001thank you like to call the order of the milan area school board of education regular meeting for wednesday june 22nd 2022 would everyone please rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right thank you for attending this evening thank you for people watching online i do want to pass along some sad news board member freight is absent this evening her mother-in-law passed away recently so she is tending to family matters in that in those regards so keep her in your thoughts and prayers [Music] next up we are going to do board recognitions we've got patrick brown from the michigan adult community and alternative education association
002board he's going to come up and recognize a very special lady in our school district well thank you all for having me so great to see a great crowd at a school board meeting you know sometimes it's a quiet chorale meeting but i am patrick brown i'm the director of the michigan adult community and alternative education association and our organization serves as a professional development resource center advocacy organization and networking organization for all of the professionals that work in adult alternative and community education they're about 120 different programs across the state of michigan in adult education there are about 26 000 adults that are served through those services every year and your illustrious and wonderful connie cox who's the director here of your community education adult education programming has been a member of our board
003for a number of years and she recently announced that she's going to be taking a step back from our board to concentrate on her efforts to continue to grow and impact this community she has been on our board for 11 years since 2011 and has been active on our board coming to our board meeting serving on our community education committee she really has been an advocate for community education and that includes the umbrella from early childhood before after school programming summer school programming all the way up to adult skill building they're so important in communities and in school districts across the state and i think it's just so important that we continue to promote and support these programs because they bring so much to our community they really do ground the community they are many
004of you probably have had activities that you've participated in through the community education program our kids your kids have participated in those programs and they just really are vital and important and bring so much life to the community i know that there's so much life here in milan i grew up in in blissfield so i i know much about mylon area but um i'm just here to really recognize connie for her contributions we're sad to see her go from our board but we're happy that she's still going to be here and bringing so much to the field of adult and community education and so on behalf of our board of directors i'd like to present her with this certificate to acknowledge her 11 years of dedicated service to our board of directors for all of
005the hours that she's put in she has been on every conference she has presented numerous times about your program here at milan at our conferences she has served us very diligently and we just really want to thank her and applaud her and kind of in a way celebrate her within your community she's a quiet person if you know her she's a very humble person um but just like she loves to walk many miles she has dedicated herself many miles and on many missions to promoting milan area schools and your program here and so i want to thank superintendent gerbach for extending the invitation at our board meeting when he was there to present her and honor her at our last board meeting and i just was happy to be here this evening to congratulate connie
006so why don't you come up connie so i can give this to you and just thank you so much thank you everybody it's been a pleasure to serve on the board i've really got to know so many wonderful people including patrick and it's been really great to be up to date all the time and i'm going to keep in touch with everyone and i'm really honored and pleased that um you recognized me and i thank you very much and it was an honor to be on the board thank you very much thank you so much for coming and again we do appreciate all your work in the district county that does not go unnoticed so um you guys are welcome to stay um if you want uh but you are welcome to go as well
007so it's uh you don't have to sit through the rest of the meeting unless you don't want to so we appreciate you coming next up on the agenda is public comment just a reminder this meeting is a meeting of the board of education and public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business 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 will be asked to state your name the board determines the amount of time granted for for individuals or groups to speak each person shall be allowed to speak for up to three minutes i will give you a 30 second warning and then i ask you to finish your thought when the timer goes off
008board 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 will be referred to the superintendent for advisement investigation study and or recommendation or designated as future agenda items for board consideration is there anyone who would like to address the board hello uh rachel hobbs can you hear me okay um i'm excited about tonight i hope that the interview of applicants goes well i hope that there's a very fair process that we can as a community trust that it's been fair i want to know if the um k-12 insight survey results will be published in full or if we will receive any results or if they'll be summarized i would welcome the district to allow the entire
009community to see what is being said good and bad i've had some issues with communication communicating with the high school administration staff and i don't know how to get responses so if somebody can give me some sort of assistance on that i would appreciate that i'm curious to know what the status is of the youtube comments if they're going to be turned on or not i know that i submitted an attorney general opinion to you several months ago and it's been a long time to get some sort of results back to the community i know that a lot of people have been trying to watch it through youtube and there have been several sound issues so we need to figure out a process in which people can know what's going on you know i have
010a suggestion i know you guys aren't fans of monitoring the comments but i know that mr hull talked about having a student intern in the athletic department and i and i think that you know we could welcome a student to come in and monitor some of those comments if we put them on that'd be great that way they could give us heads up if people are commenting that there's no sound or the quality is before also i'm going to request that my um comments be recorded too i've gotten very little feedback from anybody of anything at all on what we're doing about school safety i've asked about this many times i know that i raised with the board a concern that i had about parents dropping off lunches and them being left in the high
011school on a table in between the doors and that's just where they stayed 30 seconds um brian you asked at the last board meeting about corrections that i had to the minutes and and i haven't had a chance to email you but i i can give you this um i'd also like to know that um i made the comment to brian that the minutes should not have been approved yet five votes at least five votes voted to approve so i would like for the board members to do their due diligence in making sure that the minutes are accurate i've asked many times about the expenses and disbursements being available to the public and being published as the board packet i would like to see that happen we need to have this transparency within the district
012um i think that's it for right now thank you miss hobbs are there others could we have could we have the um the podium mic turned up a bit thank you are there others who would like to address the board thank you miss hobbs i would advise you to definitely in regards to your concern with communication with the high school principal i would i would email that concern to mr gearbaugh so that he can follow up with that next on the agenda is routine matters for approval i need a motion to approve the minutes of the budget hearing of june 7 2022 moved by pharaoh support by tiger it's been moved and supported to approve the minutes of the budget hearing of june 7 2022 discussion hearing none it's been moved and supported to approve
013the minutes of the budget hearing of june 7 2022. miss haika macchio yes cislow yes pharaoh yes haika yes kyger yes motion carries 5-0 next i need a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of june seventh twenty twenty two move by tiger support by mikey it's been moved and supported to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of june 7 2022 discussion hearing none it's been moved and supported to approve the minutes of the regular meeting of june 7 2022 miss haika sislow yes pharaoh yes haika yes kyger yes machia yes motion carries 5-0 next on the agenda is board organization with the vacancy of the vice president with uh the resignation of miss landingham um it's a board policy to fill uh officer positions within 30 days of the occurrence of
