001well the response is usually negative from that instead of reflecting on that you guys choose to Gaslight and deflect and blame us for causing tension and toxicity in the district no we're bringing awareness there's a big difference we don't summarize your words we don't misrepresent your arguments in many situations we let you tell them your stance and your very own words it's not our fault that so many people in this town are so unhappy with the things you guys are doing as a board you keep trying to mischaracterize our intentions which I get really I do it's hard to get everyone to support your side if you told them the truth that's why I'm so grateful you've made this easy for us all we have to do is expose your views for what they are
002it's not hard and it doesn't require us having to manufacture anything radical you provide us with plenty of material on a consistent basis like the 10-minute ramp by Jan Kiger where she waved her Bible around and then accused parents of shaming sexual assault victims into silence all we did was share the video and the interesting thing is that statement actually inspired some actual survivors from the community to come to meetings and tell you your stance on this was wrong that you shouldn't use them as a reason these books should be in the schools but the funny thing is none of you mentioned that you changed your position on this after that nor did you mention that perhaps we shouldn't have been accused of being victim Chambers after all no you just stopped talking about it
003apparently when you said you cared so much for sexual assault victims you meant specifically the ones that agreed with you yet another accusation and manipulation of our position that has proven to be inaccurate it has nothing more than a feeble attempt at deflecting from your misguided arguments seems since that didn't work out in your favor you have decided to move on to yet another lie to try and discredit us how about the accusation that we are inciting violence and that we encourage people to send threatening messages that was another deflection you've tried recently after you were humiliated with the videos of your actions going viral but that didn't play well either did it so I noticed you're starting to change the language around that in the minutes for example the meeting minutes from the last
004meeting this is how secretary haika chose to manipulate and misrepresent my public comment Holly valade commented on receiving threats herself and her belief that the board blamed commenters for the violent threats received by the board all right well let's revisit that shall we some of the words of yourself and your fellow board members in the past two months Michelle haika difficult to compromise when the following language is thrown at you disgusting grammar pervert and once you reduce someone to something as horrific as a pervert or a groomer it becomes very easy and incites some to physical threats also Michelle haika stop with the hyperbole name calling and incitement of violence Carrie Macchio there is no low that is too low attacks on teachers Public Schools board members even students as we've seen here tonight so
005you tell me were these statements all in my imagination or did you all makes who made several comments that implied and accused of us of inciting violence yet again another abuse of power by this board misrepresenting us which is I guess understandable that it's hard to remember everything you've said when you're constantly Reinventing Your Position hello I'm Jan kager I would like to congratulate our students on their NWA scores and to thank the staff and families and everyone that worked so hard to help them achieve that thank you thank you for the comment are there others all right next up on the agenda is a routine matters for approval I need a motion to approve the minutes of the regular board meeting on February 22nd 2023. move by pharaoh support by Murray so Newton's supported
006to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of February 22nd 2023 is there any discussion hearing none it's been moved and supported to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of February 22nd 2023 Miss haika sure yep Cislo yes Fair yes Murray yes motion carries four zero yeah four is a quorum four out of seven next up I need a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting closed session of February 22nd 2023 moved by Pharaoh support by haika it's been moving supported to approve the minutes of the regular meeting closed session of February 22nd 2023 again these are in the envelope any questions or concerns all right it's been moved and supported to approve the minutes of the regular meeting closed session of 2022 February 22nd of 2023 Miss haika yes pharah yes
007Murray yes motion carries 4-0 we can hand those to the center next up I need a motion to approve the bills and reimbursement of expenses moved by pharaoh support by Marie so move and supported to approve the bills and reimbursement of expenses any questions or concerns I just have one comment yeah um I just wanted to the board to know that um there were funds that were requested and received federal funds that were requested and received in February so you will see that in the February financial statements thank you Mr Farrell any other questions or comments right it's been moved and supported to approve the bills and reimbursement of expenses Miss hika yes hiker yes Murray motion carries four zero [Applause] uh next up is board organization um this is where we're going to talk
008about the board vacancy interview planning with the resignation of Miss Macchio we have a vacancy we advertise that to the community and we received 11 applications for that um for that vacancy we will be we need to fill that position within 30 days or it becomes the responsibility of the wasd to fill that position um so we have received those applications I have emailed those um those 11 applicants to see if they're going to be available at the March 22nd meeting for a uh for an in-person interview as required to do that in Open Session uh just for everybody's awareness the the candidates are Angela chiduser Adam deangeli Robin Eggman George Melvin Elder IV Daniel Hoover Carrie a caravan Gutierrez Cassie Pryor Laura Russo James M Smith Garrett Gary tapke and William E Van Buren
009Van Buren Jr I apologize if I mispronounced anybody's name um so those folks will be present at the March 22nd meeting for a uh for an interview by the board uh at your spot you will see a a handout that says the interview process for the board vacancy and this will be relatively similar to how we filled the last vacancy except that we just have more candidates last time we had five candidates this time we have 11. so the idea is that we will pick a random order of the board members will be chosen to ask questions and then a random order of the 11 candidates will be chosen um basically the candidates will be grouped into groups of two or three and then rotate it as the questions are asked so that either the
010candidates will be either asking answering these questions early on during the interview um during the middle of the interview or at the end of the at the end of the of the question so it doesn't give it shouldn't give anybody an unfair advantage that they always have to go first they always have to go last so it's um we believe this is the fairest way to uh to ask these questions so each board member will have a question that they ask of all 11 candidates during that time with that one of the things that we do need to discuss tonight is the the length of time for the answers of of those questions um again with 50 with 11 candidates and five board members that are going to ask questions that uh is basically uh
01155 a multiplier of 55 right there so if we do a one minute answer we're basically talking an hour of the interview if it's a one and a half minute answer it's a hour and a half interview and if we do two minutes per answer it'd be a two hour interview so are there any thoughts on the length of time to answer the questions oh I suggest we give two minutes I agree with Mr Farrow I think this is an important um an important matter and I would like to give the candidates as much time as possible to express their views okay and that is consistent with what we've done in the past it was a two-minute time limit when we did the uh replaced the uh the vacancy last time um so at that
