation and also for the timing i promise i hope that all the one or two minutes that they had texture will give it to justin in case that you need it but and i don't think justin needs a big presentation is knowing very well from the board from the administration and also from the community is one of the best speakers and the graduations every year and i do appreciate all the work he is in the plan in the program of promise for more than seven years and just renew his contract for three more years plus we did his evaluation and was really very positive the other person checked in the mail nino jacob thank you the other person that wanted to be here badly but really wanted to be here is mr kelly dean president

017and ceo of the dean transportation and chairman of the lansing promise which is he he wanted to be here but he's in washington dc and in the school bus business specifically working and safety and the school bus legislation that we really we appreciate the best legislation that they can give to us um i also want to mention that mr dean who along with um represented representative anthony are the ones who are the chairpersons for the bomb uh uh that we are looking for for the 129 million and a half dollars for for the lansing school district i mean the work that he is putting that day in and day out but also with sarah anthony is inviting to all of us the community to go and vote may 3rd and vote for the best of

018the students mr dean and everybody else thanks for everything that you do for our students and justin the rest is yours do you have the rest of the time thank you dr rodriguez i've been told 45 minutes and starting i'll get the buzzer soon uh nino thank you uh nino and guillermo are two board members of our organization for those that don't know the lansing promise is a place based scholarship for every kid that lives in schools within the lansing school district boundaries uh started it really in 2012 with our first scholarships and in fact some of you have met some of our scholars from the 2012 class i believe a couple even came and reached out john they reached out to the communications department the president and vice president of the class which means

019our promised scholars for the very first time will have a 10-year anniversary or 10 10-year reunion this summer and they not only asked to uh to see what they could do but they asked justin how can we give back to the promise and to the district that took care of us right and that might be the point of the promise right now the promise was initially crafted uh out of both legislation and a program that actually preceded it which was the hope scholarship for those familiar hope scholarships started in 2001 by then uh police chief mark ali under the leadership of then mayor hollister and a whole lot of community support right the district was very heavily involved and remains heavily involved hope scholarship was good but it was limited because we only identified 500

020kids a year and the reality is we did not fund 500 kids by the time they got to graduation for lots of reasons that we can have coffee over many many times here's what we know scholarships alone are not the only answer we know that scholarships plus a hard-working school scholarships plus a community that cares scholarships plus teachers and counselors who are doing everything they can a scholarship plus the organizations like border water and light in the first step program scholarships plus the mentoring program in the city that is how we keep promises and so we're going to walk through a few numbers we'll walk through a little bit of overview i'll take questions at any time uh we're also going to talk through a scholarship expansion that just got approved two weeks ago at

021the promise board so the promise scholarship just got more valuable which means any parent listening to this uh should take no because their house just got worth more so as we walk through this here's what we know um since 2012 uh we've seen more than one thousand 1 408 scholars set foot on a college campus from lansing we know that we have more than 10 000 that's what we confirmed earlier today more than ten thousand by the way i figured out the number 10 821 future promise scholars uh i am referencing a press conference that will probably also come out tonight uh a press conference that i won't steal the thunder of is it getting talked about tonight then i get to talk about oh i get to steal the thunder of it all right

022uh some something that's been really important around the city and i just mentioned is about mentorship programs about the city about the community working together for our kids so imagine of course when we take a step back and and we sit down with the city and the district and the promise and begin to identify ways that we can strategically and effectively partner together a real partnership right not just talk the city is very good at talk not the city the city itself everyone in this city is very good at talking there are a handful of folks that do and i'm very pleased to say that we were able to announce in city hall today that the city of lansing lansey school district and the lansing promise are partnering to put in a graduate specialist graduation

023specialist i i butcher all this it's really good that i'm the one presenting on this and that isn't that great a graduation specialist and so we have to ask why would a scholarship program need a graduation specialist and the reality is because we're built different than most scholarship programs most scholarship programs take the top 10 or 20 of kids push them through and then if they get below certain grade points they boot them up the promise is very different in that we open the doors to all young people who live and attend within the lansing school district boundaries and we not only open doors but we want to ensure that they have the resources necessary academically emotionally relationally to be successful so our incentive is in fact to open more doors for more kids and

024remarkably those 1 408 kids who have set foot on a college campus are setting nation leading retention and persistence records at 92 percent freshman year retention and persistence which is unbelievable at msu they're 98 and 99 in freshman retention and persistence it's beyond general pop and it's remarkable and then we have to ask why and of course i think we know the answer it's because they're from lansing they know this community cares and we think that's important now that doesn't mean we're going to stop there we will continue to invest in wraparound services we will continue to support academic success coaching at lansing community college we have seen academic success coaches uh really blossom to the degree that every hope and promise scholar has won if not two sometimes uh in their ear and dropping

025emails and dropping texts and making sure our kids are okay which is remarkable remarkable there's more numbers you guys should know though and these numbers can be found at lansingpromise.org impact or on our website on our front page the tab impact that is our new 2022 annual report we haven't done an annual report in two and a half years uh due to a pandemic and i'm very pleased to announce the following numbers we've had more than 600 completions more than 60 000 credits earned and and right now today as of right now today uh we've accepted 247 uh seniors as new promise scholars for the class of 2012. now let me say we're not done yet what'd i say yeah 2012 yeah i'm living in the past let me try that again rewind we've accepted

026247 new promise scholars for the class of 2022 for fall we're not done yet because it's may 17th is our deadline and so we uh we'll be putting videos together to encourage folks to apply our counselors are working their tails off our college advisors are working their tails off our post-secondary partners are working their tails off our teachers are working their tails off so let me give credit to where credit's due the folks on the front lines doing the work every day for our kids are the folks who are getting this done that's the reality so we definitely need to credit them there's a couple more numbers that i think are very i think very powerful and especially for lansing um lansing is a big small town we know that uh since its inception and

027promise uh i think we can really take some pride in the fact that 4.7 million dollars has been invested in last dollar scholarships which means state and federal aid go first and we fill in the gaps that's an important statement because number one this is lansing and number two that has leveraged millions of dollars in state and federal aid so we can leave nothing on the table why because we are lansing and we are blue collar intellectuals uh and we're going to roll up our sleeves and we're going to put things to work now within that 4.7 million there's an important statement that we need to make what we've heard over and over again is that our young people especially at lcc but across the board lcct has about 75 of our students that there

028were times in which our young people were having to make a decision between books and rent between books and food between books and transportation and the reality is that is not the equation we want our young people to face if we can do something about it i am pleased to announce that two weeks ago the lansing promise board made the decision to cover all books and fees at lcc starting in fall of 22 and so that's up to 8 500 in tuition potentially now remember it's still last dollar between state and federal aid go first but if there are course fees right we're going to cover them if there are book fees we're going to cover them and in fact we're even able to cover tools so if they're in some kind of skilled or

029vocational trade we'll be able to help purchase tools so we're very excited about that the good news is it doesn't stop there uh we're familiar with our four-year programs at msu and alaba all of that gives a fifteen thousand dollar match it's a private school a little more expensive uh but we actually have another four-year program in davenport so davenport is now joining us they've given a lot of good faith effort they've given a lot of wrap around service support commitments and they're actually offering a ten thousand dollar scholarship on top of ours to any student that begins to go starting in fall of 22 which is not only very exciting uh but it's encouraging because it's giving our young people yet another opportunity and another place to stretch their legs stretch their wings and

