001all right I'd like to call the meeting to order can I have roll call Mr Antoine is here miss bonik here Mr Connors Mr Demas is absent with notice beside course here miss rice here and Mr Young is absent with notice use rise for the pledge agents choose to flag to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice throughout unbelievable can I have a motion to approve tonight's agenda motion second moved and supported do we have any questions or concerns uh Mrs bionic with our closed session and no action afterwards I would propose that we move or discussion for the good of the district in public comment up prior to um what is action item k any questions or concerns on that or acceptance of the amendment all
002right all in favor I opposed motion carries moving on to celebrations just a couple this evening um um first maybe some of the board members have seen the Macomb Daily head ran an article similar to what you see on the screen tonight but this year Nicole or Noel kismerick was our Macomb literacy Ambassador representative so you can see in the coverage that were both in the electronic online in the print copy of the MISD the 21 Representatives representing the districts in the county and the ISD so congratulations to Noelle she is actually hard at work beginning today because she oversees our summer school program so she uh she does a lot for us in Romeo and we wanted to just take the opportunity to publicly acknowledge her as a Macomb County Literacy Ambassador and our
003representative from Romeo this year so congratulations and thanks to Noelle um we are literally at that point in time in any school year where I think you officially Turn the page so we always look forward to you know what I think is the most important ceremony we hold and that's you know the annual commencement ceremony for Romeo high school so we'll take the opportunity it was a great ceremony I know you all know that because you were there with front row seats but uh um to congratulate our 2022-2023 graduates one final time and and after some of the important things that we have tonight I think we're actually fully all in moving forward to 23-24. so that is our celebrations for tonight can I have okay so tonight I'll be presenting the budget hearing it's
004much the same information that we discussed at the June 12th Workshop but there's a few changes and I'll Point those out as we go along um first we're going to talk about the debt fund we have 2.5 billion dollars in property values in our district and our Levy that we're going to need to pay our debt is 3.85 Mills the levy um the this is the same level that we had last year and this generates 9.6 million dollars and our principal and debt payments are 9.4 million dollars so we'll have a little bit left over for the following year next we'll talk about our sinking fund this can be used for new construction remodeling technology infrastructure our repair of school buildings and Facilities instructional student technology and security equipment we cannot use it for payroll
005or benefits or any general operating expenses so our Levy for this year will be 1.2127 Mills which will generate just over three million dollars and our total debt Levy including the debt and the sinking fund are the bond and the sinking fund I should say is 5.0627 and this is exactly the same as last year's levies so I want to give you a District overview of our financial situation the annual budget is 75 million dollars our foundation allowance for 2023 was nine thousand one hundred and fifty dollars and at the end of the fiscal year 2023 or 2022 we had an audited fund balance of 14.74 or 9 168 849 in our Amendment for 2023 we had four we projected 14.6 percent fund balance or 10 million dollars 10 million 261 875 so if you'll
006notice that even though we had an increase in fund balance Dollar Wise we had a percentage decrease and the reason that is because the fund balance is calculated based on a percentage of expenses so as our increase in revenue and our increase in expenses the comparison of our fund balance to those numbers it decreases our fund balance percentage when it's still we still have an increase in fund balance so I just wanted to point that out because you'll see that as we go through the presentation how that works uh let's see so I want to touch base on some of our grant funding for 2023 our sr2 totals 2.3 million dollars that's broken into two portions there's the sr2 formula which is 1.3 million dollars and as you can see we spent some of that
007in 2022 but our 2023 expenditures we used it for preventing multi-age classrooms year two of that of that program our RVA supervisor year two and our additional portion of our additional social worker we'll have all of this expanded in 2023 by June 30th and then our other portion of the sr2 is the equalization and that's one mil 1.3 1 million dollars I should say just over one million dollars we spent some of that in 2021 and the rest of it in 2022 except for a small portion that we're using for RVA mentors to use up our our all of our sr2 funding and that is what we're allowed to spend it until September 30th of 2023 so we'll have that all spent according to the federal government and then this looks like the the formatting
008didn't work quite right but our total sr3 funding that's a separate green is 5.6 million dollars and we have sr3 formula there's two portions to this the first one the formula is 2.9 Million Dollars we spent some of our funds in 2022 and a larger portion in 2023 on math interventionists additional peer professional hours additional social worker the part that was we had in sr2 our portion of our director of teaching and learning our RVA Mentor support and RVA course fees then we have a balance of 1.5 million dollars that we'll be spending for similar things in 2024. and then the second portion is the sr3 equalization and if you'll remember this is for students in certain populations so special needs students students with learning disabilities or at risks or students that are English language