014the vacancy so in order to meet this requirement we need to do this election at this board meeting do i have any nominations for vice president mr sislow yes mr pharaoh i'd like to nominate jan kyger to serve as board vice president i second that motion so chan kyger has been nominated to be vice president are there any other nominations the nominations are now closed so now i need a motion to to elect uh jan kyger as the vice president of the militant area school board of education for the remainder of the 2022 calendar year we didn't need a first and the second on the nomination so i mean it's yeah it's moved by pharaoh okay that's yeah we just doubly supported there we go so it's been moved and since uh moved and supported
015to elect jan kaiger for the vice president of the militant area school board of education for the remainder of the 2022 calendar year miss haika pharaoh yes motion carries 5-0 thank you jan um next up is our teacher appointments i need a motion to appoint the following people to the teaching positions listed in the base salaries listed effective for the 2022 2023 school year sarah button for first grade abigail grope for mylon high school math matthew panik for middle school math lindsay gauthier cut cutchman for middle middle school social studies angela creech for second grade olivia arend for third grade and abigail shoot for mylon high school ela moved by pharaoh support by macchio it's been moved and supported discussion uh mr gerba can you remind us where these positions were posted and what steps
016we took to find these candidates yeah so these positions were all posted um on the application software that we use which is lapis track um that also goes out to a free k12 advertising system um across the state of michigan we also post them on what i call all of the m so m-a-s-b m-a-s-a m-a-s-s-p so basically all the associations the principal association superintendent association school board association we also have been making cold calls to universities and seeking candidates in that method i attended a statewide conference where i was able to speak with about 14 candidates and i know some of them actually following that job fair did apply for our position so we're able to recruit some people to apply that way as well and mr gearbot can you are these are these new
017positions are these replacement positions what are what are these positions all of these positions are replacements for retirees or resignations there are no new positions so they've been budgeted for in the budget yes any other questions or concerns it's been moved and supported to appoint the following people to the teaching positions listed the base salaries listed effective for the 2022-2023 year miss heika hika yes kyger yes macchio yes sislow yes pharaoh yes motion carries 5-0 next on the agenda is uh that i need a motion to authorize borrow borrowing up to 1.5 million against the anticipated state aid for the 2022-2023 fiscal year as specified in the borrowing resolution included as attachment a move by pharaoh support by tiger it's been moved and supported to authorize the borrowing of up to 1.5 million against anticipated
018state aid for the 2022-23 fiscal year as specified in the resolution included as an attachment a so because the school district doesn't receive a state aid payment in september it's necessary for us to borrow this money in order to make payments starting with the with september that's something that we've done in the past mr gearbot can speak to more to it as necessary yeah so this is a process that's very common for a lot of districts across the state of michigan it really is not that we are borrowing because we can't afford to cover our budget it's that we have a cash flow concern in certain months due to not receiving payments year-round and again it's it's something that we will repay throughout the year in seven payments it's really more of a cash flow
019than being able to afford the budget that we have approved and again this is very common across the state there are hundreds of districts that do this due to the inconsistent funding from the state of michigan not being 12 months a year andrew mr farrow i just want to reiterate um what mr garibald said is correct um i did speak with krista in finance today this is standard operating procedure this is a smaller amount than previous years the reason for the for the borrow this year is the fund balance is being spent down so we should receive the deposit uh in august and as mr gearball indicated there will be seven months set aside for them to draw the funds back and that'll occur january to july thank you mr farrow any other questions or
020concerns it's been moved and supported to authorize the borrowing of up to 1.5 million against anticipated state aid for the 22-23 fiscal year as specified in the resolution included as an attachment a miss haika haika yes kyger yes macchio yes cyslo yes pharaoh yes motion carries 5-0 next i need a motion to approve the 2022-2023 board meeting calendar as presented in attachment b move by machio support by heike it's been moved and supported to approve the 2223 board meeting calendar as presented in attachment b um we did have a first reading on that on this this is the second reading and it's up for approval just a couple of changes from the first reading i think everybody is aware that we moved the july 13th meeting to the july to july 20th ms freight is
021very appreciative of that in order to accommodate her schedule and then we also moved the december 7th meeting to december 8th to accommodate the the band concert and then we moved may 24th to may 23rd to accommodate senior honors night so those are the three changes that have been made since the first reading are there any other comments or concerns regarding the board calendar i would just like the board to very carefully consider the inconsistency inconsistency of changing our board meeting nights every governing body that i've been able to seek out locally school districts townships all have set meeting nights and it helps their stakeholders anticipate what meetings will be random nights don't lead to that consistency so i just would like us to think long and hard before changing our meeting nights i think
022we were doing that because people have expressed interest in coming to our board meetings and they're not able to because they have institutionalized wednesday night events and i find it a concern that those events would be considered more important than what we're doing any other comments or concerns it's been moved and supported to approve the 2022-2023 board meeting calendar as presented in attachment b miss heiko tiger yes macchio yes cislow yes pharaoh yes hika yes motion carries 5-0 all right next up on the agenda is i need a motion to approve the policy updates as presented in attachments c1 and c2 move by heika support by macchio it's been moved and supported to approve the policy updates as presented in attachments c1 and c2 i will turn this over to the chairperson of the policy
023committee miss heika so this is the second reading of the policy amendments the wellness policy those minor edits come from the wellness committee um they have to meet keep me honest like every three years i think to go over the policy and they did that this year as required and these changes were suggested by them the other policy we're changing is the policy the meeting minutes policy that currently requires board members and community members to ask that their comments be included in the minutes we're striking that language and that was at the suggestion of our communications committee any any questions or concerns regarding the second reading of these policies all right it's been moved and supported to approve the policy updates as presented in attachments c1 and c2 mishika machio yes cislow yes pharaoh yes
024haika yes kyger yes motion carry is five zero are we going to implement um that with the next minutes then the next minutes or reflect yes comments being okay thank you all right next up on the agenda is our board candidate interviews so i appreciate all our candidates being here this evening i have invited two members of our communications committee to help out this evening i appreciate you being here uh debbie and alicia thank you you guys are gonna help guide us through this process um so everybody take a deep breath it's kind of strange that you are doing this interview process um in an auditorium on on youtube in front of a board but this is what's required um in order to meet the the requirements to to fill this vacancy um so just
025again to walk through it um just so that we're all on the same page um debbie and alicia are going to draw the names of the candidates out of this bowl i'm going to have you guys as you when your name is called you're going to sit in order of the name that you draw in the in the chairs that are here next they're going to draw the the order of the board the board member that's going to ask the question i'm going to be asking the question that miss freight was going to ask uh she passed that question along to me so i will be asking the question that that she wanted to ask at the the interview so there's five candidates and there's five questions this allows each candidate candidate to go first
