001e e e 17th 2025 this is our regular Board of Education meeting starting with the Pledge of Allegiance please I 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 justice for all for all thank you roll call please Rebecca shambles here Cindy holder here mark Kimble here chera Mel Pine Taylor here Gloria Thompson here public fundamentals I'm sorry to interrupt you Madame President uh there was supposed to be something on the agenda concerning a switch of attorneys I don't see it on here can add wasn't uh the request was made to add the board discussion that have been made Hill in particular but to bring back the board attorney of particular yes do we have support discussion
002okay can we move that to um first we have to have a motion we have to vote right but we have to add it to the agenda [Music] um 7D 7D we have to go under four um new business 3 3A 3 a 70 3A whatever fine okay we're just adding it to the agenda 3A we need a roll call vote for that please Rebecca shambles no Cindy holder yes Mark Kimbell yes chera McAlpine Taylor yes Gloria Thompson yes motion pass okay and uh tonight because of the resignation of truste bush we have to um have an election that it was requested we do after the squaring in of the new board member um we need to replace our secretary tonight so we need to to add in um maybe 5 b or B well
003she wanted it done after after the swearing in of the new board member so 5B would be um 5 would be um the election of our new secretary I need a maker and support to add it to the agenda I'll make the motion a support okay and with that we can go on with the oh we need a vote I'm sorry roll call vote Rebecca shambles yes Cindy holder yes yes Mark Kimbell yes chera mcel Pine Taylor yes Gloria Thompson yes motion passed thank you okay public input is fundamental to the operation of Madison District public schools are public has an opportunity to speak at every Board of Education meeting a period of time known as public comment is set aside at each meeting to give parents and other citizens a chance to speak speak
004directly to the board about school related topics anyone who wishes to speak to the board must fill out a request form and give it to the board secretary before the meeting begins comments are limited to 3 minutes School Employees will not use cancel that the Board of Education accepts comments made during public comment for anyone that follows these guidelines public comment is one of the many information sources the board uses before making decisions in the best interest of the children who attend Madison District Public Schools the board also works with the District staff to address citizens questions and concerns did we receive any requests no okay then we will move on we have a special presentation hold on Madam president do we have to process Miss Bush's uh resignation now it once it's um once
005she submits it it's automatically oh okay accepted all right never mind at this time we have a special presentation so I'd like to introduce state representative Mike McFall thank you thank you happy say Patrick day everybody uh sorry this so um uh every month uh my office uh reaches out to local school districts uh and parents to get uh feedback on uh teachers in those districts um and um so I have a uh teacher of the month award uh that I'd like to present uh if I could to Christina is it Coden is that how it's I make sure I pronounce that correctly so uh I'm told that uh your work uh in the with the Metro program has been invaluable uh for adults uh going back to school so uh thank you very much
006for all of your hard work uh and everything you do here for the Madison Community thank you so much [Applause] apprciate yeah absolutely can we get a picture yeah oh okay yeah is this a photographer yes thank you you new business you have um two Board of Education interest laders I know we've all received them I'm certain everybody has read them um so we need to do interviews i' requested that everyone um have two questions that we could ask the prospective new and um just for clarification our bylaws say it's so hard to see with the monitor here I apologize our bylaws say that that each position needs to be re um opened so even though I understand that trusty Bush um did resign yesterday we still have to um reopen that seat the one
007that's open today is our trusty Bush's sister April so um we will be doing one sitting tonight and then we will reopen um and then the board will have to decide how long we want to take before um we receip the next person it has to be done within 30 days but we do need to repost um so let's start um introduction and just how about if we start with uh Melissa Dodge and then um we will continue on James and um just kind of give us a a welcome and then we will ask you both the same questions hello and good evening um I'm Melissa Dodge thank you so much for allowing me um I am a veteran teacher 13 years in the classroom Middle School over at bowan Park in Troy um I'm
008also a union member so I do serve on the Troy Education Association as their membership chair so I have sat at the bargaining table I have a lot of experience with mea volunteering um investing in the future of our profession um working with student teachers and so I have worked with school boards and I just really believe in the passion of students and helping them achieve their goals and investing in our future so that's why I'm here today to help service the district and our students in the community thanks um did we want to did you want to start uh you mean with questions yes sir well this district is on a very tight budget so I want to know what your plans would be for approving and monitoring the district's budget um well fiscally
009from what I understand so far um there is a lot a low number of attendance in a large number of buildings and so I think that's something that would definitely need to be looked at and considered um um I would lean against reducing staff because I don't think that is beneficial to students um I think the answer would lie more in how are we utilizing our facilities um having not been privy to the details of the budget um I would want to have a look detailed look at the audit um that was done and sort of see if we are maximizing all of our grant opportunities because I know lot of funding can come from Grants and make maximizing um our fiscal opportunities that way okay thank you I'm good all righty there you go
010have my mine written down so um I have I do have two questions okay um the first one first of all thank you so much for being here um I appreciate you both being here uh tonight and just being willing to interview for this this is amazing and we need we need people here right um so what do you currently do to invest in the future of Education um well I inv invest in the retention of teachers through my work that I do to support them through professional development um and support them through their Union involvement in Troy and then also uh by hosting student teachers regularly and students through so I think that's important but I also have gone um to L so I think that's important but I also have gone um to
011Lancing and I'm not afraid to Advocate um for what our kids need and the funding that they need in order to sustain a a public education thank you um and then the other question is what strategies would you support to improve inclusion education and enhance students with disability uh with disabilities that have access to LR which is least restrictive environment as required by Ida which is individuals with disabilities Education Act well first of all we have to be compant with our ID um with our IEPs so um we have to lean on the experts which means we have to have our special education department staff which is hard um any District it is hard to have your special education department staffed right now um so we have to even though things are tight we have
012to find a way to lure the special education professionals and teachers in to our district because they are the experts and that means if we're going to service them properly with the right social worker with a counselor with um having them in the least restrictive environment and if that is in a um categorical room or classroom and making sure that there are the right pair of Educators in there that are trained and are able to support that staff that is important um because that's how you're going to avoid lawsuits and that's how you're going to in the longterm play the big game of you know protecting and securing your dist district and your professionals who are on the ground doing the work and when they feel that they are working for a district that is
