001number two on the agenda is going to come with a little commentary before we start the commentary but uh public requests or comments i think we've refined our process a little bit as we've gone along i'll mention kind of the change or update um we are requiring that uh folks state name and full name and address however you don't have to publicly state it you can fill out that form over there and actually i'd prefer that everyone just fills out the form and turn them in and it will not be read aloud it'll just be collected and it will not be stated in the minutes what your address is either it's just so we board members know who we're talking to and whether or not they are within our school district so um while i'm
002talking about the rest of the general rules or requirements feel free to to get up there and fill out a form and then i'll just be going in order through those forms for anyone who wants to make public comment we'll be limited to 30 minutes at the beginning of the meeting but there is a public comment at the end of the meeting for anyone who has not spoken at this meeting other rules i better read it otherwise i'll get it incorrect i talked about name and address statements um if you want to read a statement on behalf of someone else feel free but it will be recorded as your statement not as anyone else's and if anyone is here to record you are absolutely welcome to record the meeting but i we request that you
003be in the back of the meeting so you're not blocking anyone else's view um i don't know if there's an area taped off or marked yes we do we have an area taped in the back if you're planning to record the meeting i don't see anybody here that's playing but if you want to there's a there's a spot back there that way you're not distracting to the board and or other members of the audience let me check a couple things just to make sure you have up to five minutes we have new technology here tonight with a digital timer which lets me know and the folks speaking how much time is remaining for public comment it kind of has a 10 second countdown before the five minutes starts and i don't know if there's any
004kind of scary beep or anything at the end i don't think so um we turn that off okay so uh when you get uh to a minute left i'll just put like a your number one finger up this one um to say you have a minute left in case you're not following the clock make sure your statement is directed to the to the board as a whole but not to any specific person cannot be personally directed and it cannot be directed to staff or other participants um did i mostly cover mr david i think you covered it uh very well okay having said that so far i have two three people that want to make public comment if other people want to make public comment feel free to fill out a form or if you
005want to just announce name and address you don't have to fill out the form that's fine too we're going to go through these ones first and then we'll see who's left so first person um is noel noel dolan okay hello name is noelle dolan thank you for having me tonight um i definitely won't use the five minutes go ahead go about two almost three months ago i came by my first board meeting i'm new to the area my kid is in her first year of elementary school here and i communicated that i was a concerned parent that i thought there was a significant disconnect between the work you're doing and the work the community understands you to be doing and i ask for transparency and communication unfortunately as of today because of emails that were
006obtained through the freedom of information act i feel completely more concerned double concerned than i was when i first came in these freedom of information acts the emails obtained communicated that superintendent ron is in unable and sometimes almost unwilling to move forward with diversity equity and inclusion efforts so we pay a consultant sixty thousand dollars to advise superintendent ron but yet there's documented evidence that he's not only not being utilized he's sometimes being paused in january superintendent ron said to pause the to postpone the release of dr tishner's student voice brief on mlk day he put in writing that he wanted something short and simple just a quick point of order um comments need to be general in nature and not directed to indicating specific correct it needs to be general not calling out anyone
007specifically please okay um okay there but this is live real documents that were obtained so i'm communicating to the board what i've learned and why i'm concerned understand keep your comments general please and not specific to any one person so in on mlk day there was communication to keep things short and simple and my concern is that the person in power feels that black history and mlk day should only be short and simple move forward to march our consultant said that we should not pause dei efforts during the summer but yet under the leadership of the person that runs our dei committee they haven't met since maybe why hate and racism take a break in the summer in may the equity task force which i am a parent of a part of i offered up
008money to help send teachers to training my dad was a teacher i offered to put in money to help send teachers to anyone that wanted to go to anti-racism training was that communicated no it stopped at one individual's desk last summer a number of teachers gave up a number of hours which we know to put forth a lot of effort in dei and i think they did great but where did it stop whose dust did this stay on there is good work going on with the dr tishner consultant with our diversity committee with members that are they're helping make move this initiative forward but my concern is you don't have the right guy leading it and once i read those emails today and i saw that evident we feel i feel the diversity and equity
009inclusion efforts can't be an ad hoc committee led by an individual that may not be ready to lead in that space it needs to be led by a board it needs to report directly to you guys so i come before you and i ask that you please make the diversity and equity and inclusion committee a sub a full subcommittee that reports directly to the board please prioritize dei efforts utilize dr tishner listen to the dei committee and members with an open mind and open heart as today i don't feel dei efforts have been given adequate representation it feels like a check the box thing i don't think we have the right man leading us thank you thank you next we have carmen hello i know that i already spoke on the first section of the
010the first meeting but i just want to go over my statement again so for the um the board member they didn't then they know we're here okay okay i spoke the last month for the first time and i would say i wanted the best for our community that inequality division received racism intolerance can be part of our community we know that then i want my kid to know our nation's history even the ugly paragraph history we need to add part of the history that have been erased or omitted i want teachers to add the media per hour history i want them to enrich our curriculum i want them to enrich our children knowledge but i don't support teachers they want to add to their personal uh want to have personal opinions and agenda and call
011it the truth what truth their truth from where for one side i want the truth but i want to hear the truth from both sides of the history not one side how that fair is going to be a balance there is tilted to one side where another group of people being ignored that's oppression i'm hispanic i'm part of the minority so i'm part of that other group that they are vocating for but a part of that group i feel that we can exclude white people heterosexual heterosexuals christians on anybody because they are the majority they have a voice and we need to count their voice we need to listen to them not ask them out what kind of people we are we do that oh wait we are obsessed with crt we are racist because
