Saline Area Schools: Board of Education meeting (03.11.2025)

001e e friends I'm calling to order the March 11th 2025 selary Schools Board of Education meeting so standing as you are able we're going to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and I'm going to ask a random member of the audience Carly melconian is going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance thank you ready Carly Al to the FL United States of America thank you Carly well done good job uh public comment please a member of the public May address the board briefly for up to three minutes or request to be scheduled on the agenda of a future meeting please note the students will get priority to speak on any topic the first public participation portion of the meeting is limited to 30 minutes normally and limited to agenda items a second public participation portion

002will be offered at the end of the agenda to allow for any other comment individuals addressing the board should take into consideration the rules of common courtesy the public participation portion of the meeting cannot be used to make personal attacks against a board member district employee or student and we have nothing from students and we have nothing from other public other public stakeholder I did not not think that would trip me up nothing from other public stakeholders however we do have an extended public comment uh I'd like to introduce you to uh Daisy charman and Kelly van you're up Kelly van we Ben single sorry oh there we go there we go and we're going to aim for about 10 minutes at the max max oh yeah it's not going to be that long thank

003you so very brief I am Kelly V single and this is Daisy Shan and we're here on behalf of the we're here on behalf of the special education advisory committee in Seline area schools and just a little bit of a background on the next slide please Ben um Michigan administrative rules for special education requires that each Intermediate School District develop a parent advisory committee um and we do have that at the ISD level um there are two of our committee members that serve on the WD parent advisory committee myself I am an at large rep and our two Reps for Seline are Daisy charman and Tara and um some local districts also have their own parent advisory committees as well to serve those larger groups Ann Arbor is one such and we are as well

004as I believe milin is looking into developing their own group as well you want to reader um the special ADV education advisory committee is to support advise and recommend the processes and standards for delivery of special education and services for Selen area schools the committee is made up of parents staff and administrators committed to the pursuit of Excellence throughout Seline area schools members represent a cross-section of the Selen area schools from P prek to young adult respecting the and embracing different viewpoints membership is done through an application and selection process and terms are for two years so we have some of our CC members here in attendance tonight they're standing right behind me but uh on the board you can see um we have representation at all different um age levels and building levels and

005some of the things that we've been working on this school year um both last spring and this fall we had some playground uh meetups at Pleasant Ridge just for families to get together and have a chance to meet each other support each other build community um we've also expanded that into middle school and high school and young adults socialization activities last Friday we had an open bowling and pizza day at station 300 um we also brought in um a professional by the name of Shawn Roy recently who led us in a zoom um professional development series on preparing for transition to to adulthood that was excellent um we shared out his materials to families and staff um we've also held a series of parent and caregiver evening coffee chats here at Liberty um we're also

006looking at developing a fundraising subcommittee to maybe fund things like technology enhancements or some music um enrichment experiences and we've also been um working lately with the deac and participating in the superintendent search and that's I think that's about it thank you very much well well done thank you for that update we'll see you here same time next year sounds good caught me by surprise uh revisions approval of the agenda this is the part where we add or delete from the agenda uh and the order can be changed at the request of any individual board member now two pieces of information came up to me just uh within the last two hours or so so I need to make two amendments uh number the first is if you would do me a favor and add

0077e please 7 e please we're going to reum the 7f because uh person Miranda didn't know there was an F already uh so we're going to include that it's the uh Mo motion to approve the purchase of HVAC equipment we'll go over that later she apologizes we do have a lot of information and she will catch you up on why it came up and why it's so helpful to do this right now uh secondly I'd also uh because I was in negotiations with our uh contractor Scott Robertson I got some additional information just this morning that I can now share with the board so I'd like to add a 9d under athletic review please I think it's 9d let me just triple check yep 9d under discussion items right after super intendent search J Bennett

008Mr Bennett wherever he is no he's floating oh there he is thank you are there any other changes from the rest of the uh board no students no you didn't know you had that power did you thank you thank you very much uh I have no response so uh like to entertain a motion to approve the agenda as revised so moved gerby gerby seconded second tises thank you Mr tises all in favor please say I I I opposed great thank you very much for letting me modify the agenda students would you introduce your uh your showcase please for this week's student showcase we have students from the Selen High School AP Spanish and they will talk about their recent trip to Costa r hola I'm asy one of the Spanish teacher at Sal high school

009and here and with wonderful people we just came back uh from the province of alela in Costa Rica we immers our kids in the culture each one of them live with hot families so we they spend the day with us but at night they went to eat dinner with the family and interact with them they learned a lot in the morning when we picked them up they were super tired but go a smile on their faces and seeing them enjoying the trip it was amazing my heart was our hearts were full of joy so and we came here to say thank you to all of you to approved this wonderful trip to allow us to go um enjoy this experience with them they were 24 kids that went uh with us we have three wonderful

010shopping room in addition um e and thank you so much for approving other two Spanish teacher to come when we immerse the kids in the culture is very important that our chaperon can is are able to speak the language because many things can go wrong with the families and some days we were eating dinner and one of them was calling us and suddenly the phone handed to us in espanol so thank you so much for allowing three of us um this was one something that we want to do as a department I had this experience in Nicaragua many years ago and profet man had in his Spain seor gones and seor s manihar in Mexico and we have always have had the the goal to take our kids and immerse them in the culture so

011thank you so much for that here I have two wonderful students that are going to give you all the details about the trip thank you all right hi my name's Ethan hor BG I'm a senior at Selen hi I'm Lizzie white I'm a junior at Selen I'm currently in AP Spanish Ethan took it last year so uh basically it we're going to go through each day and kind of explain what we did and kind of the experiences we had and what we learned and at the end we'll talk more about the homestays and the learning experience but first we'll just kind of go through the itinerary so on day one we took a tour of a pineapple plantation in the morning and if you don't know fun fact Costa Rica is the number one producer

012for pineapples worldwide so it's a super big part of their culture so being able to be there getting a tour uh was a very cool experience also this tour and every single tour we took there which were several were entirely in Spanish so that was a super good experience too for uh improving our language skills uh we also got to try some pineapple there and personally it's much better there than it is here so I can tell you that for sure uh furthermore in the afternoon we went white waterer rafting on the lake of poo aul that was also incredible I've been white waterer rafting before and I'm fortunate to say that is the best experience it was awesome super great uh and everyone had so much fun there's a picture of us all there

013holding the coaster Rican flag and you can see some pictures of us all Whitewater ra ing very fun so that was an awesome experience and I think the white waterer rafting was fun and it had a really good balance of learning at the plantation because we got to practice uh understanding and interpreting the language while also being immersed in their culture all right um for day two we visited this school in alua which is the city we were staying in the whole time um we also got to uh the school was called esua Holanda e um and we we um w got to experience the city as well of alaha so we first stopped in the bottom right you can see a picture we stopped at um it was like a gardening store nearby um

014we got to personally pick out all of the plants and flowers we wanted to bring with us to the school and we got to go and plant them at the school um it was a it was a great experience working with um younger kids it was an elementary school uh we got to not only talk to them in sort of the lower level Spanish that we all experience in Spanish one and two and three um but also um we got to uh just have a great time and um uh we then after that we walked around we got to experience the city life firsthand um and seeing seeing City life I guess just uh it was a great comparison between he uh here where we live and Costa Rica and it was sort of the

015Connecting Point for a lot of us between like wow we're really in another country um and yeah this is just a slide with more pictures from that day we did a lot it was awesome talking to all the kids again they don't speak English so all this communication entirely in Spanish a great way to practice our skills and we saw a lot of cool things too like that peacock uh so day three was also super cool we went ziplining in the morning over volcane arol and then in the afternoon we went to the baly hot springs which were also on by the volcano so those are some pictures it was very beautiful uh super amazing experience again uh instructions for this uh every Everything Spanish and also an amazing gorgeous view that just kind of

016showed us we got to see all parts of Costa Rica while we were there we traveled up and down we had to go 4 hours to get to this volcano in a bus all together 24 students it was a lot but it was definitely worth it and uh there's just nothing like it so it was super amazing to be able to see just like all parts because we were driving all over we saw all different socioeconomic classes and just a complete range of things that was an experience like no other um so for day 5 we went to a coffee plantation and got to see firsthand the um uh production and how they I guess from step by step of how coffee is made so we got a tour by one of the tour guides

017again completely in Spanish and um we saw every single step of the process um to see how it was made and then we even got to try the coffee at the end and it it was interesting seeing the again how Lizzie mentioned the different um kind of positions people are in um all in other countries and we got to see how we got to see how the um how the coffee was made and what it's like for life um of those in other countries I guess we talk about a lot in class um people all around the world a lot of landmarks all around the world but to see it firsthand is a completely different experience um we later went to laaz waterfalls and we got to see all different types of animals so I

018guess it's only animals that we really see in zoos here whereas in Costa Rica there's no zoos at all they um are focusing on um kind of kind of like wildlife and uh rainforest reconstruction so all of these animals are in uh they're in a slight but temporary type of captivity so we got to see all of these animals but it was interesting learning about all of the rebuilding processes and all the um kind of reconstruction um and Rehabilitation of all these different types of animals um just firsthand yeah again this is just a slide of more pictures we brought the SAS Compass all the way to laaz waterfalls in Costa Rica um and we got to be up close right next to some of these animals and then some of them were again and

019like temporary uh confinement and it was just a super cool experience so day four we went to the menwell Antonio National Park in Costa Rica another long drive again entirely worth it it was gorgeous I've never been in more refreshing water never been on a more relaxing Beach it was awesome and that's all of us there we also did a nature walk there uh to see kind of again like the culture what it looks like there we've been to National Parks here but it's a completely different story there so it's super cool to be able to compare the two and experience experience both and then our final full day um we stayed at elano which is where um the teachers had been staying uh during the week and we got to just have a kind

020of chill pool day after traveling so much around the country but we also took a cooking class and a dancing class with some of the instructors that they had there um the cooking class in the bottom left and top right you can see we were uh cooking with plantains and um lots of just ingredients that are only found in Costa Rica are only just wouldn't be common to us here um we got the experience of cooking our own food and kind of saw how that was happening for us the entire time we were there um and then we also got to have a dancing class and learn some of the um I think it was six types of dance there so it was a little out of most people's comfort zone but I think everyone

021enjoyed doing it in the end um yeah so the H stays were a huge huge part of this trip and the experience Al together um and I loved it everyone loved it it was super great cuz again communication entirely in Spanish and they're cooking meals for you they're doing everything for you you're staying in their home you have to communicate so it forces you and it immerses you and it uh there's really no other way to advance your language other than to be in a situation like that there are a lot of people cash registers there that you know like spoke English uh but our home stays didn't at all for the most part uh and everyone loved theirs they were all different which was a really big and important and cool part of it

022uh the homes were different the socioeconomic classes were different they were all kind of higher CU they had to meet certain requirements to be able to house us but within that there was a range so we got to experience and live in Costa Rican culture uh my Homestay mom for example I still talk to her I WhatsApp her every single day uh she might be coming of the United States next year and my house we're planning on having lunch with her like we had a great time we're still in contact with them she texts us every day about all her animals so it was a super great experience in the text all in Spanish uh also uh the food there they cooked food for us uh every single breakfast in almost every single dinner uh

023and we had conversations with them uh my home stay for example we were uh talking for almost like two hours every single night at dinner entirely in Spanish we were explaining the AP exam to her and she was giving us like tips like comparing Costa Rica and the United States quick cuz ours was his teacher so she kind of understood that aspect and there was a variety of meals that each house got but for the most part I could say that there's a lot of plantings beans and rice and chicken so that was good uh but awesome super great experience my host Mom yaha amazing cook so Props to her uh Ethan and I too we had very different hom stays uh mine was just you know a mom her husband and then her daughter

024was in university and uh Ethan had a array of people so I'll let him talk about that all right um right before we got there we kept asking senor they say like who's going to be in our house who are we going to be with and the um travel company kind of gave us like a rough outline of who would be there we knew the parents would be there and likely there would be some kids um we got there and I had there was a son who's the same age as me um another son who was in Middle School and another daughter who was higher Elementary grade um but there were all types of neighbors and all types of almost connections that we don't see here um people who would be considered family just just

025because they live so close and are over every single day for dinner for meals um for all things like that um and they were these uh I guess just people consistently coming into the house who were just so nice to meet and we got to meet um like people of all different walks of life um circling back around to the food in my house uh the grandma was over every single day and although she didn't live there she basically lived there 247 and um she was always cooking for and asking what we wanted and we're we were like whatever you're having we'll have and there were all types of food that even learning about in class we'll learn about um kind of just one type of food from each country but uh here we got

026to see all different types of um all different types of meals come together and for the few first few days we had to kind of use Google Translate and be like what does that word mean but even even sometimes that would deceive us um and down in the middle um it looks like a tortilla with a type of sauce and then there was a cup of coffee there um I will say the coffee was the best I've ever had in my life because it was just homemade there um in Costa Rica and the um I assumed that would have been a tortilla but they used a word chiato and um it was made of corn and it was a lot sweeter and I just I would have never known and when we Google translated the

027word for the type of sauce on it um natia originally we were like we thought they were going to give us Nutella and we translated it and it translated to custard so we then thought oh well it's going to be what's in a donut but we tried it and it was I would say closer to sour cream so I guess it was those firsthand experiences um of going there that we got to learn exactly um all those intricate parts of life yeah and so most most of this was kind of Incorporated from the hom stays but it was like the entire trip uh we learned so many different things so one big thing that really surprised us is here like in the United States everywhere basically the saying like how cool or that's cool would

028be K chevret uh I feel like that's like really basic Spanish so we went in there we were saying that all the time that's not how they say it in Costa Rica uh every time we said it like I feel like we kind of got like a little stare like they understood it but it's kind of like speaking Australian English in America like it's different and we learned that it's actually Kiva there so that was super cool we kind of got to experience how like Spanish changes in each country it's not just black and white there's a gray area and that was cool another saying was Kon mucho gusto which mucho gusto we're taught it means nice to meet you and it does but when you say k mucho gusto it means you know like

029with pleasure like you're welcome and so many other things like that those are just two examples right off the bat uh and again so many new foods like Ethan was completely deceived it was not at all what he thought it was but I think he still enjoyed it he had it for breakfast every morning uh and there are so many different types of foods cuz you hear you know like I said beans rice chicken plantains but it's different every place that cooks is different uh in the United States I would never touch beans I hate beans Costa Rica love them they're just different and culture cultural experiences like I couldn't even when we were making these slides I couldn't even like put it into words you just have to be there you have to experience

030it nobody be if you're an AP Spanish it's kind of you know given that you're trying to become fluent in the language which is difficult and really the only way to do that is to be immersed in it so if you speak it at home in the United States huge leg up the majority of us do not so experiences like these early on in your Spanish development before you get to College are huge and there's really nothing else like it we thank you you so so much for approving this because this was truly I travel a lot honestly and there was nothing like this that I've ever done it was a completely different experience and it was so so amazing and there was nothing else like it and I hope even after Ethan graduates after

031I graduate that this trip runs on with new Spanish teachers coming going I hope it runs on even if it's not to Costa Rica being immersed in this language it's a completely different it's a leg up in the game especi like we have people that are taking AP SP or have taken AP Spanish that are planning on majoring in that language so like in college so this experience was invaluable to them and I'll let Ethan talk about the rest of the slide um so the pictures that we have towards the middle of the slide um those were with the grandma of the household um and uh oh it was on the last one I apologize the I think yeah there we go um we got to experience how to cook we I know we took

032the cooking class and the dancing class at the end of the week but this was towards the middle of the week um Bo was one of the other boys I was staying with um he is in the middle the abua was teaching us how to dance um and then there's a picture of me learning how to cook um and I will say I thought my cooking skills were good but they were not they were not up to par so that's all you you have but or that's all we have thank you so much for having us here and also for approving this trip like I said an invaluable experience and we thank you and appreciate you so much for allowing us to do this before you thank you yay before you sit down I wonder

033I wonder if my board colleagues have a question or two quick question to ask you because I do have one you two are adorable and I know your families are good friends and I took a picture from the board table and I'll send it to you later I wish we could do so many more of these trips because I wholeheartedly agree that these types of experience especially informative language years are so incredibly important and I'm so pleased that that you could go on this and the other 22 students that went with you and and teachers so um I I would love if our high school could put forth more ideas for these for other children in the future sorry you guys are seniors other students thanks my next year will you please invite the board

