04.6.2026 MDPS Board of Education Meeting

001waiting for Rebecca, >> but he doesn't like >> see me, you know, brother. >> And he goes, "Well, maybe if you went in some gas station." He's like, >> "All right, everything's good >> for a ship. You can't come where I port like." So, there was this weird conversation. >> Call to order. >> He wants to say the pledge this time. >> He and the director said maybe. >> All right. All right. We're going to start with the pledge of allegiance. Where did I leave off at last time? Was it Rebecca last time? Cster, you are next. >> All right. >> Would you please lead us today? >> Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and

002justice for all. >> Okay. Roll call. >> Here. Sarah Taylor >> here >> absent at this moment. >> I need my glasses. There we go. Public fundamentals with public comments. Public input is a vital part of how Madison District Public Schools operates. The board of education values hearing from parents, staff, and community members because these perspectives help guide the district towards achieving its mission. A period known as public comment is set aside at every board of education meeting. This time allows parents and community members to share their thoughts, ideas, and concerns about school related topics directly with the board. Anyone wishing to speak must complete a request form and submit it to the board of board secretary before the meeting begins. Each speaker is is allotted three minutes. Comments that follow these guidelines are accepted

003and considered by the board. Public comment is more than formality as one of the ways that board gathers input to make decisions in the best interest of students. Community voices help shape policies, programs, and priorities that support student success. While board members cannot respond to comments or engage in dialogue during the meeting, concerns may be referred to the appropriate administrator for followup. The board also works with staff district staff to ensure that community questions and suggestions are addressed. This collaboration between the board and public strengthens our ability to fulfill our mission to provide a rigorous curriculum that engages every student regardless of their current academic level in a safe, supportive, and nurturing environment for all students. Secretary, do we have any uh request for public comment? >> No. >> All right. All right. Next up

004is our administration report. >> Good after. Good evening and welcome to spring. And as spring is springing, I do want to have a conversation about lawn care this year. We have to put down fertilizers. And I want to share with you guys the quotes that we have. So if you guys can take a packet, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and pass one down. So, this is not a one-time cost. And what you guys are seeing are three different quotes that we've received from various companies to cover the lawn maintenance at ECC, MEES, WMS as well as the admin building and MHS lawn maintenance will be covered in house. However, we do have to fertilize. The reason why once again we tell you every year that we want to do MHS in house is

005because we have a lot of track well not track meets but softball games baseball games so it's easier for us to take care of MHS inhouse and MEES. So what you guys have is a summary of the three different companies and the total costs as well as the price breakdown for 26 cuts and application. And if you look in the packet, each company provided you with a estimate of all the services. We have three estimates from Big Lakes Lawn Care, Expert Lawn and Snow in Great Oaks Landscape. So, this is once again not a one-time purchase. Big Lakes overall payment for 26 cuts as well as fertilization is $22,330. Expert lawn care total is $36,448 and Great Oaks Landscape is $24,680. So, I just want to present this with you guys because we are coming

006to the point where we have to start fertilizing and getting ready for spring sports as well as the lawn maintenance with the change in weather. questions. >> Um, could we possibly get a list of what fertilizers will be applied to the lawn and what exact areas they would be applied to, if any students could potentially come into contact with them, and just any like I know certain fertilizers you have to stay off for 24 hours, sometime some of them are just till it dries. um just so we could know what exactly is going on the lawn and it could just be an email. It's not. >> Yeah, I can get a list. All three companies are aware of the schools and you know how we have kids out so they know the dangers and they

007know that we have to make sure we're selective of which fertilizers we use that are in compliance with school code. >> I have a question. Have we uh which have we worked with before? Have we worked with any of these before? So yes, we work with Big Lakes Lawn Care, but full disclosure in the past, it has been an issue because the one of our employees >> in the admin building, husband, does work for Big Lakes lawn care. So that's why every year we want to make sure we give you guys quotes. Um, according to board policy is we have to disclose it to you guys and that's why I'm disclosing it to you guys. That's good. >> I I would say on top of that, they have not given us good service. We've paid

008for edging that has not been done. They we whack. They don't edge. We've paid for edging the last few years. Um I think we need to look at something else. It's not personal for anybody that's involved, but we're paying for services and I would like for us to receive the services that we bid out and paid for. >> Can I say something else? >> Uh, real quick, have we received any other complaints, issues, or any concerns regarding the the current service? Um, last year I did receive two complaints from two board members about the edging and the weed whacking and things not being done. All I ask is that when we have complaints that I have pictures so I can send to the specific um company. So I just don't want to never go and

009say, "Hey, we're having this issue and I don't have the evidence." >> I did supply pictures. >> I've never received any pictures. You could resend them to me. >> I will do that. I've sent them yes on more than one occasion. >> I do want to be clear that because this isn't a one-time purchase that I don't we don't have to technically get board approval because the amount is not a full onetime amount. So, I'm presenting the information to you guys because of the fact that board policy says in the event that an employee has some type of relationship with anyone from the company that we have to disclose it and share it with you guys. >> One more question. >> Yep. Real quick, did anyone else have anything to ask? >> Nope. Okay. Go

010ahead, please. Um, I I know we have that new K Cabota or whatever that little machine is called and um I've received information about possibly getting a spreader or something for salt. I wonder if we could do that for um fertilizer and use our own equipment and just have to buy fertilizer as opposed to purchasing all of that outside. >> I think from what I remember is that you have to be licensed to put down this fertilizer because of the purposes of the kids being um coming in contact with it. I can look into it, but I I do think you have to be licensed, but cannot follow up with you guys in my email on Friday. >> Well, one more thing because um obviously whoever is doing the high school would have to be

011licensed. So therefore, we have to have somebody that's able to do it >> if they're doing the high school. >> The high school fertilization is not done by IND district staff. It has never been done by IND district staff. the high school groundskeeping, the lawn maintenance is done by in district staff. >> Okay. Thank you. >> But I will in my newsletter, I'll give you guys an update about who can apply. >> It would cost to get that certificate >> because it might save us some money. >> I'll look into it for you guys. >> Thank you. >> Was there any other differences between the three um other than the price? No, because we when we go out for quotes, we try to give them specifically what we need so they can know. Um I

012think some of the other problems was that because we're so small, a lot of people already have those larger contracts and trying to get a smaller or trying to have a smaller contract with the larger companies. Sometimes they don't want to pick that up. That is it for my report. I have more but it's on the agenda so I can share it then. >> Thank you very much. Right. Next up, approval of consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered to be routine in nature by the board of education and will be acted upon by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items. If any member of the board or any citizen requested discussion of any item that item will be removed from the consent agenda will be will

013become the first item of business under the board of education action items portion of the agenda. So this is approval of minutes of the board of education for the regular meeting of March 2nd 2026. Approval of the March 2026 expenditures in the amount of 1,339,36742. Approval of the personnel report submitted by human resources. It is recommended that the board of education approve the consent agenda as presented. >> President Harp. >> Trustee Harp. >> I make a motion that the board of education approved the consent agenda as presented. >> Thank you. >> Support. >> We have support. Any discussion? No discussion. All right. All in favor say I. >> I. Anyone oppose say no. Motion is approved. Right. Next section. Next section. New business. First read of the February 2026 volume 40 number two policy updates.

014You want me to go over some of what we did? >> Yes, please. So last week, no about two weeks ago, um we went over Trusty Thompson and I we went we met with Niola and we updated policy regarding updates around staffing ethics, online learning, school health education, sexual sex education, volunteering, wireless devices to reflect the change in um the requirement or the ban from cell phones in schools. We also went over policy around purchasing procurement AI because that's something huge that's coming down the pipeline. Our emergency operation plan specialized transportation services for students with IEPs. These policies were all updated as well as included in the newsletter the last two weeks. So, if you go to your newsletter, there's a link to the folder that has all the updated policies on them. This is

015the first read and we just wanted to see if you guys had any questions, comments, or concerns about any of the updates. >> Elder. >> Um, Trustee Thompson, um, do you have any input on this? because I know we had a conversation after. Is is this something that you were comfortable with moving ahead on or is this something that you wanted to review further? >> I'm okay with the policies. I'm not okay with the first bylaw 0100 on there. >> We're trying to get an appointment with him. >> We did touch bylaws. Bylaws. >> It's on this sheet. That's for when you guys decide to do it. >> Okay. >> What what the first sheet is just an overview of that specific update. So Niola sends out updates every time probably I think it's like

016once a quarter and they tells you, hey, these are all the things you should be updating policy and bylaws. When we met, we did not touch any bylaws. >> Okay? And I we never touch bylaws because you guys do that on your own. And if you go through all the policies in the folder, there's specific policies. They all start with PO. So that's how you know there's policies there. They are policies and not bylaws. Mr. President, don't we have to read those in? >> I'm sorry. Was it? >> Don't we have to read those in the policy numbers for the first street? Carlos has to >> actually u at the county board meeting they didn't read them all in >> but >> did they read the numbers? >> No they did not. >> What did

017I tell you about the county? >> They had a they had a a binder and they recognized that the policies were being updated. But do we have the I see them all as individual sheets. We have >> me to read them. Read the numbers for you >> just to the numbers. Yeah. >> Okay. I don't mind. >> Yeah, >> please. Or if you have that, I'll read them. >> So, it's in your packet, but I can I have it right here on my computers, >> please. And thank you. >> Okay. So, the policies that we are updating our policies 2370.0124172418 312.09 412.09 09 812 8120.09 Policy 4210 Policy 5136 754.09 Those are the policies in this first read. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Any other questions or discussions? All right. Very good. Let

018me get to my next section. >> No, we don't. Not the first reading. Right. Next item of business, relocation of the first grade. >> So last week in my newsletter, I sent an email explaining or discussing possibly relocating the three sections of first grade classrooms that we have now at MEES to ECC. and ECC currently only have two sections of kindergarteners. So, next year we will have two sections of first grade as well as relocating our self-contained classroom which is a categorical classroom where we have kids with different um needs that they have to stay in their self-contained classroom. So, today I wanted to have a conversation. And I did reach out to attorney Urban about this process. And basically, um, it's something that we just have to talk to the state and communicate with

019the state about, but I do want to share with you guys, I put together a proposal. Well, not a proposal, just a discussion. And I want to go over this real quick with you guys and get your feedback and get your thoughts. I thought Joe. I know these are new glasses. That's not Joe. >> Oh, he's here for the training. Okay. >> They did our first training class. >> That's inappropriate. So what you guys have before you is just something that can guide us through this discussion and it tells you what our plans are. We are thinking about transferring our first grade classroom from MEES to ECC for 2627 school year. What we're trying to do is create a true prek through one early learning campus. and I'm going to give you some benefits and

020some consideration as well as get some feedback from you guys so we can determine what we're going to do next. Currently at our early childhood program, we have our GSRP, we have our early on program, we have kindergarten, and we have a EC the ECSSE, that's the early on special education program. So, one of the things we always want to look at is what's going on in the county around us. So, if you turn to the back of the first page, here's what's happening in other school districts. So, around us, most early on programs have just preschool through kindergarten. Districts nationwide are moving towards a prek through grade one or prek through grade two. The next statement just section just talk about what we already have at ECC. And then the next section we're going