013investing in them and caring about them that's how you get retention and that's how you keep your teachers okay first I love the passion I'm just saying um can you tell me why that LR is important to you well as the mother of a special education student um I can tell you that you have to set a child up to be successful not just in the classroom I tell my parents at open house that we're not raising children we're Partners in raising adults and so we have to prepare them to be successful in the world and if we're constantly putting them in the environment that is easiest for us um we're not preparing them for the future and we're setting them up for failure and that's not our job as Educators and you're Educators too
014because you are part of the education process and system and so it's a very serious role that needs to be taken not lightly thank you mhm hi hello thank you for being here um my first question is with what you know about Madison what do you see as our top three issues that we're facing today budget is number one um I definitely see that there's a lot of stress with finances um and with that comes the the utilization of the space as well um and then I look uh even talking with like Rusty Rogers just the retention rate of your teachers um you know I had a conversation with her about from her perspective um as the uh president of the teachers union what she feels is you know struggles some and the retention rate
015is hard it's hard for to have colleagues like that and I think those are the foundational building blocks of a district right it's your people CU you're it's an industry of people students and and Educators and the and the finances and um you know your stakeholders of the community having them involved and being supportive of what you're doing that transparency needs to be there right because then there's trust and investment from the community so you know I think the finances the people um having them taking care of and holding on to them and then Community stakeholders feeling trusted that they can trust their Board of aded and that you know know they're invested in too because this is their investment this is everything that they have in value is tied to the school system thank
016you and then my next question is how would you help Madison become competitive um to surrounding districts to help with our enrollment which then would trickle into the budget and the retention and the things that we could offer staff to keep them here so it kind of is like the umbrella that everything else sits under you know with our enrollment numbers so how would you recommend with your history of working in a school and working in a union how would you recommend making us more competitive so that we could increase enrollment it's the people it's always comes down to the people um you know when you have impassioned Educators in your buildings working um when you think back even in your own prek 12 upbringing and learning you don't remember what you learned you remember
017the people who taught it to you so it's by having the teachers that make the community me Members want to do the extra work come out to the events um who want to invest further who don't mind paying an extra tax or who don't mind you know um supporting a bond because they remember the Educators that made a difference in their lives though that's what keeps you know School of Choice that's what's going to make people want to come that's what's going to improve your test scores when students see the teachers care it all starts with a relationship the classroom management the hard work ethic of the students it all goes back to the Rel relationship which comes back to the individuals the people so when you have the right people there they start to
018make the difference but they have to have the resources so that's where you have to get creative too with the finances and that might mean like I said exploring grant opportunities they're they're out there so just making sure we're maximizing that in any other kinds of Partnerships that we can have and make with universities or with other neighboring districts to make things as fiscally possible okay thank youy Thompson I'm only going going to ask one question I have two one for each candidate all right as a former Union president my question is how are you going to put aside your union background issues and do what's best for our district I don't think that there is going to be issues so as um the vice chair of the South Oakland District Association I have to
019be the employer um when I bargain contracts um for uh an executive director let's say so um I've also had conversations with all parties to ensure that there's no conflict of interest um because I wanted to make sure that I am being transparent and I made sure to include like to let you know of my roles um so I think I'm I'm not working in this District I think that would be a conflict of interest um I think it's important to point out this is what the other side is thinking this is where they're coming from so if this is what we want because we're not enemies I'm not enemies you know as a union leader and a bargainer I'm not enemies with the school board of uh the Board of Education in Troy we're
020Partners as we should be um especially during the times right now we have to be partners so having the understanding of the mindset on the other side of the table is so important understanding how we come to the middle because the best contracts are when nobody is 100% happy because everybody gave a little thank you mhm I have two um I just wondered how you became interested in becoming a board member so it was kind of always itching back there and I thought oh you know I don't know maybe next time I didn't run with the election um I thought oh well you know I'm doing um something called an online truth Advocate Program over the summer where I worked to dispel mistruths and disinformation um and I and that was keeping me busy and
021I thought well I can't really run a campaign then anyways um and I had a friend that was running so I thought okay I'll just support her um and then I happened to P Mary's Facebook post and I thought okay well maybe this is telling me something and so I reached out to my friend on the board and I said is this for real is there really an opening um and I was encouraged to pursue it so here I am um I I care lot about kids and it's it's something that uh it's a calling it's not something that I could turn ever turn my back on so if I can do some good then I'm I'm here to do that good um and then um I I and I want to start with I
022do believe everybody that's sitting up here has the best intentions for our district I think um maybe our paths are aren't always the same or at least in our minds um how would you handle a situation where the board's divided on a key issue I think that it's good sometimes when the board is divided because you're bringing different perspectives and that's when you have to remain professional but talk it out um so bringing my bargaining experience we operate on consensus when we're a bargaining team that means that we sit there and we talk it out until everybody agrees and sometimes the agree is we do a little thumb system like yes I can live with it no way and it's your job then to either convince that no way to you know move their thumb
023or to get everyone to no way and you have to be everybody at that table if we're all there for the right purpose then you have to be open-minded it's not about my view or my way it's about what's best at the end of the day for the kids and um it's funny because so I am friends with chrisa and sometimes being friends we really disagree on stuff but that's the point we can maintain a friendship and completely disagree because it's just being respectful of one another and being professional and that is what it needs to be um you have to have respect for each other and sometimes that means spending quality time just getting to know each other because you're a team too so I would encourage some team building and getting to know
024each other but then also M making sure there's a foundation of respect [Music] thank you for your time thank you thank you thank you Mr Mitchell come on up you were alphabetically second and the second to turn in your application it's the only reason I decided to do it the way I did no problem at all you understand Mr Kimble um after after your introduction sure sure absolutely um some of you know me um if you don't my name is James Mitchell I've lived in this community for the better part of 10 years um the reason that this is a passion project of mine the reason I'm interested in it is because I recently became a father and it's very important to me that our children my neighbors children all the children in this community