026so we don't have the same person going first and potentially receiving some type of advantage again we're trying to do this as fairly as possible as as was uh mentioned in public comment um we think this is uh the fairest way that we can make sure that you know we're not putting anybody in a certain order um and nobody is um you know interviewing on a different evening and such again this is to replace the position of amy landingham who resigned we are required to vote somebody into this position within 30 days of her vacancy or the washington intermediate school district chooses somebody for us so there's strict timelines in regards to how in regards to how that this process moves forward the candidates submitted a um a letter of identity signed by a notary
027so that we know that they're qualified candidates they also provided written responses to five questions these five questions are the same questions that we've asked at candidate forums for well over 10 years so they're these are the questions the all but all the board members here have received the the written responses to uh those questions and it will be part of the evaluation that we use in regards to the candidates um and then each board member again will have the opportunity to ask one question to the candidates once we determine the order the candidates will have two minutes to answer the question um debbie and alicia will help with that time keeping you will be giving a 30 second warning when there's 30 seconds remaining and then they'll show you the red card when when
028your time is expired again i i do want to say thank you to the candidates the five of you that are here and have gone through this process and are about to go through this process um it's i it's i it's very for my if i was doing this it would be very nerve-wracking so um i just want to say thank you for doing this i appreciate your interest i um it's very obvious by the written responses that you are interested in serving milan area schools and we're proud to have you as part of our community um but tonight we have to choose one of you we're also required to um to vote this in public so you will hear the rankings as we go through and i'll talk more about that when we when
029we get to that point so are there any questions about the process that we're going to be going through this evening all right so with that uh debbie and alicia if you could draw the uh the candidate names for me we'd appreciate it i did not practice names so i'm sorry if i murdered your name just so the first candidate is going to be betty rosen leacher all right the second candidate will be murphy i don't know how to say payer okay i i'm i could have made it fancy really murphy is number two all right so number three andrew douglas number four will be george elder and number five is going to be sarah and i don't i can't say this for you am i right okay all right thank you everyone i'm gonna
030leave it to my assistant now and now we'll draw the the board member board member names all right number one is tom farrow number two is carrie macchio three is jan tiger separate number four is michelle hyka and number five is andrew sislow all right thank you so you said you were reading questions from um from mrs freight as well so is that no i'm i'm going to be asked i was i was not going to be asking questions i was going to be doing timekeeping and such so now that you guys are going to be doing the timekeeping for me i'm going to ask her a question yep all right so with that um so our first board member that asks a question is mr farrow um and then we'll go through the order
031that you were you're drawn so it'll be miss roslyn leecher first miss payer mr douglas mr elder and then miss murray so we will start with mr pharaoh's question all right first thanks for for being here i promise we'll all be friendly um so my question for you is what would you like to see changed in the milind area school district and how do you envision your role in that change thank you so much for having us here to this evening i think what i'd love to see change is making sure that we continue to have a focus not only on the social emotional wellness of our students it's been a tough time through kovid and getting acclimated to returning to school full-time every day but we need to also consider and focus on the
032wellness of the adults in the system if our adults aren't whole and well and able to care for the students our students won't be whole and well and so i think that's we're seeing this exasperated sense of dread from adults in the system classroom teachers to our bus drivers that they need to be we need to ensure that they're being tended to and cared for so that way when they're in the classrooms or their driving bus you know our bus drivers are the first and last people that our students see every single day and they can make or break and if they're struggling socially and emotionally themselves it impacts the learners in the classroom and it has a profound impact on the academic growth and progress of all of our students my role would be
033to be present to to be visible in our schools to make sure that the adults know that they have a board of education that supports them and that our students know that as well when when they know who we are from the superintendent to the principals to the classroom teachers to our custodians and and the board of education when our students know that they know that they're in a safe and secure place and we can make it that way for them thank you thank you next answer the question will be miss payer and you can have a really good answer i got to go after that you and you guys can have you can have him ask the question again if you'd like i am going just to make sure if you don't mind okay
034absolutely what would you like to see changed in the milin area school district and how do you envision your role in that change really simple i don't have a big eloquent laid out answer i really for me is building a relationship with the parents and with the board i'm new to all of this my children are still very young so i don't know all of this is just very new to me but before this past year i probably would not have known any of you i'm sorry i know it sounds terrible but i would not have known who was on the school board i wouldn't have even known where to look um and that's sad and that's a failure on my part as a parent and as a member of our community i want there
035to be that relationship if you see me out if you have a question if it's off the record i want to have that and i want people kind of like you had said to know who we are and if there's if there's a question i i don't know what my how i'm going to change that um i do the best that i can to be present in my child's school i volunteer i um donate for their classroom whatever the teacher needs i'm very open with that communication in my son's classroom and i think that i could do that with the school as well as with the community thank you miss payer next up is mr douglas good evening thank you for this opportunity i'm glad to be here um when asked what changes we all
036want to see in the mylon area schools i tend to reflect on my own role that i've i've had in the past couple of decades and that's as a as a father and as a as a teacher at the college level um what what i would like to see milon area schools do is a return of focus to fundamentals get back to many of the the benchmarks that we as a community expect the schools to meet um i as a as a board member would uh think my role is to backstop and facilitate faculty and staff getting to those fundamentals i'd like to see those those test scores go back up i'd like to see our our students return to the levels of performance that we had in previous times i think structure is a
037very important component of that i think that we need to get back to a structure that our students and our entire community understands and as a teacher i know that my students crave structure i know that my students thrive when the structure and when the environment is understandable and predictable i think that is primarily what we need to get back to that's the change that i would like to see and as a board member that's the change that change i'd like to facilitate thank you mr douglas next up is mr elder hello can you please read the question again please yes of course uh what would you like to see changed in the milan area school district and how do you envision your role in that change back to basic education i think we're all
038in a world of carrick you know you've got parents saying one thing board members say any other teachers saying back to education we need we need to get our scores up on the our academics and we need to take care of our teachers this year i've my daughter has a special needs teacher miss goins and she just went out of her way this whole entire year and montessori was on covetly for four weeks and she just set up different times or facebook or not facebook but facetime appointments with ezra like four times so i'd like to see us get back to education and recognizing our teachers and i would i would like if i was selected for the board i would recognize a special teacher each time with the board meeting thank you thank you