021to talk about enrollment and capacity consideration. So currently we have ECC enrollment is low and we attempted to rent out the building but we couldn't find anyone to rent the building. What we're thinking about is and also trying this summer is turning ECC for summer discovery into a true early childhood center. So we learned that in summer discovery those first graders and those second graders they're doing two different things versus the three four five. So this year in summer discovery we're going to have two buildings. We're going to have prek through first grade at ECC and then we're going to have second through fifth grade at MEES. A good thing about it is that with the summer discovery funding, we're able to build out these classrooms because we're already going to have the furniture there

022for summer discovery. If you go to the back, the second page, we're going to talk about the advantages of adding first grade to ECC. The first advantage is that it establishes a true early learning campus so that our staff can kind of work together, our kindergarten staff with our first grader and kind of have that vertical alignment with them. Now that they're in two different buildings, I think that sometimes they don't ha I know that sometimes they don't have enough time to plan. Also, with our students, we're finding that not just here in Madison, but across the county, our students are coming not ready for school. Whether it's that they don't know how to hold a pencil, whether they don't know how to spell their names, those things that we usually take advantage as when

023we were younger, they're just not developing when they're coming like they're not developed. So, it will also give us an opportunity to continue to develop the younger kids. As well as strengthened early literacy and academic foundations, and we're going to talk more about that. promotes a smoother transition from PK prek to one. So these students will still be in that building. So we will have these students from hopefully GSRP to prek to one and then we can kind of build that connection. It would also allow us to increase capacity at Madison Elementary School. One of the things that we can do is open up more higher grade classrooms because we do have a higher influx of kids in fourth and fifth grade. So those two first grade classrooms can be replaced with a higher ed

024classroom. And then if we go to the back of the second page, it just allows us to coordinate and we can use our early childhood center principal more effectively as an academic leader and not as an operational leader because now she's able to work with those staff members one-on-one. Also it improves family convenience. So when most of those first graders go to MEES then they sometimes a lot of huge population of them they are part of the learning tree where they come before and after school. So they can just stay there because we have learning tree there and then there's also some alignment with best practices and we're going to talk about that at the end because I have some data to present with you guys. Here's some potential challenges that we thought about is

025space and classroom configuration. Once again, with the summer discovery, we're going to build out those classrooms, so they're there. Transportation logistics, that should not be a problem. Staffing considerations, we've had an opportunity to talk with MHA, that is our teacher association, and we presented this plan to them just to get their feedback. We're in the process of going having another meeting with the current first grade teachers. We have a Google sheet going where they can give us like, hey, these are some cons because we always want to make sure we include teachers in this conversation because at the end of the day, it's really impacting their transitions and their day-to-day operation. Also, it will give us an opportunity to build capacity where we can get some more kids inside of ECC. Currently, ECC is not

026a title one school, but once we put this first grade in there, we can turn them into a title one school and get additional funding for that specific building. Currently, we just have funding for title for MEES, WMS, and MHS. So hopefully that can build cons also impact our financial consideration and also parent and community communication because these kids are coming in not ready for school. A lot of our parents are really, not a lot. I would say maybe we had a couple families that expressed concerns about sending their kids to me right away from kindergarten. So maybe we can hold on to those three or four families. That can be a huge difference in our budget. The last portion is some stats regarding early childhood center centers. And I can let you guys read

027this on your own, but these are some things that Pam and I, we researched and we looked at some articles because we don't want to just do things because we felt like it's right. We want the research behind it. So, here you guys have a summary of some stacks that supports why early childhood centers are good and why there is a growing increase of childhood centers across the nation. As well as on the back there's a QR code. There are seven articles in this folder if you guys want to take an opportunity to read the articles and we can come back to this discussion at the next meeting. But I just wanted to equip you guys with everything that we've been doing to try to see what can we do to take advantage of the

028space that we have at ECC. And I know one of the things is, hey, we're not really fixing the problem because we're just moving the kids from one place to another, but that's not what our goal is. Our goal is to move them and open up more classrooms at the elementary center. And I would love to hear you guys's feedback or we can table this and have a discussion in May. >> Ste holder. >> Mr. President, when is our committee going to report to us as to um potential building closures and and consolidations? I would not want to move on this without getting their information. Does not seem like maybe they got this um as they have been looking at their own information. So, I would not support looking at this without getting info from

029the rest of the group. Um, I do know we should have an update tonight to some degree. Um, I'm not privy to what the update will be, but we should have something tonight. But this could uh this information is definitely something they can use going forward too. >> Right. But we don't want two different rings of motion moving. This has to be one consolidated um agreement in my opinion. >> True. But it is additional information. It's additional options. Yes. >> No, this is great information and I think it would help us and and thank you um Trusty Holder. I appreciate that because um I thought the same thing. I'm like we actually um we've been working as a committee coming up with options. Um we've met one time since our last board meeting um and

030uh we're we're getting some things on the table that we'd like to present. We're just not there yet. However, this is great information for us as well. >> Thank you. >> Yep. Go ahead. >> So, I once again, I always want to make sure I do my homework. Um I did if this is something we're going to do, like we have to communicate with the state because we have to realign buildings, so on and so forth. And I did check with attorney Urban. So, I know we probably need to move on this fast if we want to do this. I did ask, did we need board approval? because I want to make sure that we're aligning everything to what everyone else is doing and I don't need board approval just to let you guys know

031to transfer the grades. However, I do want us to work as a team. So, when you when the committee has their meeting, is there any way I can be a part of that meeting so we can talk about it this in the month of April? >> I don't have a problem with that. >> Okay, >> I would say it still needs to come in front of the board. I understand this is timesensitive, but you brought it to us as a timesensitive piece and we have had people working on this. So, we need to table this until we get the committee to report back to the board. That That's my thought. They've been tasked with that and I don't believe that you should move forward until we as a group have decided where we need to

032go. Yes, trustee Campus. >> Um, I think with what the committee is doing about building utilization and things like that, I don't anything that we, let's say we as a committee thought closing a building was the best idea and brought it to the board and the board were to vote on that. That's something that takes a year of time with the state. It's you can't just close a school within a month or a couple months. It it's a full year process or more because you have to notify the state. Families have to be notified and there's a lot that goes into that. So even if the committee did come to the conclusion that closing of a building is what's best um and brought it to the board and the board said yes at the very

033next meeting um it would still be a full year out. So it would potentially be beneficial to still think about moving the kids and seeing what opening up more room in the fourth fifth grade level considering mees is our busiest building. It is the building that fills up the fir first. It is where we lose the most students from um when they transition from fifth into sixth grade. Um, so I do think it would be beneficial to at least let it run and see if it increases enrollment by opening up those fourth and fifth grade classrooms because like I said, even if we wanted to close a building tomorrow, it's a fullear process. So kids could be moved, classrooms open, potential enrollment increase in that year. >> Okay. Um, so this something obviously that could

034be implemented for the next school year then. >> Mhm. And this wouldn't to our knowledge at this moment we obviously would blunt check this wouldn't stop us from making any other changes to the buildings if we want to do that in the future. >> No it wouldn't. >> So >> when you say changes like what? >> So if the board did this did decide to close a building this won't limit any future options that we have? >> No. Thank you. >> Um, do we have any idea of I know I know it's hard to say when we talk about grants any idea of like what types of grants or how much or I know that's >> a title one. >> So, it depends on um what federal funding is next year. I mean, we were

035really hesitant about title one this year, but we ended up getting more than we thought. Um I think maybe closer to July we will have an idea about what funding will look like in terms of title funding in terms of different grants or whatever. The reason why this kind of this idea was birthed was because when we were planning summer discovery, we were like, "Okay, listen. We're we're making room for summer discovery so we can have more kids in the higher grades at MEES." And since we're able to build out these classrooms with this funding, let's see maybe what it can look like during the school year having a true separation between these grades. Yes, trustee me. >> How will that affect the lunch breakfast and lunch program? I know that there's no kitchen at

036ECC. >> So, what will probably happen is really nothing. I think it will just be the same. It will once again probably bring more funding too in terms of the breakfast and lunch program because now we can get more funding because we will have more kids there. >> Well, we're just moving around kids. We don't necessarily have more kids in the district, >> but we will have we can open up more classrooms and they've had breakfast and lunch without the kitchen with way more kids than what we have now. Adding those two grades, so it would not impact anything. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Real quick, anyone else? Trusty Thompson, please. And then I'll come to you. >> What kind of date do we need for letting the state know? We're in talks with the

037state now with um we don't have a definite date but we are researching that now. >> Okay. And just I don't know how many people have been in the district a long long time like me but Hapman used to be a fullrunning elementary school >> and we did and I worked in the lunchroom when I first started. So you know I I don't see a problem there. They'll just continue to do what they've been doing with the other kids. Yeah. Trusty, sorry, brain freeze. Trusty holder, please. >> Thank you. I just had uh two quick things. Um yes, that will leave more room in the elementary, but remember we didn't fill our elementary this past year. So, we can assume we're going to get more kids, but we didn't this year. Um I don't have

038a problem with it. I just wanted the the group as a whole to decide do we want to move ahead. I mean obviously you have you've just gave us the the info but as group do we want to move ahead before um or as the committee is meeting to look at other options. If you could just pull this out I would appreciate it just so everybody's on the same page. see campus. >> Um, Miss Perry, you mentioned um that it would open up ECC to title funding. How much additional like is there >> a rough estimate? So, I don't know. Um, no, I don't have a estimate. >> Okay. Sorry. I may have a better estimate in July once the budget comes out or depending on I mean they're cutting federal funds, right? So I

039but I think it will be some but I don't know how much. >> Right. Anyone else? >> I'll take the last uh point on this one. Um it's is it safe to assume that this won't be a negative to our finances at the end that that there's only going to be a possibil possibility of additional funding? Is that correct? >> Unless they cut funding. Yeah. >> But then still it would I I think it would still be safe to say we're can still uh have additional value and be able to sell this as something that other areas around us don't have. >> Yes. >> Is that also something we could promote right away for the enrollment season because that would be really great thing to say assuming that the board approves. >> Yes, we can

040promote that. >> Okay. What will the cost of of moving those classrooms be? >> Well, it wouldn't come out of general funds because we have to move the classroom for summer discovery. >> Okay, perfect. >> So, it would come out of summer discovery. >> Okay, thank you. >> Very cool. Thank you. Um I am watching the clock. Do we can we get a have a motion to do the superintendent evaluation training in respect for our presenter tonight? >> Wait a minute. We've still got >> discussion request. >> I know. Can we have a motion to adjust the agenda in respect for our presenter? >> President Hart, >> Trusty Chamblas, >> I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda. >> I second. >> Right. And we're going to move that after. We're going to

041move the superintendent evaluation training to now and then come back to new business. See, we're just going to move them around. Okay. Any discussion? We have a second. We have a motion, a second. Any discussion? No discussion. All in favor say I. I. >> Anyone oppose say no. The motion is approved. I have to make a motion to amend and then I tell you what the amendments involving and then we everybody votes to allow me to amend and then I have to make a second motion >> please >> for the actual topic. I >> thought it was all done in the same the motion and then where we put >> you have to amend the agenda first then make >> make the motion that's from the amendment. >> Okay. >> All right. So, >> I'd

042like to make a motion to do the superintendent evaluation training >> under >> CD. Could we make it 4 C and move the electric bus purchase to 4D? >> Yep. >> All right. Thank you. Do we have a second? >> I'll second. >> All right. Any discussion? No discussion. All in favor say I. I. >> Any oppose say no. >> All right. Motion passes. And thank you uh Trusty Chamblas for the correction. Appreciate that. >> No problem. >> All right. Thank you. Go ahead, sir. >> Good evening everybody. My name is Jeremy Chisum. I'm happy to be with you tonight and uh thank you for technology for having the slides up. I don't do board members are you able to see slides right now on your screens? Yes, >> you have a display down here.