034are you going to approve it no problem thank you perfect thank you thank you so much and thank you for all the parents that trust us in this journey and I forgot to mention Mr W was the parent chaperon that joined us too so that was super fun and we learned a lot from him too thank you thank you it's all about the custard it's all about the custard thank you so much I'm going to have to look up ala later um we have several action items please uh I'd like to entertain a motion to adopt the proposed 202 2425 general fund budget amendment as submitted by assistant superintendent asley we looked at it last week and reviewed it over the week um if if you haven't first of all let's hear the motion so

035move is that Tim Austin and I'll second it thank you Austin and gerby do we have any uh questions or discussion points to ask Miranda hearing none all in favor please say I I thank you I opposed hear no opposition 70 thank you very much like to entertain a motion to approve the 2526 School of Choice guidelines as recommended Ed by super intendent lotch last week so moved stean thank you second T any discussion any comments questions queries quibbles nope uh all in favor please say I I I thank you 70 thank you I'd like to entertain a motion that well could do an easy one first i' like to entertain a motion uh that the Board of Education designate the superintend endent to be the determining factor of assault as submitted by Carol abaki

036diglio assistant superintendent for human resources she's prepared to come up once the motion is made by making the motion doesn't mean you approve it just means you put it on the floor so we can have that discussion thank you thank you a second gold thank you Carol or miss diglio looking forward to you clarifying the language thank you the language that was um presented last week or two weeks ago was as exactly written in my response grievance to the Sea so I'm happy to answer any questions but that was in written response all right and then there was go ahead I'll answer any questions the best I can Dr lch may have comment or two to make um right and we can we can go through uh questions but in essence the um there was

037a grievance that that we've been working on for quite some time now and as a result um Carol put together a district response that more or less well it's a uh Dr lch is working with Board of Education president uh Michael McBay to confirm the designation of the superintendent to be the determining factor of assault the projected date to have is fully resolved is Fe February 25th 2025 and then after um Miss diglio submitted that to the um sea there was a response that confirmed that um per the conversation with myself and Carol We would like to clarify that the pro process by which the physically aggressive student returns to the classroom shall be included in the annual training in August with that Assurance the sea consided grievance settled so at that point we brought

038um or president McVey had it on the agenda to state that um you know if in this case the board were to designate the superintendent to be the determining factor of the assault um that was just part of the agreement to settle the grievance and then when we came to the meeting there was a discussion and then there was a followup email sent to the board that suggested the board could then you know create a ad hoc committee for example to be the group that actually um did determines whether a student assault which primarily might be a student kicking and hitting doing something of that nature that the board could take on that responsibility and so what what I was stating is the grievance has been resolved and then there was an opp there would

039have been an opportunity for the sea to come back and say no the grievance hasn't been resolved because we want the board to consider an ad hoc committee that came after the fact so I just want to point out and and so now we're at a point where the the board is deciding on how they want to proceed if um a potential student assault were ever to be brought to either myself in this case as superintendent or the board and that's ultimately where we're at right now right and and it's important to note that it is about int the intention in who declares that um one thing I want to say is that just kind of doing some deep diving the Lancing EA versus Lancing School District really went to court in 2007 and that's

040what the sea sites that law the ml the MCL 31311 A1 which is cited was revised in 2017 so that's case law from 200 that was decided on in 2009 and it was revised in 2017 we are living in 200 25 so I think it's some case law does set presidents and it is but there's been a lot of that and that law is specific to if you have a determined assault it should go to the board or the superintendent or the principal and there's multiple layers of that and it clearly says that there um it is a joint decision when it is declared assault in this case if we went to the original grievance that was written back in September with many iterations back and forth of trying to resolve this there were four

041points that the association was asking for and one of it was request that the district develops plans around the acts of physical salts and we did that immediately back in September we revised how we manage injuries uh Dr lot started um listing those injuries of any type whether it was through a student injury or an injury on the building and alerting the board at any time which you should be alerted when there is an assault in the district um the second thing they're asking for was consistent protocols across the district and training in a concise matter that we're working on um in our um most recent um professional development um Cara's office had trainers in um that was directing that and we working on getting the restorative practices in place for consistency across the prek

04226 board and then the um third thing they asked was uh a voice and decision-making we've spent the last year at the table with them talking and um in various ways of making sure that we are doing our due diligence on behalf of all staff members and then the fourth thing was to make sure the employee that was cited in the original grievance received their sick days back and that is automatic anyways so when you look at the original grievance from September and how it has evolved to today I feel like um there's been a lot of great work together and getting to a point where we um make sure that we spend the next year the rest of this year and next year and the years following to to do what's in the best

043interest of the sea and all of our staff members our ESP our sea our administrators and this one point the is kind of holding things up and it has been confusing as it it seems like a bit of a a moving Target at times when we go back to the original grievance we have met that grievance many times over it's one sticking point that I think at the building level and as Steve explain there are teams of people including SCA members that are that have a voice in this um and there are many things including the md7 factors Mars and Ida federal and state laws that we have to abide by um so if if if I can answer anything else I'm I'm happy to do so we'll start with vice president St thanks Carol

044and Steve too um because either one of you can answer I just have a few clarifying questions to help understand before we have discussion um so last time we did talk a lot about intentionality versus the definition of assault and the way that the motion is um is read and the reason I initially paused at it is because it said be the determining factor of assault should that word be intentionality or should it be assault in in our motion because aren't we saying who the design or or if the board is the final decision maker is on the um definition of intentionality not not assault because that's the law right and I I believe that's what was brought up after the fact but again I was leaning into the February 11th document that is in

045writing and I was trying to honor what was being asked and that was what was in writing I think when um Brandon came back up here with me two weeks ago um we were asked to worked together on that and he bypassed the option to work together on that okay so thank you yeah and and to that point uh trusty stubbin the um we were also citing that the intentionality definition we were trying to take from MCL 38031 a12 where it says physical assault against employee volunteer or contractor quote physical assault means intentionally causing or attempting to cause physical harm to another through force or violence and that um what I was stating is that I feel in this case when I say the term I the superintendent and the superintendent's designes which may include

046administrators an IEP team other teachers that if they got together to have a manifestation hearing which is larger where you look at the seven factors that um Carol mentioned earlier that that team is very capable of determining that intentionality part or or not and that I believe that they're better equipped to do that than potentially the board now the other part of this is um there are many many instances hundreds within the policy manual that says things like the board shall carry out this function the board shall do this and it really does insinuate that the board's staff do that the superintendent there are many instances and so I mean I'll just give you an example because I did a search so I'm sorry can I just pause you because I I had a couple

047other qualifying questions and this kind of gets into an a slightly different area but I would love to talk about that too um so don't forget because I want to come back to that um so I was just asking about the word of assault versus intentionality in the action just so whatever we decide it's clear what's being decided um and then there was something in the document that that Steve sent over to us today so um and this is um per the conversation with myself and Carol just now 218 we would like to clarify that the process by which the physically aggressive student returns to the classroom shall be included in the annual training in August with that Assurance the sea considers grievance 24 25.1 settled so my question is is this settled yes or

048no it has been settled except for things are in working so that one piece that we're here tonight about um was taken exactly from the febru February 11th response to the grievance to their previous agreements and it really was the effort of the board saying hey come back together and see if we can get that clarified Steve directed myself in an sea member I reached out to that sea member and that sea member bypassed both of us so that was our our chance to between those that week and now to come up with more clarifying but I took the language exactly as is and I think Jennifer that yes there is that piece that they said intention the intentional piece of it um I I just you know I I think that you want to

049make sure that there are there there's lots of things on a daily basis that we have to make decisions about on behalf of the board not in not in place of the board but in in the act of things we have to work together and if there's there is something in that does occur Steve is and I would imagine the next superintendent reports as they do weekly to you that's a really important piece of it is that that has been implemented along with lots of other things things um this year um on behalf of all of our employees we just we do want it as safe as possible yeah I I guess the reason I asked and and then I can um defer to Steve to to finish that that that follow-up thought is in

050that letter from the sea it talks about the physically um aggressive student returning to the classroom and to me that's different than um deter in a factor of assault or determining intentionality like what letter are you talking about John so it's that one it says per the conversation with myself and Carol just now we would like to clarify that the process by which the physically aggressive student returns to the classroom shall be included in the annual training in August so that seems kind of cut and dry and then I look at this motion this seems a little cut and dry there's this conversation around the word assault or the word intentionality but I see these as two separate things so I'm just I guess my followup question is how are they connected did go ahead

051I'd like to address that in that they're actually not in other words um Carol senent respon that said Dr lch is working with President McVey to confirm the designation of superintendent to be the fact determining factor of assault and at that point the sea did have an opportunity to come back and say no that's not that's not what was said instead the followup email was per the conversation with myself and Carol just now we'd like to clarify that the process by which the physically aggressive student returns to the classroom shall be included in the annual training in August which was agreed upon and then it says with that Assurance the sea consided grievance 24. 25.1 settled and my point around that is if the sea did not want the Grievous settled with the language that

052Carol provided then they had an opportunity to state that right there and then and and chose not to instead it was sent as a follow-up email to the board after the last meeting so those aren't connected per se thank you I think the qualifying questions are over or the clarifying questions are over want to make sure I give everybody chance to offer questions before I so I great oh wait sorry I did have questions then ask it I know um so one part of the language that's confusing to me is it seemed like and I could be wrong so it seems like the victimized teacher papro whatever would have and the administrator would first have to disagree on how it was being like it seemed like the superintendent would be sort of the next level

053up after you already had that meeting with the IEP team and the so these are sort of in circumstances where I just want to clarify that I'm right about this these are circumstances where there's disagreement between that administrative team including potentially the IEP folks and the teacher who was the victim of the incident is that correct yeah yeah that that is correct so it's not indeed every time a a teacher is assaulted it's if there's some disagreement as to how to characterize the assault versus the intent right you're correct and I have had that happen zero times so I guess well then it gets into comments because that's that's really my question is that we're we're we're in a situation where we're looking for recourse when there's disagreement okay treasure AG gy so I I

054have a lot of thoughts and I apologize for for them up or for the I'll try to get to it as quickly as I can first of all I want to make it very clear I agree empowering the superintend wherever we can is is a good idea okay in general I want him to feel like he is an empowered human um there from my viewpoint I said I was going to talk to both sides at the last meeting there is I I I guess I want to say there is not agreement on intentionality and what would like this is about if they disagree okay in the process that would happen and I would argue that the EA from some of I'll I'll explain a second why I believe this I believe the EA would say

055that the return to class and the intentionality are indeed kind of together and here's how I would say that so the superintendent okay I he has said that he in his Viewpoint has has made this determination zero times outside of this grievance but he has a design who often times makes those things on his behalf right and that a lot of of times these are let's be honest special education students and things of that nature where that falls under the purview of the special ed director and she is a a qualified and really awesome human and all that and I'm sure she gives due diligence to that but there is not always a conversation that happens with the individual about what's going to happen how that student's going to be returned what is the restorative

056practice the the staff member is not necessarily all always involved in those conversations of determining intentionality and so like for me I agree with the EA when the EA says that the EA wants to be involved in those con conversations and furthermore I I think anytime that an employee who works for us anytime whether it's an IEP student whether it's not an IEP student that employee is important to us and so from my standpoint I think there should be a problem solving conversation or some type of collaborative process especially if you have a teacher or an employee and this is hard for me to get out of my my what I do for a living but if you've been bit you've been hit you've been punched by a kid you just love sometimes I might

057need a little space sometimes I just might not be entirely prepared and ready and what you're doing is you're bringing trauma back immediately into that person's classroom and so for me the return is connected to the intentionality because if I don't have any say whatsoever if the superintendent is the designate to determine intent of assault then how can I be assured that I'll have problem solving conversations and problem solving rights and so I believe that that is the essence of why the EA is is is is against this I I I think the grievance is solved in essence by the professional development I think it's solved by the awareness but I would tell you that I see this language is kind of and you may not some people may not like me saying this I

058find this language kind of tipping the scales in that conversation towards the superintendent when really they desire collaboration and I know they're least restrictive environment issues and I know all these things are complicated but I'm just telling you that like I personally and then I'll give you a RoR I personally cannot vote for this language and I personally believe that if a student is violent to a staff member I believe that we owe it to the staff member for empathy and Care reasons to to try to problem solve and hear your side and try to do that and so I guess that's where I see the disagreement I I would implore you to talk with the sa saaa members as well um I would please implore you if you're listening to adjust the EA um

059you there what you just explained is is much of the discussion and we have heard and felt what is being said so what you explained you you've you have you have had some good conversations and at the level of what we have had conversation wise around this and that's great there are multiple times most often than not where there is space that principles take that there are other options some of the discussion that we don't agree on is this notion that the student will not return until X Y and Z happens and we can't guarantee X Y and Z all the time we do have to live within the law and so if if they want if if if members don't want kids to return unless there's this law this laundry list of things ticked

060off and one of them requires something that we can't do on behalf of the child we can't withhold education from the child so you're hearing one side we're we're trying to work with the sea we really are you're here and and so that is where I feel like you know there's been so many meetings and time spent around this and we're making good progress and I feel like the district gets zero um acknowledgement or effort towards that and that that makes it that to me splinters a team versus bring a team together and this is not supposed to be splintering a team and I'd like to retort to that please like I I need to Brad could the superintendent rebut your comment too and then it's just to add on one element so when we

061were in this room a while back when we were when the appeal was being heard by the board I was sitting next to one of the principles and and I I asked right then and I go I it am I wrong to say that when an incident happens the building principal Andor assistant principal works with those involved to determine what has happened and then sets forth the disciplinary consequences the behavior plan all that all those things so are happening so I would agree with you that it does need to happen I'm saying that this does happen and I think that's where the disagreement is is that the that the sea believes it doesn't happen we we believe that it does and that's why Carol's saying we also need to talk to our building principles and

062assistant principles that have to live into this on a regular basis and I I have to respond please yeah so and I strongly I don't know if I use the word resent the argument that like I don't think the administration should be involved or that the you guys don't do enough I just think that we're part of like I see it like an appeals process I don't see this as like I I'm not just about the EA I'm not about the administration I'm not about the I'm about saying there should be some process where if you want to inconvenience me because of a staff member's injury and it is traumatic and there is disagreement I I guess I would say I still would prefer to stay as the last line like I would in an

063expulsion hearing or in a it's so like for me I'm sorry I can't not respond to I believe in the administrative team and I believe that they need to be able to do their job too I want to make sure you hear me say that and say that so I kind of resent if that's being implied about my comments but like I just think taking the board out of it does tip the scales in One Direction I just feel that way and I'm G to just stop and I'm GNA listen for a long time now uh Jenifer oh Darcy I'll be quick dar it's kind of a followup to what what Brad said um so I I think it is an appeal process Brad because I pulled up part of their contract granted this is

064the December 31st 2024 contract um and to Lauren's earlier question and point we are the next step and then there has been discussion about a committee a committee exists it's it's the grievance committee and and so I guess my follow-up question is it reads if the association is not satisfied with the disposition of the grievance by the super superintendent it may within five school days appeal to the board of education so if we designate the superintendent or name Steve because I think there's a two ways we can go because we're about to hire a new superintendent um this would still exist if it's part of the upcoming contract would that be right so there is a process of appeal to Brad's Point only if it's grief that's correct is that is that right you can

065look at that look at it that way that that grievance process has been te and it's slightly different but the essence of all that is in place and this was my concern I've expressed to one or two board members that if the superintendent we designate the superintendent and we as we do for many many things and uh decisions are made on our behalf but I as you said Brad there there should be some room for appeal that's why I think that if the board is involved in this this designating process of determining if if it if it was ass salt or not it it now we we use your analogy we've already we we knocked the scales over because we've eliminated for the parent if they want to com uh raise an appeal we've eliminated