012after all the questions have been asked and answered um each board member will be asked to rank the candidates one to eleven and that ranking will be based on the written answers that they provided to the board which are the same questions that we ask of all candidates at the um uh the school board candidate sessions and we've also asked them at the um at the other vacancy interviews that we've had so these are the same questions that we've used um for uh for quite a while so there should be no surprises there um again so the board members will rank those candidates from 1 to 11 on cards those cards will be handed in and then there will be a tally and then there'll be a score for each uh each candidate and again
013so the best candidate would be um the best fit candidate would be one and then the last candidate would be 11. those scores will be tallied and then the idea is that basically we kind of cut that in half as we go in order to weed out any you know wild discrepancies and score so we'll go from 11 to potentially five or six candidates to vote on down to three or four or four yeah four or five and then get down to eventually two or three that we would all vote on or provide those tallies on and those tallies would be collected we would do those tallys the same time same way each time so basically it's just you're going from one to eleven to one to six to one to four to one to
014two I mean just depending on how the scores come out so um and then base the the candidate that has the lowest score would be nominated and voted by the board to fill the vacancy that the night of that meeting which was which would be within the 30-day requirement of of Miss Macchio's resignation um so my thought is um every uh every board member needs to come up with a question that they will be asking um I um I will serve as the uh um the moderator as far as the keeping track of the order of the candidates making sure time is is followed and then to fill in if necessary if we don't have um the the all the members here to ask questions so um those are the thoughts are there any questions
015or concerns with how we'll move forward with the the interview process for the board vacancy no so with that with a uh approximately two hour interview which would just be the questions themselves not including the voting um that's obviously going to be a longer meeting we do have a we will have a reinstatement hearing that evening as well so the thought with that is that we begin the meeting at 5 30 to have the reinstatement hearing where we would just we would call the meeting to order we would have the pledge allegiance Allegiance go go into closed session and hear the reinstatement make it this uh make it and come back into Open Session make a decision on the uh um the reinstatement and then recess until seven o'clock such that you know we have
016enough time for everybody to arrive the candidates to arrive so that the the rest of the normal business um would happen at seven the reason that it's it's just easier um to extend a regular meeting the time instead of voting to have uh uh two separate meetings so that's the idea is to go ahead and have the uh just extend the start the meeting earlier at 5 30 to consider that reinstatement and then start a regular business at seven any questions regarding that right so in that regard we need to have um there you'll see out your site at your table as well there's a notice of change of a regular meeting of the Milan Area Schools Board of Education so I need a motion to approve the CH of a change of time for
017the March 22nd 2023 meeting as detailed in the attachment provided which will be posted and basically says that the meeting start time on March 22nd is going to be 5 30. it's been rude and supported to approve the change of time for the March 22nd 2023 regular meeting as detailed in the attachment provided any further discussion right it's been moved and supported to approve the change of time for the March 22nd 2023 regular meeting as detailed in the attachment provided Miss haika haika yes Murray yes Cislo yes pharah yes motion carries 4-0 thank you all right next up on the agenda in the area of personnel and Leadership we have a teacher appointment I need a motion to appoint the following person to the teaching position listed in base salary effective March 20th 2023 and
018this is Michelle Bowman as a paddock Behavior specialist all right pharaoh it's been moved and supported to appoint the following person to the teaching position listed in the base salary listed effective March 20th 2023. Mr Goodwill um as you know I think they go to sleep okay as you know um last month we promoted our Behavior specialist at Paddock into the director position of the paddock Early Childhood Center we immediately posted that position and we were lucky to get several very qualified candidates we're excited to bring the candidate to you tonight Michelle Bowman she as you look at her resume she's worked in one district for numerous years she's received several Awards there she's accepted several promotions there um right now she moves and services multiple districts because she works on ISD and she wants
019to have one home and have one building that she works in and so that's her reason for coming she's very qualified and we're excited to be able to bring someone so quickly to fill that vacancy any questions or concerns all right it's been moved and supported to appoint the following person to the teaching position listed in base salary listed effective March 20th 23 this Michelle Bowman of the paddock Behavior specialist Miss haika I go yes Marie yes Cislo yes great Oh wrong one Pharaoh yes the wrong one sorry motion carries four zero next up is I need a motion to extend superintendent gearbox contract by one year through June 30th 2028 moved by haika support by pharaoh it's been rude and supported to extend superintendent gear boss contract by one year through June 30th 2028
020uh just so everyone is aware this is required contract language that prior to April 1st of each year the Board needs to consider taking official action to extend his appointment for an additional year this is standard contract language and all super almost all superintendent agreements throughout Michigan um this does not set any salary figures or change any language of the contract um and again this extension would restore the fifth year to his contract and the new ending date would be June 30th 2028. um any questions or concerns regarding the superintendent contract extension all right it's been moved and supported to extend superintendent gearbox contract one year through June 30th of 2028 Miss haika Marie yes Cislo yes pharah yes hika yes motion carries 4-0 all right [Music] next up on the agenda is the policy
0219130 review as included in an attachment a which I will read whereas the district and board have received several challenges seeking to remove or restrict access to District Library books the board has adopted policy 9130 which includes a procedure for responding to library book challenges number three the district and the board recognize that removing or restricting access to library books implicates important constitutional questions number four the district and the board have endeavored to comply with all constitutional and legal mandates by Faithfully following the procedures and policy 9130 number five despite the districts and the board's efforts the board is aware that a criminal complaint was filed against the district and District officials alleging that allowing students to check certain books out of the library constitutes criminal activity now therefore be it resolved that number one
022the board authorizes authorizes and directs the superintendent and District legal counsel to seek guidance from appropriate local state or federal agencies about whether allowing students to check out certain books out of the books out of the library constitutes criminal activity number two the board suspends that portion of board policy 9130 that addresses library book challenges until further action of the board number three the board directs administrators to ensure that no book is removed from the library nor is access to any book restricted unless expressly authorized by the board this paragraph does not apply to any book that was removed from the library withdrawn from circulation or to which access was restricted prior to this resolution number four the board finds that this resolution is necessary and appropriate to ensure that all decisions related to removing