043Good. Um, and then quick question. Do I have a clicker to move the slides forward? >> Yeah, no problem. U, but it's a pleasure to see all of you again. I've seen some of you a few years ago and some of you are new faces, but uh I'm always happy to come over and provide an update on the training. Uh, so anytime you have a question, please feel free to put up a hand. I do not need to stand here and preach to you tonight. So, make this more conversational and hopefully make good use of your time so that this can be a valuable update and not just uh something you have to do. Um, all of that said, I'll jump right in uh in respect for your time and I thank you for uh

044the respect for mine. I appreciate that consideration. So, I'll jump right into our session tonight. Uh, the tool that you see in front of you, some of you have had the chance to use this before if you've been on the board for a while. Others, this will be something uh newer. Uh but the tool that you see before you was developed by our firm many years ago now uh when the law in Michigan was first adopted that required annual superintendent training. Uh for many many years in Michigan that had never been a requirement and then in 2010 the law took effect in 2011 but in 2010 the legislature adopted a law that required the annual evaluation of the superintendent. Since that time, the law has been updated uh in a couple of ways. Uh most

045recently with changes taking effect uh July 1st of last year. And so uh there are some slides in here for even those of you that have been through this training before that you will have not have seen because the law uh changed and we've changed the training to uh respect that and reflect those changes as well. Um, so all of that said, uh, the point of the evaluation tool is to enable the board to have a conversation within a structured framework about how is your superintendent doing in achieving the goals for your district. Uh, it is not a checklist. It's not something that we say here's what we, the lawyers, think your superintendent should look like. Uh, but what it is is a development of lots of research. uh lots and lots of research that

046went into developing a way for you to say what are valid concepts when it comes to educational leadership. What are field tested reliable ways of talking about educational leadership? And in that context, let's identify the big ideas and talk about our superintendent in those ideas. And hopefully going through that process, you'll have a good conversation with each other uh about where you want the district to go, good conversation with your superintendent about progress towards achieving those goals. uh and have a good uh updated estimate on where you are. It'll it'll be a good internal selfch check on uh how the district is doing as well. So, quick question. >> Just point to her when you're ready. >> Gotcha. Go ahead and slide forward. Um and you can move another one. Another one. Okay. Uh so

047I like to start with the fact that the requirement to do an evaluation is a statutory requirement. And so the reason I harp on that is not just because I want to preach about the law. That's my chosen profession. But because we don't have absolute flexibility in how we do this. We have some flexibility, a decent amount of flexibility, but there are certain portions of the work that you do in evaluation that we must do because the law requires it. So the superintendent is subject to this law as are all your other building administrators. But because the superintendent reports directly to the board of education, you must do the evaluation. There's nobody else that you can delegate that authority to. So the board must do this as a whole. Go ahead and move the slide.

048Thank you. Um there is an allowance that if your superintendent has been rated in the highest possible category three years in a row, you are allowed to move to an every other year evaluation cycle. If you'd like to do that, feel free to give us a call. We can talk through how to do that. uh requires a little bit of board action to move to that schedule as well as the consent of the superintendent. Most boards for their superintendent uh just do it every year. It's easy habit to get into. It's kind of promotes public transparency. So most of our clients that we work with uh are accustomed to doing this every year. But you do have that option if the superintendent has been rated in the highest category three times in a row. One

049of the first changes that has taken effect in the last year and a half now, almost two years now, is the elimination of the highly effective category that you, some of you who have been on the board for a while, were accustomed to using for many years. Uh it's a significant change and so I want to address that in a little bit of uh more depth. A lot of the pieces uh I'm going to move through quickly out of respect for your time and try to get everybody home to watch the game so that you can not be stuck with me all night. Uh but some of these pieces we need to spend a little bit more time on and this is one of them. So when the law was first passed in 2010 and

050then until about a year and a half ago uh we've had four categories for evaluation in Michigan for for superintendents, for other administrators, for teachers. Everybody's had the same four categories. Those same four categories are supported by all of the research that's done on how do you talk about educational leadership? How do you measure these things? The basic idea was you had to two below par categories and two above par categories. Effective has always been kind of our basic competence, your baseline performance that everybody should hopefully achieve. And then we had for years the highly effective category which designated performance that was better than that, better than average, better than the baseline, and something that you wanted to spotlight and encourage. That no longer exists in Michigan law. It does however exist in all the

051research that everybody does, the PhD candidates and people that publish about how should you measure uh educator evaluations. So what we've done and what every other tool uh company uh has done as well, so your teachers uh tools have made the same choice is rather than try to uh fake it by saying, "Well, the research supports four, but we're going to squish it into three." We've left all four categories available for you within the tool. So when you flip through and you see the tool, they are all available. So if you think there's something particularly good, if your superintendent is good at uh external communications or a superintendent is really good at managing the budget, whatever the case might be, if there's something that you think is better than baseline, you can designate that in

052the evaluation tool. What we've done to to comply with the fact that the state won't accept that category anymore is if you award that category, it gets the same score that the state keeps as just effective. So the state used to accept 1 2 3 4, four being the highly effective category. Now they only accept when you report to them a 1 123, three being effective still. That's now the highest that you can get. So if you assign a highly effective category to your superintendent, it's a good reflection. It's good for the part of the conversation. It's a good encouragement. You can do that. Your superintendent can see it, but it will be reported to the state as if it's ineffective because that's the the highest category that the state will accept. Any questions on

053that? I'm happy to talk about it, but I think it's important to explain that because an alternative could have been to kind of redraw the grading curves on where the different categories fit, but the research doesn't support that and and so nobody went in that direction. Go ahead with the next slide, please. Go ahead. One more. That's the slide I just talked through. Another change that's now required that was never previously part of Michigan's law for superintendent evaluation, but is now is the requirement for a mid-year progress report. And I need to take a little bit of time on this one to explain it as well because if you just go look up the statute and what they wrote in, it almost sounds like they think every they being the legislature that uh every administrator

054has to have a plan of improvement or an individual development plan in place. And that is not their the case. That is not uh the way that all school lawyers have have read this uh update. What is required as a bare minimum for compliance is that some point between the beginning of an evaluation cycle and the end of an evaluation cycle. So that could be a calendar year or it could be a school year. Either is acceptable under the law. But somewhere between the beginning of that cycle and the end of that cycle, you need to have a check-in with your superintendent where you discuss explicitly progress towards goals. Whatever those goals are, if they're self-identified goals by the superintendent, if you've set goals as a board, if it's just alignment with the overall strategic

055plan and strategic priorities, however those goals have been defined between you, you and the superintendent, you need to have a conversation about progress towards goals. And if you wish to have any different direction on those goals for the second half of the cycle, you need to put that in writing at that point in time. If you do that, you're compliant. You've met you you've met the requirements of the statute. Uh, so don't worry, this is not something that requires a second evaluation like two evaluations a year. I get that question a lot. Do we have to do the tool twice in a year? The answer is no. You just have to do the evaluation once per year, but somewhere between the start and the end, you have to have a meeting where you talk about

056progress towards goals. And if you want some kind of course change on how the superintendent's attacking those goals, put that in writing. >> Yes, I see a hands. I just wondering is there like a preferred maybe sixmonth um ongoing review at how are other districts doing that? Is it I if June 1st, let's say is is the superintendent's um evaluation then would you be counting back six months and automatically do the goals halfway through? >> About halfway through. So the and and the it's a good question. The law gives you a little flexibility on this point because it just says midyear. It doesn't give it any more precisely than that. And so because some districts go on a calendar year cycle, midyear would technically be in like June July 1st and so nobody wants to

057do it in July 1st. Uh and so a lot of districts on calendar year cycles will do the midyear in June. for districts that do an a school year and you do the evaluation at the end of the school year in June, for example, as you just said, most of the districts I work with will do their midyear check-in in either December or January to whatever is convenient at that point in time, but it just is a requirement that it's somewhere between the beginning and the end, but it's not any more specific than that. Mr. Did I see another hand? Oh, no. Okay. All right. Yes, sir. >> What's the reporting like on that midyear review? Um, so it's it's a minimal uh a minimal requirement. We've included within the tool a one-page document that

058satisfies the statutory requirement which just says what are the goals we're working on and do you have any comments on them. If you do that, you're you're good. If you'd like to do more conversation, you may you you can have a more detailed conversation, but in terms of meeting the statutory requirement, it does not require you to go through the full tool like this. Just having that talk about the goals is sufficient. >> Thank you. All right. Uh, next slide, please. Another another uh change to the law that you need to be aware of is one that you can hopefully just kind of hold on the back burner, but it is a new requirement that was never part of the law before. In fact, uh, for most of the years that we've had superintendent evaluation

059in Michigan, it's been illegal to have an appeal of the evaluation. It was banned in the law. That changed recently. And so now you do not have to go out and create a board policy on appeal. Right now the law requires if the superintendent ever wishes to appeal the evaluation rating that you assign. So you go through June, you do the evaluation, you come out of the meeting and you vote and you assign that rating. If the superintendent wishes to appeal that rating, the law says you must make quote unquote a means of appeal available. doesn't specify what that is. And there's a number of different models looked at. A lot of different school districts are trying different things. Some are saying ask the ISD if they want to review it. Some are saying we'll

060just have another board meeting and the same board will look at it again. And there's some are saying send it to an arbitrator. There's different kinds of uh ways that you can uh look at that. Again, it's not a hot topic, something you have to take action on right away because hopefully you're not in that situation. And if the superintendent never puts up a hand and says, "I'd like to appeal," then you're okay. You don't have to worry about it. But be aware if the superintendent ever says, "I would like to appeal my evaluation." That is in the law now and it has never been part of the law before. It's a new part of the law and so we have to make a means of appeal available. Um our suggestion on that front is

061that you talk to your superintendent. A lot of people, a lot of school boards are writing into contracts with their superintendents to say if we need to have an appeal here in Madison, we will do it like this. Whatever it's going to be, it's going to come back to the board. We're going to ask the ISD to intervene. we're going to have a mediator. Different options. But if you put something in writing the next time you review the superintendent's contract, it's a good way to check that off and then you don't have to worry about it. Next point is the student growth is still a part of the evaluation process. For many years, it's been 40% of the overall evaluation for your teachers, your principles, and your superintendent. And that was cut in half in

062this most recent update to the law. So by far, the work that you do utilizing the tool will predominate. it will become 80% of the overall evaluation rather than 60% which is what it's been for a long time. But student growth is still included. And so you don't have to do the work at the board table on calculating what are the student growth numbers. You have people within the district who crunch those numbers and report them to the state on an ongoing basis. But every year when it comes time in June, it sounds like to do the evaluation, you will ask for the superintendent will ask somebody to provide the most recent set of numbers, the the current numbers for student performance. And that will become 20% of the overall evaluation for the superintendent. Next