066us as the last room of appeal because we participated in the decision the the initial decision do you see what I mean by doing this language you mean by doing this language by no we the superintendent's doing his job as we've asked him to do and designated him to do then all is well if on the rare instance and I say rare because it happens about once a year maybe once every two years uh it does need to come up for an appeal or the parent is is wants an Avenue for appeal they'll come to the board or they'll complain against the superintendent and we'll treat it as a complaint and I think if we're involved we the people involved in making that decision the subcommittee or whatever need to recuse themselves then do you

067see what I mean I just think that we need to be the end we need to be the last resort of the appeals process I agree so I'm not sure they weren't the same Lang I don't think we're we're talking the same language then so you may us have to put it to a vote or Tim you had a question yeah so oh sorry Darcy then oh sorry um as someone who is uh working currently in a self-contained ASD classroom and these are issues I deal with every day um you know getting extra vaccinations tomorrow I've been to Urgent Care bit hit scratched um throat throttled speak up sorry um I am a little uncomfortable that this conversation is primarily focused on special ed kids there are other situations with neurotypical or general education students

068where this might arise as well I'm I I trust our teachers and I trust our admin and I think that you all are doing a great job and I see that you have come a long way I was at that grievance hearing the documentation you provided I can see that you are working together um and I think that that's borne out by the fact that from a 10,000 foot level we're not seeing these come to the board practically speaking this is a non effectively issue at this point um I feel like if we're making progress on reaching uh an agreeable process for this whether it be a special ed child or not um I would like to leave that in the hands of those people who are doing that work and reserve it as a

069decision that should it happen come to the board it would be an extreme case if it came to that level I you know and um I've uh you know subbed a lot in the WD so I'm happy that our new special ed director is from there because I think that they have a great process in place and I see that there are changes being made I I don't think this is really an issue that is going to come to us frequently I think it was mentioned that you know well does the board want to be convened every time this happens if it hasn't happened you know I think that's where we're looking at it um but as someone who might potentially make such agreements I'd want to know that I have someone to go to

070if I'm if I'm a single teacher facing uh building admin HR superintendent if I did not have a recourse that would not make me happy um but again I I think I trust that the manifestation determinations will happen an FBA will happen if it needs to or um it will be worked out with counselors and social workers if it's a neurotypical child I I think that I trust you all that you're doing your jobs um I I think changing this at this point isn't necessary trusty Austin oh read done trusty Austin so um the intentionality part was what I was hung up on last uh CL board meeting and um I just feel it's so sub it's just subjective I understand understand that there's usually a group of people that kind of talk about what

071is intentional what is not my feeling is at the end of the day a staff member was injured that isn't whether intentional or not intentional that's a problem to me and I feel bad for the staff members and we have to keep our staff safe so I I I still struggle with that and I feel that I would like to see it as a um we talked about collaborating all the time and I I think uh a collaboration of uh one of the griev it's not the whole grievance committee I think a one one grievance committee person uh Steve and uh sea member or or somebody along those lines could be that next step then the board can still be the last step so but it but it doesn't it doesn't rest all on one

072person's shoulders to make that subjective call I guess and that's so that's where I'm at i i i this the subject part of it is hard when we have all the laws that we have to live into um if someone doesn't agree with the outcome so let's say we did uh we did the seven factors and it was determined that it was not a an assault the individual can still has the right to file assault if they wanted to um it's not it's not easy like as you can imagine but there are times as a former administrator I would go into the situations whether it was a fight or crowd control or whatever and get injured I don't view that as an assault I was moving in and doing my job now if if a

073child clobbered someone um and it was not found to be uh a manifestation of the disability or or of the other factors then that's assault so like we're it is we don't want anyone hurt and Darcy go bless you I mean we don't want anyone hurt but there are some parts of our jobs sometimes that there is that risk of what we do and we don't take assault lightly at all um but we do believe that there has to be that bridge bringing the the restorative practices back into the classroom a lot of the stuff that Brad had mentioned those are things that we have to work on and be consistent across the board but it takes mass mass professional development and it can't just be one sit and get it has to be reiterated

074over and over again and be part of our practice we have to make it part of what we do every day and that is Our intention of moving forward that is a lot of what the work we've been doing and um you know we're stuck on one thing again the grievance has been settled but but I I don't feel good of just saying yep you you said you asked us to go to the board we're not going to do it no I don't feel good I'm here again today I do want it to be in a good place I think that the best place is it resides as written and I think you you came up with some good um strategies of next level too so um but is not it's not in a vacuum

075we just don't not one person is saying it is or isn't ass salt um it it takes multiple people in discussions and it's unfortunate we even have to talk about this but it is and as someone who is potentially um standing alone in that they are the single victim of an assault um I I feel like there needs to be a recourse for them we're human um the Frailty of The Human Condition and staff turnover and um building culture I think we're working towards a builder cult better culture it's very much seemed that way and that's been what I have heard but um I don't know that we're there yet and I don't I mean we can always come back to this conversation right this isn't a right a finality yeah part of the work

076we did in the fall around accidents injuries incidents was putting in lot lots of um safeguards so if the administration is out of the building and someone gets injured that they're always being brought in the loop so that there is followup and follow through and lots of layers and Carly who is the benefits uh Downey benefits coordinator out of our office is amazing amazing at communicating what what the reports came back how to best support is anyone that needs accommodations I I think that part is what we've really worked hard on this year in the immediate but some of these other things are going to take more time and um we you know we're we believe we can get there I'm I'm hoping to put this to a vote soon I still don't know where

077it's going to land but if there's anyone else at the table who hasn't spoken yet no right well thank you Carol we may still need you you never know I have I have one thing I'm sorry Michael I'm just thinking about this because I'm clearly we have two a couple of different camps of thought and I I've heard some really good points at the end of the day I don't like to give up control of the board of a neutral third party however we are in a very unique situation with collective bargaining with the sea I really like what I heard Carol say um about talking with other unions I I think that's a valid comment and I appreciate that um we're also in a superintendent search so we have built trust with Steve for

078a very very long time within this District we're going to have somebody new pretty soon and we're going to have to have confidence in them and and partner together but they would be put into a situation to have um I don't want to say board power but be that neutral third party and I'm not there so I'm either going going to say this should remain as is or this is something that is temporarily designated to Steve not the superintendent because I would not want to go out further than June 30th of this year so that's kind of my thought so I don't know if anybody wants to kind of split the difference and compromise or I'm just throwing it out there well thank you for your not I hope that the superintendent we select is

079someone that can earn everyone's trust right and I agree but they might be new to a superintendency as well I I don't know because we haven't done that interview process well we're not going to deliberate on that at this moment so uh I'd like to put this to a vote then right now so all in favor of the Board of Education designating the superintendent to be the determining factor of assault please say I it may be tricky for me to here but that's one I I will say yes and opposed n n n okay thank you is that six all right thank you very much so it's uh one six thank you you're up Rex I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the purchase of one 2025 Ford is that do you call it

080reg cab or regular cab having not not being one of those two 4x4 drivers R cab F250 4x4 grounds vehicle from gouro Brothers as recommended by Rex CL executive director of operations this purchase is through the U Michigan or the my deal purchasing Cooperative do I have a motion so move stean stean second is it Tim okay what can you tell us about this thing sir uh so this will be purchase through the my deal purchasing Cooperative at um $$ 46,41846 that was on the action item there um it is to replace a 2004 uh Chevy 2500 with 160,000 M on it um this will keep us at four pickups which we mainly use to move trailers during the summer and then of course push snow in the winter um normally we do used vehicles

081we've purchased them in auctions um but with the value of used vehicles being what they are today a 2-year-old or a three-year-old or even a four-year-old gets in the mid 30s to high 30s to low 40,000 so at $ 46,4 16 I think this is an excellent price yes it is a new vehicle but it's stripped down no bells and whistles um and I think it' be an excellent value for the district so just to clarify did you say that the one it's we're pushing out is 2004 2004 yes and we have one truck older than that we used to as a go between the high school in the Cosmetology center right now that's a 2,000 so we're using vehicles that are almost 25 years old so I hear that any just any comments questions

082Brad where's this money coming from General FL this is a vehicle it'll be licensed anytime you put a license plate on it it's got to go from general fund appreciate that uh piece of information all in favor please say I I I opposed great 70 you got yourself a TR thank you uh before you leave there's an HVAC question this was new newly added I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the purchase of HVAC equipment through train for 1 million sorry remember we changed the F and the E and all that because I W because I I didn't want direct sitting down then getting back up again I appreciate that well mirand as I said didn't know that we had an i' like to entertain a motion to approve the purchase of HVAC equipment

083through train for 1,229 784 and controls in the amount of as recommended by our beloved Rex Clary yes so can we have a motion please Dary Berwick moves garby 3by seconds oh random so we received the bids for the Middle School remodel um the steam center the senior center uh science robot Science Olympia robotics um special education uh there's some M of other programs within the building and this is new equipment to for the new construction the new the new spaces we're going to to build starting this summer and into the end of summer of 2026 we received a notice today that there's going to be a 4% price increase at the end of this week to address Dynamic markets tariffs being assess to Imports and related inflation so normally we would bring this as

084a group a whole big package to the board uh which will happen at April 8th's meeting but since this is a purchasing Cooperative we've worked with training there appr proven vendor a partner during this process um we're going to bring it tonight and hopefully save the district roughly a little over $40,000 if we can get an approval I appreciate that clarification this because this is a this is a bit of a break from precedent to to see this can you give us a second just to look over this yes and and maybe field some questions while we're doing a quick peruse any questions from the crew I just really appreciate you bringing it I hate last minute agenda changes but but um this is this is a good reason thank you I appreciate Miranda answering

085her phone um and I appr Clark Construction uh they brought to my attention as soon as they got the notice um and it you know they acted quick on it um so yeah and with that we are doing this in an ongoing basis we currently are working through with our partners and construction projects to evaluate things so when they bringing those things to our attention can we purchase things and store them at our district in order to lock in some pricing obviously these might have effect way longer than we can't do those things but these current projects are right in the bubble timing so we're trying to do everything we can to continue to keep the prices as low as we can fencing is one of them for the Middle School fla complex that we've

086already been notified uh We've released all production for that we'll store it on site and Furniture the what you you approved last month for furniture um for the high school uh We've released we're going to release that shortly all the eyes are dotted te's are crossed and so we hope not to have any sech charges on any of that equipment coming in thank you as usual you and the whole team have been excellent stewards at the board's money and I appreciate that um are we ready to go oh oh we have one quick question um I want to make sure that we so this is our only meeting for the month of March before for potential April and you mentioned tariffs and all of that so I'm going to say two things number one is

087have we gone through the recently approved things like were you just like maybe you're just talking about that and I missed it but like have we looked for anything else that might be a $40,000 item and the second thing I would say is if it's a $40,000 item please tell us or savings before between now and spring break because you know that would be a reason to have a good meeting uh special me to my for me so two things after our last bid meet after our last after our last bid day last week in the post bit interviews that's a question we're asking right now um we're asking those type of questions to the electricians to the plumbers uh HVAC you know we're asking all those questions right now to see what we can

088if we need to get special approvals and Clark Construction is asking those kind of questions and then we're circling back to the Middle School Athletic Complex too to ask those same vendors now we can store it we've got indoor store we maybe we put it in the transportation garage maybe we put it in the old ground shop we do what we have to do is to get the material onsite release the funds for the material still have the labor in our back pocket to pay them so the work gets done but yes we are asking those questions well and I'll even back that up with one more comment that tonight we passed the amended budget and we talked about this and now that I hear this I want to make sure I also talk to

089us about Miranda was talking about in finance and it fits right now that if we hadn't done that it could have affected our bond rating and our bond sale so the good news is now we can go out to Market with those things obtain those funds and then you guys can be proactive about that between now or whenever we might see some cost increases due to whatever reason so good good stuff thank you all in favor please say I I I oppos thank you all in favor thank you so much uh Team I appreciate your help thank you I'd like to go to the newly renumbered seven or 7f uh I'd like to entertain a motion to amend the 2025 approved Board of Education schedule moving September 23 to September 30th in acknowledgement of rashasana

090as submitted by me Darcy support Mike says me Js says yeah okay um I neglected I I due to a when we were voting on this back in November I miscalculated where Russia felt fell and thought we were clear but we weren't so this is why I'm uh well it wasn't me who caught it thank you Dr gold appreciate that thanks for being flexible well we did we haven't been flexible yet we still have to vote true um I beg you to be flexible I appreciate that thank you any is there any no more questions and I have double triple checked um the schedule I know we're in the midst of uh Ramadan right now and I don't think that's going to affect us too much but um all in favor please say I hi

091I post H thank you was a nailbiter so we will adjust the oh Betty's not here we'll adjust the calendar and um all of you who are at home reset your agendas to September 30th thank you that's one of those rare me meetings so there's actually three weeks between the two so that'll work well thank you Mr Carrick you sat down too soon we have two scheduled we have one scheduled report uh and Mr Carrick director of Safety and Security our very own lasso is that what is he a lasso I think so but I don't know if we talked about that yet policy new policy new term saf officer laso I'd have to look back on are you up on that one soon well I think soon it's going to be you security officer

092thank you Mr Carrick there we go better yeah much louder sorry um so we're going to do a little bit of talking about Safety and Security what I'd like to go through at first is to talk about our new standard response protocols and these are new as of the fall of this school year so they're not essentially new but I believe theyve not been presented to you as of yet so I wanted to talk about a little bit about it with you and share with the folks at home parents at home just to have an idea what we are doing within the schools in regards to Safety and Security so the standard response protocols it's um it's been founded through the I love you guys which is a a nonprofit out of Colorado and was

093based upon a gentleman mom and a dad who had lost their daughter in a tragic event at a school in Colorado and it's based upon some clear common language the standard response protocol but it's called the I love you guys Foundation which you can go to the website and take a look at it we also have a link on our Safety and Security page to uh to all of this um recently it was adopted by the Michigan State Police and uh the office of school safety and they've recommended this common terminology to all schools currently it is not um a law that that schools must follow that however a law was recently passed late last year and signed by the governor the first part of this year which does mandate all schools to have similar

094consistent terminology and that terminology has not actually been set yet but it's due to be done and language should be approached and approved by July 1 of 2026 and schools have to take it into effect and implement it by the school year of 26 2627 we as in selary schools have adopted what MSP has brought out and standardized it's uh shared with First Responders so obviously an event of a tragedy at at any any school First Responders are are responding from local areas so there'll be a aware and have that common sense of what's going on so they'll know what's going on within the schools essentially the standard response Protocols are hold secure lock down evacuate and shelter and this is an all Hazard response so any Hazard that occurs within the school this protocol

095should be able to address that first one hold hold is uh when they when the students would hold in their room or area so they would close the doors lock the doors clear the hallway teach would continue teaching within the classroom their day would go on without transitioning between other classes some of the reasons that this may occur a medical emergency in the hallway um where where our paramedics may have to come into the school to help out that student um a behavior response if a student was having an outburst in a hallway where other students may be harmed they could call a hold situation um as I mentioned the classes are going to proceed as usual in the class class Transitions and dis missiles may be delayed so that would be hold the next

096one is secure a secure situation would occur if there was a threat or a hazard outside the school not within the school but outside the school uh we had a recent secure situation at one of our elementary schools that was cleared very recently but you may have heard about that but but an example of that would be um if there was some police response outside if there's something going on a dangerous animal if there's anything that's going on outside of the school that may transition to our school property kids at recess kids leaving for the day um this would be something where they would be secured within the school the doors are locked and limited access in or out this this uh if this transcends through the end of the school day there may be

097a controlled release where we might escort kids out to the students out to the buses or out to parents depending on what the circumstances beh hold but we would have time to make that determination next one is a lockdown lockdown is is in a sense something that occurs when the threat is within the school so if there's a threat or hazard in the school this is when the lockdown occurs and what uh the terminology goes along with lockdown it locks lights and out of sight so essentially the the classroom protocol would be that the doors would be closed and locked lights would go off and the students and and staff within the classrooms would be out of sight from the doorway from the hallways these um are cleared specifically through um Administration and or police

098that would come and open the door so a p announcement would not be able to clear a lock down these are are obviously we are we we do we do train on all these protocols and this one specifically is trained three times a year some of our uh ways to activate this lock down would be through our informacast system which can be locked down through actually a a physical button something on a cell phone or our our office phones the uh the desk phones the actual handheld desk phones within the classroom or within the school the next one will be evacuate this is our typical like a fire alarm or some reason to evacuate the school and this notification will go off with the assistance of a of a public address telling where to go