012of our stand i'm racist then that's what you've seen through your eyes the people that think like me are racist and divisive you're that's pain in this community but it's sad that is paying this community they continue inflicting hurting the community with some bullying people members of a community like me or people that think like me downgrading them questioning their intelligence their background their beliefs what that make you answer me what that make you are we being included or are we being silenced you don't want people to be silenced you want the truth to be told but it's okay for you guys to silence us you are becoming the oppressors our voice my voice for blacks whites hispanics not his americans because every single voice every voice counts while we can find a common ground
013where we can hear each other i'm peace yes i'm peace but i know after i'm finished here somebody gonna get in the softbox on facebook and gonna tear me apart but i don't care look at me look at my face my name is carmen portalating if you want to know my maiden name is carmen menendez ortiz from puerto rico and i will speak for each one of you when you guys need me to stand up next to you i'm not going to look down on people because they are the majority or we work together or we fall thank you next up is lynette and for those that came in late if you didn't get a chance to fill out the form you still have time until public comment is done and there is more public
014comment at the end of the meeting as well go ahead lynette thank you um thank you carmen i appreciate board members we were at the last meeting to understand we are not against the legal analysis of crt as um one board member pointed out but understand the elements of it are actually being used not necessarily sanctioned but are actually being used in the classroom as we speak they're labeling group groups of people by immutable characteristics skin color whatsoever if you um just for a moment would pleasure me one board member mentioned i also want to get out in front of something because i see it bubbling up in feedback from the community i have precisely zero time for anyone who wants to tell me that critical race theory is itself a racist construct i'm normally
015open to discussing anything and welcome constructive disagreement however there's no point arguing against a position that's so wildly misinformed there are reasonable critiques of some parts and nuances of crt but the claim that it teaches topics that are racist toward white people is not one of them i won't grant it legitimacy by entertaining it here i mentioned in the last meeting i did not want to spend my monday nights here i appreciate you guys doing that but i had to get involved when a certain group in the community pretended that they were fighting for people at first i was like great you are involving people you are opening minds you were having story times until they started picking on my friend mimi here and told her it wasn't her time as she mentioned the racism
016that she faced that's what she was told it wasn't her time and then we see that there was a zin education project after the anti-american and factually challenged historian howard zinn collected signatures from more than 4 200 teachers who pledged to teach the truth despite new state bills against it two of our teachers signed that and for you to say that it's not being in the schools right now it is you um mimi's husband mentioned how um ibra max kendy's book which if you actually read it is pretty bitter and it's not that i want to silence his voice and i'm actually not even struggling with it being presented but where's candace owen's book they talk about one teacher had mentioned that she was very concerned that she wouldn't have the right to talk about
017january 6 but if she had talked about it right in the moment and quoted cnn she would have been wrong not once but twice they got it wrong twice before they actually found out so maybe 2240 helps us guide down the middle and we can talk about difficult things when i was in sixth grade challenger explosion we were watching it live pretty graphic but my teacher turned it off and said sometimes when you try great things difficult things happen and she was understanding and she talked about it but now with a personal agenda with a sensitivity that might be very harmful to see something like that there were counselors there were all kinds of available things but she didn't take precious classroom time and i'm concerned that that teacher wanted to take precious classroom time
018to talk about something that was highly inappropriate for elementary students anyway it's very sensitive we didn't know enough at the time to do it that's why 2240 was important and again i want to finish with the comment about the testing why do we have all these restrictions in place hipaa all these different things we have protections in place if you bring the kids back this fall with masks you are singling out those children what about the equity there saying these kids don't have the the vaccine i know my daughter personally she physically couldn't and it has not been authorized you know there are more deaths related to the vaccine in certain age groups than actually from kovid you've got to think that through and for this for the people calling us wildly misinformed pretty sad
019to say that you mentioned we couldn't go back to school safely until the governor dangled some money and we did it we are not ignorant we're professionals we care about our kids i go home every night i work my tail off for my kids i research and i study and i'm here so please stop being so rude on facebook and so dismissive and i thank you for those that are actually taking time to listen it matters our kids matters we've got to get this right thank you next up is caitlyn i am reading a letter on behalf of randy watkins vice president of the lansing naacp most of the board members should have received this letter i'm reading this so that our administration can hear this the question regarding policy 2240 is not what are
020the issues but who decides who decides whether an issue is controversial and what prevents that decision maker from abusing their authority it is because of the arbitrary nature of the policy and its reliance on the opinion and approval of the principal or superintendent or director of special education that i believe it needs to be rescinded if a principal or parent disagrees with loving virginia what presents what prevents that person from filing a complaint or taking disciplinary action against a teacher in your committee meeting on june 28 the problem of a controversial issue was apparent your meeting policy as represented states that you can request the address of a speaker but it's not required however one committee member ms evans interpreted this policy to say that the address was required while another mr kelly said it
021was merely requested what happens when the policy maker refuses to accept a different interpretation especially if there's a po if there is the possibility of disciplinary action once again i believe it's not the topic but how the policy is implemented generally arbitrary action taken by an individual against another is subject to litigation i'm surprised the district has not been sued over what is clearly an arbitrary and vague policy this policy is arbitrary because its interpretation is left up to individual principles essentially the implementation of this policy is on a building by building basis to allow the principal or any one person to decide what can and cannot be discussed especially if that person has the power of discipline is a dangerous situation it is vague because of the indefinite nature in which the policy is