063slide, please. And the next one. And one more. I'm going to try to So, the only thing I'd like to say about this slide, we have a number of slides in here. you're happy to ask questions if uh I'm happy to have you ask questions if you'd like to and and talk about it, but otherwise I'll move very quickly through the background and the history uh sections. It's there. It's a good reference and it kind of validates what you're looking at. You can see the basis for it. Uh but I I don't want to take your time reviewing the history tonight. The basic point that I'd like to make with this slide, and that has been unchanged with all of this update to the law, is that this tool was designed in response to board

064of education feedback from boards across the state. our our firm and myself, we work with school boards. That's what we do. And when the law first took effect in 2011, uh what we heard from our clients immediately was that the commercially available tools at the time, there were only two that were available uh were complicated, took a lot of training, were expensive, board members would have to go to like two days of training, and everybody had to be you pay to do all of that. Uh and at the end, you would do a big spreadsheet, and you would say, "Our superintendent is like a 3.5." And I guess that's good. You know, it's it's not a 3.6, six, but what does that really mean? Our superintendent's a 3.5. And so the request that came was,

065is there a better way to do it? And that's what led to this tool. And I mentioned that because I started by saying, and I'll probably mention it a couple more times. What we've done is use the research available, and there's a lot of it. There's people working on this all the time about what is the best way to do evaluations of of educators, educational leaders. The research also suggests that if you can have a meaningful conversation within the structure of identified areas, what are the big ideas that matter? Have a conversation with each other, have a conversation with your superintendent, try to achieve a consensus in each of those. You won't just be checking a box. You won't just be coming up with a number, a three point, whatever, a twopoint, whatever. You will

066have a real conversation about how are we doing on money? How are we doing on student growth? How are we doing on whatever category we're in? and that so you'll not only be complying with the law, you are doing some box checking there, but will be meaningful. Hopefully, you and the superintendent will come away with hopefully a better understanding of where you're at as a school district and what you need to do. And so, that's why the tool looks the way that it does. Can you advance the slide, please? I'm going to skip through a couple of these now. Okay. On the raider reliability training, excuse me. This is the last change to the law that we need to talk about. This was never something that was included in the law before, but it is

067now. There's a requirement that anybody who participates in the evaluation of the superintendent must have some raider reliability training, including illustrative examples. So, let me explain exactly what that means. The legislature wasn't thinking about school boards and superintendents when they wrote this. The superintendent is subject to the same requirement that school principles are. Everybody's referred to as a quote unquote administrator. does include superintendents that in the definitions in the law, but they were thinking about principles when they wrote this. And so if you think for a second of a district, maybe a little bit larger district, and they've got five elementaryaries, for example, something like that. And so you have five principles. If you have five different principles watch the same teacher teaching, you'd hope they would come up with roughly the same evaluation rating.

068you know, they're going to have their own voice and their own little angle on what they see and what they emphasize, but you would hope that one principal wouldn't say, "That's brilliant teaching," and another principal would say, "That's the worst thing I've ever seen." That would be unreliable. You'd have people doing the same job, watching the same teacher, and coming up with wildly different results. And so, the law requires now that we provide training to make sure that doesn't happen. And so, we do that. All schools do that. Now, the companies that produce your teacher evaluation tools have video modules and intensive trainings. When that's applied to the board of education, our firm looked at that and said, "Okay, we need to make sure that you can comply with the law." So, we're going to

069have some slides on this in just a minute. You can comply with the law, but at a certain point, we need to recognize the fact that you're elected representatives of your community. You're you're not employees. You are elected officials. And so, we wouldn't expect that the seven of you would have identical opinions on something. And so that's okay. So, we're going to do the examples, the uh raider reliability examples as we go through the tool tonight. But once we can all kind of agree this is a thumbs up and this is a thumb down, like you're on the plus side of the line or the bottom side of the line regarding what you might observe for performance from a superintendent. We don't feel the need to push you any farther on that to try to

070say everybody's got to be in lock step. Everybody's got to have the same opinion. Seems a little bit anti-democratic given your role as an elected official rather than an employee. So, uh, we've provided the means and we're going to cover those for you to be compliant with the statutory requirement, but we're not going to try to make you all, uh, spout the same script. Uh, you're you're going to retain your independence as elected officials. Okay, next slide, please. And you can skip through a couple of these till you get to one that's got 10 big boxes on it right there. Um, quick note on this. Again, I'm I'm moving quickly through the history and development of the tool, but I'd like to point out to everybody, uh, Michigan was the last state in the union

071that had universal requirement for a superintendent evaluation for whatever reason. Uh, every other state had adopted this previously. Um, it was a little surprising to us when we discovered that, but the benefit of that is you can crib from everybody else's work. Uh, everybody else has been doing this for a long time, so we know what the big ideas are. And we quickly identified that every other state in the country uses these 10 ideas. is what used to be for those who have been in education a long time. They used to be called the ISLIC standards. Same idea, same 10 concepts, but they've been rebranded about 10 years ago as the educational standards for prof for professional education leaders. Uh but the same 10 ideas. And what these come from is all of the national

072level professional associations for principles, for superintendents, for elementary principles, high school principles, etc. We'll have conferences every few years and talk about what do we think are the big ideas that matter for education leadership and for decades they haven't changed. These are the 10 categories. And so we said that's a clue. We're going to base the tool on that. So that's what the fundamental framework of this tool is. Is these 10 big ideas about what does it mean to be a good school leader are going to form the foundation of this tool. Go ahead. And another please. We're going to skip through a few. Okay. Couple more. We're going to jump right into it. Okay, I'm not going to read the uh instructions aloud to you. Some of you have been through this before and

073the rest of you, you can read the DSLs if you'd like. The key here, couple things to keep in mind. Um because of the open meetings act, whether you meet to do the evaluation in in public, in open session, or in close session is the superintendent's choice. That's section 8A of the Open Meetings Act. So, you just ask the superintendent, do you want us to do this in close session or open session? She's she gets to decide. Uh you do always, regardless of whether you have the conversation in open or close session, you have to come back on the record and vote at the end. And you'd be surprised how many boards forget that occasionally and call me the next day and say, "Hey, we forgot to vote. Uh do we do we have to?"

074And he said, "Yep, you have to." And the reason you have to vote, you can't just do it on the conversation is the law says the board of education must take action to assign a rating to the superintendent. And as you all know, you can't take action in a close session. So even if she elects go into close session to talk about it, have the whole conversation, do the whole evaluation, you have to come out at the end of the meeting and vote on the record to assign the final rating that gets reported to the state. So don't forget to do that. Otherwise, a couple quick notes on how to have a good conversation. Of course, follow the no surprises rule. You know, if there's something you want the superintendent to focus on in the

075evaluation, don't bring it up in May. If you're doing the evaluation in June, you know, give her enough time to adequately be able to address those goals. Um this is not a specific binder tool that you have to have uh particular documents or artifacts presented to the board. Though we do think it's a good idea if the superintendent would like to give you information or artifacts or if you have specific requests again make them reasonable so that they can be achievable. Uh but we do not define for you these 10 documents have to be uh provided or something like that. Whatever you think would be valuable. Yes, Miss Holder. >> Just one quick question. Um it seems to me This is whole points. It's not half points. Right? When when we're doing our evaluation and

076we are assigning points, we are not doing two and a half. We're doing one, two, three. >> That's that's a four. >> That's a great question. So, let me um let me address that if you don't mind in the context of going through the first dynamic or the first the first domain here because um we actually don't suggest that you use numbers right away. We suggest that we save the numbers for the very end when the state requires that we assign the numbers to go out and until then we just keep talking about the big ideas with words. Uh we think you'll have a better outcome that way. So let me address it in that way. Can you do the next slide please? And one more and one more. Okay, here we are. So they

077I will spend a little more time on this component because they all work the same. They all look the same. Um so let me describe the layout and the how you do the grading so to speak to Miss Holder's point or trusty Holders's point. Um and then we'll talk about the actual subject matter of each of these six in turn uh briefly. So on each component you'll have the title. This reflects either one or two of those 10 big ideas. A couple of them work well together. So to make it a little bit easier to use rather than having 10 components, we've given you six. That's the national average as well. Most most state tools have six. Um so this will either capture one or two of those big ideas from the uh 10 big

078principles. Then we'll have a description in words of those one or two big ideas. So the statement on this one regards visionary leadership. You will have a description of what we're talking about. That's the only thing you have to assign the rating to. So on each page, and you forgive me, I still am oldfashioned. I've got a lot of gray in my beard and I talk about circling things with a pencil, which I you're welcome to do. This is available electronically. We forwarded it to the superintendent. So if you want to do it on a pad or a tablet or something, you absolutely can. So you can click a drop down or whatever the case might be. But I still talk about circling things. So excuse me if that sounds a little bit anacronistic. Um

079but all you have to assign a rating to is the component. So component one for example visionary leadership. You need to identify as a board are we going to assign effective or one of the lower two categories to this. You don't have to put a number on the ca on the component. you have to assign effective or one of the lower two categories on this component at the end when we have done all six and then we've looked at the student growth data and put that in as well. It's one of the last slides that we get to. There is a time that we have to assign a number because when it gets on the rep report, which is where this is put together and sent to the state, it is going to be reported

080as a one, a two, or a three, a whole number to your question. Uh, but I didn't want to kind of glance over that uh by saying whole numbers. It is a whole number at the end, but you don't have to put numbers on it until the end. So when you are doing your individual review, which we encourage, it's not required, but we think it's a good good idea if every board member kind of works through this with a pencil before the meeting so you know what you want to say, you know what your thoughts are. Um, but the board as a whole reaches consensus in either open or close session and assigns either effective or one of the lower ratings to this component. And then you're going to do that for each of the

081next components as well. And you don't have to actually put any numbers on it until you get to the very end. So what what are all these other words on the page then? If I've said it so simple, all you're doing is assigning an effectiveness rating to the component. The rest of these words on the page are in two different categories. We have the performance indicators and we have illustrative behaviors. So let me talk about those for a minute. This is again the benefit of being able to look at how do all the other states in the union do this. Some states have been doing this for decades. uh Maine and Arizona and Minnesota jump to mind, but many uh have big valid data sets that are great when you're doing research because if you've

082measured the same thing for 30 years, you can identify really reliable trend lines. You know, when you've got that consistent data set working with so what we've done is we borrowed from states that have those big data sets. I'm paraphrasing everything for the sake of time. We've taken their rubrics and said, "Okay, when we're talking about the big component of visionary leadership, how can we break that down in a little bit smaller bites? What's a little bit more granular level of talking about that?" And so, we've given you 1.1, 1.2, etc. Each page has a slightly different number on there. These are valid fieldested rubrics for talking about in this case visionary leadership that you can say, "Okay, we know that's a reliable way. That's not something I made up. It's not something the lawyers

083made up. It's a valid way of talking about leadership. You don't have to put numbers on these though. Those are just there to help you guide the conversation. So you don't have to put a plus or a minus or a check mark or a score or anything on those. Those are just to help guide your conversation about the big idea which you are going to assign a rating to of in this case visionary leadership. Similarly, when you look to the other side of the screen or the page with the illustrative behaviors, as you might expect, people being people, when you have kind of a certain level of performance, you're seeing, you're going to see behaviors cluster together. It's very unusual that you would see a superintendent who's going to be 50% maxing out, doing everything

084the very best, leading, blazing, glory everywhere, and then 50% just dragging through the mud. Like you, you know, intuitively that's very rare. That's not how people tend to work. So, what I always suggest with these, these are again field tested ways of talking about this, but they're descriptions of what you might see clustered together if you're experiencing the same kind of performance within a specific category. And so, I always suggest read these columns from the bottom up. If you've had a conversation about the bullet points and said, "Okay, we think we we know what we're seeing. We think we know what we're seeing. What rating does that require? What do we assign to that for purposes of giving this to the state?" This helps you say, "Oh, I'm seeing kind of this cluster of behaviors.