030learn something new so we're excited about that piece we don't we don't get to stop there though because it used to be that we would invest sixty five hundred dollars over the course of four semesters so it's about 1250 bucks a semester we have now since increased that from 6 500 to every promised scholar if they go directly to four year will now receive ten thousand dollars per scholar which means if you have three children at home which i do and if they're in the lansing school district which they are and they will go to lcc msu olivet or davenport which they will um otherwise dad doesn't pay uh we now have our house is now worth 30 000 more than it was before right which is an exciting prospect now the good news too

031is that we're never going to back down and we're going to keep pushing so will those scholarships be worth more in the future uh-huh so should we stay in lansing and so as we begin to build this out right we've got 10 000. but wait there's more sorry we're familiar with vocational programs with journeyman's programs with professional and skilled trades programs i am pleased to announce as well that we will be one by one beginning to select programs that we are able to also cover tools tuition fees and testing and so it's exciting to see that if a young person wants to go into some form of skilled trades we will work step by step organization by organization to make sure that we can operate it effectively uh judiciously but generously and so we are

032we are going to continue to commit to working for our young people for any opportunity available uh and will continue to work to reduce the financial barriers post-secondary success because we know that our young people will use it judiciously we'll use it effectively and will continue to impress us any questions justin do you know it's hard for me to articulate this question correctly but i'm going to try do you know the approximate average dollar amount or value of assistance that a promise scholar receives it's a good question ask me next year and it's going to be a very different answer because we're going to be doing books and fees right now today at lcc for example there are some students when i say they get state and federal aid first and then we come in

033to fill the gap where we receive almost no bill for them and that might be because they have both pel and tip or pell and some additional assistance there might be other students where we receive a bill for a couple thousand dollars within a year what we're finding is the average over the course of a four-year opportunity which i guess i'll walk through some of that in a minute over the four years that we a lot for scott for uh the scholarship usage we're seeing about a 3 500 usage and that's average which means we've seen students up to the 6 500 or a little more we've seen students at less i'm excited that next year that will be up no matter what yeah when you say state and federal aid comes first is that

034something that students repay or is that a scholarship that's a great question too so we go before any loans okay so state and federal aid would be typically the federal is the pel which is need based and then for state it's typically tip which is also essentially need-based basis and those are grants that students are not responsible to repay that is correct and then the promise comes in after that and then if there's any additional work then loans would be talked about okay um when the students are purchasing books tools paying for credit etc these other expenses that are that are promise eligible are they making the initial purchase and then getting reimbursed how does that logistically work that's a really great question and this yeah you like that yeah so i can do the

035compliment part no it it's a question that we need to walk through for the vocational program so we're actually working with a couple of state a couple of programs across the state who have already had vocational programs because number one we don't write checks to individual students period for lots of reasons one of which is we're not going to put a student in a position by which there's any tax consequences or tax issues this is not earned income this is a gift right but we want to make sure that's always clear for our young people the second piece is we need to be diligent with our funds and we are stewards of these funds so when we say they're used for tuition books or tools they need to be used for tuition books or tools

036and so we at this point we will for example with the hope scholarship we buy the books and the tools and supplies through lansing community college they actually bill it to us essentially through their book buying program and so that's likely how we'll do all the programs we've got a conversation that'll be going with a couple of local skilled trades programs including mikey23 foundation for those familiar phenomenal program right they're working real hard we have the privilege now because they are a state uh approved apprenticeship program to work with them to figure it out we don't know what it's going to look like yet we know that it's going to go to a responsible entity who is states uh approved and then from there uh we'll ensure that those resources get to the kids effectively

037is that similar to how it works with tuition does the promise essentially get a tuition bill we do yeah that's exactly right so we'll get a bill for maybe 75 100 150 kids each semester and then we'll end up paying it okay other questions from board members then how many organizations or people belong are part of the foundation and the promise together how many organizations of people you have in the meetings or supporting or supporting promise i think it's a great question dino so in our formal board meetings uh let me let me do a real quick history when i first started i had 30 board meetings in one year because we had three different organizations the lansing promise zone authority the lansing promise foundation and the hope scholarship the good news is after seven

038years we still run those three programs and we have six meetings a year so we found some efficiency nino right we now have joint board meetings with the zone authority and the foundation the hope scholarship is under the promise we have the privilege of administering in the same way we administer our promise scholarship uh we have 20 board meeting members on the lansing promise foundation which is the nonprofit organization 501c3 we have 11 members on the lansing promise zone authority the quicken dirties the zone authority is also our sustainability model that allows us to collect tax capture under a tax increment financing district which we can certainly have coffee over at any time go to lansingpromise.org drop us an email and we'll go have coffee and i'll explain all kinds of tax increment financing and

039how that becomes a sustainable model as property taxes rise which is a good sign when we continue to see people stay in their homes mrs moore yes i just want to clarify so did you say that there were 246 seniors signed up um for the promise as of today that's right okay is are those lasting school district students yep all lansing school district okay thank you absolutely and it's our understanding i think there's about tricky to correct me from like 550 seniors i think like 550. about half so far we want more but we'll take half we want more i mean the reality is this some students uh will go to u of m that's technically not in the promise that's still good some students will go straight to work some students will go into

040the ibew some tunes will go straight into first step and work at broader water and light these are all successes so i think you know it is interesting when we say oh we only got 50 of the class well because the other 50 is already working and paying bills but here's where we want to move to students have a four-year window after graduation to utilize 65 credits what we're seeing and you guys may be familiar with this the traditional model of education ain't so traditional anymore in other words getting out of high school going straight into college finishing college in four years or finished college in two years and get a job is not the norm which by definition means a traditional is now norm which means we have students who will take part time

041we have students who will take one class we have students who will take 15 credits two credits 15 credits because they need to pay some bills we have students who are working to help pay bills for their parents right now because the pandemic has not been easy you want to talk about integrity and character and responsibility for 18 19 and 20 year olds these kids are unbelievable and yet they keep moving forward so i think as we as we begin to figure out what the promise can do more and more or what our partner organizations can do more and more uh just know that we're never going to back down on this because our kids aren't backing down they're moving forward with their futures and we're going to continue to create as much flexibility as

042we can to make sure we're meeting them where they're at and they were really responsive to their needs justin do you know and if you don't that's fine we can google it if if i enrolled as an undergrad at michigan state right now do you know approximately how much a bachelor's degree would cost me it it depends mr hernandez do you know 24 000 a year and is that is that room on board so let's do 24 times what's the average number it's not four years anymore right so if you do four years we can call it a hundred grand we'll call it 100 so theoretically come with me on this journey but but it is very possible that for a student enrolled in the lansing school district who takes advantage of early college of

043dual enrollment programs of possibly the ib program at eastern high school where you can graduate with upwards of 20 credits am i right um it may be more it is it is very possible that we would have students who would then graduate from this district take advantage of the promise and receive a bachelor's degree at little to no cost in two years right they came out with 60 credits yeah that's right let me just put on the record that as that's amazing and as the mom of a four-year-old at a two-year-old you know i've got my mesp chugging along but i know that there's not going to be a hundred thousand dollars in that in that college savings account when my four-year-old is 18. i certainly know that i'm not gonna have two accounts with