023or restricting access to library books is consistent with constitutional requirements and is not based on the threat of criminal prosecution number five administrators are directed and authorized to implement all terms of this resolution are delegated and are delegated all necessary authority to do so and number six all resolution and parts of resolutions that conflict with the provisions of this resolution are rescinded I need a motion to approve and need a motion in regards to that attachment moved by Pharaoh support by haika it's been moved and supported to approve the resolution as provided by the Troon Law Firm PC as an included in attachment a discussion well I'll start um I fully believe that the district is not in violation of any statute as it relates to any of these books in the current climate however
024um I believe we should seek guidance on on our obligations and um to provide that finality to this ongoing debate that we're having in these board meetings as to what those obligations are what the Constitution requires what the statute requires this way I feel like if we get this guidance we'll be able to use that guidance to guide us down our path additionally and let me say this current climate um is very active I mean they were just comments on Facebook just in the last week or two that once once board members are criminally charged then maybe they'll you know listen so this is an ongoing issue um and there are some very vocal people who um are are pushing for this um additionally I I believe that our teachers our administrators and particularly our
025librarians have a right to do their jobs without the threat of criminal charges anytime they pick out a book that someone in the community might find objectionable that's not the way a library works that's not the way Librarians work and I would like our Librarians to be able to continue the jobs their job the way they have in the past I do have one question though Andrew yes in regards to some comments earlier suspending this policy it doesn't prevent community members from submitting their charges or their their challenges right they can still submit them but we won't act on them or form a committee until we get this guidance and reinstate the policy is that right that's correct and let me add to this also not only do all the administrators the staff and the
026Librarians have the right to do their job without this threat I don't feel comfortable forming a committee who everyone's demanding to know who or who's on these committees I don't feel comfortable asking community members to volunteer their time on a committee when if a Community member is unhappy about their right their recommendation that then they'll go file a criminal charge against them so I just feel like everyone needs some stability everyone needs some guidance and I think this is the best way to to do that and also to your point and number three it's a um that the parent that none of this is going to apply it to any book that was removed from the library withdrawn from circulation or to which access was restricted prior to this resolution so I think Miss Bennett
027brought up a good point in regards to tension and my view on this is that there's tension between these statutes and um the board is seeking guidance on these statutes so that we can move forward with this business the board desires to follow the statutes to the best of its ability and when there's tension between those statutes it's the board's responsibility to protect the district and get guidance on those statutes so that we can move forward so really I mean my view on this is this is a tension between statutes that needs to that needs resolution for us so that we can move forward and other comments so um you know it's been moved and supported to approve the resolution as provided by Truman Law Firm PC and included as attachment a which was red
028misseka Isla yes Pharaoh yes yes Marie yes motion carries four zero next up on the agenda is the book study of why Meadow died again uh this was a book that was recommended by some parents and purchased for the board to to review in regards to school safety and the school shooting that took care that took place in Florida just a devastating event we've reviewed uh the beginning of the book in chapters one and two and today we are going to be reviewing uh chapters three and four just to start in regards to chapter three chapter three was in my view was was basically how the authors of the book met it's Andrew Pollock who's the father of meadow who is the the student who was shot and killed and Max Eden who's an education
029reform researcher um the chapter extensively discussed media coverage of the shooting including a television interview with the Broward County Sheriff where the interviewer asked about the role of This Promise program in Broward County and just remember this is something that we've talked about in regards to this book this is a a program that the county and the schools agreed to which led to less punitive means of discipline for students um the during the this chapter the author has mentioned many times how unfortunate he feels that the media feeds into the culture War aspect of firearms when he knows that there's other things that contribute to these school shootings um he again he he feels that in general the media goes into covering a culture war of of firearms in chapter four we met a a
030student Kenneth Preston who is a 19 year old homeschooled student who pursued a story about uh safety money that the the Broward County Schools received and it was delayed for this school and being spent on a fire alarm system that may have kept students from running into the halls and being shot so he did a lot of investigative work in regards to this he spoke with school board members and the superintendent they recanted the information that they gave him and disputed the story that he was writing um he was able to make a public comment at a school board meeting about his research and eventually Kenneth at the end of the chapter he connects up with the author Max Eden um and well I'm sure that we'll hear more about um their relationship as the
031book moves forward so that that just kind of sets off what uh what the two chapters were about um through others have comments on the on the book Mr sister yes Mr Fair I have a very good summary of both chapters so I don't have much to add one thing that I wanted to mention was there's a consistent theme about briard school district and that is that they move towards a different kind of discipline one that would not um just punish students but also help them address the root causes of their misbehavior Max Eden who's a education specialist asserted that test scores had increased suspensions had plummeted graduation rates had soared by quote faking the numbers and that quote the numbers were not real um there was discussion about the roles of policy the move
032towards Lincoln City um again like like you said Andrew there's a lot of criticism over the Broward County's promise program um one thing that I caught in chapter three was that um the policy encouraged warnings and consultations with parents programs on conflict resolution instead of arresting students for actual crimes the shooter's crimes in this instance within the school were apparently not brought to the attention of the police in chapter 4 Kenny Preston who is a student journalist said that there were a lot of people looking for answers to the same questions and some of those questions include what if the shooter had been arrested what if the administrators had decided not to ignore his behavior have the shooter face some sort of criminal charge could that have stopped him from Legally buying a gun you
033referenced the alarm system at the school district um this uh student journalist referenced an updated alarm system within the school district as having been delayed and not including what's called an active trigger mechanism when the alarm is activated it doesn't go off instantly it sends a signal to the office and gives time for the staff to decide whether the alarm should go off not all of the teachers on the third floor in this High School had recognized the sound of gunshots so when the alarm fire alarm went off several teachers had sent their students into the hallway thinking that it was just a drill this investing the student journalist also indicates that various safety projects within Broward schools had been significantly delayed the superintendent Mr runese disputes that um and I think you've covered the