009Learners that's what these funds are targeted towards we had some excuse me expenditures in 2022 and 2023 we've spent it on a portion of our math interventionist and secondary counselors that were that were towards these special students we had English language learning teachers for all students that were identified under these these Grant requirements and then in 2024 we have a balance to use of 1.1 million dollars and again we'll use that very similarly to what we did this year so one of the updates I made is to the fund balance projections for this year after reviewing our state aid report and doing some more work on our accounting for that subscription-based information technology Arrangements that we have new this year I'm taking a more conservative approach to the final fund balance projecting that we will
010add 1.5 million dollars to fund balance at the end of the year and have a fund balance totaling 10 million six hundred seventy nine thousand twenty four dollars or 14.46 percent so after our audit I'm sure that we will have an increase to this but we'll wait till we have those final numbers and I wanted to make sure I was more cautious before the end of the year so we'll move forward and look at 2024 and our budget assumptions our first variable is our enrollment assumptions we're projecting a 125 per our 125 FTE decreased and this is caused by the uh Lutheran High North partnership that we didn't renew so that was a decrease of 155 students and then we project that we will increase the RCs students by 30 so the net is 125
011FTE decrease our state aid increase we're projecting to be 450 per pupil that seems to be the number that is closest to maybe the middle of where all the budgets are in the state at the state level projecting a 9 600 Foundation allowance per pupil multiplied by their 5183 FTE so an increase of 2.3 million dollars in Revenue although the state hasn't adopted a budget to date we feel like that is um that assumption is good at this point although I think this week we might expect that they'll be passing a budget we hope so we've used the same budget development process that we've used for the last several years and it begins with our district leadership team brainstorming on potential budget priorities some of the priorities identified will be paid for through grant funding
012the 31aa and section 97 so 31aa is the student mental health Grant and section 97 is the Improvement of student safety Grant so we're going to use those funds for our social worker for Early Childhood a new psychologist and some safe Ed Staffing increases in our buildings other leadership priorities that were identified this will impact the general fund our Romeo middle school administrative position Edition our middle school academies planning time the RVA student support liaison a Communications and marketing coordinator operations and Equipment increased in their budget and support of the K-12 curriculum budget and electronic document conversion we also Incorporated some changes that we know and have planned for with which are our contractual Legacy costs so those are contracts with our bargaining units that we've already negotiated and we know what those increased costs
013are we've also projected what some of the open bargaining contracts that we'll have this summer with those additional costs will be we've subtracted the cost of operating the Lutheran High North support of their personnel Staffing positions we'll talk about new Staffing positions we'll talk about that in the next slide that we're adding due to enrollment and then we're starting to add back in some of the costs that we had covered with Esser funding back into the general fund so now we're not adding it all back in at one time so that's the RVA program cost which was the supervisor the mentor and then the um the cost of the courses writing those back in and then there's some extra service costs that we know health care costs are going to increase and we have some
014costs for custodial and other contracts that we have that we have increases for so those are all built into this budget so I just mentioned through the budget development process that we had additional teaching positions for 2024 three of them are part-time for CTE in video production culinary arts and architecture and drafting at the high school we're also adding a social studies psychology teacher and an art teacher and then at hevel elementary we're adding an intensive resource room teacher and a fourth grade teacher so overall looking at the revenue for next year our local revenue for 18 our non-homestead 18 Mills generates nine million dollars other local revenues which includes the pay to participate or the gate receipts that generates 556 thousand dollars and our state aid Foundation is another 40 million dollars then state
015aid other would be our at-risk funding or some other things that help support our the increase in the retirement rate and then Federal and grants is 10 million dollars so our total budgeted revenues are 76 million 961 831 dollars foreign Ted student FTE is 5183 at 909 600 per pupil for a total Foundation Grant of 49 million seven hundred fifty six thousand eight hundred dollars minus our local support which is our 18 Mills is nine million ninety thousand one hundred forty three dollars so our state share of our funding is forty million 666 657 dollars it's a lot of numbers so this chart shows how our district depends on the state for our funding how heavily we uh just rely on the state for our funding so if you see the the dark blue or
016almost looks black and the orange those two together are about 74 of our Revenue so it's very important for us to get those increases in state aid on the expenditure side I've broken this into salaries benefits purchase Services supplies capital outlay and other for total expenditures of 76 million seven hundred and twenty three thousand twenty three dollars and looking that in a pie chart also this is heavily on the side of salary and benefits so that the blue and the dark blue those total about eighty percent of our budget now we're a people business so that isn't unusual for education to be that heavily invested in in Personnel costs so at the end of 24 we're projecting that we'll add 238 808 dollars to fund balance and expect it to be almost 11 million dollars