025have an opportunity to go to the best school possible and have the best start to their future I went to the University of Michigan I'm a finance and economics a degree holder um I've been here all my life and that's you that's why I'm here so I appreciate your consideration thank you Mr kemell yes uh I'm kind of curious the first time we met you you you addressed the board sure and you addressed us on a situation where some employees were losing Healthcare sure and I'm just real Curious how you knew that when the rest of us board members did not I'm very plugged in to who who do you know up here that told you that information is what I want to know I had several teachers Who provided that information to me so
026it came through the gra Vine obviously I did not understand a lot of the intricacies of it um it still disappointed me obviously as I said and I said some words that I do apologize for I mean I was a little well that's that's that's the first we heard of it sure we had no idea well I was not aware of that Mr Kim so I'm just curious how you knew that that's all yeah it you know I am I am the husband of a teacher in the district not saying that's where the information came from but we have lots of friends who are also in the district and I learned about it um well that explains it I just wanted to know it's not not necessarily good or bad just no no problem at
027all idea of where it came from yeah okay thank you you're the first question you asked um that's it Miss DOD finances did you want to ask Mr mitell as well no no I asked the question I wanted to ask so I'm going to ask the same questions I asked Miss DOD and um by the way congratulations on your boy or girl well he's he's 10 months old so it's not it wasn't very re congratulations he's an amazing young man and um thank you every day is a yeah an amazing adventure with him he's very handsome he's so he's always at ECC I appreciate Perry thank you so much oh well we have to get a picture I have to get a picture of anytime anytime you got it all right um and I'll ask
028you what do you currently do to invest in the future of Education um it's really just about being involved in the community as you or as I mentioned I am the husband of a of a teacher I do a lot of volunteering over at Early Childhood Center um I spend a lot of time with those kids through her and through some of the other teachers that are over there um I think that's really important to kind of know your audience and kind of know who you're affecting so nothing as professional as Miss Dodge here but um I just try to you know plug into and know know who who the folks are and and know what we're fighting for okay thank thank you so much um I'm going to ask you the second question as
029well um what strategies would you support to improve inclusion education and ensure students with disabilities have access to LR which is least restrictive environment as required by Ida which is individuals with disabilities Education Act um it's a great question I don't I I don't know the act very well but I do know about inclusion and I do know about keeping our doors open to those folks and giving them every opportunity what I can say is that I know a lot of the Educators in this district and I know that those folks are amazing people and they need to be supported and I think if we support those Educators and we give them the tools that they need they can impact these young people on a in a positive way and also thank you that was
030beautiful and I also um why why is LR which is least restrictive environment why is that important or not important to you I can only go by the definition my assumption is that well it is important because you got to give them an opportunity you can't have anybody being kept out of a program that may may benefit them thank you so much it's important for children I appreciate it thank you thank you well Mr CH BL thank you for coming back and before I got on the board I probably wouldn't know most of that was anyways either it's fair it's okay it's okay I wouldn't have known many of those things either Fair um if you don't do it or have a child that's gone through it then you might you know so um I'm
031definitely learning more about that as I didn't ask these this question but you kind of answered it in your beginning part would you be willing to learn so are you willing to take like masb classes and get certifications so that you know these words and things like that in the future so that you can easily it's all online most of it absolutely absolutely that is one of the first things I always do I'm in a I'm in the professional environment right now I'm in healthcare and it's all continuing education it's all improving yourself and making yourself as much of an expert as you can in the field you're trying to represent and you have the time to take courses and go to seminars and absolutely okay I wasn't going to go to my next two
032questions if you said no oh understandable I'm G be honest I me that's fair I was just G to be dope that's fair um but I didn't know a lot of that either so it's okay um what do you see as Madison's top three concerns that we're facing today one is retention I think that's the biggest one um keeping the kids we have in District and getting the new ones you know getting new new folks to fill those those seats I think the biggest way we can do that unless you don't want me to answer that no I want you to answer okay I didn't know if you wanted to hold keep going fair enough um I think the biggest way to do that is to really um kind of put the emphasis on what
033we do really well in my opinion we do really well Early Education preschool special special education I think those are three areas that we do really really well in this District I think those could be the niche that we tal that you guys have talked about before I think we need to Market to that in order to get those kids in here and to let other people know what kind of impact that actually does for the kids who are in that program right now because I know a lot of them I've met a lot of them met the parents of a lot of those those kids and they're absolutely just thankful beyond measure that their K you know my kid's doing this now he's more social you know they're that's super important I think that's
034the one thing we have over other school districts where we can really make a difference um three or two just like Miss Dodge mentioned the facilities what do we do with facilities as a finance guy if I see four facilities and we only need three there's there's movement there there's ability to do some other things be a little bit more fiscally responsible um and I think if we're fiscally responsible when it comes to just kind of some of the overhead it'll flow right down to the teachers right down to the students and it'll impact everybody in a good way um and then the third one which I actually think is one of the more important ones is the community and their opinion of the school system and everything in everything you know top down we
035have to change that and I think we have to change that through doing a couple of good things out there you know pushing in or pushing on the the niche opportunities for for the special needs um highlighting some of the teachers that we have who are amazing Educators and just really getting out there and kind of dispelling some of those some of that negativity if you know I've been on the Facebook so I see it and unfortunately some is correct you know they say every I think I think you mentioned everything said negatively there's usually just a smidget of truth to it um we need to really kind of hit that right from the right from the front and and dispel some of that negativity so I think those are kind of your three big
036ones okay and then my second question was how would you help Madison become competitive to local districts as a parent what would you be looking for in a school district to enroll your your son um and from what you know about Madison what could we do forward yeah I mean it still starts with The Young Ones Still starts with the preschool and really getting some enrol e in highlighting what those teachers those Educators do really well I think as you get more and more population it's going to filter up the ranks of the school system itself that's going to cause more opportunities you have more kids in District you have more money available you have more opportunities for the growth of the city you know if we improve the school we improve everybody's land value
037and you know other fiscal there's there's other fiscal you know things that happen as soon as we improve the school so I would start with the basic building blocks with the kids with the young ones getting them in here highlighting who we have in District already and really highlighting them to the public and use that as a way to really grow up the ranks into the upper education of the you know in the district and then obviously hopefully we have a couple of kids out there who are doing great and they get into great schools and we can highlight them you know I think it all really is just word of mouth and it's it's all really highlighting those those wins that we get absolutely thank you so much you're welcome thank you hi Mr