022implemented there's no precision or standard part of the problem i see with 2240 is the fact that by its very nature you can't define it controversy according to webster is a discussion in which opposing opinions clash i believe that attempts to define what is controversial opens up more problems than it will solve as the committee correctly noted on june 28th you have great teachers that are not attempting to indoctrinate but are doing their best to live up to the mission of mason schools by helping students develop critical thinking skills instead of trying to define which opposing opinions 2240 covers i would recommend eliminating the policy thank you for your consideration to follow that up with my own statement i simply want to reiterate noelle dolan's comment that we're urging this board to take on the
023diversity committee as a full subcommittee under your direction we trust that as our elected officials you are capable of leading this committee and the efforts and initiatives that would further our district would provide more opportunities for our students would validate and affirm our students of color and our lgbtq students that's not happening under mr drozviki we have several emails this first email dated march 20th 2021. quote unquote i believe we need to pause the committee until we get a better handle on its role and purpose ron joswiki another email dated april 20th after further consideration regarding the student voice brief i believe it's best to postpone the release of the document at this time until we have a better understanding of the effort moving forward let's put it in the parking lot for now rajaswicki
024and on may 4th dr karlin tischner suggested a long list of questions for mr josuke to send back to the task force related to the pd that we offered to pay for and sponsor several teachers across the district that fell flat no response was given following those questions from mr josecki this shows this is only a handful of the emails we received several others quoting let's pause the committee over the past four months why after two and a half years do you not know the purpose or the goals of this committee why were the goals just released a month ago after two and a half years as an established ad hoc committee why is there minimal progress being made why is there no transparency we thank you that's your time okay next up is jen
025i wanted to talk a little bit further about testing and taking the mdhhs guidelines into consideration for this upcoming school year and i think a couple of the other comments that have been made about slowing things down our superintendent definitely last year when we were talking about opening the schools back up during one of the the calls that i was at zoom at home listening to made a comment about how he couldn't support moving forward and i said at the last meeting i was at i have an email that we're going to talk about testing and covet in august why are we waiting why can't there be a plan a a plan b a plan c this is what we're going to do right now today mdhhs recommends this this is our stance if kovid's
026in the community in september we're going to change our stance i completely understand that right so here's a letter that i recommend that you you listen to and hopefully i'll be receiving one of these letters after this topic is put onto the agenda since i have asked in two meetings and in writing and not to wait until august this is from another local school i wanted to take a moment to provide an update for the 2021-2022 school year based on current guidelines from mdhhs this was dated july 2nd after the mdhhs guidelines came out we're excited to begin the school year with a bit of normalcy the academy will begin the school year with mass being optional for staff and students we will not require or be administering covid19 testing for students or staff students
027and staff will be required to quarantine if they have a known covid19 exposure contact tracing guidelines are still in place therefore all visitors entering the building will be asked to sign in the academy will be limiting the number of gatherings in our building during the 2021-22 school year to ensure that our students and staff have a limited chance of exposure to covet 19. visitors must make an appointment or contact the office should they need to meet with staff administration or to visit a classroom for any reason all sanitizing and cleaning precautions will continue seems like a pretty valid letter that all of us in mason should have in our hands right now too so that we can make the decision to send our children to school knowing that they're not going to be tested twice
028a week because mdhhs recommends that but you do not have to follow that recommendation it is not a requirement i've spoken about this multiple times i've heard other parents say it also it's not required so do the right thing please for our kids thank you that's the last form i have we probably have enough time for one more if there's someone else that wants to speak during this time otherwise we'll move to the next item on the agenda okay moving on number three special reports of recognition uh thank you um tonight i'm going to introduce laura caligan laura's our director of level up programming she's here tonight to speak about level up um as you know laura joined the mason team just before spring break in response to the funding that the state released for
029ka summer programming 912 credit recovery and before and after school programming and so laura's been instrumental in developing and organizing our level up programming um this year especially with the short notice that the the state gave to school districts to apply for the funds now she continues to oversee the day-to-day operations of the program programs and so just a little bit about laura you know she comes to us with a wealth of knowledge and experience she's a former whole administrator former employee at ingham isd she was the director of student instructional services there and she was also on the hult board of education so tonight laura's here with some guests i'll let her introduce your guests um to give an update so thank you laura welcome and thank you for bringing in your passion because
030that's what this is all about i served on hope public schools school board for over four years before i moved to howell so that's what this is all about so i i'm actually glad that some of our younger students can be here this is their first school board meeting so sometimes hearing community comments is something for us to have discussions about so i support all of you and i'm really we're really supporting you through level up so come on up team i'll have i have a little gift for the school board members do any of you guys have kids in level up right now i only have one oh man i was hoping so um if you're not aware well let me introduce my guest with me today first see how my technology is so
031there's a couple things that we're going to be going over i don't know what your role is right now you could try using a mic too if you want to it might be just push the button to turn it on there you go okay hi i'm cassandra feaster i am the k-2 robotics teacher so never done robotics in my life but i'm doing it now so it's going great and she was a hired during covid and so her coming in she was a floating teacher but she's going to be at north aurelia so i'm really excited to have her part of our team and then we have a team over here do you want to just share your names and yes i'm mrs bramos i work at the harvey center as a lead teacher for
032the preschool programs in the morning during the school year but this summer i'm functioning as both a staff member for the k-5 side of the program mostly serving as a background help and then i am also dually serving as a parent to two children who are thoroughly enjoying the program yeah can you guys just share your name and what grade you're in would that be right um i'm alexis and i'm in going into seventh grade hi i'm jesse and i'm going into seventh grade awesome we're going to hear a little bit more from them but i'm going to share with you a little bit of the background and some of the funding it's just being as the board so you know where that's coming from and then we're going to talk a little bit about