044a hundred thousand dollars in each one of them that's right this is an incredible opportunity i know we all know and i know we know that this is an amazing opportunity but truly a child could graduate from the lansing school district and receive a bachelor's degree and spend zero dollars of their own money or their family's money we're getting there on it i mean i think there's an important thing that that we sometimes talk past but we need to honor which is the j-o-b every single one of our scholars is working too whether it's part-time or not or full-time or not right and i think sometimes we get scared oh my goodness they have to work yeah that's called welcome to adulting right so all of our kids are working and schooling working and helping

045pay bills now it doesn't doesn't mean they're making a great ton of money right which is why we have a program called the promise business council that meets next week we have 20 different corporations who have all committed to work to pay and hire students for either internships or professional mentoring and that is the steering committee for which we expect 50 to 100 different businesses to join um and we're very excited about because the reality is the amount of careers in this city is unreal the talent in this city is unreal what we haven't done yet is matched them up right we don't need i mean let's be clear there are some skill sets by which students coming out of high school do not have nuclear physicist uh physics right being a lawyer you can't

046actually be a lawyer but there are certain skills uh that are very necessary and careers that can be built um in a whole lot of incredible professions and companies right around here who have actually demonstrated care for our kids so i'm very excited to see where we head when it comes to a community who not only puts their money where their mouth is ensuring that for example they have a children's savings account through lansing safe which is at msu fc we have more than 7500 children's savings accounts uh through seventh grade right now um that gets piled on top of the promise by the way that doesn't affect promise monies those are not assets that are on their books right those are additional community based gifts right so we start to see there are piles

047and piles of resources lining up for our young people and i think the question that we have to ask number one is how do we communicate that effectively how do we make sure that we're consistent about it and how do we make sure that we're playing for keeps and that everyone knows it and so those those would be pieces that we still need to walk through um but i think i think your point is well taken what happens if we use this effectively and judiciously there's one more story that i heard about a way to use the promise and i want to just double check with you that it's true a student that i know graduated and then got a scholarship to a school out of state and then used the promise to come back

048and study in the summers and graduated a whole year early and got to the workforce that much quicker is that like a thing that you can do too that's a thing okay that's a thing listen and we would call that a hack but that's just being smart right they lived attend and graduated within the lansing school district from 9th through 12th grade they applied for the scholarship within a year of graduation and they used it within four years as being judicious we have some incredibly intelligent young people in this city who are doing incredible things we're just excited to be a part of their futures shoot let alone to say whenever they come back and say hey thanks right we don't we don't need the thanks right their actions are things enough right and we've

049talked to teachers who have run into their students right we've got students writing uh children's curriculums right now we've got a young man not that young anymore uh because he graduated in 2012 which makes him an old man now he's 28. writing uh and actually rewriting the narrative with an entire children's story that will be out this fall for a bunch of kids through the lansing reads program we have two young men from eastern three young men from eastern who are writing the lansing anthem that will be displayed and they will own the the masters to it uh will be displayed uh on june 9th maybe we should talk about june 9th for a second uh at jackson stadium during the reimagined promised dinner so i think there's there's a lot of pieces that are

050really exciting really uh powerful um and really inspiring these young people are gonna do the work the question is are we as old folks going to walk with them or at least get out of the way one more note one of the um most thoughtful gifts i ever received was a few years ago from my mother-in-law who asked me what i wanted for my birthday or christmas or something and when i didn't give her an idea she made a donation to the promise in in my name and that was really um very special to me and i think if anybody's ever looking for a present idea for someone and they love the lansing school district like all of us do send justin a check lansingpromise.org and you have our word that will be utilized for

051lansing's young people clearly any other questions for justin tonight thank you so much thank you all very much [Applause] and i think i talked to you before we this is very exciting and i am very moved we need how we need to come up with ideas of how many places uh can you can we have you speak and tell this message because the failure at the beginning between lcc and and and the promise was the interaction with between the parents and the schools that's right that's right we need you spreading the word around how do we do that i think it's sorry i think it's a great question i mean communication to the community is is critical trust in the community is critical i mean we've been able to build it i'd say the promise

052is stronger than it's ever been uh the reality is it's gonna take more than me right it's gonna take all of us i think at our best to make sure that our kids and more importantly the parents in our community really know it and can trust it um so amy i think it's a good question that we should probably have some further discussion on to figure it out because it's not about some clever social media campaign and it's not about some cute commercials it's about word of mouth and relationships and so i think it's a really good question that we still need to keep digging towards yeah and and yes and and so yeah so long as uh someone asked us to come speak we will come speak absolutely thank you justin moving on to

053report from superintendent uh good evening everyone uh hello board uh it's wonderful to see you all um it's great to be back after spring break hopefully the incredible hard-working staff and students and families were able to get a little bit of a respite so that they can kind of hit the ground running this week and kind of make it through until the end of the school year um as always and i've always promised that we will do this until the answer is zero um we are up to eighteen hundred uh and 10 gas cards and 170 cattle cards and 4 412 students are routed on the bus with less than uh 71 students on a wait list so if you have been playing along with us uh over the last uh however many months we

054are now down to double digits only and again the folks on the wait list are only on the wait list uh in the sense that they still would like to have a bus route but are getting uh to school um i think there's actually going to be an article in the paper about this one these days but i i say this because as the superintendent you know i owe it personally to every family to make sure that your children can get to school in a manner of your choosing be it through a gas card or a cata or busing but it's also through the incredible hard work of the entire community that we were able to take something that was so difficult uh you know 50 of the bus routes without the the drivers and

055turn it around and turn it into something that actually has been very helpful uh to the families throughout the year and so the families if you are listening at home pretty soon you're going to start getting communication about your desire for next year and again you know our job as a school district is to educate children make sure they're safe and loved and supported and learn support our faculty and staff that do their incredible jobs but also to give families choice and so for next year we will be continuing the gas card program we'll be get continuing the catacard program because we want to make sure that we are here as a service so that we can do what's best for the families um it would also uh you know i have to say and

056want to be very respectful to to wish uh those that celebrate a happy ramadan uh this is a very important month certainly in the muslim tradition i would defer to dr body to school me on much more of it and i will probably say a little bit when eid comes around in a couple of weeks but just it's an incredibly important time in the in the muslim tradition uh and the one thing about ramadan that i want to speak about today is that it is a time for increased charity uh there's a lot more to the to the to the holiday of course but what i find so wonderful about all religions is that they typically have a piece a strong tenant about how you give back how you help support the community and i

057just hope that all of us regardless of our faith uh think that an import important tenant of our lives is is how we can serve and how we can give back and you know it's been a difficult year we all know that um but what i've been so overwhelmed with is this sense of collegiality the sense of support the sense of love that lansing has and i see it in the relationship we have with the promise in the city the relationship we have with non-profits you know i had a meeting with two wonderful judges yesterday about how you know we can think about um all of our services as supportive rather than as punitive and i think that we as a district need to start uh really accepting the the help and the support and