01710 million nine hundred seventeen thousand eight hundred thirty two dollars or fourteen point two three percent so there are some other budgets that the Board needs to approve that they're required by law to approve other than the general fund the first one is the community service fund if you remember in 2022 and 2023 the community service fund got some child uh Child Care stabilization grants and so those that really helped support the fund so we expect that they're going to add to fund balance by 132 609 dollars this this year and end up with almost six hundred thousand dollars in fund balance now next year is a little different they're not getting this the child care stabilization grants anymore so we expect them to use some of their fund balance because we're as we get
018the projects over at the Croswell Center done and get ready to grow we just feel like that maybe things will be a little bit slower next year but then they'll be ready to go the following year to increase their programs so food service that's also unique in that we had fun balance of a little over a million dollars at the end of 2022 and remember that was mostly because we had all the free breakfast and lunch this year we went back to the free paid reduced schedule that we had normally and so we've added a little bit to fun expect to add a little bit to fund balance twenty four thousand five dollars to fund balance this year we had uh excess fund balance as the state identified in the Food Service account last year
019so we'll probably be identified this year as Having excess fund balance but we do have a plan for using those funds in 2024 we expect to use 518 794 dollars in fund balance and that's because we're using a portion of the Food Service fund to help with the Romeo Middle School cafeteria equipment purchase and we're also they've our food service director has identified some other needs in the other departments or other buildings that need equipment so we'll use some of those funds so we'll we'll get our fund balance down to a reasonable level at the end of 2024. and then the high school bookstore this is just one with the we have to approve a budget we expect it to add to fund balance they could use their fund balance to buy equipment if they
020needed to buy some you know t-shirt uh printing machine or something like that so we leave that up to them how they would like to spend that money but we do have to adopt a budget for this year ending we expect them to end with a adding to fund balance and then next you're adding to fund balance again but they may have some things that they need to need to buy for their their school store next year and we'll update you if that if that happens we also have to adopt a budget for our special revenue or Student Activity funds I put these both on one slide because these are the funds that are fundraised for these aren't we have to report them with the general funds but these are the funds that the students
021raise or that the schools raise and that we use them exclusively for extra needs that the students have so these funds are not used any for any portion of the general fund costs or expenses this is for added added things that the students need and then going forward we'll complete the audit in August this year so we'll have a report for you in September or October and then we'll continue to assess our SRX expenditures and prepare for our state audit because we do expect that the state will come out and audit us on the user funds and then we'll plan to transition the user fund positions back to the general fund for 2025 so we'll be talking about that throughout the year and then we'll have a fall budget amendment once we know what fall
022enrollment is and once we know what the state budget is so we'll talk about that and get us up to date in the later in the fall questions I don't have a question but I just since we do have an audience and I'm going to ask you can you go back to I think it was the last slide of Revenue and you showed the um go back one more this one yes I think it's super important because a lot of people don't understand the 18 mil non-homestead when proposally passed it said that Holmes would pay six Mills and non-homes would pay 18. but what people don't understand is if you don't pass the 18 the state takes that away from you so they assume we collect it they know that amount and then they take
023it what they give us out of that so I don't remember what year it's going to come up again but just to give people that understanding that it's not a new tax it's the actual formula of how we pay for our schools and it's not it was part of proposal a and it's the six Mills 18 mils it's not anything new it's not taxing someone more than others it's just how we are how they come up with the per pupil so that that's just a slide I haven't seen it like that in a while maybe you always do it that way but I thought hearings when we're talking about taxes but not not typically yeah so that's just kind of a good visual you kind of see that we collect it but then that's what
024they knock off what they give us right so it's really important we don't lose that nine million dollars yes that's very important they're knocking it off whether we pass the military that's the point correct they know how much we should collect at 18 Mills and they factor that in in what they give us that's correct anybody else have questions this is our opportunity for public to speak on this topic this is our actual budget hearing so we didn't necessarily indicate that with the yellow cards but if there's someone who wants to speak on the public or on the budget this is your time seeing none we can move now do we have to consider that do we have to close and come back out or we go into no because we didn't really formally go
025in so we're good we're good the budget the budget hearing conclude the budget hearing and we'll just document the time all right we are concluding the budget hearing okay at 6 22 I think all right moving on to consent action can I have a motion motion support moved and supported are there any questions or concerns on any of this for the audience's sake um the board policy 6008 is just a reimbursement of Transportation mileage within the district which is what we always do but we were changing our policy to go along with that most of it is our minutes and our normal general fund and our annual June approvals can I have a all in favor I opposed motion carries moving on to informational updates and new business Communications you see we had a couple