099and the reason being some other examples of this besides the fire would be a gas leak or other some type of a building catastrophe where the where the students would have to be removed from the building and the staff and for their safety and along with this evacuate notice that the the location of where to evacuate would be given as well last one is shelter we're just going through some of these shelters because it's March and we start to go into our spring season with weather emergencies so a shelter is for a specific hazard so the the alarm would be shelter for whatever that Hazard may be maybe weather maybe tornado and using the specific languages what what we're looking for the students to do so severe weather as I mentioned is is one of

100our examples of this another one would be like a biological or atmospheric threat which is uncommon but if there was a spill or train derailment something with some chemicals that could go into place as well with a shelter cool those are the standard response protocols and as I mentioned um there is links to them on our website on the safety uh build safety page and it's called the I love you guys foundation and there's a parents guide where where all parents can go and take a look at that and read through all those protocols it's very simple it's very clear it's very plain language so there's no code words there's nothing that's mysterious about it and it's available to all to take a look at and this is what your students are are are working

101on in school when there's a a drill just in response to a threat or an emergency cool some last points of things some updates that we're working on right now as you know we've been updating and working on our Emergency Operations plan which it's has been a significant effort and an ongoing thing that which started before I came that's coming to fruition today um some gagle review we started looking at our gagle protocol gagle if you don't know what that is that's something that we utilize with our computer system and when students are using our computers on our internet some search words and things can key up on that and can make notifications if there's some concern to what's going on through their their um online presence and that's alerted to our administrators to take

102a look at that behavior threat assessment Behavior threat assessment is another um area that is has has just been passed in law that's requiring schools to create those Behavior threat assessment teams Seline area schools currently does have Behavior threat assessment and has been using it um we've worked on recently looking at updating our policies as well as making sure that our training is refreshed and we have some uh train the trainer programs coming up for some of our Administration can be able to train them in this area uh we've been looking at our visitor emergency notifications so an area of concern for Safety and Security is when we have visitors to our air to our events for instance at our athletic events at something maybe at a um um you know a theater pres presentation

103or some type of music where we have a lot of visitors in a closed in area looking at some ways that we're able to share our security protocols what should you do when you're a visitor at a at a football game and there's an emergency a weather emergency where we have to do an evacuation so we get some things online that we're looking on that to be able to share this information to our visitors very easily with a QR code where they can pull up the information and we can share whatever we want on there for that that's kind of in the works right now we've worked uh directly with our front office staff doing some training and deescalation in our visitor access protocols um just to make sure that they're on the same page

104and be being consistent drill procedures notifications we're continuing to work through those to be consistent from school to school our standard response protocol is helping with that to make that consistency so when kids when students are moving from our our lower L up to Heritage than the middle school and the high school they see consistent words they see consistent practices so they're not learning anything new it helps build that muscle memory so they're not not surprised last area that we're working on pretty heavily right now was working on our background checks uh we do background checks for all kinds of things obviously at our Access Control when when when we have visitors within our facilities there's background checks we have background checks for our um visitors that would come to school uh chaperon coaches and

105we're looking at doing that and putting that on um having a consistent and um same plan for all people so we're making sure that we're we're utilizing our systems the best we can making the background checks as thorough as possible without making it too cumbersome for our visitors and our coaches and our and our volunteers that would be our updates for our Safety and Security anything else to add before I ask if there are any fast clarifying questions I just wanted to make sure I put my name up there my phone number and my email address if anyone has any questions regarding any of these topics I know I spoke through them very quickly because you guys are busy um but if there's anybody that has any questions about them I'd be glad to talk

106to them about them and obviously have questions for right now I appreciate the fast presentation anything from the table we have Brad Darcy and that's it so far oh and students have some things to ask you nice uh on your previous slide under lockdown you had that there would be three drills and I think one during passing time um how is that uh is that going to be done with students in the building uh how is that going to be uh like and uh yes that is a law so the state does have mandates how we do our drills and how many we do a year and that is one of their criteria so uh as part of it it can be during a passing time it could be during a Time Of Lunch Period

107it has to be a time when students are not just in their classroom because it's a little bit more of a challenge for them and and you should have guidance on that from your teachers and your staff on what you're going to do and essentially what would happen is if you are in an area uh for instance if you're out at recess I know you're older than I you guys don't have recess anymore but if you're outside of the building and a lockdown occurs we wouldn't want you to come back into the school and your teachers and and staff members would know that if you're in another school where where you're maybe maybe in the hallway or at a lunch you're going to go into any classroom that you can to make yourself safe lock

108the door turn off the lights and be out of sight so it's it's pretty straightforward and I kind of answer it very simply but it is kind of a simple response so you should be able to go to someplace that's safe um and and be able to secure yourself as you get older uh self- evacuation be come into play as well if you're right near a door and there's a locked out you might want to exit the building so that's an option too so it's it's kind of a lot of things that can be placed upon you to do things but it's to make sure that you have those tools available to make sure yourself is safe that's a great question right and is that particular drill going to be announced previous and be so

109so we should be announcing all of our drills so that's something that some times they'll they'll try um a thought would be to surprise people with drills but there really shouldn't be any surprise in a drill a drill is a learning experience and I am not of of of the mindset to surprise anyone with any drill a lockdown drill should never be a surprise because some of those um over-the-top responses that you might get people might want to exit out the window out the building things like that we don't want to have that happen during an actual drill so a drill is a place to learn to think about things to put things in your mind ask questions to be able to respond if there was an actual emergency okay all right thank you absolutely

110great questions uh secretary berck then trustey gerby uh Treasurer gerby uh I just mostly wanted to commend you on the manual I think it's really impressive the share volume of information is fantastic I mean I think I sent in some comments but overall I'm really very impressed and I just also wanted to say I had been a part of a couple of drills including a lock down evacu uation at the high school and everyone did really well um and I've seen a medical emergency response team in action I I've just been very impressed with everything and I'm very impressed with the manual so thank you for that effort thank you for the input I appreciate that Mr gerby Right um I'll start with following up a comment of what you said I appreciate the fact

111that you you don't do surprise or would not advocate for Surpise dos just as a teacher we um like for example when we have a fire alarm right there's this strobe light that goes off well there could be students who are prone to seizures who that could be an issue for them there are students who may have issues with accessibility there are students who with parpro support so I appreciate that because that puts those students in the safest position where they might need a little more support and they might even need more heads up or they might need just removal from the situation entirely if it's not safe for them so thank you for that okay uh I real quick so I like the language that you're using especially as an educator myself about hold

112secure lock down evacuate shelter those things make sense to me so I'm really happy about that um I have a couple of questions about that so number one is I want to talk about does this supplant or work in combination with Alice and number two is what kind of plan do we have to make sure because if Tommy doesn't know and it sounds like Tommy might not then what are we doing and that's okay Tommy but like but what are we doing as a as a staff as a building as a to make that protocol and known throughout like what kinds of professional developments what are we doing with our students to take them through it all of that so two questions how does that work with Alice and what are we doing to train

113on it Alice and the standard response protocol by I love you guys are two they are different things but they can work in conjunction together so the Alice protocol which is alert lock down inform counter and evacuate some of them overlap like with evacuating some of the communication and so forth but but a lot of the other aspects of it specifically the counter would work in conjunction with the lockdown so Alice and the srps can work together but they are a separate entity in the past we have taught Alice was taught we I wasn't we then but Alis was taught here um and it certainly can still work with the standard response protocol we have not the decision has not been made about Contin to teach the Alice protocol but it's something that we've looked

114at we've talked about um we've been offered uh Pittsfield Township Police Department I have trainers um I I would actually trained and I taught Alice for about for about eight or nine years so it it is something that we should look at and it can work absolutely in conjunction with our srps yeah and I would advocate for that and I'd advocate for that for law enforcement's sake too so that when they are in a situation they know our language they know of our Burbage they can go over the loudspeaker and use use the words we're comfortable with and I'd even Advocate if you get the chance because you're are kind of our our guy for Safety and Security about you know one of the things that's so great about Alice is that it was a

115countywide and almost like a it was a multicounty initiative where everyone got on the same page together and I can tell you as an educator that that makes me feel safer in the classroom absolutely I appreciate that input and Alice is a great program because yeah we're we're all here because because we have a a tie-in with s schools however a lot of these protocols that you do learn specifically Alice too you can utilize out in your everyday life because these things emergencies happen everywhere your church at the mall at the theater so they're they're they're great points so thank you for that anyone from the other side Jon um uh Mr gerby had asked and I wanted to ask the question because I don't think we got an answer to it but uh to

116tack on to the atlas training we absolutely positively should be doing Atlas training I agree 100% % there's absolutely no reason why we should not and you brought up a very good point is that Alice training is real world and can be used outside of school so yes we should be doing that sorry is what aable what's that Alice training is is real world real real world training and can be used outside of the school environment um so we absolutely should do that um but Mr gby asked a question I actually wrote down the question so I'm going to Reas it when and how do we train and teach the students the s RPS so the srps were taught to administrators and teachers in August of last year so as we come up on this

117year in August right time this is the time when I'll be able to help out with that and be part of that and um I don't know that we have a plan yet to how it's going to be presented to the teacher to the students other than through the teachers themselves so it's something that we have to work out and it's something that would be on our to-do list but it's a very good question um and and that we we've had some conversation too about creating a video of me on a video that we could share um with folks because it's really hard to get everybody together at one time but at least if there's a video then they could watch this video they could hear the protocol and and make some sense about things

118other than just being exposed to it so it's a very good point very good question but that has not been 100% evolved yet to a final decision and for those outside the microphone range there was a comment from Mr Clary that there are videos available if you and that they were presented to the students in the hour forand did you guys have uh Alice videos or not Alice but uh the SRP videos before drills and things okay beginning of the year you guys had some okay thank you m if I could just follow up on that really quick I um I think it would be excellent if we had uh that we started that implementation in the early childhood at buildings um I think that is extraordinarily important that we we start instilling that kind

119of stuff right away um and the recent uh secure protocol that we had a few weeks ago uh the community is not aware of what these Protocols are and there is a lot uh news media will call anything a lockdown and I think we need to be very very clear because they are distinct and I think we need to do a good job of getting the kids to understand what those differences are and those are great points and I I do know that there are um there are training materials for younger students through in the K through3 areas there are there are specific training um materials for those age students and maybe reaching out to our news media or something we could share some of this information with them because it is it's something it's

120it's very common sense and it's not it's not um protected in a way so everybody that knows about it I think would be great so those are great topics I appreciate that input thank you if there are no more questions we'll Roll Along we're going to be seeing you later in CL close session so I look forward to it thank you thank you thank you very much we have two three sorry three four four quick four discussion items and the first are going to be rather rapid and then uh Mr H Bennett will be on I can see you're flexing your PowerPoint thumb or your slide deck thumb good we'll start with Brad gerby and the finance committee who met which met today yeah so uh Finance met at 400 pm today to accommodate some

121scheduling and some of those kinds of things I'm glad we were able to do that so we um we had three we had we had four things we talked about the two of them are kind of married were kind of married together for us um the first one is budget was the budget amendment and we did some review I'm going to give some comments on that in just a second the second of which was something called bulletin 1014 I have copies for any board member who wants the summary document that I made um regarding was County school districts bulletin 1014 I got since you're getting this I'll explain it bulletin 1014 what it does and what I really like about is is bulletin 1014 it comes out in February it applies to the previous year

122so this particular one is February 25 for the 2324 school year got it so it lags a year okay and what I like about it is what it does is it puts your expenditures and categories so you're going to see things like um on the right hand side you're going to see per pupil instructional salaries and where we rank but then along the and then like across the top there are Revenue sources and expenditures but then on the bottom you also get things for instructural support business administration operations and maintenance and all of that so some of that um is tied into some of the things that we're going to talk about so you should know that we still um if I just tell you about my general consensus on 1014 is that our um

123our numbers still look pretty solid with regards to our our goal that we say we want to prioritize the classroom okay like we still um are pretty strong on that front and you know we are still reasonable like for example you're going to see we're like 700 this takes oh one of the things I really love about this too also is I think we saw a number was it 8:15 guys the total at the bottom I think it was out 8:15 so it says that we're 700 out of 8115 for that particular category right so like just be aware of that and it's a lot of data and a lot of points and but at the long story short like it's like it it it's it it paints a pretty solid picture that we do

124spend the majority of our money in instructional salaries that said um we looked at the budget amendment review and uh I am going to pass along this this statement and this thought we need more time as a um finance committee to kind of really get into the nitty-gritty of this but but one thing that really kind of stuck out for me and that we talked a little bit about was the idea that if you look under basic programs on our amended budget and I have it printed out if anybody wants the amended budget we've had it right in our stuff but um if you want to be able to see it in paper form one of the things is that we were right around like 29 million 29 million 29 million 30 million and then

125we just amended our budget to get back to like that $ 2930 million Mark so we're pretty flat with regards to that but then if you look at you know added needs right like 2018 9 million now we're 14 million if you look at um you know maintenance and operations we were 4.5 million now we're 7.36 eight million so like we started looking into okay so I I guess what I'm telling you is this from the finance person every dollar is a choice for us right and we have to make choices to be stewards on those dollars well we in order to be competitive in the marketplace made the choice to be more competitive for paraos and drivers and all of that that's great we gave the superintendent you know that we wanted to prioritize

126Safety and Security he hires an excellent individual to be our safety and securities director like so like we do those kinds of things we have added on additional positions to support learning in the classroom we've done these kinds of things but what it has done to the Align items underneath of basic programs I will just tell you is every single one of those items is up and so what we're going to have to say is if we want to do that hi Hank and be up and up and up and up and up and that's fine like because these were priorities that our you know people said they wanted our community said they wanted that's fine but then our community or this board is then going to have the equal and opposite understanding of the

127fact that we are going to in a when we're declining enrollment then we are going to our fund balance is going to go down um and you know depending on how we are about you know we like this past we did attrition and we absorbed things we might need to look at some of these areas and look at areas where we could do some things and get you know creative and and work together with you know individuals so like my point is I want us I I just want us to see this and that it's a caution on us and that our choices are important like I'll give you a choice last time in order to be competitive in the marketplace we said to our person Mr Bennett we need to pay our superintendent right

128what was it 190,000 to 200,000 right well it was an in all right I'll go with this I I'm the number is evading me we decided to increase it to get a better candidate pool I'm telling you every time we do that there could become a day where the finance team is looking this and saying okay but like hey guys like our choices the bill comes due on them I'm I'm a little concerned a flat I'll call my shot on it like just I'm like I'm like tip my toe in concerned because I think the team will work together collaboratively and we'll talk about it but just that's my report about this budget review in 1014 okay and then last thing I'll talk about um with regards to is there were a couple things we're

129still to be determined we're waiting on the I could not give the official pupil count I was hoping to have that but we're still waiting on um return of numbers from one area so we'll give that to you guys it's 10% of our Blended count anyway but like we're on it because enrollment matters and then the other thing is we just talked a little bit about um School of Choice students we have 32 graduating we're taking roughly about 60 students um 60 students per so um so we have some homework to do as a as a finance team we're going to do some deeper dives into some positions and staffings and all that we do that anyway so don't let that be alarming to anybody like we we just have to watch enrollment we have

130to watch what money we take in in our expenditures have any questions I do yeah um I read over the bulletin 104 this morning too I was I'm always as excited when Miranda first brought it to my attention I go this is great but do you keep are you are you tracking it year over year yeah because I as I looks like we're not spending quite as much on instructional uh in the classroom these days but there could there could be covid money that we're not or Esser money that I'm not really calculating well that's interesting you would say that I'd like to defer to my teammate next to me which one are you looking at I do have a well and the other thing is I'm not really sure which is the best uh

131the best metric to look at the total support instructional support or uh I know you can so so um I do have a spreadsheet goes back to 2011 of the 1014 so happy to hear that really and uh so like I think when you talk about the 104 you really have to look at the funding sources and you know in 201 um 11 we were ranked 213 and currently we're ranked 247 so that stayed pretty consistent against all 800 800 against all 100 850 which metric are you looking at there's a lot of rankings on the re no this is the funding funding of all sources so sorry about that revenues per pupil all sources yeah close to yeah at the top of the sheet kind of in in the middle yeah um the instructional