034balance of chapter four but that's all I have right now thank you referral I I think um you know as we read these chapters and you get more into the the policies of the Broward County Schools you do see the role that the promise program played um or at least is alleged to have played I think the role it played I'm just going to say that um is you know that so everyone knows according to the book and I haven't read the program or seen the disciplined Matrix but according to the book um The Matrix prevented school officials from calling the police even when a student committed a misdemeanor on campus and then it was revealed in the book staff members told the reporters that that policy also extended to felonies so even a student
035who committed a felony on campus would not an Administration would not call the police and they would not allow them to arrest the student on campus and so there is some discussion from the school resource officer about how they felt their hands were tied because there was very little they could do because of the promise program as well and so you can see that how this is very problematic um and I I think that it's important as I think you said Andrew maybe not but I think it's important to point out that we don't have a program like that here and so that's a big difference already between Broward County schools and the Milan School District I didn't talk about that this evening but I yeah someone did recently sorry yeah Ms Marie um yeah
036in in trying to look through chapters three and four again through the lens of our district and our experience um the author writes it's on page 43 he writes um he was talking about uh like incentive and punishments if you want to call it that are incentives and consequences for districts Financial ones for changing or creating Improvement in their discipline numbers and so the quote here on 43 says with those policy levelers and incentives in place and with ever more money flowing to woke conferences and training programs School District leaders across the country learned that the fastest path to their career advancement was to fake statistical progress for minority students while passionately decrying privilege and institutional racism and so there's a lot to unpack even in just that little paragraph but um I had experience
037myself teaching around this time period or like during the second Obama administration when No Child Left Behind and raised to the top programs like there were Financial incentives to districts and um to it was in their best interest too be able to move students forward and reduce those numbers absolutely and and I agree with the author to a certain extent that monetary incentives to districts are extremely problematic when you dangle a money carrot and threaten to punish or reward it is a breeding ground for dishonesty and so the author then talks about some Washington DC schools who had misrepresented graduation numbers to kind of like build build this case around the incentives and consequences so yes I agree that that is bad policy but I disagree with the author here that um minority students don't
038need to be focused on necessarily or that um privilege and institutional racism don't play a part in our in our disciplinary systems and that I think here like bringing it back to Milan and what we're trying to do with our restorative justice programs in our schools is to work in concert with our law enforcement we we don't turn a blind eye to you know infractions that have legal consequences and we try to apply tenets of restorative justice along with whatever you know legal requirements might exist for that student at that time um there's I I also really agree that he brings up a number of times just the media response and the tendency to just dig down into a yet another culture where anytime we experience one of these tragedies as a nation and you
039know we've recently experienced that as a state like we um have had tragedies very close to home and I couldn't agree more that's exactly what happens we sit in our silos and we regurgitate our talking points and I am eager for the day when we move past that and have some Real Change around that um I think that's it for me right now cool thanks any other questions or comments in regards to the book all right I did uh make a mistake in the agenda I skipped the uh superintendent evaluation planning and goal setting so we will move back up to um number three of the uh uh for the superintendent evaluation planning and goal setting um recently the board completed a uh evaluation of Mr gearbaugh he received a rating of effective there's several
040areas that we evaluate Mr gearbot in regards to that there's governance in board relations there's community relations there's staff relations there's business and finance and there's instructional leadership there's also student achievement and as well as progress towards towards District goals that are set as well as what's in the Strategic plan um so in regards to that now it's time to start planning for the next round uh of Mr gearbaugh's evaluation um as recommended by the Michigan area School Board Association um uh Michigan missionary School boards um they recommend that we look at these there's several domains underneath underneath each of those sections that we evaluate Mr gearbox on on a rubric which is very similar to how our students are evaluated for grades and then also our teachers for for how they perform um so
041again underneath each of those groups are subdomains and our facilitator recommends that we look at those subdomains look at areas that um that should be a priority Focus as as Mr gearbaugh moves forward and then maybe there's some things that he does well at that we need to just have a continued focus on um so I did ask board members just to provide the Sub sub domains so that those could be collated to start our discussion this evening we're not going to be taking a vote on these this is more just of a discussion as we move forward it gets some consensus as we move forward with Mr gearbaugh's evaluation which will have a we I'll have quarterly updates on um in in closed session um Miss Marie um she just recently finished the training
042last night so she will be observing as we talk through this um I do have the ratings from Miss Rosen leacher and Miss Freight or the sub domains that they um uh were interested in these are summarized in a sheet that's uh that's at your seat um so basically um when we got those the I asked each board member to submit five uh five of these Sub sub domains for review and there was basically 10 of those domain subdomains that came back the recommendation is that we generally focus on four to five of these subdomains in regards to Mr gearbaugh's um evaluation so you can see in the summary one of the the two of the top mentions received four four mentions one was in instructional leadership in regards to student attendance another one was
043in the area of governance and board relations rate relations for policy involvement um then there were three domains that received three mentions and that was support for students in the area of instructional leadership uh communication with the community in regards to community relations recruitment in regards to staff relations and then a few of these received two mentions which was student feedback curriculum and Dei initiatives and then we had one mention each for staff communication and parent feedback so we'll have a brief discussion about this come to some consensus um so that we can formalize this as we as we move forward um and again the the thought was that there's four to five of these um that we identify as we move forward so um does anybody want to talk in regards to their I'll
044speak to my um my domains that I had put because I I was I had a student focus a a Community Focus um a staff focus and then a board and superintendent relationship Focus um definitely in regards to support for students um we it's um can obviously in this era that we're in coming out of um the shutdowns in regards to covet I think we're all aware of of the increased needs of students in regards to um their emotional health so I think that's something that we need to to continue as a school district one of the other things that I thought I thought was interesting was the attendance in general although Milan has has decent attendance I there are different ways that various schools calculate attendance which was uh something that was new to