058the love of the community so that we can always put our children first and and really move forward um you know it's interesting as a as an outsider um i will say i am a little disappointed that it is um april 7th and i think it snowed a little bit today um and uh you know they did tell me the weather was gonna be a little tough here but you know um and and what's interesting of course you know i i think about uh there's a very famous poem wasteland uh april is the cruelest month uh you know it starts with that and i kept thinking about that today um but but i'm reminded of that poem because it is really about uh really the end of i mean europe falling apart in world war

059one and uh all sorts of other things it's it's a very deep poem um but i also want to acknowledge again that you know really tough things are happening in the world uh really tough things are happening uh at home uh and abroad and that you know we want to make sure that as a district people know that we're here to support you as a family it's not just about your students it's about you as a family so if you do need you know counseling services if you do need support if things are happening because of something in the world or something at home you know we are here i appreciate that historically school districts don't always act as if they're the lighthouse of a community but i want you all to know uh that

060we are certainly here for you um it's been a difficult year and we've seen it in behavioral uh outbursts by children we've seen it in behavioral outbursts by adults and it's hard it's hard to go through life and certainly it's harder now than it probably has been in a long time so just please know that we're doing that but on the flip side there's been some really wonderful things happening around the district that i just want to uh you know acknowledge um we have been investing deeply in our cte programming uh something that when i got here a lot of the community had kind of reached out and said look you know superintendent you know we really want to make sure that our kids have opportunities and so just you know this year we had

061only about 60 kids in our cte program but you know by reducing some barriers and by changing some things up as of now we've more than quadrupled the number signed up for next year it's over 240 students that'll be uh eligible to have uh some space in our cte program you know it's those little wins that are going to change kids lives dramatically um but it's things that we can do um something small but that i know it's going to stay with kids uh there were some students at sexton that got to go see hamilton you know and just when i went to go visit the students before they went just the elation that they had this kind of this opportunity i mean you know it's you know some kids even drew dressed up they

062had ties on i mean if i was 16 i would never want to wear a tie i mean i barely want to wear a tie now but um you know just just these little wins that we're starting to add up and so you know i think we are turning a corner uh i can i will never say that we are never going to make mistakes uh we make mistakes all the time but you know i hope that the community is hearing and certainly the board is hearing that the good things are happening um and good things have always happened in lansing but sometimes we haven't been um a good narrator of our story and so uh i just want to thank everybody that's that's that's really embracing the challenge that is being part of the

063school district but this kind of joy of doing it and you know we'll we'll see i mean you know we've been talking about possibly starting a school at ebersole we've been talking about possibly starting a full four-year high school based on cte uh we've already done universal pre-k there's there's a lot of things that are happening but it does take time so you know i certainly asked the community for a little bit of grace and a little bit of time there um but i think that that the story of lansing is really moving forward and so you know i say this because you know of spring and this kind of rejuvenization and and though i started with with the wasteland of that april is the cruelest month of course in most religions april is is

064a time of of rebirth of starting of of anew and i think that we are we are making progress and uh you know i hope that certainly uh all of you in the audience and all of you uh at home uh who amazingly enough lots of people actually watch this um you know uh is that uh you know to know that we're part of a really positive story moving forward so you know with that i have nothing you know super specific although um i will reiterate what justin said uh this this afternoon the mayor myself and justin announced a partnership where we'll be creating a graduation specialist a district-wide graduation specialist that's gonna their sole job their only job is going to get those kids over the finish line and i think the reason why

065i want to talk about that before i stop is our kids want to graduate our parents want our kids to graduate our teachers want our kids to graduate our staff wants our kids to graduate but sometimes there are barriers and sometimes individual schools might not necessarily have the tools individual children might not have the tools but if we're truly committed to actually getting a kid to graduate we have to invest even more and having a single point of contact a one person who's saying i am the graduation specialist for the district and i'm gonna help get these kids over that's the kind of support that we're creating here and so as you see over these next couple of years as long as the board wants to employ me is that we're going to start having

066these very specific goals that we're working towards and you're going to see how our actions will get us there and um and as you all know you might know that you know our three goals are still our three goals and they will remain our three goals until 2025 when we hit them which is our 85 percent high school graduation rate our 90 percent uh attendance rate and our 11 500 enrollment those are the things that are our lighthouse those are our goals and the decisions we're making everything that we're doing is in service to that and so i certainly ask any of you in the audience or at home if there's ways that you think you can help us reach those goals uh we are always always uh more than welcome to to to get

067that support uh because we will not be able to do this togeth uh alone we we must do this uh together so um you know because we have a long a long night ahead of us uh i i will defer if it's okay for a did you know session uh but i will say and specifically for our board president uh the next time we meet it is actually a video about swimming so i uh i i know how much he uh we all love especially our board chair um and so i promise that we will play that video it was cued up but i as i look at the agenda i want to be respectful of everybody's time and hopefully it won't be snowing by the time we uh we leave today uh i think

068it'll be okay but uh with that uh uh president lawrence and the board and the community thank you very much for your trust in me and in our leadership of the district oh man i'm really excited to see that video i was at the pool with my kids this morning uh thank you ben moving on to routine matters in old business we have committee reports the facilities committee mr lopez is not with us this evening but i was at the facilities committee meeting earlier this week in your packet you have some [Music] bed recommendations for some work that's being done at wexford which we can talk about later at our facilities committee we also talked about the sexton heating issues and energy projects that we have discussed in the last few meetings and we are

069painstakingly moving forward with navigating those issues and making sure that we are energy efficient and also creating a comfortable environment for our students and you know a great way that members of the public can help make sure that we have a safe and comfortable environment for our students is to vote yes on the bond that will be on may 3rd which will install air conditioning in every single classroom throughout the entire lansing school district and also in case that's not enough it will also provide funds for the complete tear down and replacement of four elementary buildings throughout the district and those would be mount hope luton sheridan road and willow four brand new buildings it'll be a great day on may 4th when i wake up and read the news so we discussed that we

070discussed the auto land which i believe we have discussed at a board meeting yeah okay i get all my meetings mixed up sometimes uh we will have our next facilities committee meeting on april 18th any questions about facilities okay we're going to move on to promise committee um i think we doc is there anything you want to add for promise no thank you very much just to reiterate all the good things they are doing and how much they are helping us also in the in the barn for the mater and i enjoyed the all the things going on for lunch and school students and i think the community can see where the dollars are going thank you thanks doc and board members make sure that if you don't have it on your calendar yet you

071put june 9th on your calendar that's the promise dinner next up we have the personnel committee which i will cover for tonight you have a personnel report in your packet i do want to point out that we have um some long time district employees who are retiring one after a 36-year career linda spock has ended up at eastern and is retiring and we woefully accept her retirement and thank her very much for her service um and we do mrs willis i just want to point out we have revisited those um tenured employees and have included that in this report any questions about the personnel report ma'am madam president i just want to clarify the if you received a personnel report ahead of time that you should have a replacement report at your desk because it

072looks like we moved the co-curricular teachers to approval because they're technically lca is that the only change in the yes thank you thank you mrs willis any other questions on personnel okay we're going to move on to equity committee mrs willis any update thank you just to share with the board um i believe most members are aware of this but we extended um the contract with west ed at no cost to us to make sure that they gave us a thorough written report technically their um contract with us was supposed to expire at the end of march but they asked for a couple weeks so that they can really put the finishing touches um so i communicated with mr lopez david lopez this week there technically have until april 18th to get us the written