039mr elder miss marie okay hi good evening everyone thank you very much for this opportunity and for having me here tonight to interview um i am formerly a teacher very recently formerly a teacher in milan area schools i was a proud educator i am a proud educator here at mas i was in the school system for five years i've been a parent in the district for the last three years our daughter's in second grade and we've lived in milan since 2014. so i've had the opportunity to participate in our community both as a teacher in the schools and as a parent and then also just experiencing the community aspect of how our schools are involved in our community um so when i think about what i'd like to see changed that's a really big question
040because there are so many things that myelin area schools already does very very well prior to coming here i was a teacher in three other districts and i can say without hesitation or question that the staff the teachers that we have here and our administrators at milin area schools are among the best i've ever served with in 15 years so we're doing something right in terms of finding people but when i think about what i want to see changed and kind of what's facing american education right now we have to be innovative we have to be leaders out front i think when i reflect on what i participated in the last two years i think that we've kind of taken a role of looking at what other districts are doing and that's beneficial but we
041have so much here in our own community i would love to be a part of activating that and tapping into all of our amazing resources here within our community to grow our diversity our equity our social justice our retention and recruitment of teachers so that would be my goal as a board member thank you thank you miss murray all right our second question will be asked by miss macchio and then miss payer will be the first to answer after reviewing discussion on significant issues this board then operates on a majority vote so the question is if the majority vote is different from your position your vote or even your personal views on a topic how would you manage that situation going forward so if my view is different than the rest of the board well
042once you know we vote on those resolutions so once a resolution is passed if it does not agree with your vote or your personal views how would you manage that going forward after that vote thank you for clarifying for me um that's life so you i look at the board and to me it's a team thing right we're not always going to agree and that's okay um sometimes you take one for the team um i am not the kind of person that will necessarily keep quiet if i disagree i can do it respectfully i will tell you why but if the majority of the board agrees with one direction i'm going to go with the board um i may have a lot of questions along the way probably will um but i i guess that's
043a i don't know if there's any other way to do it but you know am i going to throw a hissy fit or am i going to just quit here am i no i'm not um my whole goal with this is to keep an open mind um and and to really listen to both sides and hope that whatever choice is made as i'm sure you guys always do is the right choice they're not easy i don't really know that's a really hard question for me to answer until i'm in that predicament that's my an honest answer i really don't know i'm sure it's going to happen but with anything else in life you just sometimes you don't get your way and that's okay you know we'll talk it through and i'll make my views known
044and we move along to whatever is next on the list thank you miss payer next up the answer will be mr douglas i really like this question um because i have a a very simple answer to it take the issue seriously but don't take yourself seriously um i think you i come out of the field of persuasion public speaking and communication persuasion is an incredible tool but it's an important and necessary tool when we're deciding things together you as a group try to persuade each other uh you you talk you you say things you deploy your best arguments if those don't work you kind of have to walk away sometimes i get into arguments with my friends and i say well i mean yes you can believe what you're saying or you can be right
045um and i'd say that with tongue firmly in cheek because i know that if i take myself too seriously and make it about you arguing with me and i have to be right then i'm going to take it personally and i'm going to carry that forward i spent three years on my church vestry i don't know if any of you have ever been on a church board before they tend to be very contentious because god is watching and you want to put your best foot forward except you don't our church vestry was known to be incredibly contentious and there had not been a year without a sincere knock down drag out argument then i went on i chose to defuse a lot of the conflict that was just about to get to the level of
046being a problem and and when i did that people saw that oh i'm taking this way too seriously i can lay this aside and we can make it about the issue not about the personalities that's how i choose to do democracy thank you mr douglas next up mr elder repeat question please after review and discussion on significant issues the board operates by a majority vote if the majority vote is different from your position your vote or even your personal views on a topic how would you manage that situation going forward well i'd express my opinion but after the board voted on it if the majority voted i i you know that no you're right or wrong mr elder then you have to live with the fact just like the mask i hated the mask policy
047but you all voted on it i had to wear my best my kids had to wear the mask so you know it's a majority of roles thank you mr elder miss murray um so in a democracy or any sort of governing body where voting in majority rules it's a fact of life and our ability to move forward as a group depends on our ability to gracefully and with humility accept whatever decisions are made and carried forward by the body and i believe that you know our board or any board really has policies already in place to safeguard and promote you know the rising of wisdom within the group so as a board member i would have to trust the process placing principles above personality and at times possibly having to set my ego aside but
048um trusting that our board shares a common mission of promoting the success and well-being of our students first and foremost and of course our educators and all other stakeholders in our community so if i'm overruled then higher power prevails and we'll move forward and i'll do my best to execute the mission thank you thank you thank you mr marie mr rosen leitcher thank you i think the idea of respectful discourse has been lost in the past several years and at the board table is where we hold and have the conversation and the debate and the discourse and when we leave that board table whatever that decision is regardless of where an individual stands myself included we have to uphold that decision and that is our role in our job in the community that we continue
049to move forward as a united front there's a reason there's seven members on the board and one member's vote doesn't hold more or less than any other but it is the seven together when we walk away from that table that is the most important thing and that we show respect to that decision and we follow through as we go out into the community to do our work thank you miss rosenlicher thank you to everybody i should have said that before i started so we do appreciate you being here and under under the pressure of all these questions so thank you so much all right our next question will be asked by miss kyger and mr douglas will go first so of course i have to give a little antidote shortly into my first term on
050the board i had the opportunity to attend the natural national conference and i came back just so excited all the things that i'd heard and i'd seen and i sat down with julie halber who was our assistant superintendent at the time and i was like oh my gosh you all know what they're doing out there they are doing this data-driven um teaching they're implementing it and you know according to the assessments and julie just very patiently listened to me until i kind of ran down and she said yes yes yes the you know this is the superintendents all throughout the county they're talking about this but the county itself doesn't have a tool available at this time to disaggregate and gather all the data so it should just be patient and within a less than
051a year the county still did not have this tool together but our staff manually dug into the data and disaggregated it so they could give better instruction to our students that national conference was just one of the many ways that um i've sought to educate myself on my role and duties as a board member and also to help myself become aware of what innovations and initiatives are out there in the educational world so my question is if you're appointed to this board what would you do to educate yourself that's a great question well as an educator myself as a parent myself i think i do bring a bit of experience to the board i'm going to do what i've done as a speech teacher which is to keep current on the field that i'm engaging