132salaries if that's what you're looking at you know in 2011 we were ranked at 97 and then I won't go through every year to now but then now currently it is I don't have that one with me right now I think it was a 168 was it yeah it's 168 right now 168 so in 2011 we were ranking 97 now we're at uh 168 168 um you know I have a few more that I kept like uh business administration operation maintenance teacher salary I think you know [Music] the so I don't know business administration we were ranked 783 in 2011 and now we're ranked 700 you know the so I mean I think we we we're I think we're prioritizing kind of the same places and I think some of this like um Miranda brought

133up it's a little deceiving because now they have so much pass through money also 2011 we weren't having pass through the that pass through money from like 147c all that you know it's also interesting to note too that in 200 you know 1011 only 19% of our income or our Revenue was going to mypers and then you know boom you zoom up to 2023 24 was like 28 to 30% so you know that all gets chunked into those salaries as well well I'm really happy to hear that you tra backing it for the last 13 years and probably with no gaps whatsoever I appreciate that any other questions thank you I just had one for Brad and and follow up so thank you and can you tell us what you think your next steps as

134a team are um to dig in and then does that perhaps include looking at the general fund page and and looking at some of these line items and you know maybe we remember we used to put a column in um for what what percent of overall budget is this because like some items look like there's a huge Delta but it's also a smaller percentage of the budget like maybe getting that data and then doing a a line item dive is that what your plan is yes and no I mean the reality for us is that our fund balance is in a place where we can provide these Services we can provide these kinds of things and we can spend because we've said we had some priority I mean like at the end of the day

135like I want incredible PA Pros I want incredible bus drivers I want incredible coach is I want so like long story short yes I what I've kind of asked is is Steve is on top of now we are going to look at some of our our staffing and we are going to look at some of those kinds of things and we did write like I I wrote that down that that was our homework is a deeper dive into our just overall Staffing models right that's not abnormal for us and we just need to be mindful of it so I guess that's what I would say is our biggest homework thing and then you know thinking about um just staying on on top of Revenue generation students and per pupil allotment right and advocating for those

136things every chance we can so that's where I'm at right now on it thank you Dr gold I'm going to pass it over to you for a policy committee update okay so we met just before the meeting this is my first policy chair report so I'll do my best um we did two District edits to policy the first on policy 5540 which is regarding student interrogation this was specifically language around um how the district handles when Child Protective Services um is called to the school to investigate uh the possibility of abuse or neglect um specifically if students can be if it doesn't involve the student themselves or their sibling or family the preference is to have them not interviewed at school um but if those criteria are met our uh administrators just wanted some clarity

137regarding the confidentiality of them filing the report and how and when whether or not parents are contacted um is determined and so really that that responsibility of uh whether or not parents are contacted lies with CPS because they know the nature of the situation and so they should be letting the administrators know um if students need to be uh interviewed outside the presence of their parents and so we were seeking some clarity I think from thrun and added some language from thrun regarding that um we also elected to add some proposed language which the board can approve or not just stating that um if the parents if CPS says the parents can be there then the district sh I'll try to contact them um so we'll bring that language to a further board meeting um

138the second one was uh regarding policy 551 17.02 regarding our um transgender and non-binary students policy um this is uh we discussed a proposal to uh simply delete the references to Title 9 from that policy um because uh the Federal enfor enforement of Title 9 is uh suggested to change so um just basically we have other law including state law that uh the policy is um in accordance with uh but uh there's been a change to Title 9 uh interpretation with the change of administration and so uh the title 9 language uh we're proposing and again this will come but um to the board will be deleted from the policy that would be the only change uh that we discussed uh the other updates were regarding um some Neola updates and so uh I'm going

139to kind of go through these briefly and you'll get more detail later but um a a lot of them are close to my heart because they're about cardiac safety and educating our coaches regarding um requiring CPR training for coaches um all coaches um there's one that basically just adds the language around Naran versus just none so the generic name is none but many people know to search for Naran and so to make our policy more searchable um there is a uh student conduct policy which adds really good new language as a resource about Ai and um student um use appropriate use of AI versus uh academic dishonesty and so we'll bring that policy here um and then we moved to oh and student accidents uh was just um there's new state law coming that requires

140districts to have a cardiac events um like an official cardiac events plan and the district is already doing a really good job uh but that we we're working on that and then the last uh regards um kind of what uh Mr Carrick was discussing about criminal background checks there's guidelines regarding uh privacy of individuals um criminal background check information and how we are handling that and storing it and we didn't get through that in the entirity of that policy so we'll move that on to our March 18th um policy meeting so that was the policy meeting today thank you very much we accomplished a great deal and we did hear from many members of the public and I appreciate that as well um quick question do we want to stretch our legs before uh Mr

141Bennett comes up or shall we just dive into it we have what we have a request to go into a quick recess for five and a half minutes while I talk while I say hi to Sarah Fabian thank you without objection five minutes thank you e e e we are ready to rock and roll thank you very much those at home five minutes quickly and I was told off already turned into 15 sit down Su we've returned thank you off we go whoops I tap tap i' like to uh reintroduce Mr Jay Bennett from the Michigan Association of school boards who is going to find the presentation that he was sure he had up on his machine seconds ago I was right well good evening board you all have a copy of the presentation there

142in front of you so the survey was closed on Sunday and I uh downloaded the material from the survey uh yesterday and that is the information they have in front of you there that will'll have up on the screen here in just a minute uh we can start with uh with question one yep no worries no worries uh question one talks about uh residency in the school district you'll see that uh 82% responded that yes they were indeed a resident of the school district 15% there responded that they did not live within the school district 2% would rather not say that 15% most likely constitutes those staff that you have that don't live in the district and possibly some schools of choice parents as well all right here we go question two talks about whether

143you currently work in the district you'll see that 67% of responders responded that they do not live within the district 28% said yes I'm sorry work for the district 28% said yes they do in fact work for the district and then 4.17% would rather not say so a significant number of your respondents were residents or parents of your community question three talks about what type of stakeholder you are remember notice that this says check all categories that apply so this is not going to add up to 100% so don't try to do the math there you're not going to get there um parents of current elementary school student 33% Middle School student 26% parent of a current high school student 25 resident without any children in The District 17 teacher 15 member of an area

144Community organization 12 support staff 10 currently enrolled five would rather not say four administrator three grandparent 3% recent graduate 2% question number four talks about minimum level of Education Master's plus administrative certification endorsement came out on top here at 28 master's degree alone came out at 25 bachelor degree 15 doctorate 15.25 specialist with administrative certification endorsement nine and then specialist EDS at 5% remembering that the bachelor's degree is your minimum requirement and then that administrative certification as well you could in theory hire somebody with only a bachelor's degree as long as you promised to work with them to get that administrative certification started within six months and finished within three years okay all right question five talked about strengths of the district I took all the comments uh that were left condens them into this

145nice little word cloud for you student education and teacher came through loud and clear uh as some of the strengths of the district things related to students things related to teachers um you'll notice opportunities uh great excellent academics high so all of the positive things happening in the district again not any big surprises in this one we go on to question six now we're looking at challenges now seeing student in big letters here doesn't mean that the students themselves are a challenge but lots of things related to students are a challenge in the district for sure sure uh District again the just the the the word District just ends up being in a lot of these uh challenges but you will notice um that uh you know Focus comes through here education support comes through

146here um School academics comes through here uh so again just an idea of some of the things that um that came through here generally speaking when we talked about the strengths of the district academics staff Athletics facilities those are the things that were coming through to me in both the service results and also in my face tof face meetings when we talked about challenges in the district uh the things that were coming up here again related to uh a lot of those same themes um so we see a lot of the same themes in both areas uh so what is your strength can also be perceived by others to be something that is challenging right and so we're going to see a lot of crossover uh between the two areas for sure all right question

147seven talks about positions that they think it's important for your superintendent candidates to have had uh they can pick up the three teacher came in at number one 56% follow very closely thereby building principal at 52% superintendent in another school district 46% assistant superintendent 36% prior position doesn't matter as long as the candidate has the right skill set at 26 special ed director 17 leadership position outside of the dist out sorry outside of Education 15% curriculum development specialist 13% Finance director 8 Community Education five Human Resources 3 public relations 2.94 again following very closely to what I was hearing in my meetings with staff and community members that teaching background that education background that school administration background coming through loud and clear as something that they're looking for in the next superintendent question eight talks

148about specific areas of expertise they want you to uh ask you for a ranking of these and how important you believe they are budget development management came through uh at 4.18 followed very closely by curriculum development and evaluation then public relations Human Resource Management contract labor negotiations contract Administration Facilities Management so again that budget development management that curriculum development and evaluation things I was hearing loud and clear in my meetings with your uh staff and Community as well question nine starts to talk about leadership styles 49% chose the collaborative leadership style this leader leads by using consensus building and other group processes to arrive at mutually beneficial decisions that was followed closely there by situational leadership leadership demonstrates different leadership styles depending on the situation after that 35% responded to transformational leadership someone that inspires

149his or her team with a shared Vision Democratic Leadership at 28% leader that makes the final decision when invites other members of the team to contribute servant leaders leadership at 17% and then delegated leadership at 10% question 10 now we're starting to get into uh some of those experiences and skill areas that they think are important so someone that is exceedingly responsive that follows through and follows up this is traditionally one of the high scores in just about every District that I do this survey in that consistency in leadership that consistency in following through through always scores really high recognizing value and affirming staff members ability to develop and direct and effective management team recognizing valuing and affirming students maintaining visibility and accessibility to staff Keen ability to think outside the box excellent speaking skills

150with large and small groups demonstrated responsiveness to students with learning differences strong communication skills with board members strong knowledge of curriculum and deployment proven track record of raising student achievement Main maining visibility and accessibility to parents fostering a professional development fostering professional development of Staff strong knowledge and experience with school financial matters proven track record of active advoc advocacy for public education maintaining visibility and accessibility to the broader School District Community maintaining visibility and accessibility to students exceptional written skills Communications successful experience working with diverse communities experience with school bond millage singing fund demonstrated the ability to work with elected officials beyond the school board adapted media and public relations and then our lowest score already familiar with the district okay question 11 now we're talking about personal characteristics honest and ethical at the top

151there again always a perennial number one strong listener Problem Solver transparent strong Communicator collaborative approachable empathetic kind resourceful G goal oriented inclusive flexible personable culturally competent tenacious doesn't give up thick skinned Visionary assertive self-reliant firm sense of humor sensitive and my perennial basement risk taker for whatever reason hardly anybody is ever looking for a risk taker as their next superintendent in choosing the next superintendent which path or strategy do you think the board should take 48% of your respondents find a candidate with the same basic educational and management philosophies as the current Administration but who can make some necessary changes 28% find a very different kind of candidate one who's ready to take the district in a significantly different direction and 22% find a candidate who will work to stay the course and continue the

152good work of the current Administration so what I like like to tell boards when I see these two in particular being your one and your two that's generally an indication that the respondents to the survey are saying that they're looking for some change we've got a lot of good things going on but there are some things that we'd like to do differently right and you'll notice that that bottom one is someone that's looking to stay the course and continue the good work that's not to say that there isn't good work happening in the district there clearly is but your respondents here saying there's some areas in which we could do better some areas in which we could do differently as I was talking about these results you'll notice that quite a few times I talked

153about the respondents of the survey one of the things that we have to remember is that we got around 240 respondents to the to these questions right so how much of that is representative of your entire Community right also remembering that over SE almost almost 70% 67% of your respondents were community members parents not staff so you definitely have it weighted much more toward your community and parents as opposed to staff so it's something to think about as well um these are all good points they probably reinforce a lot of things that you as board members believe uh about uh what you're looking for in the next superintendent having taking a look at this survey results anything in here jump out at you anything that you think is uh worth discussing a little bit deeper

154questions you may have about the results what do you got I was startled to see that 89% of the people thought honest and ethical was critically important that it's an incredibly High number interesting um so thank you for all of us I really appreciate it it's exciting to move move forward um through the next step um that respondent rate seems pretty low to me and compared to uh I'm I'm going to look for what our respondent rate was last time um any comments on your your um professional expertise what that is for a district of our size yeah I I I would I would love to have seen something closer to 400 to 450 would have been a nice sweet spot um two you know 240 is a little bit lower than I was hoping

155for um and you know I'm not really we we promoted the survey we put it out there uh I definitely could you know I could see an uptick so um there was a time during the period in which a Sur was out there that I asked the office to kind of send out another bump and sure enough they sent out that bump and I saw the numbers jump and so it's not that there was an unawareness that the survey was out there right it was clear that it was out there so I can't really speak to why the rates were as low as they were um but uh yeah I I te typically would like to have seen somewhere 350 to 450 would have been a better number than than the 240 that we saw

156but it is what we have so yeah but follow up on that would you recommend that we continue to pursue feedback or move forward I think that you have enough information to move forward with creating uh some selection criteria to add to the posting um you know I think that uh most likely more respondents would give you a little bit more depth but I think it would do a lot to also reinforce a lot of is already here so I don't know that we'd see any great variance if we put out the survey for another week or two um we need to get that selection criteria attached to the post so that the respondents your applicants can get a better idea as to what it is that you're looking for so they can better determine

157what their match is with the district and so they can get their materials in play uh and ready to go for uh applying to the job and you said that this was pretty consistent with the imperson meetings that you experienced for sure okay that that helps because that's more data absolutely can you give us a sense of what the staff that did what percentage of our staff roughly completed the survey and what your meetings with staff were like so you can see in the question uh question three breaks down that 15% of the respondents were teachers for the school district or at least put themselves down as teachers for the school district now they had many choices they could put all the all the CATE categories that applied in there so is was that what

158you were asking about yeah so 37 people who responded to the survey were teachers or at least put down that they were teachers yes yeah and then about how many teachers were you able to and like staff were you able to speak to in the face to face meetings uh between the meetings for teachers and the meetings with your union leaders uh I probably saw probably around 20 to 25 five can you give us any kind of flavor for concerns or things that came up specifically for teachers I had some Impressions just it was interesting to me in light of us talking about safety today I had some impression reading through the comments that there was a lot of concern regarding staff safety but maybe those were just in the comments on paper I I

159wondered what kinds of things yeah I was not hearing I was hearing a lot of behavior yeah I was not hearing a lot about behaviors or a lot about safety uh concerns from uh from the staff that I talked to uh in those face to-face meetings I was hearing a lot of concern about um you know new new leadership meaning uh you know having to not really start at the beginning but having to start over again right with a lot of stuff right anytime you bring in a new leader you're gonna have that concern about how that's going to impact what you have going on how long it's going to take for them to kind of get into it and then continue on with what's going on so anytime you know just the the typical

160things that we experience in any kind of significant transition so there's definitely a concern about that related to uh you know also related to what you have uh going on right now with your contract negotiations and how that transition if we don't have a contract and now we're not going to transition into a new superintendency a new superintendent how is that going to impact negotiations how's that going to impact you know any process that we're making in there so there's definitely a concern around that as as well again I don't think that's any information that's that's new to you so how would that input from staff specifically um impact how you write the um the search criteria right so that's what we that's what we'll definitely be talking here uh about in just a few

161minutes when we start to finalize what this criteria looks like we can talk about whether we want to uh emphasize anything related to contract negotiations or experience in that in that field for sure so real quickly I want to chime in you mentioned the free response and I appreciate those things hey Jay I don't are you guys having issues I I'm having all kinds of trouble with connecting and getting in and all of that I don't know if this is a brad gerby specific thing but I cannot I've tried you mean you're trying to look something up on your laptop I'm trying to look something up from I have the same problem I've disconnected I've reconnected I've I've done a number just do a a personal hotspot and then you're you'll be fine that's not

162a me thing it's not you what's that I don't mean to sorry but s public so I don't mean to like but I would like to be able to bring things up and so you printed the comments oh well yeah but you're going to want them I'd prefer to be oh connected and open wait hold on Jay did you work your magic no nothing whatever never mind move on like I just I want to be able to look things up and I can't right now so thank you I apologize for sure anything else related to the survey that I can answer for you um I had one little question so um Lauren giving that that data over made me think of it that just went to the board is that correct the the open open