085Look to the top. There's the label that's appropriate to that cluster at that point in time." You don't have to put any scores on those. They're just there to help you guide your conversation. Quick note on this. If for whatever reason, one year you say, "I don't want to talk about 1.5. I'm just picking that one at random." Uh, it doesn't seem as applicable to us. That's okay because you're not putting a number on it. You're not scoring it. That doesn't mean you're going to drag anybody's rating down or anything. If you say, "I don't want to take any time on 1.5. It's not relevant to us right now. We want to focus on the first four." That's okay. You can do that because at the end of each component, you're just assigning an effectiveness

086rating, either effective or one of the lower categories to this component. Okay. So, that's how they all work. All the same structure, all the same method. So, let's talk the subject matter of each of these briefly and then get to how we put it all together. So, visionary leadership, there are two leadership categories captured here. Again, reflecting those 10 big ideas. Visionary leadership you might think of in terms of a subtitle as portable leadership skills, organizational leadership, the ability to motivate people towards a goal. So, this is not necessarily school specific things. That's the second category we're going to get to in a couple slides. But your superintendent is essentially your chief executive. You are the board of directors here and you're setting strategic priorities, the strategic vision, managing the overall budget priorities. etc. And

087then the superintendent is your one employee that reports directly to you, the chief executive who has to motivate the entire rest of the organizational structure to achieve your goals. So anything that has to do with those classic leadership skills of leading an organization period, it's going to fit within here. Can you move people towards the goal? That's this category. Category number one. Okay, next slide please. Okay, here's our first calibration exercise, which I promised we had to do. Uh, I'm not trying to be anti-democratic and tell you what as elected members you have to say. We just need to make sure we're statutoily compliant, that we have provided you some training on calibration. So, the goal here is that you everybody would agree one of these statements is going to reflect effective or better than

088effective performance and the other statement is going to reflect less than effective performance. And if everybody can agree that far, we don't think we need to try to calibrate you any harder than that. So for this particular example, the superintendent's actions, staffing, and resources have little connection to a vision. It's going to be one of the lower two categories. That's less than effective performance versus the superintendent clearly communicates the district's vision to others in both writing and speech. You can assign either effective or exceptional, the the highly effective form category to that. Any dissension on that one? Does everybody see eye to eye for the most part on that level of calibration? After that, go forth and and be representatives. Okay. Component number two, policy and governance. You might subtitle this component the internal communication

089between the board and the superintendent. So, anything that has to do with that relationship, which is critical because again, the superintendent is the the fulcrum point. You've got the board reflecting the community elected to voice the community's priorities, the community's concerns. And then on the other side of the superintendent, you've got all the parts of the school, all the employees and the buildings and the money and the trucks and everything that's going on over there. And the superintendent sits in the middle of that uh reflection of the this board on one side and the rest of the organization on the other. So having effective two-way communication, it really matters. It's that's why it gets its own category. So, anything having to do with the board superintendent relationship, whether that's timely information, whether that's knowledge of

090your policies and being on top of that. Um, you don't have the superintendent doesn't have to be a school law expert, you know, that's why you have school lawyers or school law experts, but the superintendent needs to know how to call them and the superintendent needs to be aware that there are school laws that, you know, we we work in a very highly regulated profession. uh do you have state law, federal law, local law, board policies, multiple layers of law. So the reference there to knowledge of relevant law uh is not meant to say you have to hire an attorney as a superintendent, but somebody who knows the system that you're working in. So everything having to do with the board superintendent relationship fits within component number two. Next slide, please. So our second calibration,

091superintendent is not engaged in work related to policies, does not enforce district policies. That's going to be less than effective performance versus the superintendent appropriately and equitably enforces policies. Top two categories, either one would be appropriate. Next slide, please. Okay, component number three. I promised there was a second leadership category and here it is. So the superintendent is not just the chief executive, not just the employee who's responsible for leading the rest of the organization. That was component number one. The superintendent is specifically an an instructional leader. She's leading a school system, not any other kind of a business. And so everything that has to do with school specific needs fits within this category. So things like managing the curriculum and making sure that the board is regularly updated. Do we need a new curriculum

092here? Where are we lagging? Being on top of student growth data. This does not mean we had student good student growth data, so we're going to give a good rating in this category. You could have terrible student growth data one year, maybe coming out of a national pandemic or something like that. Maybe you've got bad bad numbers coming out of that. But if the superintendent knows the numbers, knows the data, is able to talk about it effectively, and come to the board and say, "Okay, we've reflected this. Here's how we're going to try to shift and address it." And can can talk about that. that might be highly effective in this component even in a bad data year. Um so making sure that everybody else's evaluations are done correctly matters a lot to the school

093in the long run uh in terms of having all your teachers and principles evaluated correctly which is a legal requirement and can have deep implications uh if it's not done correctly. Um and so all of these schoolspecific leadership pieces fit within component number three the instructional leadership. Go ahead for the next slide, please. Okay. So, the superintendent the professional development offered by the superintendent is infrequent and is not connected to student or staff performance data. It's going to be less than effective performance versus the superintendent actively develops expertise about quality instruction, is able to recognize and describe highquality teaching. It's one of those top two categories that's at least effective, maybe even better than. Okay. Component number four, uh, if number two, the board governance could have been subtitled the internal communication between the board

094and the superintendent. Here's all of your external communication. This is the forward- facing part of the district. The superintendent, in addition to sports coaches, are big faces in the district. You know, people come to them, people recognize them, people see them. So, this is recognizing again two-way communication. The superintendent needs to be pushing out good information about the district, boosting the district, promoting the district. also needs to be listening and being able to intake. So, effective two-way communication with whichever type of stakeholder you're talking about, whether that's student needs, parent needs, other needs within the community. Uh, this is all aspects of the external face of the district. How's the superintendent doing on managing uh your public face within the community? It's going to fit within component number four. Next slide, please. So the superintendent

095is ineffective in communication with staff, parents, and students. It's obviously going to be less than effective performance rating versus the superintendent keeps staff, students, and parents informed on a regular basis. One of those top two ratings would be appropriate. All right, number five. There has to be, of course, the stuff category. This is the money, the roofs, the building, the vehicles, the bus updates, etc., etc. I think I saw something about a firetruck and a bus on your agenda earlier. So, you know, everything having to do with all the stuff that it takes, the material that it takes to keep the district operating. We exist, of course, the whole reason a school exists is to serve the educational needs in a safe environment for your local community. That's the theory of public education in Michigan

096is that why we don't have a statewide system. For example, some states like Texas, there's one board of education and they direct the whole state from there. Others were like Kentucky where my brother's a teacher in Kentucky. They have what we would consider ISD level only. The district is the whole county, what we would call an intermediate school district. Michigan is not entirely unique. There's a few others like us, but it's fairly unique in having local community level control. Uh most most states, I think there's two others that have more than 100 school boards. We have 538 school boards in Michigan and that that's fairly unique. Um, and so making sure that you stay on top of your community's resources being allocated to meet the needs of why we exist, which is educating students in

097a safe environment. If you're aligning your resources, whether that's money, the stuff, the buildings, whatever you're talking about, uh, making sure that's aligned to provide for student needs and the the strategic goals set by the board. Of course, anything having to do with that stuff fits within component number five. Okay. So the superintendent's management of the operations of the district is poor or non-existent. It's going to be less than effective versus the superintendent establishes a clear set of operating procedures for effective operation. That's going to be one of the top two categories would be appropriate. All right, our last component, professionalism and ethics. This is what it says. This is where you talk about the superintendent's trustworthiness being a good example hopefully and not the opposite. Um, I've had board presidents tell me before, "Oh,

098we kind of we we gloss over this one. We keep it in our pocket in case there's a problem." Like, "We'll write something in there if there's a problem." I understand, but I would encourage you, excuse me, not to just gloss over it. It absolutely needs to be there if you ever have ethical issues of any sort. You've got to have a place to write it down in the evaluation. So, it is there for that, but it goes both ways. If you think your superintendent is a good example for your students in some particular way, you can write that down in here as well. does not have to be saved for a rainy day. So, uh it is one of the key 10 ideas about educational leadership and so anything having to do with the

099superintendent's integrity fits within this this uh component. Last calibration please. superintendent has demonstrated inconsistent, excuse me, or unethical behavior and does not stand by his word or her word and that is going to be less than effective versus superintendent treats students and staff fairly and shows respect at all times. One of the top two categories is going to be appropriate. Okay, how do we put it all together? Uh in the interest of making this as userfriendly as possible, you do not have to make an Excel spreadsheet. Uh that really disappointed one of my board presidents that I work with. He loved being in charge of the spreadsheet, but most board members say it's it's a good thing that we work away from having to have a big Excel spreadsheet to calculate the final evaluation. So,

100what you can do, hopefully, each one of those six components will have circled at the bottom or electronically, however you do that, you're going to have assigned an effectiveness rating to each of those six components. You can put them all on the page together here so you can look at them all together. What you will see, and I can say this with some authority because I've been asked to participate over the last 15 years in more than a thousand superintendent evaluation sessions. I I keep a running track on that. We do not require that, by the way. This is not me trying to get you to pay me to come to your meeting. Um you you don't need me to come. You can do it yourselves. But a lot of boards, including those that I

101don't regularly work with, do ask for it. They ask for an attorney to come and facilitate and kind of guide the conversation. And so I've had the opportunity to be in, like I said, over a thousand evaluation sessions across the state. And what I can tell you absolutely is I have never seen a superintendent who comes in with three categories on the highest end and three categories on the bottom end. That superintendent doesn't exist. You will always see a trend. Three or four or five or many times even six landing in the same category here. So what we suggest is again you pull them all forward. Look at them all on the same page. Wherever the weight of your categories is landing is probably where your consensus is going to land at the end. If

102you have three or four or five or even six effectives, you're probably going to land on effective. A quick note on that, we do not have any kind of rule attached to this tool that says if you have uh developing and one that's the best you can get or something like that. These are all equally weighted. And so if you have four effectives, an exemplary and a developing, that's something we see fairly often. That's a fairly common pattern. um you're probably still going to land on effective overall, but you have to talk to each other to reach that consensus. If one board member says, I really want to argue hard to push it higher because we had that one or two categories that were higher, listen, same if it's the other direction. If a board