026students write to us Thanking us for scholarships I don't think there were any other Communications and moving on to committee reports we had curriculum and finance I will go ahead with curriculum okay we met at the end of May and just to kind of highlight some of the things that the notes that Jennifer McFarland sent out we will be looking at a new seventh grade textbook adopting that tonight and a lot of good feedback from the parents and teachers that reviewed it very factually based it's part of a trimester class at the seventh grade level at Romeo middle as far as the K to second grade socialized curriculum we discussed that it's not really anything new but more of streamlining Curriculum maps for those lower elementary teachers and this was discussed at the study session
027how third grade will be using giant units and all of those things got teacher feedback which were positive for fourth through eighth grade social studies that's also um on the agenda tonight um we will be adopting TCI and the feedback from that from teachers what it is that it was more interactive and inquiry based compared to what we were using uh we also discussed that there will be looking at the student handbook and making updates if needed the grading standards committee met and that includes Administration teachers and a few parents and there was different things addressed but a couple highlights from that were adding taking a look a little bit more at student work and making sure that there's honesty there and also looking at how retakes will be done and that will be more
028at the discretion of the teacher and just having some more just just consistency there the PD advisory committee met it's full of a lot of different people across the district and this time they added three parents and to that just to discuss the different needs of professional development across the district and then we also at the very end talked about learning loss from covid and just looking at you know evidence how has that changed in the last couple of years and then we also agreed to meet back in person starting with our August subcommittee meeting those are just some highlights I think I'm also the only representative for finance here tonight okay I don't know if you want to do it um I know we spent a lot of time at the study session and
029Vicki gave a great report tonight so if anybody has any doesn't have any questions I won't bore you with repeating it I'm good okay I just wanted to say one thing Miss McFarland I did read that health book um the seventh grade health book um and I was impressed with it so all right so I I've just listed I mean the board members you have this nothing has changed but we we had a little bit of a pause now in committee meetings but we'll pick back up the end of July and pretty much back into our same rotation as we get into next year another annual rite of passage Mrs McFarland and Mr Murray are here to talk about our K-12 educational goals and our year-end progress update so I think it's been the past
030couple years section 98b because we like all the numbers and letters together we update the board in February and then in June so this will be the year-end progress towards growth so if you recall in the fall each building and District need to decide on their goals for the year and in Macomb County the ISD has guided us and asked us to just kind of have a general language but we give the nwea assessment so they help to segregate and aggregate the data for us so we we have to show growth in reading and math so the way our goals read using a variety of strategies we have cast time SLC time teachers can talk about nwea we give it in the fall winter and then the spring so we'll be showing growth between the
031fall and the spring [Applause] so this is just a graph of the first one's kindergarten the K won't show up for me so I apologize and this year we gave the NWA to our 11th and 12th graders as well they did not take it three times they just took it twice fall and spring so you can see for math the blue bar is the fall average at score and then the red is the average spring score so you can see all the reds are higher in math so that was that was a very pleasant surprise because sometimes the you know math scores haven't um shown growth in all of our grade levels So reading pretty much um all the all the threads are higher than the blues um sixth grade they didn't make any growth
032they stayed the same and then in 9th and 10th grade it was I think one point last um so Mrs McFarland can I ask a question and I apologize if it's on an upcoming slide it won't be the first time I've done that I think it's important for the public and the board to know that the The Benchmark changes from Fall to spring so the kids are not trying to achieve the same score level correct so correct so it adjusts throughout the year based on teaching and learning correct so after three weeks of learning there's a set after and then whenever your spring assessment is I think we have 30 weeks of of learning so it is expected to be higher so I'll let Mr Murray talk a little bit about the elementary and some
033observations that were made thank you so uh from the graphics that you just saw overall all of our grade levels at the elementary level made growth in math and reading um and then from a district aggregate perspective looking at all subgroups across the district K5 all of our subgroups made growth as well which was exciting um I will I think there kind of scroll through our building updates um you'll start to see a common theme and again if you look closely at the graphic that uh Graphics that Mrs McFarland created um you'll see at our lower levels um so K K12 um the the difference between the blue bar and the red bar is is higher right and that's just because it's easier to make growth the expectation is that there's more growth at the