052it's important to sit down and and read the literature it's important to listen to what other voices are saying uh we all think that we have uh great ideas when we sit down to any given problem we we all think that we we bring a unique perspective and that's true but so does everyone else your experience going to a national national convention very much mirrors some of mine when i was back in grad school when when they would send us out to conventions and we would hear about the wonderful things that were going on in our field uh and we come back and and we sit down and start planning out next 16 papers that we were going to write and how we're going to engage that happens every time i go to a professional
053development and i come back and i think of new ways that i can present information to my students if i am chosen as a board member i would see this as a parallel pursuit to my career in teaching i i would bring that same mind of going out finding good ideas and bringing them back with the caveat there's a lot of great ideas out there but let's not forget while spending a lot of time looking outside the box there's a reason the box exists there's a lot of good stuff in the box let's not get distracted by the jangling keys let's keep our eyes on the fundamentals but let's also look for new and innovative things that can give us our own successes thank you mr douglas mr elder can you please repeat the question
054if you're appointed to this position on the board how would you go about educating yourself well i'd hope there'd be some conferences that i could go to some classes i could attend you know i would attend the school meetings with you know for instance like the principals have their meetings what quarterly or whatever you know the health teachers had one before the i'd go to them meetings and i would listen to the children also because the teachers and the children are too people or two persons that are knows what's going on thank you mr elder miss murray this is the question that i've been most excited about so far i am an educator and therefore i am a lifelong learner it's a mindset that i have operated under really since i was very tiny i
055think that's why i ended up in education period is because i have always sought information voraciously at times so that was a difficult thing for me and leaving my recent you know leaving my position recently was that concern of how am i going to continue to do that but i've been just overjoyed to find that um there's just a wealth of knowledge out there my new position is with the washington intermediate school district and so that puts me right in the center of our county community of educators and all of the various initiatives that are going on in all of the participating districts in our isd and i don't know most recently i just finished the justice leader's core course through the wisd and that was something that i had set out to do prior
056to resigning my position with myelinary schools but it didn't have to continue necessarily after i left this position but it was something that was really important to me and i was already enrolled and i am so grateful that i continued in that course and it was extremely influential so i'll continue to seek out opportunities like that to be sure that i am well-rounded and i think the other big piece for me is collaboration i love working shoulder to shoulder with teachers that's what i do in my new job now and i think that's a vital piece of keeping ourselves those board members educated is being in the community with our teachers with our students with our administrators and building that relational capacity between us and so that is one of the several ways i guess
057that i would continue to develop myself as a board member and be sure that i was abreast of all the issues thank you thank you miss murray miss rosenlicher so this one's right at my heart as a retired educator myself i continue to be involved in education so beyond masb and and taking the certification classes so i have a greater understanding of what it means to be on a school board because that would be a new role um staying engaged with my state organizations that i'm still involved in being connected to the michigan department of education reading the information that comes out on their list serves paying attention being in connection with our state legislators understanding what's happening at michigan department of education there is so many things happening in the world of education today
058that we have to have a very large view so that way we can understand very clearly as a board of education what the school district teachers administration and students and our community needs so we understand how we fit into all of that so being engaged in dialoguing conversation up and down the continuum here in the district but across the state as well i think is a necessary part of continuing to be educated on what's happening in our schools thank you mr rosenlischer miss payer does leaning on you guys count as a good answer um which honestly that i would um i have a good support network i come i am not an educator myself but i come from a very long line of educators many family members um i have a great group of people
059around me who have encouraged me to do this you know you can do it i'm like i don't know i don't know i'm just a mom i'm just i don't know if i know enough i know they're like that's it you're a mom so me lots of questions hope you guys don't mind lots of questions if you pick me because i have no problem asking questions i'm kind of going into this blindly and i'm just hoping that the relationships i've built with other parents the wonderful administrators at my son's school who i absolutely adore i'm hoping maybe they'll kind of help me out keeping engaged with teachers parapros i never realized honestly until my son started with the early education in an iep just how important our pair pros are i've made my son no
060longer has an individual peer pro but i've made wonderful friends with them you know they're with her i didn't realize how engaged they're with my son all day long they're like uh you know now he calls them aunt gina or you know michi i mean they're just i adore them so i'm really going to rely on everybody around me the board the teachers you know the principal i'm sure he loves when i call him all the time but that is what i'm going to do the people around me parents and teachers that is what i'm going to do um because this is all a learning curve for me so um that is the the first thing i'll do after that then i will look at other avenues but really right now i'm going to look
061in my own backyard thank you miss payer next board member to ask a question will be miss heika and mr elder will be answering first first off thank you to all five of you i know this is um it's very intimidating and so at least i always thought it was when we did candidate forums so i appreciate all of you throwing your hat in the ring and coming and answering all these questions mr elder my question is do you support those districts diversity goals and if so why and if not why not i support some and i support others i support most of them because the fact that every child should have the equal opportunity to an education be treated like they want to be treated and the other ones i lean on is that
062it seems like it makes one person hate the other i disagree with that i think we should just all be judged the way we our character and the way we treat each other but most importantly you know every all kids no matter what they're into needs an education and it needs to be treated like a kid thank you mr elder next up is miss murray okay just kidding this is the question i'm most excited about i've changed my mind answer is absolutely unequivocally yes um it is the issue that i see as the most central issue to what we're trying to do here in milan area schools our district in the not quite 10 years that i've lived here has changed and evolved and grown and our schools are not the same they don't serve
063the same population as they served you know 8 10 15 years ago and it's our job to be responsive to the needs of our community and as a teacher i have witnessed more students than i would like to express feelings of exclusion or at least lack of inclusion if not overt exclusion that's public or said out loud i've known students who have gone back to districts that i would argue offer a lesser quality education simply because they found community there that they did not find here at milan area schools and so it's an issue that absolutely affects our students acutely on a day-to-day basis but it also affects our teachers and their ability to do their jobs when our teaching staff is not reflective of our community when our students don't see themselves in their