103member says, I know there's, you know, four effectives, but we've got a couple developing, so I really think we need to hold the whole thing back. Talk that out and uh reach a consensus to where the whole board can live with it. Uh that's not a a legal vote. that is what you're allowed to do when you're doing the the effectiveness conversation uh in a close session. So talk until you can reach a consensus on that. But in most circumstances, you're going to see a clear trend. That's probably one where you want to land for the overall. When you reach that point, circle that one. So let's say hypothetically tonight you had four or five effectives and maybe you had one in another category. You're going to land on effective. So we're going to circle

104effective. That's going to become 80% of the final evaluation. So let's go to the next slide. We'll see how we put it all together. The point of this slide summarizing all those words on the page is that whatever the aggregate effectiveness data is for your whole school district is what your superintendent is going to match. You'll be told our school district's growth data this year was effective exemplary developing whatever the case might be. It's going to be one of those categories. You're going to circle that and you match the superintendent. Um that's why this slide is here. The basic idea here is that each person who's in leadership, so a principal is going to be res uh responsible for the student growth data of the building they lead. A teacher is going to be responsible

105for the student growth data of the students they teach. Superintendent again at the top of that organizational pyramid, she's responsible for everybody. And so whatever the aggregate is for the district, superintendent matches. That's what this slide is for. So let's say hypothetically you have effective, it makes the math easy on the next page. Go ahead. Here's where we see the numbers pop up. And you'll see in that table at the bottom what I began the our time together by describing. You used to see a four in the top category there. It would go 1 2 3 4. Those were the rankings the state would accept. The state no longer accepts force. So we've g we've given them to you. They're still in there as you've seen as we walk through here. If you want to

106tell your superintendent, yes, that's great. More of that. Please use it. But at the end of the day, it's going to be reported to the state the same as if it was effective because that's the highest score that the state will accept. So again, pull everything forward. We said that on our hypothetical evaluation tonight, we had assigned effective to the tool. So, we're going to circle that and we said we had effective student growth data. Those are each worth a three on the table for going to the state. And so, on our last slide, we're going to put it together. Write the word effective for the tool. It's worth three * 8, you have 24. Same thing with the student growth. Effective is worth 3 * 2 is 6. You're going to end up at

10730. Exactly where you'd expect to be if everything was effective. You're right in that category. The one part of this whole tool that you can't play with, lots of it. You got lots of flexibility. Just talk to each other and reach a consensus. The band at the bottom, the 30 to 23 to 22 to 15, etc. That was developed through multiple accountants and actuaries, making sure that in every possible combination, every possible combination. I've still got big charts with all the spreadsheets of all the combinations in the office from when we did this, that it will always result in a legal 8020 split. If you try to fudge that a little bit and say we're going to go 30 to 22, there's a couple circumstances where you would not have an 8020 split anymore and

108then you're illegal at that point in time. So that's the one part of this not to mess with is those grayband numbers. Um but when you get through to the whole thing or done with all the whole thing, circle effective, remember to come out and vote uh on the record to assign because that's your taking action to assign the effectiveness rating. And then in June when the rep report goes to the state, the superintendent's valuation rating goes out and you have done your job and you're good for another year. And that's the conclusion of my presentation. Yes. Uh Trusty Holder. >> And one more Ken. So done this a few times. Everybody has done their own evaluation and then we've gone through and read what our comments are. >> Yes. >> So when we get

109to the reading thing, and this is where we kind of stumbled with the math the last time. >> Okay. Um, so I'm asking just for clarification. So let's assume at this point everything is threes and two tubes >> um from all of us each individually. So, if it's split down the middle and we're doing a rating, we have to we have all read our comments and then whichever one had the most um support, I guess. Does that make any sense? >> Yeah, it's a great question. So, let me talk about comments and how that impacts the overall. I think that's a great a great point. So, we have provided a place for you, as you've seen, to include comments here. And again, we think it's a good idea for every individual board member to kind

110of do a pencil version of this before the meeting so you develop your thoughts and you know what you want to contribute. It's a good practice. Um, but the board as a whole does the evaluation, the official one. So, how do you translate? I wrote, you know, all these brilliant comments on my copy to come in and I shared with them with the board. How do I know what goes into the final evaluation? I had one board president call me after the fact, unfortunately, uh, for a very large school district in a neighboring county to you, uh, not not anybody immediately local, but not that far from here. And, uh, the board was very active. They had very thoughtful board members. And so each board member had like 40 comments. And what they did was

111put all of the comments into a big spreadsheet and it stapled the thing to the back of the evaluation. And the superintendent had like 200 and some comments was was in there. And so I said, "Wait a second. That's that's not the way this is supposed to work because the board does one effect or one evaluation. If you have a comment that you want to include, persuade your fellow board members that that needs to be included. So, you should not default to saying everybody's individual comments are going to be the board's comments. Just like if you were in a public meeting and you were having a debate about a motion or something like that, everybody gets to say their piece, but the vote is what carries at the end. Well, here you're not quote unquote

112voting in close session. you're having a consensus in close session. But if you say, "I really think this comment needs to be included in the official evaluation that's going to be on behalf of the whole board." If you persuade a majority of your fellow board members of that, great. That one, write it into the actual evaluation for the superintendent. And so what I see in common practice is it's it's fairly normal to have two or three or four maybe five comments that the whole board adopts. But all those other comments that you you thoughtfully created, they were for the benefit of your fellow board members. You shared them at the table and you talked about it, etc., etc. They do not have to be imported into the actual evaluation that the whole board does. Um,

113anything that the whole board is going to do, got to have a consensus of the whole board because you're going to come out and vote on it at the end of the night. I hope that makes sense. >> So, we're not adding up one, two, one, two, three, or four and then dividing by seven. >> That's right. So, um what what you should be able to do is each component talk to each other until you say we're going to live with effective or less than effective, whatever it's going to be on that component. You mark it down once you've had once you conclude the conversation and the board president says, "Okay, we're done with this topic. We're circling this one. And then you move to the next one. And so you have six of those.

114So you'll have six components that each have an effectiveness rating. That's where I say at the end you're going to see a trend. You're going to see three or four or five, maybe six all in one column. Um, pick where the weight of that is in most circumstances. Though again, if one board member wants to argue, I' I'd like the higher category to pull the whole thing forward, have that conversation. Same thing in the other direction. If a board member says, I'd like to argue that a lower category should kind of drag the whole thing down. Have the conversation. Uh the default setting is going to be where where the weight of it is where most of those are. Um but if you want to have that continued conversation, do so. But no, you don't

115have to add up numbers and do any math. The only math is at the very end when we're doing the 80% 20% calculation for the state, which we do have to do to keep it legal because that's that's literally in the letter of the law that we have to have an 8020 split. I'm available easily by telephone and email if you ever have questions. I'm happy to chat uh talk this through. Follow your own procedures. I'm not trying to invite legal bills. So, talk to your board president. But, you know, if the board president uh says, "Oh, yeah. I've got questions." Feel free to reach out. I'm always happy to support this. Uh but in any other case, I'll let you get back to the rest of your meeting. Thank you for your attention tonight.

116>> Thank you very much for coming out tonight. >> All right. Before we jump back to the agenda, the board, does anyone need a bio break? Are we ready to get right back to it? >> Yeah, they're done. >> Everyone's good. Okay. Just want to check see how y'all were doing. >> All right. Very cool. We're going to come back to new business number D, electric bus purchase. >> I wanted to give you guys an update on what's going on with that. As you guys know, we received a grant of $1.9 million to purchase electric buses. We were contacted by a company who wanted to lease us electric buses for 10 years and we will still have to pay them a monthly cost. We have decided to go in a different direction. We are actually

117going to purchase three buses that we will actually own. Um we contacted MDE and we asked them like hey we don't want to replace half of our fleet. can we just replace three just because of some of the issues that other districts are having with electric buses and those buses going down. And we also felt like it would not be an investment for the district. So we got approval from MDE. They told us that yes, we can just purchase three buses. I said, "Okay, do we need to send the additional funds back?" He says, "No, I'm going to send you guys an email." So, we did get approval to purchase three buses and use the remaining funding to build a busing structure behind the high school. So, I am working with attorney Urban. We are

118meeting with a contractor, an architect next or this week. So, we don't want to run into any issues that we ran into with purchasing a truck. So, we're going to allow attorney Urban to lead this project as well as with an architect to build out a busy yard. So now we will have a true busy yard that we can store our buses in behind the high school. This funding can also be used to put the concrete. So that's going to save us funding from sinking funds to fix concrete behind the high school. So it all worked out perfectly and I'll definitely give you guys an update regarding when the buses are going to be ordered. Um, we're working with Hulstra who we're using now to come up with a plan and they're going to come

119present with you guys to you guys before we approve the purchase. So, that is the bus update >> question. >> Oh, hang on. Uh, trustee Meline Taylor. >> Um, awesome. First of all, great job. Um, so that the I know that the grant was for electric buses, but they are allowing us to purchase like just >> they are electric buses. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Sorry. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Um cuz I was like really? >> Okay. So, it would just be purchasing the the buses outright so we didn't have to continue leasing from people. >> We will not have to continue to lease three buses. >> Three buses. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Go ahead. Um, I just seen a video from a district down in Florida and they talk

120about their electric buses and I'd like to be able to forward it to you, but I don't know how to do that on Facebook unless you're friends or whatever. Anyways, they got three electric buses in their fleet and they said in the morning if it's cold enough to see your breath, this is Florida, they cannot use the electric buses. between the heaters and just a little bit of travel, the batteries are wiped out and they cannot recharge them before they go out in the afternoon. It takes too long. And the end result is they did a cost comparison. Diesel cost them 38 cents a mile where the electric's costing them 380 a mile. So, I would just say if we're going to replace three buses without even trying this, that can be a mistake because

121in the winter time and those batteries go flat, once a student is not picked up a number of times, we run the risk of losing that student. So, I'd like to forward that video to you. >> Can I come in? >> Sure. >> So, we've done our research. We went to a local district that had um was it 19 buses? >> I think so. >> They had 19 electric buses there um in Wayne County and we talked to their director of transportation which is why we decided to decrease the numbers because part of the grant said that you had to replace half of your fleet and we were like no that's not a good idea. So, talking to Wayne County, the district in Wayne County, um we decided that we only wanted to replace three.