034lower elementary level than uh you know as kids move through third fourth fifth grade and Beyond so Amanda Moore ampar again double digit growth in both content areas kindergarten through second grade um and then you know math three through five was the same experience hevel again kindergarten to third grade and then fourth and fifth we really just saw a dip in Reading there was some consistency in terms of making that double-digit growth from Fall to Spring in math reading was what's that yeah yeah yeah um and then Washington because we're looking at five buildings across the district it probably makes most sense to talk about the common challenges that those buildings have um you know again fourth and fifth grade reading is not necessarily a challenge it's just acknowledging the fact that double-digit growth is
035difficult um you know to achieve it doesn't mean that kids aren't making progress and teachers aren't doing a quality job it's just a bit of a challenge it'll be interesting to see the impact that ckla may have on fourth and fifth grade growth obviously growth overall with new curricular materials but specifically at those grid levels to see if it's going to make a difference in terms of more growth if you will and then our economically disadvantaged special education populations their achievement is still lagging and so you know one thing that we're going to look to do is expand our high dosage tutoring opportunities next year we had a high return on investment uh you know from the teachers and students who participated in the program but it's about two things right finding the dollars and
036cents and then also finding the staff to do it so we know that it works we just have to have to find the right The Sweet Spot if you will in terms of Staffing and finance I could be focused on reading or math but this year we did focus on reading so I put it your places all of the tables with all of the data in there um but I felt like just blushes I feel that just giving some general observations and things um made more sense in a board meeting than all those tables that we shared in February so some general observations about six through eight math every grade level made um growth in Reading 7th and 8th 8th made growth and as I stated when I showed the bar graph grade six remained
037stagnant from the fall to the spring in the average writ score just a note our 612 Ela curriculum updates are on the docket for next year so we met a little bit in the spring so hopefully that that'll make some uh improvements so I kind of broke it up into highlights and challenges um so the Highlight for Romeo Middle School was math at all groups of students so not only grade levels but each of those groups of students that you'll see in your table and seventh grade the reading average norm was above the national average so that was pretty um nice to see especially with sixth grade kind of remaining stagnant but seventh grade was well above the national Norm some of our challenges against sixth grade not only did they remain stagnant but some
038of our groups showed a dip so overall all students remained the same but certain groups of students actually decreased their writ score from the fall and again remember it's a moving Target it's not the same score in the fall to the spring there's some pretty significant gaps between our economically disadvantaged students and non-academic economically just advantaged and the same with special at the middle school so our I'll have a slide at the end we'll talk about how we can tackle some of those concerns oh it should read 912 I apologize for the The Heading so remember grades 11 and 12 this was their first year as 11th and 12th graders taking the nwea some of them experienced it as 9th and 10th graders in previous years all grade levels showed growth in math grades 9
039through 11 showed little or no growth in Reading as Mr Murray said in the upper grades of Elementary School double digit growth is is not seen a lot in the middle and high school level like the expected growth might be two or three writ points so that's really hard to move but again we're reviewing our curriculum for ELA in grades 6 through 12. we'll begin at work in Earnest in the fall so hopefully we can align some more of our materials but on a positive note we saw some PSAT SAT scores anecdotal note possibly for the good of the order yeah you think of all the high stakes tests that an 11th grader 12th grader have to take it is extremely difficult for us to persuade some of those students that the mwa is that
040it matters yes yes thank you yes so we tried to give it to him in March before spring break thinking well maybe that would help but not so much um but they did their best um so um I was I was um pleasantly encouraged that there was little to no gap between males and females on the average written math so um uh and by um by 11th grade I think they're equal so that's pretty cool that we're doing a very nice job at the secondary level making sure that all students you know are achieving in math so um as opposed to the middle school where there were some significant gaps in economically disadvantaged and non-economically disadvantaged in 11th grade the Gap is much smaller and we tested quite a few kids so it's not like
041I only tested 50. but there were quite a few 11th graders that did take it again it challenges the Special Ed non-special Ed Gap that exists it's um probably double digits so we'll dig into that with our special ed department and I know that Mrs selden's already talked about some more um co-teaching and different ways that we can support those kids so in summary most students are showing growth on our NWA assessment from Fall to Spring our school and District teams will continue to explore and desegregate that data and really look at those groups of students we did that this year but now they'll bring it back during their SLC or cast meeting times and really try to identify how we can support those kids Mr Murray talked about high dosage tutoring at the elementary
042level we will continue to utilize our interventionist Support classes that we may have at the middle or high school and maximize those students that need to be in those classes to close some of those achievement gaps any questions so we post this on the website in addition to the board having more details correct this will be on the transparency website under our mandatory covid reporting although I probably should change the title of that so the the data doesn't get stale after tonight you have more detailed breakdown if there was questions in the future we can run those through curriculum subcommittee or otherwise moving forward we're not sure that this requirement will we are not sure yet if the K-8 benchmark assessments or the K-12 educational goals will be mandatory for the 23-24 school year and