163answer okay correct all right thanks I looked at it earlier I just wanted to look again so I don't need chry I looked at it so not necessarily I just wanted to have it in front of me in case we as we built the profile I just you did and it's beautiful and I would love to keep it cuz now I'm sure this is the inside of the doctor and I am very intrigued uh I don't I know if it's a I don't know if it's any value to you all on the board but I used a private lockdown Ai and summarized all the statements into clumps and sort of spot checked it for you all and I I'll put that in the board notes on Thursday or I'll send them out tonight why not

164okay so taking a look at your survey results uh I crafted this is just purely a draft we can definitely make any kind of adjustments that you like to make to this um but I just would like to start with just kind of going through this the items that are that are represented in the bullet points were pretty much pulled right from the top scores in your survey results okay so that's where I kind of came up with uh what we have here um so we start off with just a fairly uh easy statement here selary School seeking strong collabortive leader to work with the board staff and Community to create a successful educational experience for all students Bo of education has identified the following criteria for selecting its next superintendent so any thoughts comments

165on that opener pretty straightforward free representative of the types of things that I was hearing in the meetings Okay Vision longrange planning first bullet continued work with the Board of Education staff students parents and community on a transparent process F our current strategic plan works toward attain District's Vision while also maintaining creating appropriate processes and environment necessary to inspire others toward the district share goalss and vision I know that you're very uh that you're big on your vision for your district and your your strategic planning process and and everything related to that so I thought it was important that we get that in there as well proven track record of improving student achievement proven track record of active advocacy for public education two things that came through uh in the responses two things that came

166through in my meetings with uh with your staff and Community for sure anything on those first three bullet points that's okay one note from Lauren well I just thought that pretty high in the list was fiscal budgeting and curriculum development so I wondered if neither of those things are me mentioned yes we talk about a little bit about that under professional experience okay any other comments on those first three bullets okay professional experience master's degree plus administrative certification required K2 uh K through2 classroom teaching experience preferred central office and or building level administrative experience preferred previous superintendent experience preferred budget development management experience experience with curriculum development evaluation experience with contract labor negotiations human resource management experience successful experience working with diverse communities demonstrate responsiveness to students with learning differences anything amongst these bullet points

167that I I have a quick question uh why do we have the preferred the three preferred toward the top so I'm assuming that that is a preference based on what I was seeing in the survey and what was seeing in the uh um in the survey results uh I tend to stay away from required just because that runs the possibility of some applicants looking at that thinking well you know you know I don't have exactly what it is they're looking for not applying even if we have required we'll still get people that will apply even with preferred we'll still get people that will apply that don't have any of this um but this is kind of signaling that this is something that is a preference of the board staff and Community um that doesn't necessarily

168mean it's going to uh keep people from applying that don't meet the preferences uh but I think it's a little softer than required I think that that required for the certification uh I can't imagine that you're looking to hire somebody that doesn't have that master's degree plus that administrative certification um even if it's an out ofate administrative certification it still is an administrative certification um I didn't put Michigan in there I wanted to leave that open so that if you do get somebody from out of state but they have an administrative certification just coming to you from out of state we can change that required to a preferred as well uh that's kind of up to you I U let me re rephrase may I phrase it why did we have the preferred at the

169top rather than at the bottom oh uh no particular reason we can we can make any kind of change in uh in order if you'd like it's not because they were weighted a little more heavily than the other factors right I mean a little bit to that um you know sometimes it's just as as I'm looking at the survey on one screen and the you know criteria on the other I'm just kind of throwing I throw you know move things from one screen to the other sometimes I keep them in order sometimes I don't um it's a personal preference thing so I would like to consider under professional experience that happens to be our topic tonight about um Safety and Security and like of our staff and our students I would want that to be

170given L you mean you want under professional experience I would want that individual to be well-versed in processes be well versed in the things that are normal EOP procedures and standardized things and that kind of thing so that would be important to me if it's if it's important to us are you online it can go anywhere I just didn't see it listed here sorry um you know whatever experience a candidate comes with I you know as long as they're willing to grow and and learn and do the work I don't know that it's required but it could be Vision long range planning I I I'll go along with what Brad said um especially from my experience yeah it's important um I don't know how many super attending candidates we would get that would have that

171kind of role and a school district our size and the moves that we're making we we have a director of Safety and Security I I don't know I don't know if adding I mean if we started adding things I think it would be a Christmas tree after a while we keep hanging stuff on it until it topples over and it just is to Bullet intensive that's a good analogy and I appreciate it I you know it your point is made with me I if if you think that that would limit our candidate pool I'm not looking to anything limit our no I I don't think it would limit the candidate pool I think it's just another uh indication of something that the board is looking for in their you know in their candidates and if

172it's something that they have they're definitely going to make sure that they put that forward in their materials right that's what I would see it as is is we're saying that's important to us that's all that's why I brought up yeah okay and and I'm so sorry uh yeah because I was not paying attention at the time that you were discussing this and the long range planning proven track record of improving student achievement that didn't seem to rate very high and then I didn't see where we were asking them for to be an advocate for oh there it is yeah those were not the highest numbers so I was surprised so that was a combination of uh it was something that you know scored kind of in the middle there on the survey but something

173that I was hearing a lot from your uh face-to-face groups that importance of moving the district forward ially and that importance of being an advocate for the you know for the district at both the local and state level so that's why I thought it it rised to the occasion of being something that we wanted to include there okay um you know and apologies because I don't know but if I mean like for example did our last two including St and Scott and Steve have a proven track record what is a proven track record of Act of ad I mean yeah so that's going to be something where if they have that background and experience whether it's through their State Association Masa uh whether it's through their experience you know if they're building principle through masp

174you know what have they done to be an advocate for their District at both the local and state level uh and if they have that experience they're going to bring it to you and and uh make sure that it's forward in their materials and then if they are uh fortunate enough to get an interview then they're going make sure that they talk about it in the interview process as well thank you um I think student achievement should maybe be the first thing like I I I mean I I see what you're saying with the vision statement I guess I'm going back to that because this is the first time I'm reading it I I mean we really need to talk about the rigor and the pursuit of Excellence is we call it so I I

175would love to see that even more forward um then the section that we're on I would like to see PhD preferred as well all right where how does the rest of the board feel about PhD preferred and it doesn't say required so to your does not say it does not say required that that's fine it so you're saying add like comma PhD preferred I will chime in and say that I care more about the teaching part and I care more about administrative experience I don't necessarily need a PhD my thoughts on that is that we may have an absolutely fantastic candidate who is Masters plus many and uh we might actually say listen you're going to get a we might be able to offer a bonus on the the day you get your PhD or

176the semester after and it might be a reason to hire someone who's a lifelong learner and working towards those kinds of things too just a thought I don't think it's required by my standpoint yeah not required I agree I had written down academic excellence and I also wrote down 21st century curriculum I just feel like the this just doesn't read to me as like we want somebody who's really I think under Vision or it should just pop a little bit more to me like the first sentence if I was reading this to apply for a job the first sentence is so long and paragraph and it's just full of so many like catchphrases kind of strung together it doesn't to me like really set a vision of like you know the vision is to continue

177a strong build on a tradition of academic excellence in a you know High achieving Community or something I don't know I just I just don't feel like it pops and I also had the same question as d about how improving student achievement and active advocacy for public education neither of those really came through in the survey so I guess if they were coming through in the conversations that's different but improving student achievement if we were looking to interview somebody from of course I think student achievement is um very important but I guess I would say something like valuing or Innovative on academic Excellence or something like that because improve student achievement is only going to look at a Delta so if somebody comes from a district that's already high achieving and they maintain those standards

178but they really focused on social emotional learning or something like that then their Improvement their Delta is not going to look as great but they're still valuing academics well I guess I want to push back on that a little bit because student achievement we are more about the whole child not about somebody's grades that's focusing on um one p of what we do here we have in a great special edit program we have the great CTE program there are Athletics right there's more to a kid than their grades and so keeping it as you know student achievement as what that student is looking to achieve um to me is more valuable than looking at um some test results or grades or what percentage goes to college I I would agree with Darcy and I don't

179know if this is common but changing achievement to experience yeah because that's that's encompassing the entire student like Darcy said I I would suggest so this is I like a little bit of time to read over this is important and this is the first time that we're seeing this is there is there a due date because I mean this team can Wordsmith all night there's no doubt about I'm sure I'm sure of that um so there's not necessarily a time limit on this the sooner we get this attached to the post the better um my you know my Hope was to to come out of this tonight and have this ready to go like I said you know most of this is word for word coming right out of the survey um as the things

180that were uh that were scored relatively you know to medium high on the survey or what I heard in the face to-face meetings um and the reason that we borrow the wording out of the survey is because that just kind of makes it nice and clean and easy so you can see exactly where it's coming from um if you'd like some time to uh to continue to look over this and get it back to me uh that's okay uh if we set could we do 24 hours team like and promise to be quick because we don't want to hold up any business you have course that's that's fine I can I can live with that here's the only concern I have a little with that let's say I put forth something in the next 24

181hours to Jay that would not be a preponderance of the team right then Jay's put in a tough spot where he's got to pass value on that and decide is it good enough to make the bullet stable like I'm just saying like we make team we make decisions as a team so like that's the challenge for me if we could find out and we're not allowed to like over email have a board and that's and that's one of the reasons that we disc my challenge right and that's one of the reasons we discuss it in no meeting like we're doing right now so I think we I I'd prefer us to just if we got to Hash it out we got to Hash it out but I think we should do it together and then

182the other thing that I would say is the public advoc or public education piece I would say that's even important to me me if you want some like because I will tell you public education versus let's say we had a candidate who had spent their entire um time in private education being a you know a dean of I don't know Green Hills or whatever their experience in an educational study might be very different school uniforms and some of those kinds of things so I see us as a public institution and I would Advocate on behalf of that public and I think it's important that the person is an advocate for schools so as a public person like that I'm not passing judgment on anybody's pathway but for me that would be important but I go

183back to I think we should figure this out tonight together okay I'd feel uncomfortable submitting things to Jay hoping Jason agrees in which case maybe we should just leave it as is because I think all of this is just pretty small like I mean I prefer I wasn't necessarily saying we like substitute I just thought having some more about academic excellence and looking at what came in at the but it's not like a deal breaker to me um maybe we just leave it then because I I don't know that any word smithing we're going to do here we're not going to get all seven of us to agree on my only word smithing then is Oxford commas but but me then all I would offer is I see you as a whole person outside of

184your grammatical this is this is significantly different than the posting last time it looks different it's it's lighter um it's it's very light in compared to what we did last time so the last one was one um this this last one has a little discussion of our district then it talks about our community and demographics then it talks about our vision then it talks about the qualification so has some of this information and then it goes into the bullets of candidate profile then it talks about salary and contract information and procedure so it has other elements in it but it's very holistic which which I like so you like that that more information coming in so I guess that goes a question for for you J is is this like a standalone document or where

185is this going yeah so this goes attached to the posting that's currently out there so your posting that is currently up has the information that you're just talking about has information about the district has the information about your demographics has it information about your staff and where everything is in the posting this gets attached to the posting so that now people are looking at your original posting and then they're looking at the selection criteria on top of that okay so if if we're agreed that we're going to do this in open then I'd like to read some of the I wasn't going to take the time to do it but um if we want to do that that's absolutely fine so because I I really think we had an incredible response rate last time and

186so I just want to use that data it was four years ago I recognized that but that's not too long ago so it says the Selen Area Schools board of education has determined that the following criteria are those which are the most highly sought in a new superintendent so I can read these and then maybe you just can if you get new ideas or whatever you could note that um exemplifies the highest level of personal and professional ethics personal integrity and trust a Visionary leader with the ability to engage all stakeholders in the pursuit of a Clear Vision for the district that focuses on student achievement communication and use of District resources leadership experience in a traditional Public School setting that reflects a record of success in positions of increasing responsibility including five years of

187administrative experience however non-traditional candidates with proper credentials and background may be considered a Community member who Embraces the values of the community and will immerse themselves into the community an approachable School leader who treats everyone with respect and dignity and who is open to ideas and suggestions from a variety of sources res ources within the school Community demonstrates a true love for all children demonstrates effective communication skills parentheses writing public speaking and listening and excellent interpersonal and public relations skills dedication to education excellence and the success of all students demonstrates a commitment to diversity equity and inclusion demonstrates knowledge and knowledge of and experience with effective curriculum instruction professional development assessment and best practices to improve teaching and student achievement commitment to a pH philosophy of continuous Improvement through collaboration and evidence-based practice demonstrates knowledge

188of an experience in public school finance and fi fiscal management issues including of bond issues and syncing funds we knew we were going to have Bond um knowledge of facility maintenance and knowledge so not working experience of facility maintenance and operation including support services facility studies and improvements in bond funding opportunities again might be a little different where we are right now demonstrate success in human resource management including conducting negotiation with collective bargaining units contract Administration and Employment Practices an individual who sets high expectations for self and others holds staffs at all levels accountable and who accepts responsibility for results uh an individual who has demonstrated a solid working relationship with staff while managing challenging external factors affecting public education demonstrates a record of direct involvement with and knowledge of political issues in public education

189at the local intermediate State and fed levels only two more demonstrates ability to be visible throughout the district and be actively engaged in school and community activities that was a huge thing for us um proven leadership ability with skills in implementing change collaboration successful systems creative problem solving intelligent risk-taking and team building so I think some of those are things that would be a little bit different for years later but I think that that's a pretty good list so I just wanted to offer that because I remembered how this was written I like this list yeah I guess I would say it's cleaner and I wanted this to come across as we hired a different firm to do it this time and we are entrusting Jay to have these conversations and to do the you

190know the surveying and this is what he brought us so like I guess I that's a whole nice list and like there are all kinds of cool stuff on there like professional and personal ethics and all and I'm going to be looking for those things when I look for a candidate I'm G to be looking for somebody's ability to like Finance when I we talk about finance and budget development for me that the bond will be hand hand in hand with that so like my point is I just would be careful I I think I would accept this and there's a lot of that in this yeah I think we should just accept this but that's all just my my two okay so what I'm hearing is we would I think like to add something

191about Safety and Security and that's that's that's an easy ask that's something I can easily add as one of the bullets for sure um I'd heard something about possibly uh taking that second willll point a proven track record of improving student achievement to maybe something along the lines of uh improving student experience improving the student experience how about improving the student experience but you you you I absolutely wanted to say something about academic achievement we're a school system it shouldn't just be about experiences it can be it can be a blend of both that's fine but we we should talk about student achievement because that's how we measure the superintendent okay I 100% agree I mean I my kids don't always have a great experience I want them to get a good education I want

192them to have a good experience most days but when they're doing algebra they're not always having a good experience and another way of looking at it is that student achievement doesn't always necessarily mean academic or outcomes could could we just say outcome sounds too much like testing I think academic Excellence is part of a school system academic Excellence can be that you're doing great in welding I mean that's academic it's a class that doesn't necessarily mean like SAT scores school I feel like you're coming to a school when people come to the district of course they look that they have whole child and that's important but it also people come here for academics and I think we should have a superintendent who I think that should be part I think you read it in the

193comments you always see it and I think that's part of what what families here care about it's not the only thing but I think it should at least make the L could we combine the two can we combine two bullet points absolutely and say improving academic excellence and student experience why why are we depicting them as two different things sure academic Excellence of student experience all right so I'm going to take that second bullet point proven track record of improving academic excellent or uh I'm sorry proven track record of academic excellence and improving student experience proven track record of driving academic excellence and improving student experience got it otherwise otherwise we would just have a proven track record of academic Excellence got it in which case I know I wouldn't qualify proven track record of

194driving academic excellence and improving student experience done all right under professional experience I'll put something together for well-versed in uh School Safety and Security or something along those lines next set of bullet points talking about personal exceeding the response that follows up follows through embodies highest degree of moral professional ethical behaviors establishes demonstrates a value strong relationships with students staff families and Community transparent and collaborative leadership experience maintains visibility and accessibility across the district and Community now you'll notice that that kind of encompasses in the survey it was a little bit separated accessibility visibility to parents accessibility and visibility to staff accessibility and visibility to students those all scored relatively high so I just kind of threw them all together in that one bullet point basically just saying that your next applicant should be someone