122They don't have many problems with their buses there. The only issues they had was with chargers and um they did recommend that we use these buses for a local route. They off of full charger they get about 60 miles their buses and those miles do decrease depending on the weather. So I think the maximum miles were 80. So it was the director of transportation, myself and Ricky, we went out and we actually were able to ride on a bus. And so the good thing about it is that with Hulra, the partnership currently, we have a great partnership where if a bus goes down, they're able to like replace it and give us a loaner. We're going to build that in our contract. So if that a bus does go down, we can get a loaner

123diesel bus in the event. So, they're working to make sure we include all the maintenance, so on and so forth. But, and another problem, just to be transparent, is that those buses have two batteries. They have the larger battery for driving, and then they have the internal smaller battery. And that was a huge concern in Dearbornne, too, is that those internal batteries kind of like the batteries we use in our cars to fund the to charge the >> It's not the same. The battery in the car runs a starter to start the engine. electric just has an onoff. >> So, I was just saying that there's two batteries, the larger battery, the ones that's really expensive, and there's the smaller battery that powers like the radio, the lights, and so on and so forth. That

124was a concern in that particular district because those batteries tend to go out. But with this contract, we're going to try to include as much as possible because we have this additional funding. So, hey, I asked them, can we include three battery changes just in case so that we don't have to endure that cost in the event something happen. I also asked them to include tire protection because as you guys know, these buses or any electric vehicle is way heavier than a fuel deal vehicle. So, therefore, the tread on the tire goes a lot faster. So, they're going to also include that inside of the um purchase price just so that we can have everything paid up for at least three years. So, if something happens, we're covered, >> but you can share it. >>

125Well, I just think my personal opinion, it's just personal that it will end up costing us a lot of money in the long run, but I'm only one vote, so I just don't want to send $ 1.9 million back to the city. >> I know you don't, but sometimes a free lunch is not a free lunch. So, >> but can I also say that when we replace these, for example, if we replace three diesel buses at this point, a diesel bus is causing the dis costing the district about $30,000 a year, I think, for a bus. So, if we're replacing three diesel buses, we're saving $90,000 a year. Now, if we have to put $10,000 in maintenance, that's still a cost saving for the district. >> But we're not going to have to put that

126money into maintenance because I'm going to have it build into the purchasing contract. >> I just hope anytime there's breakdown, especially with the newer technology, that Hulkstrom is right there with the replacement. Uh, hang on. We got a couple of people. Trustee Thompson, then Trusty Holder, then Trusty Chamblas. Okay. >> I I also did some research on pros and cons of electric buses. Did we research hydrogen full fuel cell buses at all? >> The grant is for electric buses only. Oh, the downside is electric buses for peak performance, your outside degrees have to be between 55 and 60. We live in a state where that doesn't happen most of the school year. That drops your performance down to 33 to 48%. And part of the problem is is there are two batteries. One of those

127batteries is to keep the cabin warm. Every time you open the door and close the door to let kids in and out, you're losing heat. You're also losing battery. I I I don't know that these electric buses are a great idea. Did we look in? Does Hulra have anything but diesel? Do they have propane? >> The grant is specifically for electric buses. >> Put the grant aside because our leases are going to be up. Correct. >> Our leases are going to be diesel. >> All diesel. >> Yes. >> Only if we sign that same lease. >> That's still the >> That's all they have are >> operation per mile is diesel. It's hands down. >> Okay. I'm done. So, the district that we went to visit, they told us that for their electric buses, the

128maximum miles that they get is about 80 miles a day. When the temperatures are low, they ran their buses this year for the first time for the whole winter. Those miles went down to about 50 miles. If we and that's coming back and putting the bus on the charger. So, it'll just be three buses. What we're trying to do is be innovative and make sure we bring great things to the district to say, "Hey, we're trying to be eco-friendly. We have charging stations." So that those buses will be in district routes. In district routes are only about 10 miles if that, maybe five. So when those buses return, they will go directly on the charger to get ready for afternoon, which is why we still have the diesel buses. And in our bus lease, we

129still have two buses that we're currently leasing. I think one or two that are standby buses just in case one goes down. So, we will still have an extra bus on the yard. However, we are writing in in the contract that in the event even now if any of our diesel buses go down, we call Holstra and they're amazing with getting us um buses to replace the bus, whether it's a flat tire, whether it's a blinker that's out, so on and so forth. So, we're going to make sure that it's written in there that if a bus go down, we're able to exchange it for a diesel bus or it would just be that one bus that we have down. >> May I add to that real quick? The other thing with the electric buses

130is we can help the community as well. So, if let's say that a retirement home or a nursing home loses power, we can take a bus over there and give them power from our bus. Um, if a school is down, you know, maybe Madison Elementary, the lights are have been flicking and, you know, we have a brown out or that's the only building, we can take a bus over there and we can give them power from the bus. So, we can help the community members as well. If there's something, you know, that that happens and somebody's out, you know, a large building is out of power for a while, we can help them by taking our buses over there. One quick thing, those buildings have to be wired to accept a generator like that. You

131can't just pull up and plug in. >> My other thought, I had one more thought. Is the charging stations, are they going to be indoors or outdoors? >> Indoors. >> Okay. Because they recommend for cold states, indoor charging. No, I don't know what what research you're referring to, but all the district that we have talked to in metro area, they have outdoor stations. If you think about all the the electric cars, all the charging stations that I've seen are outdoor. I really want this to be a celebratory moment for Madison District Public Schools because this is funding that we were that we receive free $1.9 million that we are getting this gift to be innovative and let's say it doesn't work for us. We only have to own the buses for five years and then

132we can sell the buses and now we even have more revenue coming in. Either which way it goes, it's a winwin and it's a celebratory moment for Madison District Public Schools because now we're innovative. We have a busy yard. We have charging stations. The buses are all going to be in a gated area behind the high school. We have cameras. Wow. >> Trusty Holder. >> Thank you. Initially, I didn't have my hand up, but thank you for a moment. Um, so just to be clear, because I've heard two different numbers, it's a 10-year grant, but we have to have the buses for five years. Just to explain what I heard and what I processed aren't the same thing. >> So, originally, the company that reached out to us wanted us to lease the buses for

133them for 10 years, and they wanted us to lease five buses. After doing our research going to Dearbornne, we figured replacing half of our fe fleet is not an option because of the fact that these buses go down. So we went back to the drawing board and we contacted MDE and said hey we don't want to replace five of our buses. Can we just replace three or two? And they said absolutely and we can use the rest of the money to build the infrastructure. That's when I reached out to Hokra and other companies to say, "Hey, can we just purchase three buses instead of leasing five buses for 10 years?" So, we don't want to lease for five five buses for 10 years, we're going to purchase just three buses. In the event that we

134in five years, when you purchase the bus, you only have to keep it for five years. But if we would have went the lease option, we were locked in for 10. So, in the event in five years this doesn't work out for Madison, then we could sell the buses and the buses have an eight-year warranty. So, we the buses will still have a warranty and we can just say, "Hey, it just wasn't for us." >> Does the warranty cover batteries though? >> Yes, they're going to write it up specifically to what we want. But the warranty, the 8-year warranty, it's kind of like what cars have that powertrain warranty where it covers bumperto-bumper. That eight-year warranty does cover the larger batteries, but not the smaller battery. >> Just one more question, and it's just recollection

135from the last meeting. Was there a discount on the electricity to recharge the batteries? >> So, the leasing company that we went that we heard from, they a part of their lease was that they were going to include electricity. we can pay for our own electricity and get grants from DTE versus allowing them to get the grants for us. We're in the process of working with DTE to see what kind of savings can we have. So, by us taking it all back on, we're getting more of a savings versus being locked in with the company for 10 years. >> Thank you. Like I said, some things have changed, so I was just trying to clarify. Trustee Muel Pine Taylor. >> So, it's my understanding we don't have to make any decisions tonight, right? We're we're

136going to wait to see the presentation and to see how it can benefit Madison, right? Okay. Just wanted to make sure because there's a lot of discussion. I'm like, do we really need this right now? Because we're just we just want to hear what they have to say. >> Yeah. I was just giving you guys an update. >> Okay, perfect. Thanks, >> Chamblas. I just want to say you guys are doing a phenomenal job. Um, for a district that thought we were going in a deficit and you guys somehow made it work to where we're not and then now looking for creative resources and ways to financially benefit this district that, you know, are seriously thinking outside the box. I just think it's incredible um to save. What is it going to be? What did

137you say? How much is a bus a year? I think it's 30,000 about. >> So about 90,000 a year. Um that's a lot of money saving in the district. And if we keep the buses, let's just say for five years, that's a lot of savings. And then we can turn around like you said, and sell the buses and we would still have the electric charging station, which is beneficial because people in the community who have electric cars in an emergency, we could be a secondary backup that they could come to. Um, and I just think that it's phenomenal um, that you guys are looking at options like this because I don't see really a downside. Yes, they have to remain local. Yes, we know the cost, but if the batteries are written into the contracts,

138if everything's in the contracts and we have the warranties to save 90,000 a year, we now have moving assets. Most of the risk are in the contract. And if you know, heaven forbid one, you know, something happens and it does fall on us, it's still a savings. And all of this comes from money that's not ours. It's a gift. And so I just want to say thank you so much for reaching out um to these type of opportunities because it truly speaks volumes that on top of everything that you guys do all day, you found something like this and put the effort in to find it and all the research and work you're doing. So, I look forward to the presentation, but I think it's just phenomenal that you're trying to find money for this

139district in such creative revenues. >> I will take the last uh comment on this one. Uh I agree with Trusty Campus. Thank you for all the work that y'all have been doing with this grant. Um uh just with that just uh to alleviate any concerns, is there any possibility where this could we could have to pay for anything? Is is there any chance that this is going to be a a debt to us or is it or if anything does happen is still coming from the grant? Yes, I um have official communication from MDE from the grant manager that gave me specific commun um that we can convert the funding to three buses and infrastructure. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. I'm very happy with this. >> Thanks. >> All right. Next item, old business, the

140fire truck sale. Where are we at with that, please? >> Oh, you want me to? >> Yeah. Um, so we have a um a local company that's interested in it and we're going to um exchange services for the cost. Um, so our truck needs to be set up, the the new truck that we purchased needs to be set up for um the snow plow on the front and the salts in the back and a bed liner so that it doesn't rust. So, they're going to do this work for us and and get all that set up in exchange for the fire truck. >> That's a good job. >> That's amazing. >> Yeah. So, >> it's going to be about we figured about $2,2500 to have all this done. So, we'll give them the fire truck

141and we'll get this done for no charge. >> Good job, guys. >> Very cool. >> President Hart. >> Yes, Trusty Campless. >> Um, I just have one question. Did you do you know if they're just going to do like a a drop in liner in the back or if it's going to be spraycoated? >> I'm not sure. I think it's going to be a drop in liner, but I can double check. >> If they do spray coating, could you switch it to that potentially? Because drop-in liners um there's friction from it from the truck bouncing on the road and when you slide things in and out of it, the truck liner sits there and rubs on the paint of the actual bed of the truck and it can rub it away and then it especially

142with salt being in the truck for part of the year. It really exposes those beds to rust and that'll rust out years faster that way than if you do like a rhino spray coating. I love that this is happening and I don't want to hinder it in any way, but if it is an option, that is a better one if it's possible. >> I'll I'll check. >> Thank you. >> Can I share that we did post it on Facebook? I had one person reach out, but I replied and I never got anything back in return. So, it was shared on Facebook. It was posted and we just never got any feedback from it. >> This is a great option though. What you guys going? This is a great option. >> It's phenomenal. >> Yeah. Love

143it. Very cool. Thank you. Appreciate y'all. Right. Next item bylaw updates. We I'll I'll speak for that. We don't have any. I had a conversation with the gentleman from um Neiola. I have to get everybody together who's on the committee and and set up dates to send to him and then he will get back with us and he will sit with us and go through each one. >> All right. Very cool. Do we think this is something we that might be able to happen before the next board meeting or >> I will reach out leave messages with everybody to call me back. Oh, can I get a list of I know you're on it, right? Bylaws. >> Yes. Who? >> Me? >> Okay. So, the three of us. >> Yeah. >> And trustee older. >>

144Holder. >> No, she's on. >> She She's an alternate, I believe. >> Oh, yeah. >> She just raised >> Well, only because I know Gloria is the only one that's been available. So, I'm going to start attending because it's really not fair for one board member to hold that responsibility. >> So, if you guys could give me dates when you're available, we'll coordinate with him and get dates from him. >> Very cool. Do me a favor, just uh if you could send the initial communication out to the the the members of that committee, please. Thank you. All right. Next item, board goals. >> Mr. President, >> can we just move on from that tonight? Unless somebody has something pressing. >> I don't. >> I got to go pretty soon. This has been over two hours.