033the components are in there and we'll get into your bags and then we're going to talk about a little bit of the partnerships that we've been able to build with the community part of this work that we've been doing with level up started before i came you guys had a level up you guys were going to do a lot of experiences and then guess what happened with the whole world coveted hit and so when they brought me in in april and some of the funding was increased we were able to build on a lot of the things that you had especially the level up logo if you've seen that it's on our shirts we're building this we're hoping it'll be three to five years i know president biden has guaranteed some summer learning for us
034so if your children haven't been able to participate this year that maybe they can do it in the future and building off of what they're doing in that traditional year to build on for them in the fall i feel like um the social emotional well-being of all of us adults students is really the key with a lot of the work that we're doing this summer the other thing that's been really cool is the robotics and we'll share a little bit more about that too you guys have been bridging and building on the robotic side and so we have an opportunity to do a little bit of this this summer too guess what we've been doing a little bit of reading and writing and arithmetic too so on there so um just to give you a
035little bit house bill 4048 this is the components and this is kind of how it all started so within that house bill we had to have staff input so i started in april and i worked with the literacy and instructional staff with matt stewart we had to focus on core instruction so besides doing some of that stem we had to have reading writing and math involved in there and of course science we had to offer that through k-8 and this i think was a struggle i feel like for a lot of us for this summer is it had to be eight weeks and so thinking about when mason ended and then when you guys start in the fall how do we create eight weeks where we're growing our students plus giving them a little bit
036of time to have summer so that they can do that so we've been working towards that and then thinking about the funding the so this was what was provided by the state as part of that covid cares act we were offered 550 000 per i wish no no no 550 dollars per student if we were able to make that innovating which this crew rate over here is showing some of they'll be talking about a few of those things we're able to get additional 100 so that's some of the money that we've been working towards i think the other thing that's been great about the state is they said if staff if you're able to commit over the summer i know we have coveted fatigue i know we have a lot of things going on you're
037going to get a thousand dollar stipend our other support staff is also getting some of that money and i'm going to talk next about what your district and the board and you guys have done to support our individuals our staff in programming this summer then i just want to share what the application process was and just some important dates so this went through the state we had to give our first numbers the very first week when we started and then in about another week we'll be giving up giving our final numbers we've had about 300 students um not every day but just because of um the summer breaks and things that are happening like this last week was a little bit lighter but i was glad that parents were able to take a break with
038their families in doing that we need both of those things and so over there i think we've had about 314 total students we've had 20 of your guys's lead teachers from mason we've had two college students in a um she is actually a phd candidate for msu she actually is a mentor for student teachers so i've been really lucky to be working with her we've had over 26 paraprofessionals that have been supporting the groups and probably one of my really highlights is we've had 20 high school students supporting every day teaching in classrooms really around robotics but just in general just education and just seeing the interaction between the high school students and the kids i just get excited and emotional because i mean it's it's been amazing on those parts so this is just
039for information i'll give you the slides to you but if you're wondering you know this is all stimulus money and i i love the movie you know show me the money so at any time that i feel like the state is really coming through and providing funding i think the timing was a little short for us all but building this and taking this opportunity building it for mason public schools is really going to be a great thing but these are all the different fundings that we can have and then the governor just sent that or signed that other great bill like woohoo a thousand dollars extra for our kids so this is where i was talking to you about where i feel like mason public schools as you know i've been involved in holt and
040i'm involved in some other across the state projects but this is just breaking down some of the compensation that we have for our instructional staff the part that i want you to focus on is the orange or the yellow this is where mason came together as administration and the board and said all right what can we do for our professionals that are going to support over the summer so they have brought in more funding than what even was coming through the state to help support that so if they're if we have an individual working on the teacher staff they're going to get a bonus on top of what they're already being provided the paraprofessionals are going to be given 600 and we even they even thought about the students and they're giving them something so
041because they've been will be working all those days too i just really want to say kudos to that because that's showing support both financially and saying you know we believe in you and i'm growing them so i appreciate that the other thing is i wanted to share and i only have a couple slides but we really wanted to find out what the community and what students wanted with summer learning especially with covet and things going on they had a lot of screen time as you know this year so what are some things that they're interested in so we did a community survey we had about 407 families and then we did a student student survey and we had about 844 students respond to that this just kind of shares with you what the top focus
042were our interests that we're in and that really drove what we chose to do this year for our focus so as you can see from the community lego's robotics was really there at 77 percent make a masterpiece was really around the arts is that what was that stem and soaring it was again around steam and stem and then nature and gardening gardening and then down on the farm so the robotics legos animals in nature is what our eight weeks are about and so that was what the community had shared and then interesting enough the 844 animal camp was the first nature and outdoors music art dance and robotics and legos i just thought that was really interesting that they came together we were a little worried as an instructional staff what if we're way over
043here how are we going to do it but it came out that way and now's the time if you guys will go ahead and open up your bags inside your bags there's a folder and in that folder you're going to just find the overview of the level up you're going to find we've had three summer newsletters have any of you guys got the newsletters through the nope okay we're going to work on that matt we got to work on that okay be sure it goes out to everyone and then the last thing in there is find the mason bulldog passport have you guys heard about that all right so the first one is just an overview of what we're what our focus was for this eight weeks the next three in there are our first