195that's looking to maintain visibility and accessibility across the entire district and Community okay and then our last four there key ability to think outside the box develop Creative Solutions to complicated problems recognizing values and affirm staff members experience with and or ability to develop and Lead effective executive and administrative teams strong communication skills with Schoolboard members anything in those last two areas under personal and management decision-making yeah I have a tiny item okay I think I would just make it say strong communication skills period you're the fa of our district I mean we're going to disagree as like board members and a super do you mean on the last bullet yeah I want to change that one too strong communication skills would be enough for me like I would add I mean I exactly what

196Brad said but there in this role it is critical to maintain a working relationship with public officials publicly elected officials like us sure um and so I think it should say something about collaboration with school board or under understanding of roles and responsibilities between the superintendent and board something something about that relationship I think is is incredibly important um then on personal for that last bullet um that seems a little bit low bar for me maintains visibility I would suggest writing exactly what we wrote last time demonstrates ability to be visible throughout the district and be actively engaged in school and community activities because our last two at least the last two superintendents that I I know maybe more superintendents before that um did an excellent job with that and I think our community is

197used to being served in that fashion okay so could you either write that up for me or email that to me thank you I'm just gonna send you this whole thing out perfect and I will change that last bullet look for email done all right so on that last bullet point on the strong communication skills with Schoolboard members um so you were looking for something closer to uh experience with collaborating with school board members or what were you looking for there yeah just something speaking to um the professional working relationship the symbiotic relationship the the ability to work with different viewpoints or you know just some something that talks about the nature of a positive working relationship between a board and superintendent that that's something that will expect and value yeah I I think I

198agree with Jennifer I don't say that all the time uh but uh strong communication skills just strongly suggests that he the next superintendent they might be very clear in uh telling us the wrong thing collaboration is what we need collabor collaboration is what if as long as as long as a collaboration word is in there I I can I can live with that no matter how it ends okay all right I will reword that as well uh and one of the reasons that I one it was something that came through in the survey but the other thing this is especially important for those that have not ever held a superintendent role before um it has been uh our experience as an association my experience in work in you know doing this kind of work that

199one of the trickiest things that a new superintendent has to uh deal with is that working with a board of education because it is unlike any any other I know I know um and so it's one of those things that until you actually are doing it uh you know it's really hard to kind of imagine what it's like and so you only get that experience as a superintendent um and so that's why I think it's important that we get it in there um so but I can definitely make some rewarding of that uh include collaboration uh maybe something in there about experience with board governance something along those lines um and I'll get that last bullet point cleaned up for sure okay anything else okay so uh next steps I will take a look at

200uh the wording that Jennifer sends me I will take a look at my notes Here I will clean this up and get this posted to the uh to the posting tomorrow um you're probably not going to hear a lot from me for the next couple weeks because right now it's just having it out there having it uh collect applications I will be working the phones and working the emails on uh you know talking to some people and encouraging them to apply now that I've got the selection criteria attached to the posting that's going to start moving the the needle on the number of applications coming in as well remembering we' got spring break coming up um so that's going to be kind of a quiet time as well uh whereas a lot of you know

201a lot of these individuals will be taking their break I'll be taking my break um but uh I'll definitely keep you in the loop as we're contining to work through this but like I said if it gets a little quiet don't get too worried about it but if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me um but don't take uh no communication for me as an indication that anything's wrong it's just that there's really nothing happening right now we're just continuing to collect applications and move through the process okay but anything you need please let me know is it fair to ask what's the word on the street about the Seline job it is fair to ask that question sure what's the word on the street about the Seline job uhuh

202I'm asking yeah all right thank you I've gotten some very positive uh inquiries about the position uh they're all waiting for the selection not all but I mean a lot of them are waiting for the selection criteria to get attached to the posting so they get a better idea idea what it is that uh that's being looked for um but yes it's been very positive and I'm cautiously optimistic that we're going to have a good pool to look at absolutely thank you thanks for navigating the uh White Water of word smithing with board I app no worries at all it's it's toppled many a guest in the past anything else tonight that's it I think thank you very much Bor I appreciate your time and I look forward to those notes and we'll get that

203up and attach tomorrow thank you very much sir sa travels back thank you thank thank you we have one more uh let me get my notes together uh in the last board meeting for those for those of you who needed a refresher uh I was empowered to reach out and negotiate with uh our selected contractor for a third party review Scott Robertson uh and I did that uh I narrowed the scope I just have a few notes Here I won't read them all to you um I did narrow the scope with them during a phone conversation which is good um I made sure absolutely based on things you said we do not want to handle examine the handling of fees facilities fundraising or resource allocation check that box I reviewed that with him uh I

204talked about not tripping over Jay Bennett along the way while we're doing the superintendent search so if he comes down to do his interviews or or put out a stakeholder surveys he's not going to get in the way of what we're doing here he he he absolutely recognized is it that takes full value um he mentioned that if we waited a little too long um we he he might miss out on some excellent opportunities at the I got to write down the miaaa conference uh which at which are uh athletic directors are going to be attending uh in this week in Traver City which is where he lives so he hopes to run into them uh the last thing was the price I said okay look uh look Scott we um we reduce the scope

205and the range uh can we lower the price at all and he said uh we made a deal he says yes he could so we I knocked a couple thousand dollars off his price and that's uh and now I have I I took the liberty of drafting a contract having never done one of these before and uh I know you probably have a lot of questions but there are questions that I have as well if it comes down to it um which I won't ask right now which I may ask uh we'll see how it goes so if I can answer any questions right now fire away you want to start with a question sir no I'm gonna Gunk up the process U you're gonna what up the process I'm gonna Gunk up the process

206I think that's a word I heard that word okay so um I would tell you that when we first went into this in October I'm not sure the goalposts are exactly the same place that they were for and let me explain to the public what I mean by that so um we have received some additional information like in the past um you know in very recently from Steve about the impact that our um Mr Welton has had in his conversations with the athletic department I really appreciated the feedback we received and I really thought that that was a thorough report from Mr welon talking about the conversations he's engaged in and his feel of the lay of the land and all of that so like I guess I would say this I never really thought

207I got an answer when I asked this question before we are also a different team of seven individuals you heard me tonight talk about every dollar that we spend so we have the the Welton report which I thought was very affirming of our athletic department we have our niche.com saying that we have you know one of the if not the best athletic atic departments in the state every year for the last five years and then I would say it's not the athletic department it's the athletic team okay then Athletics but that I I would argue and say that you know every dollar matters so even if it's $110,000 I would like us to reaffirm our commitment to doing this at all I guess I put a motion on the floor if I have to or

208but I'll make a discussion first to see if there's could you do me a the and and just speak to more about what way Wayne Welton was doing and then my understanding it was an $8,000 expenditure yeah I I would like Steve to speak more to that point um we pay him a per hour you know to work with her that kind of thing so work with the athletic department I yeah I can I can speak to that so um in October uh we or I contracted with um Wayne Welton a former well-respected athletic director who um agreed to work with the athletic department to address some of the concerns that had had been raised and um you know I look back on that now and realize that as superintendent three years ago when uh

209both U Ashley and Jeff were brought in you know usually you do provide them with a a mentor and although they received a mentor through you know the district it wasn't somebody that had done that role before and I I think you know ultimately I I should have done that um with that said so in October I contracted with um Wayne Welton and basically said that I'd like you to work with them we agreed upon uh an hourly rate and a certain number of hours that would take that through the end of December and um then in addition when um he's he came back after December and said hey we're we're doing a lot of good work would you consider keeping me on as a mentor through the spring and and I I agreed to

210do that and then most recently he provided me with more or less a progress report I I wouldn't say that it's a fundamental complete review of the athletic department but it but it it did in my opinion address many of the things that um are requested in such a review uh and the other thing that I thought was good about this progress report is it is it pointed out the areas of strength and it certainly promoted areas that the department needs to grow in and that they've been making progress in so that's how that has all played out we have a question from Jennifer St so I would just offer and I want to be extremely careful after what happened at the table the last time with with regards to our staff and discussion of

211of of different things in public um to catch everyone up we were emailed a report from Steve um with regards to Mr Welton agree very very respected individual I don't want to get into the the the pieces of that because that's not fair to our employees I were I I internalize that that's just me internalized that as performance evaluation so an HR type performance evaluation when I think of what we voted on and what the scope we discussed was I think that's a process um review of the department and the processes those bullets that Michael said it's it's not a performance evaluation or report so that's that's how I read that and that's all and and this is exactly what I was afraid of when we were sent that email the other day with with

212saying hey I don't I didn't agree with this decision here's this report I think we need to be really careful I heard what the staff said to us an email after we had that conversation and I'm just going to not say anything else about Personnel performance at the board table Tim and then so Darcy yeah I agree with Jennifer on that and I think that um there two different things here um Steve felt the need or wanted to hire a mentor and he did and that's fine um I understand Brad the $10,000 but I think let's put it a little bit in perspective so I did the number based on 12,000 that's equivalent to 0 or 0. 01 164% of our budget a family of three with a $100,000 income going to McDonald's one time

213in a year would spend 0.03% so this is half of what a McDonald's run for a family of three would cost so I think that that's you know I think it's important to be cognizant of that but we also have to we're we're cognizant of our taxpayer dollars our tax we we heard from many of them that they wanted an independent review and so that's what we uh that's what we voted on and I just want to reaffirm it before we tell Michael enter into a contract if you guys tell me that we want we will Sorry Brad appreciate that Darcy as a new board member I've struggled with this as an audience member at that November meeting and um and trying to catch up with the amount of information that um um transpired over

214a few months um and I have spoken at the podium before where I'm I'm very much a proponent of policy and procedure and that giving legitimacy to the actions that we take and I mentioned that I did not feel that the board in November followed proper policy and procedure um through that process I have had Lively conversations with Lauren about this Tim was very kind and walked me through a lot of it I am still I guess frustrated that I don't have all the information and I feel like I made a very large decision not knowing um the extent I mean I knew that we had gotten him at Wayne wton as a mentor but the extent of the the scope of his work and the cost of that and that definitely would have factored

215into my thinking um had I known that previously I agree I don't think that they are the same but there is overlap there and I feel that additionally with um with our work looking at what had happened with the sort of um initiating event with the football forfeitures that a lot of that information was cleared up and we found that the athletic director and Steve had acted with propriety and integrity and I feel like this is the foundation for this review is is Tainted um had this come separately or just as a normal course of business there's value in it absolutely who doesn't want to work to improve their their jobs or the services that they provide I'm just struggling because of how this um this is entangled with everything that happened right it's not

216a clean decision thank you others oh Jason and I com I'll Echo a lot of what Darcy said because Darcy and I are both new members of the board and we both saw it from a completely different lens than the board did back in uh in November and I agree I agree with Brad and I agree with Tim uh which is troublesome because you know it's a it's a it's a small piece of the budget but nonetheless it's dollars that we're spending and and the way I look at it and I think Darcy actually said it very well is the triggering event to this we have found to essentially be null uh null invo of of any substantiated fact So based on that I think we have to look at it from the perspective that

217if that had not happened we wouldn't have triggered this entire discussion or debate what this was needed maybe it would happen for a different circumstance but the triggering event ended up not being substantiated it wasn't that was the triggering event though i' had been I've been asking for that well before the football team started so correct we have to separate those the the climax that caused this uh uh again didn't cause it because I was asking for it before okay and just to make that clear um I was asked by the Sun Times about this quite a few months ago weeks ago and I very clearly said this is not a direct reaction the third party review is not a direct response to what happened with the football team uh but the football incident did

218put some things on the radar uh Tim uh trusty Austin added more information pointed out other issues and we've got a lot of squishy spotty I don't know if you put up the analogy of smoke and you know there's a lot of smoke here and there is there a real fire that we need to address I got that I want to clarify a few things I was one of the uh handful of folks who voted against it as you as you well know and that's and we all have our right to a vote um but I was also uh on the ad hoc committee that uh stepped up with Tim and Lauren to look for a third party reviewer so I have given a huge amount of thought to the value of this and what

219that's do for the district and what I've come down to is this we have a lot of athletic programs was it 30 something or 60 something they called us Seline University at one point two years ago during one of the reviews and um that's complicated there a lot of coaches coming assistant coaches a lot of issues and a lot of difficulties in running a show like that so I somebody said it maybe it was you I see this it took me a while to get there but I see this thirdparty review as a continuous Improvement for the district not not even so much for the athletic department but for the entire District I think there's a lot of value to that and and um I think that if uh we should be doing this sort

220of thing for as complicated an outfit as we have here we should be doing this sort of thing once every five years or some other Cadence and um I just want to also say that I absolutely Ely trusted you Tim when you said and I'm and I have no reason to not believe you still uh that it's not just the football so and uh you had mentioned other sports and going even back two two years so um there are people who have been at the board table dealing with some of these things I'm not trying to discredit your lived experience here too but um so that's where I am now so if we had to put it to a vote I'd say as well if you wanted to add something um I I understand that

221that point of um wanting to comprehensively review Department to see Improvement uh I I just worry that the perception from our athletic department is that they feel now there is a lack of support I'm not saying there is but I believe they feel that and um that that's just something they'll have to do in other words I'm not I know that they Not Afraid or worried that that if somebody comes in and reviews their Department they're going to find anything other than what you know Wayne has been working on um I just get concerned about the perception that there's lack of support there but that's it and I completely understand and respect whatever decision the board makes I understand that it's the board's decision I appreciate that Brad do you have a motion that no

222I I think we're Landing the plane then because like it doesn't sound like we have a preponderance of of I wanted to ask the question of is there you know is it still out there and or do we still want to continue it so the I suppose unless I get other information then the information says let's go so then I would make the motion to enter into but we' made the decision last year so I don't think we need a motion but he would even want to go enter into this contract right Brad Brad had a different sentence in mind than you were thinking yeah yeah so doesn't let Brad say it or I would just motion that we would Empower Michael to enter into a contract for $10,000 with Scott Robertson everything all inclusive

223he was he was very clear about that he's not going a nickel over that I will second that so um my only other clarifying question procedurally Michael was generally um Consultants have their own template for contracts he did not he did not okay that's that's why I asked him that directly uh Jay Bennett had a lovely template which he shared with us and that made my life or our lives a lot easier I have a a contract that I've drafted and I can share it with you all it may be too detailed and he and I Scott Roberts and I may talk about this tomorrow but uh it has a um if since we've been talking about this you would want to just put this to a vote Brad and then before so I don't

224waste my my breath on this well we had Brad and Tim support yeah and that's a motion to enter into a contract with all right well all in favor please say I I I any opposed all right well then hearing none let me just ask you a few of the questions about the contract then and thank you um I'll send this all to you with the information included I basically talked about the scope of the work that's required and uh based on communication with students coaching standards climate and culture title N9 compliance leadership development mentorship processes for recruiting and hiring athletic department or I forget what it was athletic department staff processes for recruiting hiring evaluating and terminating coaching staff and the verification of student athlete residency and compliance with eligibility rules plus a couple

225bullet points under each the deliverable is a comprehensive report detailing strengths and weaknesses of the athletic department and programs practical suggestions for improvement in each of the focus areas acknowledgement of any past issues and efforts to mitigate or remedy those issues the timeline is and this is an open question I'm asking you all uh when would you like this done by when can I I think I get the sense two months is what would be reasonable so I have to use my fingers April May so before before superintendent Lodge leaves I guess does anyone want to propose a date when when is the June meeting say again when is the first June meeting eightth the only June meeting by then by June by the first meeting in June okay yeah would it be possible to

226have it concluded before that so we have time to read thew cour how about May 17th Norway's national holiday there you go um the board agrees to compensate the contractor a total amount not exceeding $10,000 for the services rendered the amount is inclusive of all Associated cost payment shall be made next question is installments are in comple under completion upon completion I suspect upon completion half now half later I don't know I'm ask if he didn't ask for it I'd do it all upon like it's just negotiation I'm asking I'm asking the board upon completion then I'm hearing yeah uh confidentiality contractor agrees to maintain The Confident confidentiality of all information obtained during the review process and not disclose any information to third parties without the prior written consent of the board either party can