045me so that's something that that the board was was interested in um I'm also the communication with Community we have the new District committee has been formed for the communications committee Mr gearbox actively working with that getting that up and going um as we work through that and then obviously the um the continued retention and recruitment of the quality teachers and staff that we have at my own school so those were the those were the ones that I was looking at yes Mr pharaoh so that the the top five areas of focus seem pretty clear um which uh would be E8 A1 E9 B2 C5 um so we would give Mr gearball five four or five of these items and that would be focused areas for the next year that's correct okay um and then
046for Community transparency um the areas that I um provided to the board include areas of improvement for Mr garabaugh included policy student attendance student feedback staff relations and communication and staff recruitment thank you Mr Farrell others or I guess msika it's me yeah um so my domains were my first domain was instructional leadership and support for students I'm particularly focused on the supports that we have for our students who have an IEP or a 504 or those students who are on the verge and and may need those supports as well um I also included my second choice was communication with the community I want to keep this path that we've started down rolling forward and with the with Mr gearbaugh using the communications committee and and helping us to continue to work on our communication
047with the community my third one was the student attendance this was an issue that came up just before covid and I think it kind of got lost in covid some of the some of the we do have historically very good attendance but you know focusing on attendance you can't learn if you're not here and so one of the ways to help our students is to find ways figure out why some students aren't coming particularly those who are habitually absent and what if anything we can do to help with that situation then my fourth um Focus was on curriculum I think that um I I think that you know we've been talking a lot about learning loss our test scores as I said at the last meeting mentioned you know we have made great strides in
048raising those test scores but I do think we should be focusing on the curriculum particularly and I'm not I'm always confused as to whether this should fall under a curriculum or if this should fall within support for students but I am particularly focused on the Transitions and the curriculum as we transition from Paddock to Simon's then Simon's to the middle school and the middle school to the high school if any of you have had a student that have made that progression you know they're very different schools as they should be but I want to make sure that we because we had talked about this quite a while ago pre-covered but making sure that that curriculum is aligned across the district so that students are are prepared and those transitions we can make these those situations
049as seamless as possible that's why I'm always not sure if that's a curriculum issue or if that's a student support issue and maybe it's both right right maybe it's both so those were the reasons that I included those particular domains so again like Mr Pharaoh said we do have consensus with the top five of student attendance policy involvement support for students communication with community and recruitment so those will be the areas of focus obviously this can be Revisited again this is a a an evaluation by consensus so as we as we go through the the quarterly feedback with Mr gearbaugh if if we need to adjust these we will certainly do that as we move forward so all right um next up on the agenda is the Strategic plan scorecard update so again with the
050uh the quarterly review of Mr gearbaugh um he presents the uh the Strategic plan score card update and he has provided that as part of the agenda packet and he's going to walk us through some highlights of that strategic compliance scorecard thank you um the scorecard update that's included in your board pack as an attachment will be posted on the district website tomorrow it's based off of the scorecard that you presented to me in the format and so my job is to one change the color coding of the different um sub pieces of each goal and so the community knows that's actually done by the board during each evaluation or quarterly update checkpoint so the board discusses and determines um whether those objectives under each goal are considered red green or yellow and at the
051very bottom of the scorecard green means that the objective has been met yellow means that the objective isn't on track and red means that the objective has not been met so the first thing that I did is I updated those colors to the colors that the board decided during my evaluation um and then my job is to go in and and fill in all of the potential data updates that we have for all of the different pieces so just talking through this quickly if you look at academic programs I did add the 2022 nwea cgps um conditional growth I also added the m-step and PSAT student growth percentiles I will note that the state did not calculate this year sgps for upper elementary students so that's why it says no data it's not available to
052us because the state did not provide that data to us so I updated the the nwea data I updated the m-step and PSAT data I also updated the SAT data we cannot update the AP course data yet because obviously those courses and tests are not completed for this school year at this time the next section that the board wanted to have reports on are the petition participation rates in extracurriculars and so what I did is so that you could have a comparison from year to year after each item you'll see that there are two numbers in parentheses the first number is the 2122 school year which is last year and the second set of parentheses is the 2223 school year so you can kind of see our participation this year compared to our participation last
053year obviously a few of those are still blank because those events have not yet occurred um the next section is the promotion rate we can't put a new promotion rate in place yet because we're not at the end of the school year however I did add the 2022 graduation rate that is determined by the state of Michigan and audited and Milan High School's graduation rate was 93.6 percent for the 2022 graduation year as you can see our history we kind of rebounded now back to where we were pre-covered and so that's nice that our graduation rate has rebounded back where we would like it to be in the learning environment and culture the major piece of pieces of data that you wanted reported were attendance and so remember this is the percent of students in
054attendance um it is important to note that while most of our attendance percentages are north of 90 percent I think Miss heike made the point and I agree that doesn't necessarily highlight any chronic absence situations that we have and so while our Focus will be on attendance and I appreciate the board selecting that subdomain as a focus area our focus is not going to be on attendance in general it's going to be working with our students who are chronically absent and trying to help their families determine and and solve issues that cause their students to be absent chronically absent the definition of that is absent more than 10 percent of the school year so while our attendance rates are similar um to a lot of districts our chronically absent percentages are a little bit higher
055than other districts and so that will be the focus as we work on student attendance but again you have those average attendance rates um the next item that was asked to be updated on is the disciplinary action and you can see for each month for each building the number of in-school and out-of-school suspensions so I did receive that information from the administration of each building you will see that the big highlight here is that our middle school with some changes in how they're handling discipline and making sure that they are addressing it and providing students with an understanding of what discipline will be issued and really working with our middle school students we do see a decrease in our Middle School suspensions this year both in school and out of school and that's due to