043it sounds like if the legislature is going to do anything with that it's going to be wrapped into the approval of the school 8 budget versus separate you know testimony and bills um being passed I believe that is all thank you um so yes I just said good job um so just a couple updates for my report tonight we've we've you know we've had a lot there was a lot in the um study session and some some pretty considerable subcommittee meetings leading up to that so one of the items that has come on maybe a little bit more aggressive timeline than than what our original plans were is our resolution tonight for security camera upgrades and that's phase one and this this does have some connection to uh my safety update tonight but I do
044have Mr Nelson here and Scott Smith from IDs technology our consultant for all this work so if there was any questions in regard to that from the board they'd be happy to come to the program to the podium and help clarify so gentlemen thanks for being here any questions for them in regard to that so in layman's term the superintendent said we got these recommendations and I think we need to add more cameras to meet some of these and then that kind of expedited some things so thank you gentlemen for making that happen so we can get those included this summer um next just uh you know we're still the the board knows but for the public you know we're still working through the the sale of the old Romeo Middle School site um since
045our last meeting uh you know I would just you know report that we have gone back as the board you know asked and reconnected with uh our number two and number three bidders from the RFP process uh We've shared with them a lot of input in regard to conversations with the board and put that we've gotten from the citizens and residents uh over uh committee meeting and and regular meetings and ask them to consider that have conversations with them about the possibility of you know engaging with that group in the future and they have submitted revised proposals um that that the board is just you know receiving and getting the opportunity to review um also Matt with Mr Corey you know the representative it from the citizens group and you know talk through a lot
046about where we're at and the intentions of the board at this time and also a little bit more about their support and and their backing in addition to the you know the desires of the group that we've heard through um public common over a couple meetings so I feel like we've we have moved the needle but all that considered we're not bringing you know uh any action tonight we don't have a proposal recommended proposal at this time and we'll continue to work through that you know especially after our further conversation uh in closed session tonight and you know I'm making no declarations you know there is a possibility of some action in July but it very well could be August as well so any other questions or comments on that I would just like to
047add again since we have some people here to take a step back so you understand this is an asset that we no longer need so it is something that we entered into the RFP process to sell the property our goal is to sell the property it's not to maintain it it's not to create some type of educational setting there because our kids aren't there so if we're going to do an educational setting a farm or any of those types of things that would that would actually be at one of our school sites where the kids could actually access it so just want to remind everybody that we are planning to move forward with selling the property as Dr Robinson said not tonight you know maybe July maybe August because we have taken the time to
048to hear what the residents had to say work closer with the people that are bidding to make sure that it's kind of a win-win situation for both the residents and the school district so we as fiscal agents have to be clear that when we no longer need an asset we have to go through a process to to get rid of it so that's kind of where we're at but just wanted to let everybody know that we're we're not planning to keep it um that that ship has has sailed all right thank you um uh just to for a safety update you know we we have delineated all of those um you know safety and risk assessment recommendations um created a very organized um uh worksheet to track those um Mr Nelson and Mr storms departments
049both have significant connections to many of those recommendations so there are some that we feel we can accomplish this summer in the absence of of you know leaders and staff there are others that will be built into our transition back into the school year next year and are planning with our administrative team and then the work we do right at the beginning of the year to just Refresh on safety protocols and priorities and things like that and then there will also be some that will take a little longer there is a handful of the recommendations they are simply recommendations if you remember remember when Mr Russell was here like they're not telling us what we have to do they don't have any Authority it's their perspective so there are some recommendations that we just don't
050feel make sense because of operationally this is the difference in between the use of space or some protocol instructionally versus whether it would just be some sort of rigid facility that doesn't have the moving parts of of teaching and learning but I think in large part we're going to be able to accomplish most of what they have done and likewise to when we had these assessments done three years ago by representatives from the office of emergency management in the county we were able to achieve most of those as well so I'm grateful for all the work that's gone into getting us here but you know in in some ways this is just the beginning because now we we've got to make them all a reality and I think we can do that the other thing