073report but he really hopes to have it to us by close of business friday april 15th so hopefully by the end of this month we'll have that written report and then we'll be able to go from there sounds great any questions for mrs willis okay policy committee doc the policy committee didn't meet this same week and we are going to meet them third week in april we have already the agenda and is going to be from 12 to 2 uh in this place thank you mr president sounds enthralling thank you doc any questions for the policy chair okay and finally our ad hoc committee on strategic plan treasurer moore yes madam president our um the strategic plan steering committee met on april 4th msu drafted survey questions we were able to make updates and the

074committee reviewed and okayed the survey questions msu will start gathering input from junior board in pcac this month the broader community um input meetings will begin early may after the bond vote vote yes can i say that yeah okay all righty um yeah you can say vote yes i know on may 3rd um the district staff input will also be gathered at that time um and we will okay excuse me our next meeting will be april 11th this is monday we have uh standing meetings on monday if necessary msu will be meeting with the strategic working sub committee audit group this group will clarify objective completion from the previous strategic plan also at the next meeting we will be working on our vision mission and beliefs audit i will then bring that back to the

075board for feedback any questions so far for for my board members no questions well i know i just want to thank all of the people that are part of this i know this is a heavy lift um but a strategic plan is really important and so i want to thank the board i also want to thank the executive team and all of the people that are part of it i know this is a lot but it will really help lead our our district in the future so thank you can i chime in to say something thank you ben for saying that i appreciate your leadership and i do appreciate can i turn around i appreciate you all i do so very much being a part of that so thank you for guiding me and and

076being in this space thank you everybody any mother any other questions for mrs moore okay moving on to our consent agenda this evening our consent agenda includes the approval of the march 17th regular board meeting minutes the receipt and approval of the personnel report and bid recommendations for the wexford parking lot dock my president i moved that the board education approved the consent agenda as presented it's been moved by dr rodriguez supported by ms hodge in any discussion so the wexford parking lot recommendations in case anybody wants more information the only thing that's kind of out of the ordinary about these bid recommendations is that the funding is from more than one source some of it is funded from bond some of it is funded from sinking fund we are hoping that these projects are

077going to be done completed by fall 2022 but if they're not these are not projects that would be so extensive that anybody would be displaced kids would still be able to be at waxford in the fall even if everything is not totally finished yet any other discussion on the consent agenda will all those in favor of adoption of the consent agenda please signify by saying aye any opposed okay moving on to a new business so now is the time that we have appointed to interview our board of education candidates applica applicants i should say um so here's here's how we're going to do this we're going to take the applicants in alphabetical order we will start with caitlyn kavanaugh then florencio hernandez jackie lillis warwick and latoya scott so when the other three are not

078being interviewed i'll ask that you go across the hall to the superintendent's conference room just in kind of a meager attempt to keep the questions confidential until it's your turn to answer the questions i know it's not perfect but what can you do um so florencio jackie and latoya i invite you to go across the hall for the time being miss cavanaugh if you would like to take a seat at the table with us madame president executive team you're free to go if you would like yes thank you [Music] oh thank you so person much good evening hi hi if you want to remove your mask when you're answering the questions it's totally up to you it's okay if you want to so we're going to give you two minutes to make kind of an

079opening statement and then we will start with the questions um and i'll just use my timer here okay you can start whenever you're ready great hi everyone can you hear me okay okay my name is kate kavanagh i've been a lansing resident for six years i'm a developmental psychologist by training so my phd is in developmental psychology i specialize in adolescent development specifically in the intersection between adolescent development and systems involvement so my area of expertise is the juvenile justice system although i also work with the child welfare system i'm currently an assistant professor at michigan state university i was recently promoted to the role of associate director for undergraduate education within my position at michigan state which means that i am responsible as an administrator for curriculum policy budget type decisions for the school

080of criminal justice for undergraduate majors i am also a founding member founding and core member of the youth equity project which is a new initiative at michigan state designed to facilitate and then disseminate and use applied research on how to reduce disproportionate outcomes for minoritized youth children and adolescents through child serving systems such as the education system the child welfare system the immigration system etc i'm a volunteer in the community i am a court appointed special advocate i volunteer as at the local animal control animal shelter and control as a cat foster parent i'm a big cat lover and the reason that i'm interested in this position is because i have a background in policy i am a research consultant for the ingham county 30th circuit court family division i also work at the state

081level with mathco which is the michigan association for family court administrators back in my my previous career i worked in the european union parliament particularly on the budget committee and so i with my background in education in administration my substantive experience in adolescent development i feel that i have experience and expertise that could be useful to the board thank you thank you what are your overall impressions of our district our staff and our students positive uh right no um as a point of order how long do i have to answer each question doesn't matter okay a few minutes if you are going on for 10 minutes i'm gonna stop you gotcha um my overall impression is positive um i know that lansing faces a number of challenges i feel that those challenges have only been

082exacerbated by the pandemic so i feel that as a community we are really at a turning point in which we need to make some decisions about how best to support faculty who are dealing with burnout how best to support families who are dealing with their own challenges financial and otherwise following the pandemic how to support students who may feel disconnected from the district in this moment and how to support staff who likewise have been asked to pivot again and again and again over the past several years so my impression overall of which was the question of the district and the families they're in is that there's an enormous amount of potential but now more than ever we really need to be able to support all of those people in the the various needs that they

083have that may have changed over the past two years compared to what those needs were before thank you as a board member what would be your number one priority for the lansing school district oh no number one um i would say so so i've been following um the information from the west ed equity audit quite quite closely um and so to me the intersection between issues of diversity equity and inclusion and all other aspects of life are so clear and research based that it's really critical the issues of dei are something that we attack first we know that those issues affect youth and families physical health and mental health which have implications for how successful they are able to be in school we also know that minoritized populations are more likely to be part of

084what we call the school to prison pipeline which means that their opportunities are cut short because um they they enter this pipeline or and they're in this kind of revolving door where they have contact with the juvenile justice system um so to me issues of diversity equity and inclusion i think are paramount because they intersect with so many other issues so any given other issue that we could discuss that is equally important has an intersection with dei issues that's why i put it as number one in your opinion what is the functional relationship between the board with the superintendent and other district staff sure so i see the board's role as creating policy and choosing how to allocate funds and i don't think it's appropriate for those decisions to be made in a vacuum particularly

085staff are often the ones who have the more on the ground knowledge of what needs are i feel just as a researcher in general it's always important to not only follow the research but then communicate with the communities that would be affected by that research and so i try to apply that logic to anything i do right so if the role of the school board is to help with policy and that policy is going to affect staff then staff need to be a part of that decision making process from from beginning to end in your opinion what is the role of a board member the role of the board member is primarily it's a service role it's a service to the community um but as i said the board is in charge of making difficult

086sometimes policy and budgetary decisions i know that each board member has different committee assignments and so the role of the board member includes fulfilling those committee assignments in a way that is helpful to the community can you tell us your understanding of the pathway promise yes particularly because we had such a such an excellent presentation from the the gentleman earlier today so my understanding uh is that the pathway promise is that any student in the lansing school district who attends lansing school district from grades 9 to 12 who then applies for the lansing promise scholarship and then acts on that within i don't know i think a few years thereafter um can have a free college basically um within the the local community um and so what i thought was really interesting about that this