056a lot of hard work of the staff the administration and truly the student body improving Behavior at the middle school this year the next item is ongoing learning environment and culture initiatives there were a couple of things added there but not a tremendous amount a lot of those are ongoing from year to year and programs that we have in place to help our students in the learning environment under Communications with Community engagement we were asked to discuss current communication methods and those are listed I will tell you a board that in the end of year survey that we do that we started last year with K-12 insight they do have a series of questions that deal with communication with the community and we are going to be able to add those to our survey this
057year we won't be changing any of the other questions so that we can have continuous data from year to year in all of the other areas but we are allowed to add some communication questions to that survey which will give us some good feedback for me to use with the communication committee as we're looking at how to improve our communication with the community um the next section is personnel and Leadership under that category I was asked the new hires that we have in the district as well as those that have resigned or retired and so those lists are provided to you these are all of the folks that were hired or resigned or retired from the last day of school last year until this point of this year so that's kind of all of the
058new staff for this school year and then the last thing is in finance and operations we have some initiatives that we work on to make sure that our facilities are kept up to standards we have the district fund balance reported and then we have the fund balance above 10 percent I was able to update on the second set of numbers there they are now audited numbers for the district fund balance and the fund balance above 10 percent I appreciate your time and if you have any questions on the updated scorecard I can answer them foreign s um you will notice that there's some several of the objectives underneath the each of the areas are green so that'll be a future conversation those objectives were formed during the Strategic plan so obviously if they have been
059accomplished we need to revisit those and perhaps look at new objectives under each of those those areas so that'll be something that we'll be considering at a future board meeting so progress has been made on the Strategic plan and we appreciate that all right next up on the agenda is back to public comment um again this meeting is a meeting of the Board of Education and public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not to be considered a public meeting there are two times for public participation during the meeting as indicated in the agenda when addressing the board you'll be asked to state your name the board determines the amount of time granted to individuals or groups to speak each person shall be allowed to speak for up to three minutes
060and I'll ask you to finish your thought when the timer goes off board members May question speakers but are not obligated to answer questions or make statements or commitments in response to issues raised by the public in general such items would be referred to the superintendent for advisement investigation study and or recommendation or designated as future agenda items for board consideration are there any students who would like to address the board public members who would like to address the board Andrea Benning I want to carry on from the comments when I ran out of time with the last public comment session and then add to them as well um I'd like to share these quotes on leadership that reference partnership and engagement from Paul Schmidt and everybody leads leadership is not about a position that
061one is entitled to have it is about a process in which one takes a responsibility to engage and from the friends National Resource Center shared leadership involves a true partnership between parents and staff members who share responsibility for the process and outcomes of the group or team I encourage our Administration our Board of Education and our community to reflect on how you are engaging well with one another in regards to respectfully working through the tension of differing values and the decision-making process how you are building trust with transparency in your processes and policies that affect the entire community and how you are seeking to build shared leadership through meaningful engagement I want to add some comments about some very serious concerns that I have in regards to president sislow's comment that the board's duty is
062to protect the district that is incredibly concerning to me because I thought the duty of the Board of Education was to ensure that educational Duties are being carried out in the best interest of the students fact a brief search of Duties from school boards brought me to the nsba.org which states quote the school board represents the community's voice in public education it sets the standard for achievement incorporating the community's view of what students should know and be able to accomplish and quote and the msmasb.org states that these areas are board duties goal setting policy designate and evaluate the superintendent budget curriculum Staffing and appraisal and Facilities I think that the sport of Education would do well to reflect on what your actual Duties are to the Milan area schools the students and the community it
063is not to protect the district it is to serve the community and represent the community well honest reflection in these areas can truly lead to growth positive change and better educational outcomes in this District thank you for your time and consideration [Applause] I'll respond I I agree with you Ms Bennett I apologize I mean my my explanation and that is that it's it's a part of the board and all the other things that you explained our roles of the board as well when people have contacted me about becoming a board member there's several people that have contacted what the roles and responsibilities are and those are things that I had mentioned I I totally agree I mean those there's there's a wide multitude of things that um that the board is responsible for and the
064board is responsible for making sure that the district follows statutes the Constitution so it is a portion of it it's not the only thing I appreciate you for calling me out on that comment um I I sincerely apologize I'm just saying it's one of the things that the board is is responsible for so I appreciate your comment others Annie Cruz I just wanted to thank you um Miss haika and Mr Cislo for responding to my concerns regarding the proposal and explaining yeah there are some reasons or the positions behind what the proposal is and while I don't necessarily agree with them I do appreciate that transparency um and and the comments related to that but I'm curious can can you either tell us in your board comments or reply in an email as to what
065is the guidance you're seeking from the law firm or related to the up halting that portion of the proposal relating to book objections and then how do do you know how long until we receive that anticipated guidance and will that guidance be lawful and enforceable or what were the parameters related to that um and then I'm not I know that we had the scorecard included with our minutes but you were were you talking about something related to a superintendent gearbaugh and um I just feel like something you were talking about related to Mr gearbaugh we didn't have in our minutes um I was it related to an evaluation or something like or strategic Plan update I mean I know the scorecard is one thing but there was some other mention of of some documents that
066I thought we had seen in the past but weren't provided tonight I'm sorry I don't have the exact word on what that is or but if you could enlighten me that would be great great thank you for your comment so interesting with this board resolution and the discussions that you guys had about it well the little little bit of discussion that was that took place um just wanted to mention that with what Michelle heike mentioned um Librarians are exempt from any criminal investigation I'm pretty confident that actually you knew that when you made that comment um both of us are aware of the fact that they're exempt therefore you making a comment about being concerned about them being able to do their job seems a little bit insincere and maybe a little bit like misinformation