064teachers it just contributes to a greater disconnection between those who are serving and those whom we serve so i would love to be a part of the district's diversity equity and inclusion mission i started out on that path in our dei team and that was probably the hardest thing for me to walk away from when i left my teaching job here at milan was uh leaving that work behind so thank you thank you miss murray miss rosenlicher thank you for this question 100 yes it has been my mission since i retired from education formally to continue to educate myself in this area to do work and training um to work with others to help our students to see themselves and how they belong in a safe space in our schools it is necessary that every
065child that walks through our door regardless of what they are coming to us with whether it be a different color a different belief system a different sexual orientation it's necessary they are going to be in a global society and our children need to know that they can come to school and feel safe and be educated in a way where they have windows and mirrors into the world thank you mr rosenlischer miss payer can you repeat the question for me i just want to make sure that i understand it correctly before i answer sure um do you support the district's diversity goals and if so why and if not why not okay very honest i don't exactly know what our district's goals are because my children are very young so i haven't run into some of
066these issues that we may have in the middle school or the high school in my so yes a simple answer is yes i everybody should be treated the same to me i don't care what color you are sexual orientation religion it doesn't matter um i'm i'm sure there are the issues of being excluded maybe higher up but my son is seven you know so he was on his kindness campaign poster so i have no personal experience negatively with my children in the school so the answer would be yes i absolutely agree i want everybody treated the same i don't think anybody should get special treat everybody's you need to be kind yes i'm very interested honestly in reading more about what our district's goals are and that's just my lack of knowledge again because my
067children are so little so we're still learning you know you're kind to everybody you're nice to everybody i haven't had any other experience but kindness luckily with my children so i would it would definitely be something that i would look into and read more on but an off-the-cuff answer would be yes absolutely thank you miss payer mr douglas okay picture this october 1994. a kid from leavenworth kansas gets on an airplane flies off to south korea because he doesn't like his job shrink shrink wrapping paper plates at the hallmark card factory i land in daegu south korea after i have not i have no idea how many hours on an airplane and i teach english for three years in south korea fast forward to 2003 i take a job teaching at wayne county community college
068teaching speech to the denizens of detroit and the wayne county area i've seen diversity i understand diversity i understand my experiences have taught me cultural difference in a profound way that i could talk i could teach a class about this in fact i have taught classes about intercultural communication i understand the stresses that the needs of a diverse population put on any organization and diversity given time to acclimate given time to assimilate into a community adds an incredible level of strength and richness to that community would i support diversity goals obviously that's our job we're here to build a stronger community we're here to serve a diverse population i tell my students in speech now you know imagine you're getting you're coming out of college imagine you're that kid in october of 1994. you have
069no idea what you're headed off to but i'm here to tell you that every single one of our students are facing an intercultural and a much smaller world than we did when we graduated college or even high school thank you mr douglas all right the last question will be asked by me um and ms moray will go first and again this is the question that was submitted by miss free as a board trustee we are charged with keeping our students as a top priority how do you intend to advocate for our students best interest thank you for that question um in my 15 years teaching and in what i do now although i'm quite new at it that has always been my guiding question whenever any new curriculum policy class schedule whatever the case may
070be has come before me as an educator my question has always been how does this or does this serve my students um and that's one of the soft skills that they don't teach you in teacher college is how to navigate a system as a as an educator that doesn't always lead with that question um i'd like to think that yes within our classrooms within our school buildings and within our board we do lead with that question but there are so many times in education when new policies or new expectations are delivered to us and expected of us and it's then our task as the educators and the governing bodies of our schools to figure out okay how do we move forward and still do so that in a way that is in the best interest
071of our students and that can be incredibly difficult sometimes when you know legislators or other politicians are making decisions about education who are not educators themselves and are not in our community um so as a board member i would look forward to continuing that guiding question with everything that i would do is just always checking in and asking how does this or does this serve our students and how can we be sure thank you thank you mr ray miss rosen leacher i think the first question i have always asked myself whether it be as a classroom teacher as a school administrator central office administrator but as a parent is this what i would want for my own child child or children and when we come at it where the children are at the center of
072our table always they are our priority and we consider the impact that our decisions have on our students if we're if we're making a decision that we know will have a negative impact on even one child then we have to think carefully about those decisions so always remembering our why our why is the students without our students we're not needed we're not necessary so putting the students at the center of the table and considering the needs of the whole every child that walks through our door not a certain segment of children that's how i would focus on keeping students first thank you mr rosenlicher uh next up miss payer will you repeat the question for me absolutely thank you as a board trustee we are charged with keeping our students let me as the board
073trustee we are charged with keeping our students as a top priority how do you intend to advocate for our students best interests just i'm gonna steal a line for you for my i'm a mom okay first and foremost that is the most amazing job i've ever been blessed to have is be a mom so i'm gonna look at it and go one is it my place and two is it something that i would want for my child that is a very hard question for me to answer unless i was given more specifics i'm going to be very very honest um but the answer off the top of my head was i'm going i believe i would truly look at it as a parent first if i wasn't if i was still sitting here and i'm
074not sitting up there would i be okay with it would i and and if i i wasn't it kind of comes back to the question earlier if i get outvoted you know what do i do that's that's probably the hardest question today the kids are always going to come first they're always they have to be and sometimes it's really hard decisions to do that and you don't make friends necessarily doing that but it has to be done but to me i don't know i guess depending on the situation sometimes i'm just a very blunt person and i just look and say because i said so and this is what's best kind of how i handle my children it would it may be the same way the kids will always come first if i didn't have
075the intention of putting our kids first i wouldn't be standing up here because this is not fun this is intimidating this has been making me nervous for a week now um so really that is that is my goal it's it's not really a question it's hard one to answer if i wasn't going to put the kids first if i didn't want to um i wouldn't be up here no offense or anything i'd be home so to me it's an automatic the kids are first that's just an automatic thanks thank you miss pair mr douglas we're all parents well i i expect most of us here are parents we wouldn't be here if probably we weren't um and all of the kids that we see in the hallways of all the schools these are all somebody's
076children um not to yeah i must steal two i'm gonna do that when you come into when you become a parent i think it it becomes a very profound thing you you don't live for yourself anymore and that's kind of the job of the board that's kind of the job of every teacher who's ever stood in front of a class you're not there for yourself anymore you're there for them you you as a communicator at that point you as a person are serving your students um do you remember any of your kids ever watched thomas the tank engine thomas the tank engine one of the one of the core things about thomas the tank engine was that his drive was to be a truly useful engine right that's that's that's what he was trying to