087discussion and please stop me if i'm too far from the question now um was that through both a hypothetical example that you gave president lawrence and also through the anecdotal example that you gave we saw some really creative ways that those funds can be used the gentleman i've forgotten his name but i was really excited when he mentioned how what higher education looks like these days is very different and so the traditional path is no longer true um as and as an administrator at michigan state i see that all the time um and so i was really excited to hear the discussion um on the board today about creative uses of that that promise what do you think the board should do to attract and maintain students in the lansing school district well the lansing

088promise is a great way especially when students hear about the creative uses like the ones that were just brought up organically tonight also making sure that the programs that the lansing school district offers are responsive to the changing nature of the job market we know that what jobs have looked like has been changing over the last decade and we know also that the pandemic has accelerated that shift and so one thing that lansing can do as a district is to make sure that programs are offered that prepare students for those new types of careers so i'm thinking about areas like cyber and technology increasingly we're seeing more and more jobs in those areas and so in order to attract students we need to make sure that we are responsive to those changes in the job

089market and have programs in place that would support that sort of career and college readiness thank you very much those are all the questions we have this evening okay thank you am i in the right spot [Laughter] she just said have a seat at the desk oh i assume this is the desk awesome good evening mr hernandez you will have two minutes to make your opening statement and then we will move on to a series of six questions i'm gonna get my timer fired up and you can go ahead when you're ready all right good evening lansing school board of education my name is florencio hernandez and i use he him his pronouns and i work in enrollment management as a senior admissions counselor at michigan state university where i have worked for more than

09014 years i am also a resident of the city of lansing and product of the lansing school district class of 2002 lansing eastern high school the one on pennsylvania avenue just so that it's clear go quakers if we have any quakers in the house my background is in higher education as i mentioned i have both of my degrees from michigan state university a bachelor's in political science pre-law and a master's in higher education administration with specialization in chicano latino studies from the college of education at msu i am here tonight to state that i would like to serve on this board and as i am a proud product of the lansing school district i truly believe in my community in the city of lansing in the people of the lansing school district the students and

091parents and i would be honored to be able to give back to the community that has given so much to me and where i am from i know what it means to be a public servant lansing is a place is the place i call home for the last decade i have worked closely with developing students for success whether it be choosing the right career guiding them through the college application process working with school administrators counselors teachers in urban school settings all across the state pontiac flint detroit you name it i've worked in each of those pockets also including texas and florida recruiting migrant students and students of color is that my time i'm sorry well all i really want to say is that education is an important pillar and i am here to serve i

092know that there's a lot of work to do when i'm ready to roll up my sleeves and it would be an honor to be able to serve on the lansing school board with that being said thank you for your time thank you what are your overall impressions of our district our staff and our students could you repeat that question please sir what are your overall impressions of our district our staff and our students of the district um my overall impression is that lansing like i mentioned is a place that i am really proud of um i am a product of the lansing school district i truly believe in the district i believe and i really appreciate all of the offerings that the lansing school has in terms of the immersion programs in terms of actually

093really pushing education at a whole different level right and that's not to say that everything is perfect but i do appreciate that there's a lot of options when you're looking at the lansing school district if i were to flip that coin i would say that one of the things that i wish i could change in terms of the public perception is that lansing is a district where i don't really see it being a school of choice where students are leaving other districts and coming here and wanting to join um the school district and i know that there's some very um there's some very tough work and some you know there's some goals here that the district has and i really appreciate that plan and those goals that you have for 2025 in terms of increasing

094enrollment and diversity retention and graduation rates as a board member what would be your number one priority for the lansing school district uh my number one priority will be to increase the retention rate graduation rates um that includes retention and persistence so getting students to a career whether it is a technical school a certificate program michigan state lcc we just heard about the lansing promise which is a great program that i worked with in the past in my capacity at michigan state university as a admissions counselor working closely with lcc building programming so that students could understand what that transition looks like from lcc to michigan state university ensuring that they're taking the proper credits and that they're able to fully take advantage of the um of the whole scholarship or the lansing promise in

095your opinion what is the functional relationship between the board the superintendent and other district staff yes so i serve on the ingham county health centers board and i kind of see it mirroring that board where we are the board the board is really responsible for policy decision making um the director executive directors in this case the superintendent um serves and takes care of the daily operations and you are like the head of the organization but the board is ultimately the um governing body that helps um with decision making and other important decisions in your opinion what is the role of a board member um the role of a board member to me is to ensure that lansing continues to strive and that we continue to be the best in terms of not just student success

096but making sure that we're recruiting the best personnel the best staff the best teachers that we continue to promote student success whether that be in partnership with local community organizations small businesses working closely with the city of lansing as i mentioned in my application that's one of the biggest things for me as a lansing night being able to see more families wanting to move to lansing but also send their students to the lansing school district can you tell us your understanding of the pathway promise yes so with the promise scholarship as we heard earlier um you know it's for students who and under certain criteria and requirements and i know that what it is is meant to do is to help students move on to that next level um in terms of finding a job

097and landing a career right and attending um higher education whether it be a two-year school or a four-year institution after um leaving the lansing school district and uh career planning and setting um so so you know that to me is a really important um it's a really important initiative and i i really appreciate that we have that in kalamazoo where i also recruited there's a kalamazoo promise there's other areas too that have something that's similar to what lansing has and it's a little different but i think that you know just hearing the presentation today i was really happy to to hear that those types of programs within the lansing school district provide families great opportunities to be able to send their students to great institutions such as davenport and michigan state university and even start

098off at lcc what do you think the board should do to attract and maintain students in the lansing school district oh there's a number of things um i you know i did you know i i looked at some of the um programming the newsletters the communications the outreach and engagement um activities how the school district or the board actually engages parents um so as a recruiter you know that's my job and it's my nature in terms of like thinking outside of the box and i am about target and getting um getting the job done in terms of meeting target goals and thinking outside of the box in terms of what is it that we need to do and just kind of surveying the population um in terms of what are their needs and meeting them

099um as they say right halfway so um i don't know if you wanted me to share like specific ideas or um if there's anything else that i could share i i would be glad to with the many ideas that i have anyone gabriel's why don't you go ahead and give us an example okay so with the parent engagement and i was just listening to the presentation by um the gentleman from the from the lansing promise you know i am bilingual and i know that there is a number of families within the school district and there's several languages that are spoken so one thing that i'm in charge at michigan state university is dei efforts for recruitment and retention so putting on programming at the institution this past weekend we just had a dia de la

100familia for all of our admitted students so we had over 150 um participants families come to michigan state university and learn more about connecting with the chicano latino studies professors students that look like them so those are just some examples in terms of recruitment and activities or community ideas another idea i had is more of a local elected official position so if you elected you know host town hall meetings where families students stakeholders could come and meet you at a said location within the community and voice any concerns or issues that they're having and as a board member i would be bringing i would be happy to bring um those issues and concerns back to the board and make sure that they're addressed accordingly thank you very much mr hernandez those are all our questions