067to me um I'm also not aware of any teacher being charged unless you put them on the committee that I'm not aware of um actually a lot of teachers are agreeing with us and they also have concerns about these books um uh one person uh as far as I know one person did ask to know who the committee members were they were told absolutely not they were not going to be releasing those names as far as I know that was the end of that so again another statement that I feel is a little bit misleading when you say that you didn't want to ask anyone to be on a committee that might be outed when it was made very clear that the answer was no and and it was left at that and uh it
068for Tom Farrow wow this is so crazy because wasn't it the last meeting when you used your board comment time to tell us we should not be using our public comments to read these books to you because there's a policy in place for us to challenge them so we don't need to read them to you and at the very next meeting you just voted to remove that policy to be able to challenge those books it's interesting so um you don't get to tell us what we can and cannot speak at at public comment and uh if these books are going to continue to be on the shelves then maybe they should be continued to be read to you at every board meeting um and then also nothing has changed in the Constitution as far as
069providing pornographic material to children so when you put this policy in place to begin with that was already the case so I'm not sure why all of a sudden now you're thinking that that policy is not adequate um if you are saying that we are alleging that you are violating law then uh yeah I mean if we're just alleging it then what are you worried about it's because you actually know you've had over a month to deal with this with legal counsel you had over two hours last meeting that you were able to deal with this with legal counsel supposedly based on what Andrew Cislo said so I'm just curious how much how much longer do you need with legal counsel to figure out whether or not to take out books that discuss the white
070dripping off someone's dick from children how many more times do we need to discuss that and now the fact that we have what 30 something plus books that we're still discovering that are in the library that are also very explicit and violent those are not even going to be removed now when we when we submit a challenge at least before if you were going to sit on the challenge it would be removed in the in the meantime now you're not even going to remove it good glad I know that so we'll make sure that worked out to our advantage um also I want to know does this apply to low demand books that are removed because I also know you're removing some of these books quietly without telling us thank you for your comment [Applause]
071good evening Kirk Demars um man oh man uh I wasn't here in time to hear the first public comment but uh it must have been really great uh I appreciate you Mr sislo apologizing because I was going to address concern with your comment as well I believe our attention is actually elsewhere it's more it's moral guys um the whole tension has been moral the whole time obviously communities probably throughout time have differed on morality but that's really what this is about it's not tension between statutes or um I have B for that comment too you know you guys long ago could have made a decision to remove books you know what we want to Define as pornographic or immoral or whatever semantics we want to use you know kids looking at nudity is not healthy
072for them okay and and that's the bottom line on it the fact that we're going through all this discussion tonight it's it's another means of moving the goal posts that's all it is anybody sitting in here can see it's a moving of the goal post what was just referenced about Mr Farrell he was blatant about the fact that we have a procedure and what happened when the people addressed the procedure sir now you're moving the goal posts that's all that's happening here that's not Democratic that's not anything that our country has been established on this is about morals and the fact that you guys don't like to hear that there's some people in the community that don't appreciate their children possibly seeing some of this stuff thank you for the comment [Applause] are there others
073all right thank you for those comments this evening uh next up is a student board representative comments Ms Powell sorry for Miss Farrell first um congrats to the voice varsity basketball team for making it to the district semifinals upcoming events include World Down syndrome day on March 21st Milan High School students can show their support by wearing crazy socks to school and earn a reward at lunch the Milan High School theater is performing Mamma Mia on March 10th 11th 17th and 18th at 7 pm and March 12th and 19th at 2 pm you can purchase your tickets now at mhs.productions.com next week are tryouts for our Milan High School spring Sports you can find more information about this on the Milan High School athletics website I think you just need to get close there's a
074lot to read here lots of congratulations are in order um first I would like to say um save the date the Milan Middle School presents James and the Giant Peach Junior you'll be able to see the show Friday through Sunday the show times are 7 P.M Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m on Sunday all tickets are five dollars for all of the shows and it is cash only um congratulations to the MMS choir for receiving a certificate of Merit at the district Coral Festival um cheer tryouts are being held for The Fall season the 9th through 11th in the middle school competition gym the 9th and 10th from 5 30 to 9 pm and the 11th from 8 A.M to 4 P.M all 8th through 11th graders are welcome to try out congratulations to Ali
075Molina who signed for her for soccer today at the mid to the Michigan Tech University congratulations to Flannery Wayne who signed to help college football last Friday congratulations to the boys swim and dive for finishing off their regular season with a runner-up finish at smisl Championship they placed second with 335 points congratulations to Rachel pellido for placing 26th in the state out of 60 individual bowlers and congratulations to Angelina Pena who won her third consecutive state champion defeating Lake City bad ax DeWitt and South Lyon East on our way to the title oh that's for wrestling by the way awesome Melissa thank you ladies appreciate it next up is superintendent comments Mr gearbomb okay just a few things to share with you first I want to thank the board for the contract extension and your
076continued support several of my student ones thank you I love it when students bring up student accomplishments I'll repeat them quickly girls bowling we did have a huge accomplishment Rachel palado finished 40th out of 60 Bowlers the state individual finals in girls wrestling exactly Angelina Pena won her third consecutive state championship and we are excited to congratulate her we have several boys headed to the mhsaa state swimming and Diving meet on March 10th and 11th and we look forward to sharing their successes at a future meeting and also the Milan High School FFA sponsored a staff breakfast on Thursday March 2nd the students and staff prepared and served a wonderful meal and the event was professional and very appreciated by the high school staff um board myelinary schools has two board members who are receiving
077achievement awards from the Michigan Association of school boards these board members will receive their Awards in an upcoming Washington Association of school board's meeting they are caring Kerry Macchio who earned a level six Master Platinum award which means that she completed all of the courses in levels one through five 19 advanced classes and a minimum of 813 educational credits Betty rosenleacher is earning a level one certified board member award which means that she completed all nine 100 level classes and Betty rosenleacher also earned a level two Award of Merit which means she completed all nine of those classes and an additional 45 educational credits legislatively on Monday February 27th I attended the legislative Zoom session hosted by the Washington Association of school boards it was nice to meet all of our new legislators that represent
078our school districts throughout the county I look forward to working with them in the future and it was really nice to meet them in person um on Thursday March 9th the Washington Association of school boards will be hosting a legislative advocacy professional development event for all Washtenaw County school board members and superintendents and I look forward to attending that tomorrow thank you Mr Garba Mr McMahon yep I have a couple comments uh just I want to let you guys know that I've commenced meetings with the ELA and math departments at the middle school for curriculum reviews both their programs are expiring this year so we are exploring options and certainly one of the options is continuing the programs maybe adding training so I'm meeting with those reps first and then we're going to explore other