051is is you know the board knows that in our annual June approvals and our consent agenda tonight is um you know kind of re-upping and extending our agreements for the school resource officers at both buildings um you know those also are connected to our municipality so the Bruce Township board has already taken action last week the the village board is has that on their agenda tonight you know for the RMS officer and I'm still working with supervisor pravidian the Washington Township agreement with the sheriff's department so I appreciate the board's support you know our our stake is in the ground that officer Bauer and Deputy lavish we want them here next year and there's conversations about how we might even consider multi-year extensions to that but for now we're we're we're in the game for
052next year and I don't anticipate that we won't have support from our municipal and we'll confirm that hopefully no later than our July meeting that's all Robinson we have a question on that um I don't have it in front of me pulled up but I believe the subcommittee meet next meeting is not till October for safety um and I know there might not be a lot of updates but given that there's two new members on that committee I was wondering if we could maybe touch base before October sure okay thank you that's my report all right I did not receive any public comment um for anything that's on the agenda tonight if you I do have two for later in the agenda regular meeting action items our first can I have a motion for employee
053services resolution 52 which is a Personnel update supported by Connor any questions or concerns on that one all in favor I opposed motion carries did you want to introduce I do so we have some guests here tonight bonus guess but uh Mr Bartlett is here tonight hasn't been long since Mr Bartlett was here as teacher of the year so that must mean something because fast forward another month and a half or so and and here we are just having approved him to be the new assistant principal at Romeo middle school so congratulations Troy Mr Martz and Mrs Ebert like a woohoo uh finally Robinson you know yeah thank you um also uh because I knew Troy was coming tonight it's been a couple months since we approved uh Aaron schweinhoffer as our new Academy principal
054for the dam Academy at Romeo high school so Aaron is here tonight they both have representatives from their family here so um welcome to Romeo bartletts I know you kind of been around for a while but uh Aaron and Troy we have this tradition of the row of handshake so if you guys want to come up and start on the end there with Mrs icorse and introduce yourself we'll get a picture of you guys and then move on program nice to meet you nice to meet you congratulations congratulations congratulations again this is excuse me I I I I mean I have it right here is there a change so the what we got in our board packet am I just blind but no change I editorial change if necessary okay because he's not on here
055that's all I just want to make sure usually it's one at our desk unless I'm just missing it don't worry Mr Bartlett this is so just to be firm should we make an amendment to what's in our board packet and make sure that Mr Bartlett is on there I missed a meeting a week ago so I just thought maybe you were coming after so I didn't bring up ahead of time I apologize so all in favor of the friendly amendment I I opposed motion carries I just I I had the opportunity to meet with Troy for his quote unquote final interview and he shared with me the the super exciting four-day window of when he actually became a teacher in Romeo being having being laid off to from a district in the South right at
056the beginning of the school year and Troy we were not looking to add to that story tonight so um I would also want to share with the board and I kind of mentioned this maybe I mean these folks technically haven't officially started and they've already spent three full days in training in between teacher evaluation and today at the ISD on behavioral risk assessment so super committed people and we're excited to have them on board so another round of applause for our new administrator all right thank you all right moving on to employee services resolution 53 which is our Raa tentative agreement that's with our administrators can I have a motion motion move by I course support by Connor any questions or concerns on this all in favor I opposed motion carries congratulations to our administrators
057if you are here moving on to academic Services resolution 54 which is the 7th grade health textbook can I have a motion motion move by right or move by i-core supported by rice or vice versa any questions or concerns no comments all in favor I opposed motion carries moving on to academic Services resolution 55 which is a third grade social studies giant resource can I have a motion motion move by I course support support by rice questions seeing none all in favor I opposed motion carries our next one is academic Services resolution 56 which is the fourth through eighth grade TCI social studies adoption motion move by rice I'll support that any questions or concerns all in favor I opposed motion carries moving on to business services resolution 57 which is our bus purchase moved
058by Anton support by Connor questions concerns comments all in favor aye opposed motion carries next is our business services resolution 58 which is our fiscal year 2023 final budget can I have a motion motion moved by Antoine supported by I course too any questions or concerns just want to thank Vicki for all of her work on this all in favor aye opposed motion carries the next is our business services resolution 59 which is fiscal year 2024 original budgets can I have a motion motion hi Corsten Antoine any questions all in favor I opposed motion carries next one is technology resolution number 60 which is our security cameras phase one motion support okay move by Antoine supported by rice questions all in favor I opposed motion carries next one is our facilities resolution 61 which is
059the 2021 Bond change approval can I have a motion I will move can I have a sport support support by rice any questions all in favor I opposed oh wait nope that was delayed I yes okay I'll I've opposed motion carries we will go to public comment just to remind everybody we have three minutes um the first person is Cheryl melling yeah you're not red can you hear me all right I'm here to talk about something that I'm very passionate about and it is autism spectrum disorder in the classroom and teachers being educated on that in 1980 there was one in ten thousand kids with autism or people with Autism in 1992 it jumps to one in 150 1998 one in 110. 2002 one in 68 and now it's 1 in 36. we've heard a