038hi Gloria how are you good um as someone who's had numerous different positions I worked in this district for 30 years I left I worked another 15 in offices so I know the Inc intricity of different jobs than what you have to look at now we I know I read that you in finance ma'am and I also heard tonight that you're married to a teacher in this District how are you going to come on the board and make decisions that are best for the district and not for the teachers specifically that's a fair question absolutely um the the district would be my first priority when I'm serving in this body the teachers are almost my top priority because I think without the teachers we lose everything um but I don't have I've I've been asked
039that same question before when I when I submitted my information this second time um and it is a touchy situation it's it is tough but I'm pragmatic I'm logical and that's how I make decisions whether it be in my current professional role or in my personal role um if the decision is right that has to be the decision made and it can't be swayed otherwise so can only hope that you would that you would trust that you yes um I'm going to ask you the two that that I had asked um and then I wanted to just kind of clarify a couple follow-ups that you had said um um first of all how did you become interested in becoming a board member sure well I ran during the election um I've been interested in in
040the board for a while I quite frankly I love politics I know it's kind of a tough thing to say these days um just in general politics is a is is sometimes difficult but I enjoy um that whole realm plus I love this community and when I saw you know I'm directly affected by having a teacher as my wife um some of the difficulties with being a teacher just in general and then I looked at the overall you know the overall benefit to having good schools in a city it became a two-fold scenario for me number one I want the schools to be good I want my son to have an opportunity I want the decision when he becomes school age to be a difficult one and number two I want all the best Educators
041in our district because it's going to make us nothing but better and um again I I really do believe we all have the same goal how would you handle a situation where the board's divided on a key issue I think that people need to just be people need to put put opinions and not opinions I'm sorry personal feelings aside when it comes to decisions made as a governing body I think you present the facts as they are you look at everything in a very logical standpoint and you make a decision based on that I know sometimes that's not how things work I get it um but it's hard to govern when you have personal conflicts and you have to get rid of the personal conflicts in order to do it right I think we just
042have to all maintain that think about that and keep that in in the on the top of our minds as we move forward whether you like somebody or not if the decision makes sense approve it well I just have one concern and I'm going to start this with um my husband was a teacher while I was on the school board not the same district I can tell you it is not easy to wear those two hats because he was a union um represent ative and I learned a lot from his other school board members but um especially all the things that we do close session it is extremely difficult I don't know if it's possible um to not not share some of the things for myself that we know legally we can't but I just
043want to put that out there because it does compromise you I believe that our teachers are so very important and I don't think they're the first thing on our list I think our students are and so when we sit here and we are governing and if if um our Administration is negotiating a contract and we set parameters and they have to work within those parameters and if the dollars don't work out um we get bad press but that doesn't mean that we weren't doing our best so I guess I just wanted to clarify um I don't think anybody here isn't supportive of our staff 100% as a matter of fact I think our superintendent has gone beyond with representing and recognizing our staff every month recognizing the kids so we want to move up from
044there and not started a place of everything is negative cuz I don't think we're there just just for clarity I know you know there's a a ton of naysayers but they're not really looking at us they're listening to other people's opinions or they had a bad experience with somebody's friend um I don't think it's us because I think we've grown beyond that um I just wanted to put that out there for both of you cuz like I said there is no one sitting up here that doesn't have our kids um their best interest in at part um and with that I'm going to close and um we need to sorry thank you thank you very much I didn't mean to grab the podium I just wanted to to let everyone know I guess all right
045so we need to vote for a new board board member I need a maker Madam president trustee Kimbell I make a motion to appoint Melissa and Dodge a new board member we have a second second do we have discussion before we vote I want to say thank you both of you um as you know another seat is coming up so um we will be uh doing that very soon we will have to decide when we're going to seat um with that no discussion roll call vote please Rebecca shambles yes Cindy holder yes Mark Kimbell yes chista MC Alpine Taylor yes Gloria Thompson yes motion passed all righty well trusty Dodge than you so much you you have been selected um I do need the oath of office we do have to swear you in and
046there is some paperwork that you will need to fill out would you like a picture when you get sworn in I'll is that okay holder is that okay I take a picture of absolutely president holder does Mr Mitchell need to reapply if he wants Mary Seat a whole new seat okay so we have to treat it as a whole different position you just come up to the podium and say what I said last time yeah you could just he can email it to me yeah so just if you can read apply for um Mary Bush's seat cuz we just filled April's and then we're going to fill that probably in the next couple weeks know that Miss Perry said he can email Miss Perry says you can email it to her you don't have to
047answer questions again have to speak loudly okay I'm Melissa Dodge I'm Melissa Dodge you solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Michigan and the constitution of the state of Michigan and that I will Faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Schoolboard member and that I will Faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school board member in and for the Madison District Public Schools according to the best of my abilities in and for the Madison District Public Schools according to the best of my ability congratulations you are now sworn in thank you so much welcome thank you you got it thank you oh you have
048to start working tonight I we'll give you a minute to grab your stuff here's her binder hery Mel Pine Taylor's request what there was noest Mel Pine Taylor did not request we we need to fill the secretaries vac cancy president holder trusty Cham I'd like to nominate Chris Dara for board secretary yes yes she willias okay are there any other candidates can we can we choose some you can nominate anybody you want kidding well kind of not but that's with that we have a second we have a nomination in a second from trusty Kimbell so after discussion we would like a roll call vote please Rebecca shambles yes Cindy holder yes Mark Kimble yes chera Mel Pine Taylor and Iain technically just vote Yes it'd be weird if you didn't vote it would be weird
049she wants to be weird I mean I guess sure Gloria Thompson yes and do I dodge okay Melissa Dodge yes motion pass yes your secretary come on down I'm apparently getting this is um this is for you you you get to sit right it's your um board packet for tonight oh thank you does that mean she sits right here now mm all right well poor M he by himself get the wheel okay next up is our Administration report so in the beginning of the year we voted to have various study sessions throughout the year so tonight we are going to look at testing data however I do want to bring our Middle School football coach um Martin Donaldson up to the podium he wants to have a quick conversation or introduce his idea to you