079options throughout the semester to possibly pilots and new programs in the fall I also want to share that um we are expanding some tutoring options for students I we received some flexibility in our 11t application that's the sr3 funds the equalization funds and it wasn't really flexibility but it was like a clarification on the grant language that how we can use our before and after school tutoring funds to co-mingle with our summer school funds so each building right now has some options that we're going to begin planning around before after school tutoring kind of depends like high school middle school would be after school had a Consignments would be before school so we'll work out those plans now but hopefully we can expand that opportunity real soon for some of our students that's it great
080thank you Mr McMahon uh board member comments um just in regards to a couple of the questions um as far as the guidance that's being sought I would refer back to the resolution number one that guidance from appropriate local state or federal agencies about whether allowing students to check out certain books out of the library constitutes criminal activity that's the guidance being sought um I I'm not sure in regards to the other document I just meant that I had skipped over the superintendent evaluation planning and goal setting section of the agenda there's not another document we had the Strategic plan that we reviewed there was no uh there was no attachment in regards to the superintendent evaluation planning and goal setting so um those are my comments for now others Mr sizzlow yes Mr Farrell
081so I'll address the policy 9130 um it still exists you can submit challenges uh it just temporarily pauses uh uh the challenges are let me go back the policy 913 still exists you can still submit challenges it's just what we did in terms of the resolution simply pauses the challenges temporarily at some point in the future the Board of Education will address the challenges so the policy still exists if you want to object to certain library books the policy still exists another comment that I have with regard to the high school Milan High School parent teacher conferences will be held on March 9th 2023 from 3 to 6 30 p.m in the high school cafeteria I think Maya indicated World Down syndrome day is March 21st I was asked by a Community member to also
082share with everyone that March 21st serves as rock your socks day please help us get the word out to students sports teams Etc on wearing crazy socks in support of down syndrome day just a brief comment on my own area school's budget um future budget any future budget adjustments are likely to occur in the month of May or June I just wanted to let the community know that I also want to thank take a moment to thank Carrie Macchio for her 10 years of service on the board of education she served as a tremendous asset to our district for over 10 years I will miss working with her and I wish Carrie the very best in her current and future endeavors the last thing I want to mention is I Believe Miss Cruz was referencing
083the masb evaluation tool that we use for Mr gearbox evaluation and that's available on the masp website thank you other comments Mr system yes Miss Marie um I just want to briefly take a moment to thank the community for uh to all those who were out on I think it's February oh gosh I don't remember the last weekend in February for the downtown read Around Ms Macchio and myself were out in the community handing out books and just you know chatting with students and warming up in the owl and it was a little bit of a weird weekend because of all of the power outages and um you know all of our downtown businesses unfortunately were not able to be open and but we were grateful for the opportunity to be out there in the
084community and I just want to thank Milan Main Street for the invitation and Ms Macchio for not only her 10 years of service but also inviting me to participate for that first event this year and then thanks to our student board members for shouting out our two performances that are starting up this week in our two theater departments in MMS and MHS so um yeah hang in there students you are in my thoughts this is a grueling couple of weeks and I can't wait to see you on stage that's all thank you Miss Murray the psycho um first I want to wish the boys swim and dive team good luck the state swim meet starts on Friday it's Friday or the prelims and the finals are on Saturday and the psych sheets came out today
085and our boys are very well placed and so I expect a very good showing from them this weekend um so I'm not changing anything that I've said previously um I believe that you are inciting violence when you post your own comments on social media pages and then you do nothing when people have horrific things to say about students about teachers about board members in those comments it's no surprise that based on the comments on social media that the board started to receive the threats that we received no surprise and I have no doubt that none of those threats came from any member in this community um but I can't ignore the words that are used here and then the resulting behavior and I don't think any one of us should I also won't ignore that
086the way community members have doubled down and again accuse teachers board I don't know about board members but specifically teachers and administrators of grooming children it's no surprise about that the board received these threats when that's the language that is was used previously and then we doubled down and we're just going to keep using it and give us our own definition of what we believe grooming is and there's no reason to video this because it'll be on YouTube you know you can just get it right from there it's okay I am also I also find this assumption that the board doesn't support sexual assault survivors and their recovery absolutely reprehensible until Miss Macchio resigned there were five female members of this board statistically at least one at least one of us was a victim of
087sexual assault so to assume that no one on this board is reviewing this situation from their own place of recovery is simply wrong and no one on this board has any obligation to tell you what their personal path has been but for you to assume that no one else has walked in that shoes you're wrong statistically and you know you're wrong you had we've had this conversation before you had your my time now it's my time I'm not gaslighting anything please I fully believe that the district is not in violation of any statute statute I don't I also don't believe that any Community member who comes here and reads those books out loud believes that the board is in violation of that statute because if it was a violation of that statute to have that
088book in a library then it certainly must be a violation of that statute to read it out loud at a board meeting when you know members minors are present so unless you also believe you are also violating the statute I can't believe that you think that we're violating the statute and yet here we are with threats about violent criminal charges and those charges have been filed and I'm not misrepresenting the disruption to our libraries over these challenges and these criminal threats because while you're right there is a very specific exemption for librarians there's also exemptions for other things and yet here we are and we still have staff they're very concerned about what's going to happen and so I believe that the suspension of this policy was needed for all of the reasons I previously
089stated thank you Mr Sissel I think it was like a um just a reminder please um the again the the March 22nd meeting is going to start at 5 30 for a reinstatement hearing and then after that decision is made we'll recess until seven o'clock for the regular business I do want to extend my appreciation to the 11 applicants who submitted their information for to be on this board to serve their community in in this way I appreciate them um wanting to be a part of this and and Bridge um the the relationship between the board and the community um any other questions or comments meeting is adjourned at 8 37.