101all right thank you so much for your time uh so okay hi jackie hi you're going to have two minutes to make your opening statement and then we will move on to a series of questions i am going to set my timer and you can go ahead and start when you're ready thank you good evening i'd like to thank the board members for giving me this opportunity to speak to you tonight and giving you a brief overview of who i am i am the product of public schools having spent the entirety of my k-12 education in the south redwood school district before attending michigan state university for undergrad and the university of wisconsin-milwaukee for a graduate so i know how to study and be a student my parents are very proud my undergraduate and graduate

102work was in anthropology archaeology which is the study of human beings through time and space and their relationships with each other and their environments my graduate work culminated with a master's thesis where i conducted independent research applied the scientific method to my data and presented results and conclusions so i view my ability to think critically as one of my most valuable skills additionally my work experiences and affiliations have afforded me the opportunity to interact with people from all different walks of life so you can just drop me in any situation and i'll figure it out i've had to explain archaeological survey methods to landowners throughout the midwest i've successfully guided undergraduate students through the anthropology department at msu my museum work included ensuring compliance with the native american graves protection repatriation act where i consulted

103with tribes state and federal regulators with on extremely sensitive subject matters in my current work i work directly with arts and cultural non-profits non-profits k-12 schools cities and municipalities and individuals to assist them in seeking state aid my time with the junior league of lansing the historic district commission of lansing and the council on michigan archaeology has shown that i'm not just a joiner but i'm a proactive participant all have allowed me to develop friendships relationships with people throughout our state and region as well as expand and refine my skill set including networking public speaking problem solving budgeting and the efficiency in running an organization uh finally and probably most importantly i'm a lansing mom my kids in the district i've got a vested interest in this district doing well as well as the community

104and i just look forward to helping in my capacity thank you thank you what are your overall impressions of our district our staff and our students uh very favorable i moved here in 2010 and it was just while the first millage was um bond was being proposed and there was a big kind of um you know push to get the money approved and all the great things that was going to be done with that money and that was you know my first impression of the district and i thought wow they're making this huge investment in their schools and it just like my husband and i enthusiastically vote all the time but we were enthusiastic to vote that particular time because we knew it was going to be very important to you know as mentioned before

105our property values but our potential future children as well to have a big you know investment in schools um i was uh attentive during the superintendent search so i got to kind of view all of you from the the bird's eye over there uh during that search and i was just very impressed with the thoughtful approach to that superintendent search i know it wasn't the first one they had had you know the previous one had stalled due to the pandemic so i just i feel like everything is just very um for such a large district and for one that is you know sometimes not viewed as favorably as it deserves i think that the communication the presentation of all of you and just the um overall i mean i'm impressed i sat here saying listen

106to the stuff on lansing promise and i i knew all of that but hearing it was really great to you know kind of just a boost as well the thing with the border water light i did not know that so that was very impressive as well so i just everything just kind of surprises me and makes me more and more um proud to live in the city and have my child in the district as a board member what would be your number one priority for the lansing school district um so what i thought before and then kind of what i heard throughout the superintendent's presentation and a couple other things is just being kind of more communicative with the community out of the large just selling ourselves because we have all the we have the

107tools we have we have everything we need you know to be successful and it is mentioned um in the promise presentation you know we don't need a fancy campaign or social media we need to actually make really form relationships and kind of foster those and cultivate them and that's kind of what my opening statement was hopefully conveying to you all is that i can do that i'm very good at forming part you know relationships speaking to different people just kind of figuring things out and getting in there and just um and getting the point across in your opinion what is the functional relationship between the board the superintendent and other district staff um so in my opinion and what i've observed is that the board basically sets the agenda for the school and kind of

108sets the goals the mission the vision statements all the other buzzwords and the superintendent then is tasked with kind of carrying that out um using the various administrators throughout the district so it's kind of a you know for like of a better word like a ceo sort of you know uh private sector set up i suppose with the board kind of you know setting the overview of what they hope to achieve and then supporting the the superintendent in any way they can with either resources people you know that sort of thing so i see it as a very um give and take and you know requiring a lot of good communication and open lines of dialogue in your opinion what is the role of a board member so in my opinion the role of a

109board member is just to be an ambassador for the district in in in their own might you know from block to block a neighborhood to the neighborhood um you know we can call answering a community but we know it's smaller than that like we said before we're a big small city um so all of us have you know our neighbors we all have our other um associations that we have outside of work we have our work people really it's just uh you know kind of make sure people know what the lansing school district is about and i think it's also just taking care of the kids and making sure that they have all the resources they need in the classroom to be successful supporting our teachers so that they have what they need to then

110turn around and you know raise our kids let's be honest they're an active participant raising our kids and i think also a lot of it and i love what the lansing school district does with this as well um supporting the families of our students if they you know the families aren't supported they can't support the student the student can't do well in school so it's it's really that whole community coming together can you tell us your understanding of the pathway promise so my understanding of the pathway promise and this is you know something i could probably get a little more information on but it's also something that excited me very much having a kid in the district was that if a student attends lansing school district 9 through 12 then they are eligible to apply

111for and receive up to 60 i guess five credits um to a network of schools lansing community college michigan state um olivet and now davenport um in that they can use that you know in the achievement of associates degree or towards the um towards uh an undergraduate degree or now with the um you know straight uh skilled trades and and other uh avenues um outside the traditional sense you know traditional way so um and and i under it keeps changing um as was mentioned today so there's going to be something new next year it sounds like but that is on something that i'm very interested in learning more about so that i can be a better communicator about that what do you think the board should do to attract and maintain students to the lansing

112school district um i think again that we have everything we need right here you know as far as the tool you know the shiny things for them we just need to be better about getting the parents to recognize that i think you know again for better or worse lansing has not always had the best um view for some reason and i can't figure it out i can't get anybody to ever you know have friends in other districts i have friends who've sent their kids to other districts and they can't really give me solid data on why they're doing that other than they just have heard things and that just is frustrating so i think we need to also make sure they are hearing good things because in specifics because again when they don't have specifics

113bad things we can kind of counter that with the specific good things so i think we just need to make sure that that information is getting to the uh the parents and guardians of our students because those are the ones making the decisions those are all of our questions okay thank you so much thank you for your time are we sticking around then are we like what's the protocol you can if you want to okay we're not gonna make a decision tonight okay so because it was a discussion back there after the first one i probably should have told you that we're not going to make a decision tonight we'll make a decision next week uh so you're welcome to stay if you want to but you certainly don't have to thank you so much

114you're welcome thank you you guys are fine take your time i'm smiling through my mask is hey i'm sorry yes okay [Music] yes oh thank you good evening hello you're going to have two minutes to make your introductory statement and then we will move on to a series of questions that we have for you this evening i'm going to set my timer and you can go ahead whenever you're ready okay so good evening everyone thank you so much for having me my name is latoya scott i'm so excited to be here this evening um a little bit about me i am just a ball of passion to serve this community in this school district i am a listing school district product i came from wood creek elementary as an owl straight to jw sexton high

115school and graduated a proud big red if you ask anybody about me i absolutely love my school it has shaped me into the person that i am i was involved in so many activities while in school from sports and cheerleading and honor societies and peer mentorings i was given the opportunity to be placed in ap classes that really led me to my higher education i got my undergrad at eastern michigan university and then i went on to get my master's of social work and my limited license at michigan state university something about that green and white i just love um i just i love the school i love the district and even after graduation i am still very involved i have volunteered for the past 10 plus years as the assistant cheerleading coach at sexton