050guys and get some feedback and he will be prepared to have a more in detail presentation um I do have his presentation he has one but I didn't put it on this agenda cuz it was a study session but he came so I do want him to introduce himself and just talk about the plan that he has for Madison District Public Schools thank you coach Donaldson tell us about your background and good evening uh my name is uh coach Martin Donson I'm the Middle School U football coach I'm also one of the coaches for the high school I help Kyle a lot um this just isn't my idea it's the whole coaching staff of for both school um 30 years with Wayne County Sheriff Department we we sat down and thought about some things and
051noticed that a lot of the kids leave the elementary school to the middle school they go to the other school we thought about sports that's keeping all the kids together so we want to put out a little what I call a feasibility information sheet that see if the kids are interested in playing Little League football and if they are we would like to start a little league football team from middle school all the way up to the high school that way we keep the kids in the district into our Middle School coming to the high school it keeps them from going to the other school in in in our city and uh talk to talked to a lot of the leagues and I even talked to the national board member of a couple of League
052members and they said there is no rules against them playing in our league and the school league until they reach high school so even the Middle School can participate in this and we just want to put a a fe information sheet out appearance within the district interested and that's why I wanted to come see if we have permission to put that information out there to see what kind of feedback we get and if we get a great feedback start the motion with the other proposal that she has uh a hold of so that's all I have questions president okay go ahead P Taylor yeah how cool first of all that's amazing Sports we know through research that Sports and activities really keep kids um in enjoying school and liking school and stuff that's amazing would
053it be like um a pay-to-play situation um would it be just after school how would you how would you maneuver that well starting with the football our our proposal is if you go to the district you don't pay if you're coming from out the district then you would have to pay a registration I see okay and those kids that that's out the district that want to play and not pay they would have to come to the school and be in the district okay thank you and would it be I'm so sorry I have another question if that's okay are you talking about like something right after school because you know Transportation can always be an issue right after school right right after school okay awesome thank you so much add to that we do have
054a late run Pontiac bus so that when we have those kids that are not necessarily in the neighborhood we can bust them home starts at 5:00 at least okay and would they be practicing where at the high school the park over there is what we are proposing right now I like uh Rosies wherever the uh the warn Jets right now it's right it's right okay yeah that's a beautiful area right over there yeah okay thank you so much I appreciate it Thompson why stop at football no that's not where we stopping do we have in the Middle School track we want to do baseball I've already talked to uh pal I'm real good friends with Karen we're trying we're trying to actually do track this year if it's not doing the Middle School season they
055have a middle school league so we're already looking at track already okay uh I'm looking at soccer I'm looking I'm looking at everything my son takes swimming lessons and where he takes swimming lesson one of the guys has a team so I asked him about if we we if he'd be interested in coaching the team up here he just said letting him know needs to be done so yeah I think I'm exploring every sport that there is right this is yeah my kids could only play basketball middle school and high school or football at the high school I we've been exploring uh golf there's a club uh it's called Midnight golf for the children I know some golf onings for for them yeah great under the trustee J BL did you happen to mention which
056organization you were looking at or have you not decided yet as which you league right no we've uh talked to gyms we talked to EF L we've talked to ayl and we've talked to a pal we still exploring that and seeing which one align we got all the prices for all that when she gives you guys the package all that information is in there got it thank you trusty Dodge um have you I know that they've brought boys volleyball to the high school and there's been talk of bringing it into the middle school a lot of area schools have not dipped into this yet is this something that like this could be a niche every sport that there is we're exploring my sister does volleyball something that could even cuz I'm sort of thinking summer
057time is a time where you might lose some interest that's why we're doing that because because those Sports carry into the summer keeps the kids together through the summer they come back for school they already know each other they know what to do okay have a question no I just think it's a good idea um I had a question just parent of a student athlete three of them um and they were involved with the league here so um I know the Warren Jets partic ipate here so they're going to be incorporated we're going to be a separate entity the warn jets are moving they're moving and they haven't even told you guys yet oh I KN okay the Jets won't yeah they won't okay no I had no idea so um so they would take
058the place of the um well not take the place of we're going to do something totally different because still their own okay yes and what league would they participate in confused we don't know yet but we put all the information for all the leagues in the package we can pick Le pal if it ends up being a pal team can they play in um the the moak or the yes Oakland okay that was the first question I asked because I wasn't sure myself so it doesn't interfere with the mhsaa rules and it doesn't interfere with the L rules and then would you have a grade re requirement to participate how would that work I the districts run their grades talking about age levels or grade requirement I'm just talking about in general um GPA yes
059GPA GPA not not element like which grade level they're in but overall um where they are we we can make those decisions that to be a group effort so um just a consensus because we didn't make this motion um do we feel that we want to get some more information on this yes I see lots of yeses so there you go sir thank you for coming you my question is is it all right for us to put the uh information sheet out there to see what kind of response we get absolutely that's all I need to know thank you thank you set up a meeting too so we can post it on Facebook and on the website I give you Ricky and Kyo and make sure we do that okay thank you all right thank
060you thank you okay take if you guys can take one and pass it down we're about to do the fun stuff why we're here okay so so everyone has a green folder this data is not official yet which is why I did not share it so we're just going to have a conversation and once we're done with the whole testing session I will post it online so on the left side of your folder you have our testing schedule which is available online and this document also has an overview of all the assessments that we give in the district so Horizon education and nwea those are the two assessments that we use to monitor growth so as a district and it's a part of teachers evaluation they must set a growth goal and we actually a
061part of our school Improvement plan has a district growth goal so the reason why we use two different growth assessments is because Horizon education is um formatted like an SAT or P sat whereas nwea is not so students in grades 8 through 12 they take the Horizon education the SAT is the assessment that we use the state use to determine if um our proficiency rates for grades 8 through 11 so we kind of kept that so we just started Horizon education this year the next two assessments are our mstep exams so for mstep for grades three through seventh they take math English science and social studies however even though science and social studies is a core only third fifth no Fifth eth and 11th graders take all all four assessments so and then the SAT