044three um newsletters one is talking about the strategies that the teachers learned the very first week in their professional learning the second one really focused on our robotics team and what they were doing and then the third one was on our level up middle school level which our two student representatives are here can share a little bit about i hope they'll share a little bit about the day that they plan for our case k2 students because they're definitely leaders um in the future and then just if you hadn't heard about the um find the bulldog they couldn't do find waldo this year because of kovid so your chamber of commerce created find a bulldog and so we had that tie with the community with that and just sharing underneath the level up we also have
045mason public schools we credit recovery we are partnering with grad alliance currently we have about 100 students enrolled in that it is my on this thursday i have another meeting with them we had about 164 that would qualify for some kind of credit recovery 9 through 12th grade so we're working towards getting the rest of those students engaged the great thing about that is it is all online but they have a mentor academic advisor they have like three people that supports them individually which i think can be really helpful for some of those students that may have struggled because of coveton some of the things that are going on the other thing that's in your third newsletter is the fuse program i know you guys have talked about that it was a grant that you've
046gotten you're partnering with the high school students to help create those stem projects that these sixth and seventh and eighth graders will be experiencing in the next few weeks and then the other one i just wanted to be sure we're really about inclusion with all kids with special needs we are building off of their extended learning plans and so we have multiple students that we're working with we even have some of the students there have to be in more of a self-contained program they get the level up backpack and whatever activity for outside with the kids they're trying to interact with them so the most that we can try to do to include all the students in mason public schools partnerships and then i'll let the others talk i just really part of the role
047when i met with matt and talked about what this vision of level up summer programming could be we really wanted to build community partnerships and part of that was starting to reach out to the community and how can we support each other and so um the first one is um it's in the very first newsletter it's dr kalani dunsmore she brought in the the learning lab where besides the students learning the teachers were also learning so that part of the pd is all through the summer for our staff the mason high school robotics team and thank you community for building that that lab and if you have not seen your robotics lab i have never seen such an amazing facility for the kids to use ben shoemaker another resource of you guys that's just amazing
048he's been able to coach with us he's done it virtual he's done zoom he's actually taught the high school teachers and the k2 teachers cassandra all about how to do these robotics and they're independent doing it so it's um pretty exciting um don our dr jan allman i think she's probably been here before but she's helped supporting the adult learning in the in the summer um just the last three city city of mason i just want to thank them they um actually there was a cost for the to be at the parks for our daily um trips to the park and they weighed that and kind of donated the parks to us so i really appreciate that partnership with them the library has been amazing you guys already had a partnership with them where all
049the kids already had a library card because of covid but we actually have kids walking down there each day our next four weeks is on animals they're all getting their own book it feels good to be back to normal i see all these books in the library and i'm like oh we need to get them in good kids hands so we're able to do that with the library and then again the mason chamber of commerce ron allowed me to speak to them a few months ago that's kind of how the bulldog thing got going and so i'm excited just to have all those partnerships now i'm just going to ask our my guest over here if they just want to share a little bit a highlight that you've had just something that's going on that
050you'd like to share um i really enjoyed we got to tie-dye shirts at the beginning of the program um i'm we're wearing ours right now and that was really fun you worked on designing the logos with the staff members which was really cool to have that power with the teachers to create their own logo for the program being able to go into a private jet at the airport was really fun they both have made tons of friends they come home with different names and stories every single day of different kids as a as both a parent and a staff member it it was kind of a cloudy area entering into a new program um and of course my kids are going summer school what um but as soon as the program began they're coming home
051and they're saying we went to a private jet today and we went to the high school pool and we walked down to the playground in the library and and it's just been phenomenal listening to them and there is no arguing getting them up in the morning to go and and um you know i think a lot for us parents that kobut really did hit our kids socially emotionally and this has been a huge comeback for them to be able to share a space that's not so overwhelming it's not going back to school with hundreds of kids all at once they're stepping it's almost a stepping stone into the next year that they're hanging out with small groups of kids that they're getting to know and these are kids from different age grade levels um and
052at the harvey center between k2 and 5 it's all the different buildings and districts so you've got um the classrooms are staged second through third and then or um k through second and then third through fifth and the the age groups intermingling the you see the growing and learning and scaffolding and it's just been incredible and i think bringing the high schoolers into the program has been amazing as well you you do you walk into a classroom and you see a whole future of teachers and they're so excited to be there with those kids and those kids adore them because they're just a little bit closer to relating to us than some of us older teachers are so um and they did um they actually ran kind of a carnival for us right how did
053that go um we got to make games for the younger kids and it was really fun because we got to design and run our own games and we got to kind of experience getting to teach some little kids and that was really fun and you've done lots of work with robots jessie's been building robots and you guys like fight them chasing balloons with pins and stuff he loves that stuff it's been pretty awesome i've actually had to go into the building and pull them away a couple times so it's just been an incredible experience for the three of us in a lot of ways and there really just isn't a benefit that i haven't seen to the program staff members from all different buildings have brought so many different cumulative experiences and practices and and
054we've all teamed up to create this amazing experience that even after the end of the first two weeks we have our students going home begging to come back for the next session and and parents knocking on our door in the morning going how do i make that happen because they're not going to be happy if they can't so it's it's just been incredible to watch the program come together as both a staff and a parent sure so like i said i'm the k-2 robotics teacher never have done that before it was very interesting because i walk in and you're the robotics teacher so what do you you can create whatever you want and honestly i was i was worried but it actually turned out very it was nice because we are using colby and i