116high school i've went up there and volunteered so much of my time with mentoring programs i've partnered with my community members and friends and family and they've helped me gather hygiene products and and school supplies to give out on the first day of school just so i can be there to greet the students and i just absolutely love just being a vessel um and so some other things i'm very active in our community i'm a part of sorority so we do a lot of community service um and then on my own i actually for my birthday each year i like to collect toys from the community and from my family and friends and i donate them to local hospitals and shelters and things like that so just being involved and building those relationships are very

117important to me since graduating from high school and just coming back as an adult volunteer oh that was good that was quick startles me every time i don't know what's coming thank you what are your overall impressions of our district our staff and our students i love our district i think um the staff and the students are very ambitious and very talented um i love the fact that they're very initiative they innovative i'm sorry um they come up with so many great ideas and just being around the students and being around the staff they constantly show passion and love for our district and so it just makes me feel like the love for our district is steady i guess that's the word i would say as a board member what would be your number one

118priority for the lansing school district i think safety right now is my biggest concern i want to make sure that we create a safe and inclusive and equitable environment for our students i want them to feel in our staff i want them to feel comfortable coming in to school and learning and taking away as many distractions as we possibly can because we know if it's a tense situation or uh someone doesn't feel safe in a building you know it takes away from the learning process and i want them to be able to just freely learn and get as much um i guess as much education and as much experience as they possibly can without having to worry about the other stuff in your opinion what is the functional relationship between the board the superintendent and

119other district staff okay i think the board implements policy based on what our students and state legislation says and just hearing the needs from our communities i believe that the superintendent enforces these policies and kind of handle the day-to-day operations of the district and trickles down to our staff that you know we help develop and make sure that they're prepared so that they can uh do the day-to-day things implement it and like implement the policies and give it to the students and just kind of follow through like that i think that's the relationship in your opinion what is the role of a board member the role of the board member is to being i feel like is to represent and advocate for our students and our community and our family like hearing what our community

120has to say and their needs and what the students need to really reevaluate is this program really effective for our students making sure that each student is feeling like i said creating a safe environment for our students making sure they're feeling included i think it's as a board it is important that we create policy and we continue to advocate and support those students to make sure that they're getting all the needs that they need can you tell us your understanding of the pathway promise my understanding of the pathway promise which i loved his presentation um it's it's a cr i like okay so it's an opportunity for our students to be able to pick a career path and take experience the certain education like let me start over i think it's uh i think it's

121more just like the students are able to pick their career path that they want to follow and they're able to get life experiences like going with businesses or partnering um with different businesses so that they can get those life skills and maybe learn trades and things based on whatever their interest is so like you know if i'm into visual arts and i can go down that visual art path and take classes that relate to that actual career path that will help prepare me so that i can go on to higher learning or maybe go into the workforce what do you think the board should do to attract and maintain students to the lansing school district oh community involvement um i think that our our board needs to be seen in the community constantly building those

122relationships with the surrounding businesses and the religious groups and i think it's important to build those relationships when i was in school we had so many volunteers come up and volunteer their talents and partner with us we had alumni come back and support us and that is what really helped build our district up and it attracted people to want to be a part of our district um i love the fact that we're doing renovations and bringing like a new spark to our district so that that kind of attracts people to want to come back and then offering um diverse curriculum so that people feel like they're being challenged and they they can have like i love the pathway they can have different options on career paths because like everyone said like everybody's not doing the

123traditional way all the time and so i think it is very important that we make sure that there is a diverse amount of opportunities that they can take thank you very much those are all of our questions for this evening oh wow and you can stay if you would like to but we're not going to make a decision this evening and we don't have that much more on the agenda so if you want to leave i totally understand all right thank you guys so much so thank you again to all of our applicants this evening i know it um it can be nerve-wracking to put yourself out here for public consumption and i really appreciate everyone's willingness to engage in public service so thanks again moving on to public comment on non-agenda items i have

124one person who is registered to make public comment mr koppage if you would like to join us at the podium you will have three minutes and the board typically does not respond to public comment you can go ahead whenever you're ready right over here over here mr kolpage over there in the corner over there okay thank you first off i apologize for not being here earlier being the president for the last three terms we did have a member that would come in and visit you and get information about the school district and bring it to our committees to work with good seeing you uh benjamin sheldon yeah sheldon there okay yeah i remember meeting you over at uh at pattongale or is it now the where they had the uh incident dealing with children and

125there were a number of very uh uh emotional uh gathering of people talking about what was going on in the lansing area and these things are very important to us in naacp as you know i'm the current president in double aacp and i'm here in that capacity along with being a parent all three of my children went to uh all of the schools here uh henry north gardner and then everett and we have i think a great stake in the school district not only as a branch but as a family i'm here for two things i know that there's supposed to be a document that we're supposed to be reviewing and signing off on for federal grant for the school district we're hoping that we get that in a timely manner to be able to

126look at that and to be able to respond in a manner that would be helpful and also uh targeted some things that the branch may be has some interest in and uh the other reason why i'm here is more on uh several things i've heard or had contact and actually talk with some individuals concerning uh things that's happening at everett high school where my children went and some of the things are very [Music] very how can i put it disturbing to me i don't want to sit here and talk about some things because we don't actually have a complaint with the district or to work with but the things that we heard um really need some attention and i think it would be a good opportunity for the branch to be able to sit down

127and talk with you superintendent and some of your members here to review those things and see how we can be a help to to make things uh better we are kind of concerned with one of one of the applicants talk about school prison pipeline we're seeing that more so now with some of the things that's happening there we want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to collect knowledge to have a good career to be good to not only benefit from school but also provide some service back to our community and so uh we are very very interested in having this conversation with you and hopefully uh we could come to something that would better the district in a number of different areas but thank you for the time to talk thank you mr

128kobach if you don't mind just staying around so we can exchange numbers because i'd love to talk thank you report from secretary doc you want this report i want your report thank you mr president thank you very very much and um [Music] there's thursday april 14th we will have information study session meeting 6 pm in this room monday april community input forum banned 6 p.m to 7 p.m online via zoom see lansing school district website for soon link tuesday april 19 2022 parents university parents engagement 101 bullying prevention and intervention free 5 to 6 pm see lansing school district website to rsvp pays to reserve your ticket wednesday april 20th from 3 to 6 free food and wellness activities sport physicals for lansing school district students only wellness fair free vaccination clinic easter high school

129620 626 marshall street si lansing school district website thursday april 21st regular board meeting 6 pm in this building that is the report and the announcement from the board thank you thank you dr rodriguez any comments from board members this evening miss lilji just for the record i'd like to add three seats to this board so that we don't have to make a decision [Music] i want to announce that i won't be in the next thursday meeting i want to miss all of you but i will be in better weather thank you he's not going to miss us that much it's supposed to be 70 next week here [Laughter] any other comments from board members this evening i want to thank mrs moore for stepping up and helping us out on our officer's duties this

130year thank you congratulations to both of them congratulations to both of you rachel's old nose you know you know we are moving together we are running in the same direction row the boat right okay well with no other business before the board it's 7 59 we are adjourned thank you everyone um