062Suite of Assessments that just talks about the new form of the SAT so back in the day sat for us was like oh my God we needed to know all these vocabularies it was paper pencil now the SAT Suite of Assessments um it is computerized and it's adaptive so you start out with certain amount of questions and based off of how you do on those it determines if you're going to go to a harder level or a lower level and your score is impacted we have our testing coordinator here Mr Beezy your score is impacted based off how many easier questions you take and how many harder questions you take so it's a totally different type of assessment than what we were used to back in the day and last but not least our last
063assessment is called the weda assessment that assessment is for students who speak English as a second language so we use that and we use those scores to determine what type of instructions what interventions we need so on and so forth and then on the back we just have a districtwide testing calendar and as you can see we just closed out our um waeda assessment even though the window is until March 21st we got that done before break and when we come back from spring break students will participate in the mstep exam and then they have their last set of benchmark assessments which will be in a April through May so we try to give a four-week window um we try to according to the state they want us to have 95% of our students assessed
064so we try to make that goal in every testing session so that's just an overview of all the assessments we give in the District next on your go ahead have a quick question how um on the nwea um is that are you doing like Math Science Social Studies Ela and how how many class periods does that take up so it depends on the grade level um we definitely do math and reading and um language art so it's like um basically like writing essay and sentence structure so for grades K through seven they do all four but there's not a social studies in we in WEA so most social studies teachers use their reading score so we challenge social studies teachers to push reading comprehension in the classroom um the assessment is unlimited it's no time
065it's not time but usually it takes a kid probably about an hour to complete it so it depends on the situation and it's not done in one day um each building has their own specific schedule in particular I'm more familiar with the high school we used to just do it hey today we're going to have the English assessment and then tomorrow we're going to have the math but the hardest thing that educators are faced with is that these cell phones which we're going to have a conversation later the SAT requires kids to focus for over almost 3 hours and we have to think about when do we require our kids to focus for 3 hours and so it's a challenge that we're facing and that's something we need to get over but the nwaa it
066just measures growth but we need to continue to create those testing sessions which is why I kind of support Horizon education because it gives students that one testing session that's similar to what you're going to get in the spring so it depends on to answer your question how the sessions are set up mhm okay okay so on the back in the back folder we have a amazing partnership with literacy coaching through Oakland univers I mean Oakland schools and through this partnership they created a data protocol so on Saturdays we have a curriculum task force where we have teacher leaders from grades K through 12 we come together one Saturday a month and we look at different things so today I'm going to to have you guys participate in this data analysis protocol so you guys
067we're going to look at six different sets of data and this is purple sheet I didn't give you it's like four phases but you didn't need all the phase we're going to look at phase two and it's just observation so during this phase as I reviewed the data it's the purple it's in the back of your folder it's in the back pocket thank you so during this phase you cannot put any emotions any feelings any inferences all you're going to ask yourself is what do you see can you describe and that's it so you're just going to observe what you see as I talk through the data don't make any inferences it's just what you see are we ready to move forward okay so take one sheet and now we're going to open back up
068your folder I'm sorry I know it's a lot of going back and forth we're going to look at the Detroit um the Detroit Madison District public schools testing study session and so what we're going to look at this what we're looking at now the three graphs is how Madison District public schools did growth from fall to winter so let me remind you we take growth assessment three times a year our goal is we want kids to grow we know that kids are not going to to be proficient but our goal is to grow so the first chart say shows how we did as a district so as a district 38% of our 68% of our students met their projected growth goal so let me rewind and I think it's just important if I can mention
069that the growth goal is set by nwaa so they take a look at their age their grade what their pass scores are and that's um and it creates this number that determines the student growth so student that's at a higher level maybe at grade level their growth goal is going to be smaller somebody who's maybe two or three grades below grade level their growth um goal is going to be larger thank you and that's really important to mention because when Stu when staff present their growth data so at the end of the year the staff members have meetings with their building principles and they identify their growth where the students grew the problem is if I'm a student and I came in at grade level my growth goal is not going to be as high
070as someone else's so that's something to take into consideration so the first chart shows how we did as a district in reading the math on the first page and then on the back of the first page it breaks it down by reading and math based off of grade level and I want to remind you the reason why you don't see eth through 11 is because that assessment is not in WEA we use Horizon education so if you guys can take a moment and write down your observations about nwe fall to winter growth for reading and math for reading and math and by grade by District whatever stands out to you I'm going to put my timer on cuz I'm in the classroom now you guys have two minutes e e e anyone need more time
071okay so do you guys want to have a quick discussion and share out what you notice um and I'm going to take not notes and take it back to our principles when we have our share out as well so would like to begin um I noticed that the math growth seems to it's much greater than reading and it seems more consistent um and then sixth grade has a big jump for reading but then drops right back down in seventh grade so I don't know if there's something going on in sixth grade that like boosts them up and then maybe we're not following through and 7th I don't know but that's just what I see so I do want to point out that this is not comparison data so it's not Trend it's not comparing kids
072from last year this is just a hard look at where our kids right now who we have what we have so you said you notice that math growth was more consistent than reading and you notice a huge spike in sixth grade reading D meline Taylor yeah so I was just curious about some things um and of course I noticed the inconsistency in the in the reading as well as the the more consistency of the math but I I had questions like what was the testing environment like you know were they hungry what time of day is it day was it was it a tough day like um I have all these questions about that inconsistent data that can make such a huge impact on our students ability to to do testing that day so that's
073phase three that's when you make inferences and we'll I will present that follow directions well it's okay so this is like the problem when we're looking at data just imagine 20 teachers in a room and then they're thinking about oh what happened so we will have that opportunity to explore phase three however I will write down that you support that there's more consistent the growth among math is consistent as opposed to reading sorry no it's okay that's it happens okay anybody else anything different than what is already done I I think that's pretty much my notes Okay cool so if you flip on the back of this the one that you just wrote on there's another back and we're going to call this one if you write at the top sat grade 11 so once
074again let me explain this to you guys before you dive in so as um for sat there are three three scores you need to look at the bottom of the first page gives you the overall score so assess sat assessment one is the one they took in the fall and sat assessment two the one on the right is what they took in the winter and then if you go to the back how those scores are made up they're made up of two scores the reading and writing section as well as the math section so they just add the scores together but I do want you to look at that little dollet line that says Benchmark so for a ninth grader is this n no sat 11th grader what SAT does it doesn't say if you're