060lot about coved but this is an emergency that doesn't seem to be going away it continues to seem to grow and but I don't see the education in in the educational World on that topic growing so special education services seem to be more and more challenged as kids with more special needs increase so the kids are increasing but the resources seem to be staying stagnant or decreasing and that is a a problem all the way around including a financial problem I'm not sure that Romeo has an ASD program I'm not sure I don't think so but the teachers are overwhelmed so if the teachers are not trained on how to address ASD in the classroom in the general education setting then it and then it topples over to special ed and that can increase costs
061for the district so kids typically the goal is to place the kids in the general educational setting but the problem is many teachers are not trained in ASD and how to help those children in that setting so I would like to offer a solution I have been teaching since 1999. I have a lot of experience in both upper and and lower elementary school and I have a 21 year or sorry 20 year old child on the Spectrum so I've been spending years going to conferences uh going to workshops I just attended this past year five course workshop at the MISD I've read books I've met with psychologists I have a not a lot of knowledge in this area I have actually given five presentations for different districts and unions on teaching ASD in the general
062educational classroom with excellent feedback in fact the last time I presented the principal was so impressed that he wanted to bring it as a PD day for the entire District so why do I bring this up because I would like to offer free of charge my services my and my presentation to your teachers or I could present to the school board and you can see if that's something you would like me to present because I feel like it's so important for the kids to for the teachers to have that that expertise and those skills and to know what to do so that those three minutes okay so that those kids can be helped and I feel like I heard a lot of talk about special ed and special ed you know that seems to be
063a challenge well when you have kids that their needs are not met they have a lot of anxiety and an anxious brain cannot learn thank you thank you [Applause] I have Maddie kuchenmeister did I say it right am I adding an n okay 13 letters isn't easy for anyone good evening I'm Maddie kuchmeister a 2022 Romeo graduate and long-time Romeo resident firstly I like to recognize that the school board is doing many things in order to strengthen our community as evidenced by many of the discussions that have taken place in the recent board meetings however it is also clear that in the Romeo Community some community members that have spoken at the board meetings are exhibiting a clear and potentially hurtful US versus them mentality this is true regarding some of the discourse surrounding the
064watch the Washington Elementary redistricting and it is also true when discovering discussing safety and inclusivity for queer students staff and Families as someone who only graduated Romeo one year ago I have first-hand experience of this US versus them mentality I have experienced and my friends and peers have detailed to me discrimination in the form of threats harassment violence and assault because their sexual orientation or gender identity I know two I know of two separate specific incidents of bullying at Romeo Middle School that happened just in the last few weeks of school this year a female student who does not identify as being part of the queer Community was called homophobic slurs for having short hair and a male student who also does not identify as queer was bullied for wearing jewelry however neither of them
065felt comfortable reporting these situations because they felt that the situation would not be would not be remedied or would even get worse it should go without saying but every student is owed an educational climate in which they feel safe having a healthier School climate benefits every student providing a safe and inclusive environment for queer students does not create an unsafe environment for students who are not part of the lgbtq community increasing protections for students who are at risk would be without cause if it put other students at risk in order for the Romeo school board and administration to take the best most relevant steps in policy reform there must be a full understanding of what all of their students go through on a day-to-day basis I have gathered some resources in order to help the
066school board to truly assess Romeo's School climate the first I have is from glsen the same organization from which I access the policy recommendations from last month's meeting the second I have is provided from the CDC and is widely used by schools across the country for self-assessment I have pronounce of the overviews of each resources that I will be providing last sorry that I will be providing each of the members with after my comments lastly I'd like to thank the board for being so receptive of the materials that I've provided in the last few board meetings I would also like to add that while I may not be divulging into deep detail during my comments I am limited by the time I'm given and the true value of what I am saying is held in
067the specific analysis and utilization of the resources that I'm providing with each of the members I truly hope that these resources can be utilized in order to create a more welcoming and inclusive environment for every student thank you okay all right oh all right um board discussion for the go to the district does anyone have anything they want to share all right and can I have a motion to go into uh closed session motion moved and supported I course and Connor can I have a roll call uh Mr Antoine is yes Miss Panic yes Mr Connor yes Messiah course yes Miss rice yes yes and just for the audience we're not voting when we come out but you're surely welcome to stay