227terminate this contract with X number of days written notice next question is how many days should we give him or us if we think it's not going well to contract to terminate the contract I don't know what usual is 10 usually is two 30 days 30 days so it's going to take them two months it's almost like you're in business of some sort right 30 days okay I'm going to go with 30 days from the businessman in the end of the table um I'll I'll flesh this out send it your way um he told me on Monday that he's a night owl so I'm may have a conversation with him this evening he's probably watching now hi Scott welcome thank you um so we'll move on from there thanks very much I have no idea

228where my agenda is I believe I know I've got it now thank you uh Administration board updates please and thank you would start with you you got nothing all right thank you I appreciate that um the rest of the table hey students thanks for sticking out this long this is well past my bedtime I don't know about yours but students we'll start with you uh first I'll just say that the bands did wallet festival and they got all all ones which is the best score yes it's the best score so uh that's good and then the other thing was that I hope the contract r viw with the teachers is uh going well and they were're making progress on that can I ask a question other the student students by and large talking about the

229contract or is it just you because you're like really dialed in uh a little bit I think there's like a little bit of word but uh I think it's mainly mostly just me could be thank you thank you Tommy Tommy I appreciate that and I did want to say I I didn't say Kate C Kate but I think I took a video of her as we both took the plunge uh and Well Done Kate I appreciate that you you raise lots of money thank you trusty Austin trusty gerby treasur kby yeah I just want to acknowledge our EA members who who visited us tonight and who are around and what have you thinking about you you know it's oh this is tough on me um and that is that I want to say um Good

230Luck to our students who are going to Deca this upcoming weekend Deca state finals is happening this weekend and my my son will be there and all of that and don't make any bad trouble in downtown um and then the last thing is I'm going to put it out there that I miss the superintendent recognition I miss it I like it I miss the superintendent recognition so I'm I'm just nudging them a little [Laughter] all right secretary burbick Berwick sorry uh I just wanted to uh acknowledge the teachers who came as well and staff and admin I really honestly believe that we have great students great staff um great teachers great admin great super intendent and um I do think that we all have the the common goal of supporting our students and helping them

231to achieve uh their personal bests and whatever it is that they are wanting to do um the the humanity of us all means that we're not all going to agree on the path that we take or what we need to get there um but I think overall we do a pretty good job um and uh if there is doubt I would like to say that I also trust the the athletic department um I think that they are doing a good job um as with all of us there's always room for improvement um and uh just want to thank everybody for what they're doing uh and on a minor note uh car's meeting is tomorrow so we'll find out what gets funded thank you uh I don't really have a a great many things to say

232I it was a very long agenda and there's still more to go uh I did want to say thank you to everyone who supported us during the splash the polar plunge and uh I ran into the the teacher who is the coach for the Marksmanship I don't know the do you know the name off top of your head Susan Osborne she is uh thinking strongly about inviting us down to maybe and to see the see the team in action I I hope that's not a big surprise you're not going to no you'd be behind the gun thank you but I mean it might be an interesting opportunity to uh to get down there and see a a superb speaking of superintendent recognition they were recognized last year and this is a chance to maybe see

233them in it work once the weather warms up thank you that's all I have um happy try three Happy Spring Sports happy happy final stretch it is hard to believe um where we are and um thinking about our seniors thinking about their families because I've already heard a lot of tears have been shed going into the the the final process I guess so I empathize with them um our foundation for Seline area schools meeting was today and I'd like to thank everyone community members anyone who might have bid on an auction item on a ton of volunteers um they raised [Music] 9,283 which is a huge success it was a huge success for for many different reasons not just financial reasons it was a a fun time in the community um and our our our

234board Reps for the foundation were there uh the ski team was there helping with the coats um a teacher came and talked about her Grant thank you Melissa um but one of the things that I really noticed having gone to those for years is I saw a lot of new generational faces um so incoming um families with with smaller children and that Contin continuous evolution of making sure that our Legacy families and our alumni families are still connected but we're welcoming and including those new families too so that was really exciting to see a lot of a lot of new people um participating and wanting to get involved with the foundation so thank you uh I was just going to shout out the orchestra who also received ones at least the Middle School orchestra I

235only have knowledge of some of the information but um and uh acknowledging uh International women's day uh this past week and all the fabulous uh women and young women we have in the district well since Lauren brought it up uh it ties into something that I got to experience I want to thank Darcy for inviting me to go to the Science Olympiad practice that was fantastic I brought my oldest daughter um asked if she wanted to leave and she said no she wanted to hang out and learn more I thought that was fantastic the students there embraced her being there answered all kinds of questions it was terrific I got to participate in two shark tanks with M stookie's class I have to tell you the students absolutely blew me away and if anyone ever

236says that women are not interested in stem they need to come to miss stookie's class because those ladies blew me away with their knowledge their prototypes their thought process it was absolutely fantastic uh we need to have a huge Spotlight on that here at Seline they do an absolutely excellent job they knocked me over so much that I invited some of the students to come to our R&D lab in an arbor to see how bio sensors are manufactured and tested and I've gotten a couple emails from a student that is very excited about doing that um and that makes me happy and that's that's why I wanted to be on the board to experience that stuff uh but uh all parents can all Community stakeholders can experience that and I think we I think we

237need to shine a big big Spotlight on that here in our district absolutely thank you very much consent agenda uh I'm going to bypass the first part I'd like to entertain a motion to authorize the consent agenda as printed Darcy Berwick support Ste supported by Jen ver stean uh all in favor please say I I I I thank you very much 70 um items for the next agenda sir right we'll have the myip teaching and learning Update LED by Cara and the teaching learning team and that's the Michigan integrated continuous Improvement process apprciate that thank you very much we're at the uh public comment section a member of the public can address the board for up to three minutes or request to be scheduled in a future meeting I do not believe we have any

238student comment sheets uh but we do have other stakeholders so I'm going to call them up uh Ryan Davidson first and on Deck is Amy tessin thanks Ryan do for those of you who are new at the two minute two minute and 30 second Mark is that the way it works two minutes and 30 seconds you'll get the the the yellow card and the the chartu card will come up at the the three I don't know what color that is magenta thanks thanks Ryan sorry and she'll start the timing as soon as you speak good evening members of the board my name is Ryan Davidson I know a lot of you um if I haven't been here before I've coached your kids probably or you've seen me around I am a parent and that's the

239main reason I'm here tonight um I stand before you today to express my grave concerns with the hiring of Daniel Carrick as the Director of Safety and Security for our school district and I would like to say that Dan he's not in here right now but we have history we've go back 101 15 years on the law enforcement side this is not this is not personal this is because my kids are involved in this whole thing um this decision not only raises serious questions about the district's vetting process but also undermines the public trust particularly when it comes to our student safety and the Integrity of the hiring process itself first I want to point out that Mr Carrick has a troubling history including his involement in a title 9 violation case at Eastern Michigan

240University despite this he was a select for this crucial role overseeing school safety in addition to the Title Nine concerns his actions during the investigation specifically his failure to take appropriate action in a case involving his former subordinate raises questions about his judgment and suitability for a role that should prioritize in safety well-being of our students it was revealed during this investigation that Mr Krick was approached by one of his subordinance I'm not going to name him who was at the time a Washington County deputy and previously worked under Mr Carrick when he was Deputy Chief of Westland uh this individual was the main suspect in this case um which further is it a personal attack if I we we had some training on on this at this point it's it's a CR critique of

241the person in his role not him directly so well well make it long and short then you you hired an individual that had 11 Title 9 complaints that he swept under the rug at a public university and I don't understand our background check process or our vetting process that allowed that to go through and it's interesting that the HR administrator is also the titan9 coordinator and none of this stuff came up so that's all I have thank you Mr Davidson I appreciate it Amy tesn is followed by sus Eep on Deck thank you Seline ARA School Board as a parent of two students I'm here to speak in support of public education as I'm sure all of us are here a strong public education is the foundation for our democracy big money and corporations have

242been working to dismantle public education for decades and decades dividing us Andor vilifying teachers and the most vulnerable students in our society I'm here to ask our community and our board members to stand in support of our teachers our polic policies and practices and of course all of our students teachers are the backbone of this district and they need higher compensation sadly the lack of compensation in our district is reflected in our teacher retention as it compares to the state level our newly hired teachers retention rate is uh 50% less than the Statewide rate as for our amazing policies and practices um these also need to be supported right now there is a lot of outside pressure to change our public education and best practices to make learning experiences less diverse less inclusive less based

243on 21st century skills and ultimately less safe teachers and students need to know our community community district and board will stand strong on human rights the overwhelming majority of our community believes in a strong publiced education that supports our teachers and an excellent education for all of our students no matter where they are from or who they are thank you Amy Susan Eep and on Deck Sarah Fabian told you I'd be on the other side um um wow this is really tall okay um I would like to speak to you tonight about the executive orders that have come from the top since January these EOS specific to public education are direct attacks on diversity equity and inclusion and especially Target students and Educators based on gender sexual orientation race and whether or not um someone

244has documentation Michigan State superintendent Michael rice has released multiple memos which were sent directly to all Stu uh all School superintendents across the state um and I high highly encourage all board members to read these memos there have been strong responses that have come out across the state and across the country against complying with these executive orders as they do not have legal standing additionally lawsuits have been filed specifically for um the diversity equity and inclusion um including from the Nea ACLU and the AFT the biggest takeaway from these superintendent memos is that protections continue to exist and the state is prepared to defend our students and staff Michigan Elliot Larsson Civil Rights Act provides civil rights protections to education and educ education based on religion race color national origin sex sexual orientation and gender

245identity or expression the district has a legal obligation to not comply with these executive orders um regarding uh the transgender and non-binary students policy that was discussed um tonight at the policy meeting um this is an example of pulling that specific policy and saying we're going to remove title9 from that when again an executive order is not um actual law it's it's really you know this new Administration interpretation so um moving quickly to do that specifically for that policy concerns me um especially when we have um anti-discrimination uh laws um and policies is that going to change now now um are we going to take out because it says sex sexual orientation and um that's nerve-wracking uh sexual orientation and gender identity um is that going to change now that was our question before and

246legal said don't mess with the policy um also um our three-year Dei plans um have been removed from uh the Dei website um this is another example of compli um and uh I think that's unfortunate because in 2020 we had the community come together and you know talk about the the racist incidents um the Snapchat and an individual who attacked one of our community members um we worked around that and came up with you know the three-year plan and we've updated that that cost money um for the district and so simply removing that or changing names and titles to hide that we do Dei um is not um it it's not what we should be be spending our time on again there are legal protections at the state level thanks thank you m thank you

247Sarah Fabian and on Deck is oh is Eric John Roberts here there you are didn't recognize you with the mask sorry okay uh my name is Sarah Fabian and I'm a parent of two Elementary age kids in Seline schools and I wanted to comment about two things tonight um first I want to Echo the comments made by sea president Bridget Corey at the last school board meeting Seline teachers are truly the heart of our district and they're the people who make our schools exceptional rather than just good I have one kid in fourth grade and one kid in first and every teacher they've had has been incredible and I truly mean this in one of my roles as a faculty member at emu I serve as the secretary of the Emu AUP which is emu's

248main faculty Union and we also negotiated a contract a few years ago that went to mediation you may have heard about this in the news as we also went on strike um I share all of this just to explain that I know enough about how these things work to know that none of sitting before me on the board are the individuals that are at the table during these negotiations but I also know that it's your duty as our elected officials to represent stakeholder values and what I would like to be clear about communicating tonight is that our teachers deserve to be fairly compensated for the exceptional rather than just good work that they do they have earned this it's what they deserve it's what we as parents value the most about our district the other

249related thing that I'd like to make a comment about is about another aspect of our district that makes it so amazing and that is its commitment at least during the time when my kids have been old enough to be in Selen schools um to efforts in making our schools more diverse Equitable and inclusive this is a value held by our district that from my experience our Educators and administrators have done a great job of going Beyond just giving lip service service to I realize that public schools across our nation are facing real threats when it comes to these values and I just want to ask that you all do your best to continue to fight to uphold these values as they make our schools better for all students Not only would I ask that you

250uphold these values but that you communicate to families that this is your intention communication about this goes a long way especially when things seem so uncertain and frankly frightening please continue to protect and support the most marginalized of our kids they need it thank you thanks Sarah Eric and on Deck is Libby Williams good evening members of the Board of Education my name is Eric John Roberts and I here tonight to share my candidacy for the Wasington Intermediate School District Board of Education this election is decided by local school board members um in May of odd year so you'll U have this decision before you at your May 13th meeting um along with the other uh eight school districts that make up was ISD some about me uh I used to be a school board

251member for six years for Ken Hills Public Schools which is around the size of Seline about 3,000 students outside of Grand Rapids before before I moved to this area um to attend law school and purchased a home here um in that time I spent more than 2,000 hours learning um how to be the best Schoolboard member I could be the best advocate for kids I could be and that included presenting at two masb conferences um one on sexual education uh advisory boards and how to structure those for school board members um and the other on uh ex uh we worked on expanding the Elliot Larson Civil Rights Act I authored the the resolution at my school district that was adopted by masb um to expand the Elliot Larson Civil Rights Act because we know that

252if our students face discrimination um then they're not likely to stay in the state of Michigan they're unlikely to contribute to the state of Michigan and we want to keep the the talent that uh that you all are working to produce that Schoolboard members across the state are working to to build in in our students um on and off for about four years I've been a uh substitute teacher um including at the Washington ISD and an Arbor Public Schools and I did that um now I'm a law student at the University of Toledo I knew I wanted to try substitute teaching while I was at first while I was a Schoolboard member um and then continuing on in my graduate education because I wanted to best understand how accommodations play out in classrooms and what

253supports that teachers needed and how that might give me different insights as a board member I bring all these things to the table uh I think I'd make an excellent addition to the waston uh ISD School Board uh because of those experiences and and I will say also um I'm here before you to to get to know you I've got information about me that I will point out um has a calendly link with my full availability from now till May I'd love to sit down with each and every one of you to discuss um collaborations with the ISD um to discuss what's what's going on in your local district and to be a resource um I also in January presented to about 30 um new and returning Schoolboard members on how to uh on the

254open meetings act to make sure that they're fully compliant um so thank you for your time this evening thank you very much we'll just leave them at the far end of the table thanks Libby Williams I'm too short for this uh first I would like to voice my support also for the Seline teachers um they are absolutely excellent they're the reason we moved here um my daughter is transitioning from third grade to fourth grade next year which is a little sad but I absolutely love all of the teachers and I'm going to greatly miss that she is in Woodland met those they are amazing um the term whole child was used by several board members um tonight in regards to the importance of the priorities in slain area schools I agree wholeheartedly which is why

255the lack of the word inclusive anywhere in the long laundry list of qualifications is concerning especially since the prior job listing did specifically list inclusive views and sensitivity as a priority this community is proudly inclusive as it as is its schools it is of the utmost important to have this component specified when seeking a superintendent inclusion is the is a vital element to the whole child education and academic Excellence thank you thank you very much Ley um the next Board of Education meeting will be held on April 8th at 6:30 uh I'd like to entertain a motion to uh enter the closed session at 10:15 with the intent to reopen I'm going to say optimistically 11 o'clock or well time changed midnight so uh for the purpose of the following for a school board to

256consider security planning and to address existing threats and prevent potential threats to the safety of students under Section 8K joining us for that will be Dan Carrick uh superintendent evaluation under Section 8A discussion um discuss matters under attorney client privilege that are exempt from disclosure pursuant due to state and federal law that's 8h Carol diglio will join us for that and uh under sections 8 H A and A and K a two3 roll call vote is required so I'm going to run down the list uh I'm going to start the opposite end this time tisas uh yes or no yes thank you uh stean yes McVey yes gold yes I'm alphabetical starting to wise up here gerby Berwick I hear no uh Austin sorry yay uh thank you very much okay uh thank you very

257much we're inter close session we're GNA actually kind of start it in about five minutes so everyone can get seated properly thank you e e e thank you there's no action so I'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn the regular Board of Education meeting on March 11th 202 oh sorry yeah 2025 at 12:21 a.m. so move Berwick Berwick second and Austin now we're going to take a roll call vote you said all in favor say I I