075proficient or not it says if your career or college readiness so that particular career and college readiness score is a 480 for sat reading and writing but if you go down to math that Benchmark score that's the score students need to be at is a 530 and then if you look at the bars it basically breaks down the distribution of students so the color bars represent students that are over that bench Mark and then the grade bars represent students that are under the Benchmark and last but not least the assessment on the left is fall and the assessment on the right is winter so I'll give you guys two minutes to write down your observations and we'll share out did you want see okay anyone notice anything and remember you want to use those I
076observe some patterns I can count I'm surprised least most do not insert your feelings a question but I have to leave that for phase three this is only observations unless it's a question about the format go ahead truste Dodge I observ that thank you I observed that some students did have scores improved between Fall and Winter thank you just Mine Taylor I observed because I observed um I believe if I did the math right um so there was a what looked like to be a large increase in math between fall and winter but the percentage don't tell me I'm doing too much again no okay the percentage um was actually like for what the Benchmark was I know there was less students yeah um from what the Benchmark was the percentage was actually closer to
077Benchmark for reading and writing than it was for math that one nope I got same thing I think I over simp simplified this because observe that overall score score remains consistent during the year of testing are you talking about the overall score on the page the 832 to 834 yes okay um I is it consistent or did it increase by two you got give us our points with then two is very consistent the increase though in my opinion okay slight increase we love increases whatever it looks like any other observations about sat students decreas true in Winter you have students that hit between 1300 and 1400 and you didn't have that in the fall right so students did improve so students individually improve just as a cumulative group to pass yeah the average was about
078to see I also want to point out that um if you notice that huge increase in math kind of speaks the same I observe that that increase speaks the same language in round one when we looked at nwaa data for grades K through S consistent I wrote consistent with I really want to get to phase three I'm just saying you get phase three next two weeks oh okay thank you we're going to move on to grade 10 so this is one of the PSAT Suite of Assessments for 10th graders it's called psat1 it's similar to SAT but I do want to point out that if you notice the benchmark scores are different so for sat as an 11th grader for reading and writing my goal is a 480 but for a 10th grader is 430
079and so the reason why sat is very powerful I don't know if you remember when we used to give act and they gave you a practice they will give it will give you a predicted score when you get a PSAT score or a PSAT 9 score it basically says if you sat and took the SAT this day this is what you will get so it's no predicted score it says this is what you get so I'll give you guys two minutes to look at psat1 for e e e e e e on that gotcha thank you I hope this helped and gave you guys like a bigger picture of like what we actually do inside the buildings you know I think that sometimes we think that teaching and learning isn't taking place and I also
080wanted to stress the fact that how much we actually do test our kids and we don't intentionally test them because we want them to take a test it's just what we have to do and so sometimes it is test test test what is it called like when they're really yeah yeah yeah test takeout I don't know I forgot the name but you know these kids are sometimes overwhelmed so if if there's any parents listening I just want to stress that when the kids come home and say hey I have nwea I have mstep testing tomorrow it is so important that these kids get a good night sleep we make sure we feed them in the morning and we just make sure we try to have the best test taking environment for them so they don't
081get that test whatever burnout burnout that's the word test burnout yeah well that is it and I look forward to having phase three at the next meeting okay I have my notes um we did want to talk about um the attorney we added that to um thank you um new business new business right so oh yeah it should have been done up under 3D 3A sorry so we'll we need to um look at um we had a couple of school board members that requested and just so the two new board members we had decided when um our board attorney went to a different firm we were going to stay with Clark Hill The Firm he used to work with and that we were going to readdress at a later time um whether or not we
082still wanted representation as a board separate from the Clark Hill so um let's start with a motion and then we can have discussion and Mr Kimbell do you have a motion uh I make a motion to add Joe Urban to our list of approved lawyers second and discussion who wants to start can I can I start just to educate everyone on thank you okay um so last year we had or for the past couple years we had attorney Joe Urban who was our district attorney and he's with Clark Hill so we have two companies we have Clark Hill and we have tro um trun is more so we have a partnership with them because they work closely with setseg our insurance provider so if we ever have like any type of legal services that set
083SE has to lead it works with TR so TR we don't have a direct attorney but we do have an indirect relationship they send out a lot of newsletters they really help Pam and I stay afloat and just know the changes in policy so last year Joe Urban left Clark Hill and we decided to stay with Clark Hill um just because it was I don't know if it was cheaper but we just decided to we decided to stay with Clark Hill because we was not um we didn't know a lot about the firm that Joe Urban was with because it mostly work with a lot of mome County firms and onboarding of getting all of our information to that firm we didn't know what the cost would be for that yeah so we didn't know
084if we would have to like get documents released so on and so forth so one of the concerns that I personally have and this is just from a superintendent um I've been getting a lot of bills when um when something comes up I email the new firm and we have a new attorney that we work directly with my only concern is that this attorney charges us to investigate the problem so if I say hey um ABC happened in 20 prime example when we just had at the um prosecution case the sentencing last week if I say hey I have this sentencing coming up I need you your opinion the attorney does not have any history with Madison District Public Schools so we have to pay him a rate to go and research it and he
085does a great job by saying I'm not going to research it I'm going to have someone that is of a less uh stature role I Rel rate so his hourly rate I don't know it off the top of my head cuz I wasn't prepared I apologize is over $300 an hour however he will have someone research it whose hourly rate is $200 an hour and for me and I know I had a conversation with Miss Thompson she was like what's going on with the attorney fees like they are really high this year compared to last year but that's because we have to pay this attorney to research all the issues that Joe Urban has wisdom of so is that historical knowledge the historical knowledge so and I know we have our issues back and forth
086with Joe Urban but honestly I personally was able to pick up the phone and say Hey Joe I have this problem I need help right now and it never will get built sometimes it was a petty building I'm not going to lie let me not say that but it was it's just the the point of just having someone on my phone and says like hey like even with the little I still don't have the legal um responsibilities of that because I don't want to spend all this money having the lawyer tell me what we should and should not do whereas if it was Joe Urban and I'm not trying to say like if it was him but just someone who has the knowledge I'm able to just pick up the phone and say hey this