077be he was trying to be a useful engine that little blue critter and that's what i think we as a group are trying to do we're trying to help our students become useful and i think that we want to get get them to a certain level of education of capability that when they leave milan high school they have a set of skills a set of abilities not just necessary not resident in them right then but they have an ability to learn and i think whatever we can do to help them become better students help them become better and more useful engines is how we serve our students and that's how we make them our top priority thank you mr douglas mr elder can you repeat the question please absolutely as a board trustee we are
078charged with keeping our students as a top priority how do you intend to advocate for our students best interests i think this comes into the point of the big picture you've got all kinds of different kids in this world here at mylon you know like me i have i kind of can steal from you being a parent i got two different girls and i've got to make life perfect for both of them in order to make my household run so i'd have to say you have to look at the big picture and make decisions for everybody all the kids with the different backgrounds and stuff thank you mr elder all right so that concludes the questions you folks are thank you so much you folks are welcome to go back into the audience so you
079don't have to some more comfortable chairs absolutely round of applause for our candidates [Music] all right so at this time um each board member has a tally sheet um that we will rank the candidates from one to five and we will give these tally sheets to miss haika and then those results will be read and we'll put it into a sheet to see how those tallies come out so go ahead and fill out your tally sheet and get it to we'll get it to misaika this so as i read these are you going to keep the talent yeah okay yep do you have make sure you have one okay four okay um so these are mr farrow's rankings uh douglas three elder four murray two pair five rosen leecher one douglas three elder five murray
080two pair four rosen leecher one okay got it um these are cislow's tallies douglas ii elder five murray three payer four rosen leecher one got it thank you uh these are hika's tallies douglas four elder five murray two [Music] payer three rosen leecher one got it and these are tiger's tallies douglas three elder five murray two pair four rosen leecher one okay um so with that um the point totals from the first tally mr douglas has a total of 15. mr elder has a total of twenty four miss murray has a total of eleven miss payer has a total of twenty miss rosenlicher has a total of five so from here this is where we talked about for the next tally we could take either the top two or top three to do a second
081vote on so right now the top three would be miss rosen leecher at five miss murray at 11 and mr douglas at 15. what are people's thoughts on the next tally i would do the top three i'm fine with the top three okay i can do top three so again you'll rank um miss rosen leacher mr douglas and miss miss murray as one two or three so are you ready i'm ready okay um these are sislo's tallies douglas two murray three rose and leecher one got it these are macchio's tallies douglas three murray two rose and leecher one got it these are tiger's tallies douglas three murray two rose and leecher one got it these are haika's tallies douglas three array two rose and leecher one got it and these are pharaoh's tallies douglas iii
082murray two rosen leecher one all right with those tallies mr douglas has 14 miss murray has 11 and miss rosenlicher has five so by that count the nomination would be miss rosen leacher if that's what we if that's what somebody would like to make a motion in regards to i would make a motion to support the appointment of mrs rosen leecher support by pharaoh it's been moved and supported to appoint miss betty rosen leacher to serve as a member of the board of education in milan area schools for the unexpired term of amy landingham resigned ending on december 31st 2022 as authorized by law is there any discussion mr sisson mr pharaoh i just want to thank all of you for for coming tonight getting in front of the microphone answering questions we're very fortunate
083to have five very active people that want to be part of the school board and be as involved in the community as you do so thank you very much i concur again just like i said the the answers that you the written answers that you provided and the interview questions that you provided this evening um i thank you for your time um obviously there is an election in november um the time you have time to submit your um candidacy by july 26th so if you are continued to be interested in serving on the school board i definitely encourage you to put your name into into the into the ring by submitting your candidacy to the washington county elections office but again i do thank everyone for their time in regards to this process any other
084questions or concerns all right it's been moved and supported to appoint miss betty rosen leisure to serve as a member of the board of education of milan area schools for the unexpired term of amy landing him and amy laningham resigned ending on december 31st 2022 as authorized by law miss haika sislow yes pharaoh yes haika yes kyger yes macchio yes motion carries 5-0 congratulations miss rosenlicher um [Applause] mr gearball will be in contact with you um you will have to take the oath of office within a certain period of time and also sign some documents that need to go to the washington county to make sure that everything's in order before you take your your seat at the board which would be at the next meeting in july thank you all right next up is
085public comment a reminder 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 will 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 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 will be referred to the superintendent for advisement investigation study and or recommendation or designated as future agenda items for board consideration and just
086as a reminder since we did pass the fact that you do not have to request your comments to be included in the minutes that is no longer needed so you can provide your comments as as you see fit is there anyone that would like to address the board hi my name is annie cruz um i was just looking on the website and realized that i could not find the june 2018 minutes for june 13th and 27th there's just the agenda posted i don't know if those meetings were cancelled or if the meetings weren't recorded if that's something that we could look into i'd like to be able to access those and then i want to thank the board for voting on the dates for next year and including alternate days of the week to meet
087as it is very important to the stakeholders that you serve that to have a bit of variety so that more people can attend due to other conflicts that are quite important like church on wednesdays and i feel that that i think i feel that you heard us when we were talking about that especially since you do pledge allegiance to the flag which is under god so again while this meeting is very important there are other things that are also ultimately important and each individual does have that right to make that decision but you showing that you've heard us and holding holding a few meetings on other nights so others can attend is greatly appreciated especially from this stakeholder thank you so much thank you ms cruz hello rachel hobbs um i want to piggyback off
088of what annie just said and it's not just about a church function but we are a school and as you heard from the interviews that our students are the center of our lives and it's not just church events that are going on that prevent parents from coming here but there are school activities that require parents to be active and involved for the importance of our children so i really think that your comment was out of line and i don't appreciate it as a parent because i know all these parents here are you know pretty you know arms are being pulled in different ways so you know as community members we are active and we appreciate that you guys did vote to accommodate other people's schedules another issue excuse me that i did not discuss earlier
089is that a few meetings ago a few parents and i were part of a conversation off the record with andrew sislow about town hall meetings you know this was something that was supposed to be discussed with the communications committee and we're still waiting on a town hall meeting we want to hear discussions going on it's not happening we've discussed this many many times for a very long period of time i believe that you guys owe it to the community to hear what's going on so you can properly vote please schedule a town hall meeting thank you thank you ms hopps are there others thank you for those comments uh mr gearbomb superintendent comments thank you a few things to share this evening one the district wants to remind our students and families that the program