055don't know if any of you have laura shower she is primarily in the harvey building i think right now she works a lot with the robotics and she introduced me to colby he's a little mouse that is robotic and it's really easy for hands-on for the kids to use especially when you have some kids who are you know going into kindergarten so they're five some kids who are just leaving uh second grade so they're nine yes i think they're around nine so um i'm a second grade teacher next year so i should probably know this so you know they're nine so you know you have a big age graph in your age gap and we had we were going to have 60 students doing colby all at once then ben shoemaker and i were talking
056we were like oh no let's not do that so we actually split them up into tigers and bears so one day the tigers will do robotics and the bears will do legos and then the next day they switch so they're getting equal parts legos and colby and it's been really great i've we've had some you know we're really working on teamwork and working through problems i specifically don't tell the students everything so they can figure it out my high school mentors are amazing because they've helped me figure some out things out that i didn't know about so they're really great and they really they've never worked with kids before but you would never know because they're just amazing at it um and then next session so we worked on colby these first four weeks in
057the next session we're going to be working with sphero and the spheros actually go through a computer whereas colby was she just you know he was just the mouse on batteries and had amazed so uh good thing laura's coming back because i'm gonna need a little extra help with that one but um yeah so we're excited for sphero to start and i you know told the students about it who are coming who are staying for session two and they're really excited to try something new um we tried we set up a challenge where they could create their own mazes and see if ever if the other teams could get through them and um you know you have those students who wanted to create impossible mazes so we had to we had to tweak those a
058little bit but you know it was all fun and uh we have posters here so there's a bunch of pictures of them and they just had a lot of fun they were they worked with new people every single day with the groups and um there was you know some groups worked better than others but we always made it work and they really loved it so yeah those are some of our pictures and then each of them i took a picture of each of their groups and then gave them to them made a copies of each of them because laura gave us photo money out of her own pocket which was amazing oh sorry so and we were able to get pictures out and give them so they could po put them on the board or
059take them home and show their parents or whoever watches them at home what they were doing so it was really great and i'm loving it and i'm hoping that maybe i can incorporate this next year throughout the year because i know that we have them in the district now and just figuring out how to get them in my classroom would be great because i know my the second graders i worked with love them so i know they're going to love them next year so yeah yeah thank you you're welcome so just some more thank yous on here um everybody on this screen i just want to thank them matt and his instructional team from the beginning the harvey center and angie she opened the doors and really allowed us to do this lance at the
060high school opening it up to the middle school christy and club in the kids clubhouse guess what she has all her stuff planned out and then i come back in about i don't know april 20th hey we're gonna have this other program called level up in the same building as your kids you know club she's been really great i mean we've had a little hiccups but we work through them kevin and the technology team coming in to help with all this robotics and doing all of the you know with the coding in the computers it's been amazing trevor and transportation a family calls and today i want to be picked up and taken to grandma's but tomorrow i want to go to the to the la la center or whatever and he's been really flexible
061with that the team has been great chris and the cafeteria staff has been really um great on there kevin in facilities he's allowed steve and craig to stay at the building because we have about 300 kids every day and so originally he thought we didn't need that but you know what we really have needed that the other two that i did not think about on here the hr and the business teams i'm going to do that right here i really apologize for leaving you guys off but all of you guys at this table this program couldn't happen and of course all the staff that's really been supporting it but it takes a village and i just appreciate the opportunity to service you guys and hopefully we can keep building keep supporting so thank you guys
062questions doesn't sound like we have questions but thank you very much for the presentation and thank you it's it's nice to hear from folks right in the program working with the kids every day so thanks very much yeah great job awesome work thank you okay next up on our agenda as uh curriculum and instruction nothing tonight that's quick next up number five is communications we've uh received some emails obviously uh from the last meeting to this meeting i think all board members receive those i'm not aware of other communications that's it okay uh number six on the agenda old business no old business we're moving right along uh next on the agenda is approval of the consent agenda can i get a motion i'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda including
063approval of minutes of the june 21 2021 regular meeting personnel report number one financial report number two including payment of general fund bills in the amount of one million seven hundred twenty six dollars oh sorry one million seven hundred twenty six one hundred and eighteen dollars and twenty cents food service fund bills in the amount of forty two thousand seven hundred forty one dollars and eighty four cents sinking fund bills in the amount of 152. or one hundred fifty two thousand three hundred forty two dollars and sixty five cents and the capital project fund bills in the amount of four hundred sixty nine thousand three hundred twenty eight dollars and two cents is there support support moved and supported any discussion it's a consent agenda so yep um i have a quick uh was dr
064tichner's presentation was that live or recorded okay it's live okay all those in favor aye aye aye opposed okay consent agenda approved moving on to oops sorry my mouse is malfunctioning uh number eight on the agenda committee and superintendent reports first up uh finance and property do we have anyone from the finance and property committee they did not meet okay excellent no meeting in july uh next up community and staff relations i i i suppose i should just quickly report that we met today at 6 p.m we had public comments we talked about a diversity resolution that will be going to the full board next month we talked about communications and we adjourned shortly thereafter the next meeting is uh august 16th next month thank you and then next is uh policy and curriculum all