145>> President Hart. Yes. >> Trusty Chamblas. I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda um to discuss removing 5C board goals from the agenda. >> Are we removing or we postpone it till the next meeting? >> Um we can postpone until the next meeting. >> All right, I'll second. >> All right, we have a motion to postpone >> goals to the next meeting. >> First, we have to vote to amend and then we vote on the motion. >> Who second? Michelle didn't hear who second. Cindy. No. Um I >> Harp second. >> I've been told that to remove it. We don't need a motion. So we can do it if if you want, but I've been told specifically we can remove it. So whichever way you'd like to handle it is fine with

146me. >> Whatever is easiest. I'm not trying to make more more paperwork for us. Um, so Trusty Chamblas, would you like to make a make the motion to remove or to postpone? I will leave that up to you. >> Um, first I I made the motion to amend. We got a vote on that. >> We have a motion to amend. Do we have a second? >> I seconded. >> Trusty Harp seconds. All in uh, sorry. Uh, discussion. >> No discussion. All in favor say I. >> I. Anyone oppose? Say no. Motion carries. >> Okay. President Harp, I'd like to make a motion um that we postpone 5C board goals until the next board meeting. >> I'll second. >> Good. We have a motion to postpone 5C board goals to the next meeting. We have a

147second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. >> Anyone oppose say no. Eyes have it. Motion carries. All right. Next item of business. Approval to purchase replacement oven for Wilkinson Middle School using NSLP equipment assisted assistance grant funds. It is recommended that the board of education approve the purchase of a replacement oven for Wilkinson Middle School in the amount of 11,362 using NSLP equipment assistance grant funds. We have a motion. >> President Harp. >> Trusty Harp. I make a motion the board of education approve the purchase and replacement oven for Wilkinson Middle School in the amount of $11,362 using NSLP equipment assistant grant funds. >> I'll support. >> We have a motion. We have support. Any discussion? No discussion >> summer program. Is that what that is? What is NS? Uh >> National School

148Lunch Program. >> Thank you. I'm so sorry. I It's It's late. >> I apologize. Thank you. >> Any other discussion? >> All right. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Any oppose say no. The eyes have it. The motion carries. All right, officer committee reports. Hang on. All right, we actually have board comments before the reports. Do we want to do the comments stay in order or does someone want to amend and move it? >> Just stay in order. >> Yeah. All right. Very good. We're going to stay in order. I'm going to start at the end for board comments. Trusty Holder and then we're gonna work our way down. >> Yeah, I have a couple. Um, first of all, we will be having a finance meeting, I believe, next week. So, I wanted

149to request a a couple of things. Um, so that we'll have them when we go. First of all, um, what was our final headcount? Um, the grant amounts that were written this year. um the ones we're getting last year and this year, sorry. And then I know some individuals have been getting grant money that is written into those. I'd like to know exactly who's getting paid and what for last year and this year. Um, and uh, how much of the summer discovery money is going into I understand that. >> Thank you. Um, I also wanted to know exactly how much some summer discovery money will need to be invested to move the first graders to MEES. Just so that you will be prepared. Understand it's grant money. I just wanted to know much buzz. Um,

150the other thing is, uh, Superintendent Perry, if you look September 17th and the 24th of September, 2025, the pictures that you said you did not receive, >> um, you did receive. So, if you double check those dates for the lawn, >> how did you send them? >> Thank you, Chies. Can we have those requests in email so I can have a full understanding of what you're requesting for the finance meeting? >> Is it if it's unclear, call me. >> I I would like it in email. I I want everything communicated via email. So if you what you >> why is that? >> Because I want everything to be documented because I don't want it to be that I'm not doing something. So if you have a request for the finance meeting, I would request that

151ask that you guys send what you want before via email. I thought I was being proactive. >> Oh, no. >> I'm sorry. >> I said no. I would like it in writing so I can know what to give >> and I don't wanted to go back and say that this isn't what I wanted you. >> Next up, Trustee Harp. So, I just hope everybody had a really good spring break and um that we can finish out the year strong, which I have no doubt is going to happen and especially with our our spring sport starting up and our young men's volleyball. So, um I just wish good luck to all of our teams. >> Thank you, >> Trusty Malpine Taylor. >> Um really good job on all the grants. I think that's amazing. Um, I'm

152looking forward to coming up on I I don't know how many days it is for you, but maybe like 40 school days left. So, weeks. There you go. And, uh, as much as it hurts me, go blue. And >> turn our mic off. >> I know, right? And that's it. >> Thank you, Trusty Chamblas. Um, I just want to give a huge congratulations to the Steel Wings, which is Madison High School's robotics team. They spent both weekends of spring break at Troy Athens competing. Um, I don't know the exact dates, but it was like March 31st through April, I don't know. Anyways, it was the first weekend to not this past weekend, the weekend before. and they competed and for the first time in a decade, Madison High School's robotics team, the Steel Wings, took

153first place >> in a decade. And then this uh most recent weekend, they went in and they made it to the second round of semifinals before they um lost. But I'm going to be honest with you, I think I'm more proud of the second weekend than I am the first weekend. And the reason why is yes, the first weekend got us a trophy and a blue banner. And our seniors that are going out were with this coach who started this team when they I believe it was their freshman year. Um so they've been with this teacher and this coach and this team for a while. So they I know they're excited. But the second weekend these students had to do like 12 prequalifying matches over um a two-day span. And they had motors die repeatedly.

154The tracks broke on their machine. the plex sea glass on the machine broke. The um wall that holds the balls in, which was part of the competition because they had to throw balls and everything, broke. And to watch these kids, these students acted so mature and so strong and they persevered. They immediately would get their robot after a match, go back to the pit and they would be I have so many videos and pictures of them just they're all just heads down and they're all in it and they're all with tools and they're just hands-on working to fix this machine and it kept happening to them and it was so heartbreaking because their bumper fell off and they had to be pulled off in one match off to the side and they were kind of

155frozen while the rest of the match finished and they grab their machine and they get back there and they put a whole new bumper on it and they fix it. and just watching these kids and at one point they were in a three, you know, their three team match, all three teams are working on this one robot and while the other two teams robots were good and these teams did so amazing and then nothing stopped them and I just can't tell you how insanely proud I am just of the fact that they would not give up because I'm going to be honest, a lot of adults would have gotten so frustrated in that moment that no matter what they did when they got up, they got knocked down, they would have given up. But these

156kids fought to the very end and it was so close and now they um a year ago were hundreds of rankings down. There's I think like 600 700 schools or teams and they were down. They were really far like hundreds of hundreds lower. They went up to 151. The top 150 go to states. There's still a chance we might qualify for states with our ranking points. And that is something that no Madison Robotics team has ever done. And so I just wanted to say it truly speaks volumes about what um these kids are instilled with at home and also what they're instilled with at this school and because this team truly did what a lot of adults couldn't have done um because they would have gotten frustrated and just, you know, blown up and walked

157away at that moment. But they didn't give up. And I just want to say I am more proud of that moment and those two days than the first two days when they got a trophy. But I still wanted to say congratulations to the Madison Robotic Steel Wings team for bringing a blue banner and trophy home for the first time in a decade and truly showing what it means to be an Eagle. Thank you. >> Thank you, Trusty Thompson. >> I'm just going to reiterate everything everybody else said and I hope everybody had a nice holiday and I hope some of us had a very nice vacation. >> Very cool. Um, as always, I want to thank the public for their participation, be it in person or uh through uh watching the videos and uh contacting

158the school board, contacting the administration. We absolutely welcome the feedback. We welcome the public to interact and to be involved in whatever capacity makes sense. Um, I definitely want to thank our superintendent and our administration for all the hard work that they do day in day out. They are the CEO. They they they do the work. There are our operational people. Um, the the board we are here to provide the the governance, the the guidance, but uh you all are the ones doing the the work. And absolutely, I can speak for myself. I hope from the rest of the board. Absolutely appreciate the work that you guys do and dealing with uh us uh board as uh as we want want to make the best decisions that we can make. So, thank you for everything.

159Um and uh oh last thing and then we'll move on to the the reports um for the board if we are able to and available and I understand if we're not if we're able to be there for the graduation uh school sports school events anything that's going on within our district I absolutely would encourage the the board to to participate and be involved. I have opportunities to improve on that as well. So, I'm not preaching, but just saying all of us, let's uh let's continue to show our support. All right. Very cool. Next item is uh government relations. That is on me. Uh there was no meeting this previous month. we or if there if there there may have been an event or something else special, but there was no regular meeting. But the next

160one coming up is this Wednesday. So, if all works well, I will be at that meeting and be able to report back on that next time. All right. Next one, park and parks and recreation. >> We have nothing yet. >> Very cool. Thank you. And next after that is HRC. >> Our meeting is tomorrow. Very cool. Look forward to any updates from that. Next one is finance committee. >> Our next meeting is next Wednesday and I'll do a report then. >> Very cool. Thank you. I will just add that we did get a a very nice spreadsheet from um Miss Thompson and it included what >> bring it >> money what monies were still available for each line item which was a very nice addition. So thank you. >> Very cool. Thank you for the

161update. enrollment committee. >> Yes. >> Well, right now there's no enrollment. It's not enrollment time. So, >> I'll give you guys an update. I can give you an update about summer discovery. So, as of today, we have 313 kids registered for summer discovery. We are sending out a mailer on April 22nd. The last day to register for summer discovery is May 15th. So, we were sending it to the entire Madison Heights community as well as Hazel Park and Pontiac community. The only thing is mailers are so expensive now due to the cost of postage. However, that is coming and um on April 27th, Pam and I, we are going to do a live in the D um campaign on channel 4. So hopefully those numbers will go up. I am anticens anticipating getting at least

162600 students. It's I want to tell kids that they can't come. So hopefully we can reach our 500 goal by May 15th. >> When is the live in the D? >> April 27th. >> Monday. >> I just got to be watching. >> And once they record, they will give us a link that we can post on our website as well as put some social media. >> That's amazing. >> Thanks. Very cool. Thank you for the update. Uh bylaws and policy. I know we just discussed that tonight. Was there anything else to be added to that? Seeing no. All right. Uh next up is building usage, >> which we kind of already uh reported on a little earlier that we've had a meeting. We're still developing things and we're continuing to work together. >> We've had

163a couple meetings. Well, yeah, but I'm >> I just don't want them to think we've only met one >> since the last board meeting. Let me say we've had a meeting since the last board meeting. >> Very cool. Very cool. Of course, look forward to any updates to any of the committees. >> Okay, >> President Harp, I make a motion that we adjourn this board meeting. >> We have a motion to adjourn. We have uh we have support. Any discussion? All in favor say I. >> I. Anyone oppose say nay. Eyes have it. We are adjourned at >> uh 8:43. >> What's the score? need to move it. Just