090that provided free breakfasts and lunches to all of our students ended on june 10th later this summer in some of the mailings that we send out the district will be reminding families to apply for free introduced meals for the 22-23 school year while this was not required in the past years it will be required next year and we do not want to see families miss out on this important support the simon's elementary school held their fifth grade recognition ceremony on thursday june 9th it was a huge success they had as so many people attend that they had to move the venue from the theater at simons to the gym at simon's and so we will be looking in the future at should that event be an after school type event with that many people choosing
091to attend the milan pride picnic on thursday june 9th was well attended and had numerous activities for the students and families that attended the event a huge thank you to the milan arc and the milan area schools dei team for making this event such a huge success the milan varsity softball team closed out their season with a 24-2 overall record they won the huron league championship and the mhsaa district championship their season ended in a hard-fought game against trenton in the mhsaa regional semifinals the milan varsity baseball team closed out their season with a 17-15 overall record they won the mhsaa district championship their season ended in a hard-fought extra inning game against grossile in the mhsaa regional championship game the milan varsity girls soccer team closed out their season with a 16 4 and
0924 overall record they were runner-up for the huron league championship and won the mhsaa district championship their season ended in a hard-fought overtime match against grossile in the mhsaa regional semifinals we also had an individual athlete ethan budd who matched his personal best high jump this season at the mhsaa state meet with a jump of six feet six inches budge jump allowed him to finish third in the state scoring six points for milan at the state meet congratulations to all of those teams and individual students for their accomplishments this school year the end of the year luncheon held on friday june 10th was very nice it was a huge honor for me to be able to recognize our outstanding retirees i also took time to thank our entire staff for their dedication patience and perseverance
093this year while the year was tough our staff rose to the occasion again and again and provided outstanding educational opportunities to our students this was not only true of our teachers but of all of our staff in the district in every department on thursday june 16th all of the myelinary schools administrators social workers and counselors attended an all-day comprehensive school threat assessment guideline training also known as seastag this is a nationally renowned training that was offered by the isd using a trainer from the cstag organization the training puts a formal process in place for evaluating potential threats made by students staff or parents that very closely matches the informal work that we have always done at milan area schools seastag will also bring common language into the process for everyone in milan and across the
094county including law enforcement agencies that are also receiving training on the cstag process there was a question tonight and actually i was going to speak about it we just received information today from k-12 insight with some of the basic survey information and responses they will be working over the next three weeks to correlate that data for us as this was an outside agency that handled these surveys and they will be turning over the reports to us including reports for the district as well as reports to post publicly so that everyone can see the results of the recent survey that's all i have this evening thank you mr gerba next up is a board member comments um i'll go first uh we did have a our communications committee meeting this past monday um where we did
095discuss um methods or the primary focus was um perspectives regarding what's going well and what could use improvement in in regards to communication both from the community perspective we didn't get we didn't have time to get to the board member perspective uh we were went to i think was until nine o'clock um that we were meeting yeah um so um what i did talk to the members that were there is that i'm going to put out a survey for the board members to to fill out in regards to our perspectives on what is going well and what what needs improvement in regards to town halls we touched on that a little bit at the meeting the concern with town halls especially if all seven board members participate is the open meetings act because any anytime
096that there may be work towards a decision as part of that meeting it becomes an open meeting so um one of the one of the solutions to that is the big red board chat which we did we did have one of those big red board chats we talked about it at the communications committee meeting um the members do think it's a uh it's a it's a definitely a tool for two-way communication the first one that we had post-covid went relatively well although it did have a specific focus big red board chats are open for any questions that people are welcome to come and ask i believe one of the recommendations that's going to come from the committee is formalizing a schedule for those quarterly so that we can that we can have those types of
097two-way interactions so we'll definitely be talking about that at our next communications meeting but that's that's where we're at in regards to that two-way communication in that type of format other other board member comments mr sislom yes mr fair so i missed the uh the last board meeting so i didn't get an opportunity to thank amy landingham for her service to our district i want to thank her for her friendship her advocacy as well as her counsel as a new board member she's going to be missed i'm looking forward to working with miss leitcher amy just a tremendous person i wish her well in her current and future endeavors we are a better district as a result of amy's service thank you mr pharaoh miss psycho i just want to again thank everyone for the
098time and effort that they put into filling out those surveys coming tonight answering all the questions we had tonight i by reading all of your responses i know a lot of thought a lot of effort went into that and that all of you have really thought about what what this district needs and how we move forward and and i appreciate all that feedback and all of your time so thank you let's you um just a couple quick things i wasn't able to attend the pride picnic but i did make it in time from work to go to the flag raising at town hall which was really great and there were so many students there and different people represented i just thought it was a great event and those speakers did a wonderful job and i
099don't know if anybody has followed any of the news since then but there was there were some comments or story on facebook about how we're one of the very few cities to do that so um so i'm really i'm proud of the work that that the whole community is doing in that regard and i also wanted to give a little shout out to jen jenny smith at simon's who's been in charge of books for milan um and in the summer their goal is to get around to all the little free libraries we have so many here and we're very lucky in that regard and um people sign up weekly to go out and put books in the libraries and straighten them up and stuff so my husband and i had the opportunity this week thanks
100to jenny and they provided the books and it's just a great endeavor that started out some of you may be familiar with it was not books on bikes or bikes on books i didn't forget which way it was but then it kind of morphed into books from island so they're just doing a great job of making sure that books get into the hands of our entire community not just our students in the summer and that's um literacy of course is an important goal of mine and i was pleasantly surprised to see so many books in almost every single library that we visited so we never know how they get there or how they come and go but it's obvious that our community is behind that and so i just want to encourage everybody i had
101some community members and a couple staff reach out and say hey how do we do that and um you know you can just go on littlefreelibrary.org and put in our zip code but not every little free library is a registered little free library some people just put them in their yards just for fun and you know they don't paid it because you have to pay to get the tags on them and everything so i encourage people to get in the community and and utilize those they're a great resource that was it for me thank you ms macchio miss sky here i want to thank all the applicants for coming tonight um i totally understand being nervous for a week we've all we've all done this and we were all nervous for a week before it
102happened so so thank you for for taking that time um i also wanna since connie was recognized at the beginning of the evening to just give another shout out to connie she does so much in searching out opportunities for our adult education students that um the boot camps and everything else that she does so it's it's we're very fortunate to have her in our district and mr gerba if you could let the board members know if there's anything that we need to fill out to attend the graduation at the federal prison that's coming up soon let us know that's it thank you all right any other questions concerns or comments meeting is adjourned at 8 4.