065right we met on june 28th we started at 5 30. we had public comment um we heard from several members of the commit of the community first step was after that was the eighth grade cedar point trip which is nice to see that back mr haney came and it's and this is the incentive trip at the end of eighth grade and that had the full committee support to go for vote so i will have a motion here in a little bit we had lengthy discussion about neola policy and at the end of the day there was some question with regards to some language and some verbage and how to utilize it and how to amend it um and because this was the recommendation for um rewrite on it or some edits on what the neola
066verbiage was we had some feedback and we're asking for it to go back to the group that it came from so that is administrators and union members teachers and paraprofessionals in that sitting at the table hashing out the thought processes and the language that we talked about so it is not back before the board today um because we wanted to afford that committee the opportunity to hear what our feedback was hear what the community has had to say and afford that group the opportunity to do that it probably will not be done at this point until getting closer to the start of school just because it is summer vacation um but as it stands policy 2240 is continuing in our board policy for the start of the school year and then we had further public
067comment at the end of the committee meeting and we adjourned at 8 15. our next meeting is august 23rd questions for liz before she goes into some motions i i do have to add that inadvertently the field trip was um omitted from tonight's agenda but it will be on the august agenda and that will not it's not until spring it's a spring trip so there's no no delay or any type of uh problem that will cause at all in relation to the arrangement and the planning and delivery of that trip we'll have it on the agenda in august sorry for that i'd like to make a motion to approve the elementary middle school and high school handbooks as presented support moved and supported is there a discussion hearing none all those in favor aye aye
068opposed i didn't say aye but 5-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve the neola updates as presented support moved and supported is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed five zero is that the end of your report that's it short and sweet they're all part of that correct uh the next policy the next uh committee to report is capital improvement committee which did not meet we got an email update on progress lots of dirt being moved at steel especially and some cleanup items at some other schools but the next scheduled meeting is next week if i'm recalling correctly or we're also not having a july capital improvement committee meeting there'll be no july meeting however we will have an email update got it that's what i thought as well
069next on the agenda is superintendent we do have a few items for the board's consideration tonight some approval of contract extensions for three individuals and then a new contract for uh director of student supports um the board was was given information relation to the uh the small changes that were made to the contracts the language of the contract is pretty pretty uh mature so um not much has changed in that regard but uh um it's a another extension another year added to the contracts of the individuals that you're going to be asked to uh vote on and prove first one up is the executive director of curriculum okay so everyone has that in their packet um i think we have to probably start with a motion and then second and then discussion so does anyone
070want to make a motion i'd like to make a motion to approve the contract for executive director of curriculum as presented support okay moved and supported uh discussion hearing none all those in favor aye opposed 5-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve the contract for chief financial officer as presented i'll support that's moved and supported i don't know if ron you want to go into any more details during discussion or just run through all of them like we're doing i think it's fine okay so moved and supported any discussion all those in favor aye aye aye aye opposed none 5-0 i'd like to make a motion to approve the contract for human resource director as presented support moved and supported any discussion hearing none all those in favor aye aye aye opposed 5-0
071like to make a motion to approve the contract for director of student sports as presented support moved and supported is there a discussion on this item i set a question regarding the role and responsibilities of the individual who had other a previous role what uh what implications that i have for the district are we pursuing another yes we'll be posting that position um here shortly probably tomorrow after tonight's action if the board approves um and then moving forward to be an internal posting we do know that they're potentially that you know it's dependent on um some of the the stimulus dollars so in two years there's a chance that those positions will disappear or at least the dos position will disappear and so that person would move back into his current position and then we
072would displace that person in that position as well everyone's going into those positions knowing that that could potentially happen when federal stimulus dollars dry up okay so we built those safeguards out because he is an impressive candidate has done a fantastic job and that's yeah that would be a big loss yeah in any case other discussion all those in favor aye opposed 5-0 i'd like to i do want to add to in relation to the first three contracts the individuals here at our table have done an outstanding job for the district over um you know several years for for many of them um their contract reflects their work and dedication to the district and i want to thank them personally for for the value that they bring each and every day to our team um
073you know this year was not an easy one by any means but they stepped up beyond expectations and helped out in a plethora of areas and i think the example of level up today is just one such example i'm very very pleased to have them as part of my staff and our staff and our team they're tremendous leaders and i enjoy uh meeting with them weekly and every day occasionally so thank you for all your work and dedication and i know they're very grateful for for the contracts i'm very excited to bring craig on board we did interview two internal candidates for that position craig certainly brings a wealth of experience some good knowledge had some good plans in relation to some of the areas that we're pursuing with that position and so we're hoping
074to expand the the programs we offer for student supports you'll see more of that in the coming weeks and months and we're excited to to get started and and provide more resources more supports for our kids on a daily basis at each and every school in our district so i want to thank the board for your support with those positions okay and they're not exactly related but another motion has to do with uh calendar if someone wants to make that one i'd like to make a motion to approve the 2021-22 district calendar as presented support moved and supported is there a discussion here none all those in favor aye opposed another 5-0 next on our agenda is introduction of other matters by members of the board just very quickly i was very impressed by the
075level up presentation it's been a long few months and it's very refreshing to actually see kids and teachers again so i'm going to throw out there maybe a challenge we'll get to it when we get to it because life is busy already but a cool stuff happening in schools perhaps visit occasionally to the board we certainly have a lot of great things going on in mason sometimes as a board member we're i don't want to see disconnected but we're a little distant from the classroom so it's very refreshing to see that you know in the past we've had some of those types of things of course we haven't been able to do that for a while so maybe something we can talk about ron at our community staff relations meeting just put on the agenda