087is what's going on that's just my thoughts um so how long was Joe Urban with us uh almost 20 I think okay and have you do we know if the billing will change when he like we knew what the billing was with him before and now he's at a new firm does that change anything I would say we did ask for rfps and I would say that we do not want to pay him any more than what he had submitted it went up a little bit but it went up a little bit but not as much Clark Hill um I have it right here okay go ahead um and I can share this with you guys so we can I don't know if we were going to make a decision tonight but I can put
088both both presentations together for the next board meeting but Mr Urban's firm he says his hourly rate for Madison will be at a discounted rate of $300 per hour um for the school district and Associates so those are the people who like work under him they will be build at a rate of $195 per hour and if it's anything that's like a specialty like if they have to like sometimes if I contact Joe Urban and he may not know it he may have to go to the next person then that rate will be 325 an hour whereas Clark Hills rate I'm just pulling up a bill and I apologize you're fine I appreciate you looking that up yeah um Clark is it clario oh I I'll tell you legal one second Clark kill's rate is
089325 for an attorney and I'm so sorry those aren't the same numbers from January you have it okay January they were like 285 oh so for Clark Hill it's 325 for a member and then a senior attorney is 315 and then an associate is 295 so the difference isant a lot that up quick especially um I just want to say we had just gone to court for our last CFO and uh it had been the will of the board to follow up with that with for trouble damages which we are um uh able to get we are o I don't want to say owed we are what's the right word anyway we have a right to sue we have a right to sue for troubled the images on to because the money that we got
090um went directly back to the insurance company because they rein inversed us initially so instead of doing the history on someone new um I think that it might be in our best interest to stay with the guy that has the history um I did do some research and it's a professional courtesy as far as getting the old case files that they've worked on uh there won't be a cost with that so um I just think it's in our best interest to add him we're not removing anybody we are adding him and um we just uh especially with what happened last week we want to move in Kim I was going to point out that we can have as many attorneys on the approved list as we want so it's not going to affect anyone else
091that's on that list already or anything that's already in motion Madam president truste Thompson the question I have is each lawyer's firm that we keep on the books are we paying retainer a retainer mhm yeah so yeah it might be nice to have that many but I don't want to pay retainer fees for all of them you know let's I my opinion is we should stick with the person who has the history okay holder trusty Chimas I'll go with whatever the consensus of the board is however I just want to voice my concern that although Joe is a great attorney and he has the history another attorney will catch up but the concern with Joe which has been voiced at many meetings by many board members is the wishy-washy nature of um the respones given
092um it'll be given we're told one way after he speaks with President holder but then when we talk to him at a meeting it kind of gets conflated and everything is not what he said or he said this or that and it always became very difficult to ever find out what truly was legally correct for board members that had to go through the president to get the information so we were always getting it and it happened to Crystal it happened to Mary it happened to many of us and it was voiced at many meetings so my concern is I feel like most attorneys are very like this is what I recommend this is how it is you might be able to do this but I strongly don't suggest it they're very concise and clear whereas
093with Joe it just seems like his answer changes depending on who he's speaking to I I will say this I disagree with the all and the many um there were a couple of times that what they heard isn't isn't what we processed what was said isn't what we processed I don't know whose fault that was um I will say this um in his defense he has told us as a board there are positions and things that we should not be doing that maybe we don't adhere to we don't like it so we don't follow just because we get the information we've sometimes had an issue with followup so um I am just asking um for us to move ahead especially with this given um court case with us needing the finances with him having the
094background um that we move ahead is there any other discussion can I add something I'm sorry um so Rebecca I'm glad well vice president chames I'm glad you brought that up because I think that's one thing that I learned with this new attorney that I've been working with everything is followed up in an email and writing and I think that's what we need to start doing as a board as a district is that whenever we get legal opinion of counselor counseling it goes right into a folder that I have and it needs to be follow up in writing so that I do agree with you on that um I know that we do want to move forward with attorney erban I know that's the and I do like our relationship with attorney Urban but I
095will ask if you guys can let me research and see what's the retainer fee so we can budget accordingly because we do have we're working on our budget and we're really tight if we can have until next meeting to vote because I want to see what's the retainer fee can I cancel one of the retainer fees and get some money back to the district and just how can we financially make it happen because ebony already has the budget set for 2425 so we need to make sure that we're in that parameter of what's budgeted for legal fees that's just if we could but if you guys want to move forward I totally respect that but mathematically I just want to make sure it makes sense or do you know if there is a retainer fee
096for Joe Urban I haven't talked to him about that no I can't tell you that yes we have several I know we have changed attorneys before Madam president truste Kimble we have a couple different ways we can go we can approve Joe to be added to the approval list without a retainer and a per annual basis or we can table this to the next meeting and you explain what that means per annual basis meaning we pay as we go and then he doesn't ask for a retainer correct we do we do approval with no retainer oh if if he does not uh like that then That's the basis of your approval so take your pick which one do you want I'll make a motion for either one Taylor would it be um like I'm hearing
097um what um superintendent Perry is saying and I is there a problem with waiting two weeks just to gather that information no I think it was asked by a couple of board members I know we have talked to the superintendent in the past it's been a concern of hers which is one of the reasons that it came here that plus the lawsuit sure so um that's why it is here um it was requested to be on this um agenda and it wasn't it I understand uh the superintendent this was posted initially as a study session obviously it was a regular meeting cuz we had regular business so that is why all of this came to fruition in the way that it did okay Madame President I make a motion that we table this to the
098next meeting I second any other discussion NOP let phone let's vote Rebecca Chamas yes Cindy holder no Mark Kimble yes chera MC Alpine Taylor yes Gloria Thompson yes the new one sorry Melissa Dodge Melissa Dodge yes yes motion passed thank you okay consent agenda all matters listed in 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 request discussion of an item that item will be removed from the consent agenda and become the first item of business under the Board of Education action items portion of the agenda this consent agenda includes approval of the minutes of the board of education for the regular meeting
099March 3rd 2025 approval of March 1st 2025 through March 12th 2025 check register payment as submitted in the amount of $142,679 approval of the Personnel report submitted by human resources on Mark 17th 2025 an need a maker and support please Madam president trustee Thompson I'd like to make a motion that the Board of Education approved the conent consent agenda as presented second trusty tumble support discussion hearing none roll call vote please Rebecca champas yes Cindy holder yes Mark Kimble yes chera Mel Pine Taylor yes Gloria Thompson yes Melissa Dodge yes motion passed all righty with that we need a motion to adjourn president holder trustee Chamas I make a motion to adjourn second support no discussion roll call vote please Rebecca champas yes Cindy holder yes Mark Kimble yes chera Mel Pine Taylor yes Gloria
100Thompson yes Melissa Dodge yes motion pass