076i don't want to add anything to an already busy schedule for people but it sure it really is great to see teachers and kids and and experience that particularly for those of us who don't have kids in the school district anymore so that's my only other matter from the board here tonight thank you anybody else boy i thought it would be about 10 o'clock when i got to this item tonight moving right along next item on the agenda is the second opportunity for public requests and comments for those who did not come at the first opportunity same thing if if you want to announce your name and address you can you can do that or you can just fill out the form and and hand it to me i'll give folks a minute if they
077want to do that and that's 11 on the agenda and then the last item is adjournment so i'll wait just a moment in case anyone else wants to oh did i miss one oh while you're filling that out thank you other matters by the superintendent if you have any no other matters okay sorry thanks i know this is weird and different but it's working for me so thank you i'm going to say it wrong is it michael or nicole nicole okay go ahead this is my first time coming to a board meeting i'm a little emotional because i don't think anyone here wants to be on the wrong side of history we don't want to fail our kids we don't want to live in a community where children that attend mason public schools are discriminated
078again based on their color of their skin or sexual orientation or what have you i i really think we're missing them we're really missing a boat here because there has now been publicly people on the board that have been put out there as after you have requested not to and there's for freedom of information act and i have no idea what they're talking about so i'm only basing on what i've heard but i'm pleading for common sense here i work with the children of mason public school i also substitute teach in another area and coach i love the kids and i get to work with the best of the best where i work can we do better always i believe we can always do better but i want you know i don't know if anybody's
079familiar with ann atwater or cp ellis but if you're not you need to get really refreshed with them because i've been really trying to figure out what the best message to say to all of you i've been praying about this i don't know if that's allowed for me to say that but because i really love this community you know for us to just say that we are racist because of the color of my skin you have no idea what ethnicity i am you have no idea the ethnicity of my children you may look at them and they look white but you have no idea so what are we going to do to start wearing name tags this bling i mean that's ludicrous there is a right way and a wrong way to do things and
080i think that there's a lot of hurt and when there are people that are hurt and you're angry you're missing the message that you want to distribute to the community i don't believe mason is racist i believe that we may have some issues i believe that we need to teach our children to be kind that that's the preface of life is to be kind and to show compassion and grace it is not to look at you and say you know what you're white so you're racist or you're black and you're oppressed or you're mexican you know that's not that's not my family is very diverse that is not the preface of lice is to especially the united states of america you have i mean some fam my family and my husband's family he's second generation
081immigrated here from the lebanon syrian civil war which is still going on here okay there is pride in my husband's family from where they come from and there is nothing wrong with being proud to be an american because that is what we are we are americans and the people that are dying to come to this country and the people that have moved here because they love america we can do better as a community absolutely none of us are perfect but i am not going to tell a child that i coach or teach that i am biased already because i am white just because the color of my skin that is completely ignorant i think 2240 is important because we have to have ground rules because facts i can switch that any other in any way
082i can i mean there are facts over here and facts for whatever side you are we moved to my husband were talking we moved to mason i didn't move to mason because it was a racist community i moved out of where i went for the best education for my child and we chose mason after researching it i believe in this community i believe that we as a community can come together i know my time can come together and have some resolution but i'm not going to start throwing people or pointing at people i believe that this is possible for everyone who feels a certain way to be respected and hear it out but you know i am not going to have a pissing match on facebook i refuse i service the flint community detroit mason
083wherever because i love my community and i know i can do better so you can call me not you people can call me whatever name they want but i know who i am who i stand for so i want my kids to go to mason public schools because i believe in mason public schools and i believe you guys will make the right decisions for the children of mason public schools because you were elected and you care for our children so please do the right thing thank you i'll write this down for you but i'll just say it out loud too because nobody's recording so my name is aaron rosas i live at 4090 sycamore street here in mason i wasn't planning on speaking again today i spoke at the last like committee meeting um but
084i decided at that last meeting that i needed to start coming to the meetings and get to know who you all are and i'm i'm really disappointed that the topic of how things are going to run in the fall is not being discussed yet we were asked as as parents to make a decision on whether we were going to do virtual school next year or in person school quite a while ago and we're making that decision based on what because if you are going to ask my child to be tested he he's not going to go to mason public school if you're going to ask my child to wear a mask every day he's not going to go to mason public school and i won't i actually honestly won't even send him to your virtual
085school either i will put him somewhere else or i'll homeschool him which i do with some of my other children and you know i know that you as a board you're going to make the decision that you feel is best for the children the teachers the community i understand that but the fact that you're not giving us parents any time to make decisions is very frustrating it's very frustrating um you know my right as a parent to make just the best health care decisions for my child is immutable but i'm not going to have any time you're going to make a decision right before school starts and then if i have to do school of choice what is my option you know you're putting me and many other parents in a bad decision in a
086bad position um so i am disappointed i am very disappointed that that is not on your agenda tonight um and that has not been discussed i know that covet has been ever changing and i understand that the difficult position that you have been in the in in that um but like someone else said you could have a plan a and a plan b at least we'd know where to go from there so um i just wanted to make sure that you understood that you know and i i am not alone as a parent and feeling this way um so maybe you need to be listening to that part of the parent the parents speaking out but you know i am i appreciate the work that you are doing and i did enjoy sitting through your
087meeting and i will be here in the future as well thank you thank you anyone else tonight okay last item on the agenda is german i'd like to make a motion to adjourn support moved and supported any discussion on adjournment all those in favor aye aye 5-0 thank you 8 12. you