001Good Evening I'd like to call to order the Board of Education meeting for Saline Area Schools on October 8th, 2024 uh standing as you able please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Tim Austin I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank You very much, please be seated. I'd like to pass the microphone over to Superintendent Laatch, who would like to do a little recognition. Thank You, we're here to honor the SHS Track team. The track teams had a remarkable season with both the girls and boys teams showcasing impressive performances. The girls team consisting, of 82 athletes, secured a strong finish by placing second in both the SEC and
002Regional championships. On the other side the boys team, with 107 athletes, continued their dominant streak by winning the SEC League Title and Regional Title for the 13th consecutive season. They also maintained a 72 dual meet winning streak and set five new school records last season including records in the 100 meter dash, 110 meter hurdles, 4x100 relay, and 4x200 relay. The extensive coaching staff for this past season included Head Coaches Corbin Brown, Boys Head Coach and Brian Boze, the interim for Wendy Lagerquist, and the assistant coaches include the distant staff of Derek Stern, Carl Spina, Gerry Harrison, Adam Ditri, Dom White and the Sprints include Brian Boze, Corbin Brown, Emily Real, and Sophia O'Connor. And the field event staff are Chris Jagodzinsk, Shean Conlon, David Medley, Ian Gifford, Christine Brown and Lexi Short. So congratulations to
003our student athletes and coaches on these amazing accomplishments and what we'd like the track and field team to do next is to line up over here and everybody come up to the microphone and you're going to say your name and what event you participated in. Then we're all going to meet over here by the TV screen and take a big picture with the board of education. Do you want to start Mr. Brown? OK great. All right so go ahead athletes stand on up. Ah like I said, I'm Corbin Brown I'm the men's Head Track Coach uh and have done the JV Boys Sprint and then helped with the Varsity, both boys and girls Sprint side with Coach Boze. And then this is Savannah who has helped uh she was at high jump and Sprints with
004either myself or my wife throughout the season so thank you for the recognition. Hi I'm Wendy Lagerquist, I was out on maternity leave but I do Sprints, Jumps, and Hurdles. How's it going, I'm Aiden Burton I'm one of our seniors and I'm going to be a captain next year uh I would like to thank the board for the recognition and I'm running the 100 & 400 meter races. My name is Nick Rouman, I'm uh also a captain and uh Sprinter and hurdler. I'm Youssef Jarouche and I'm a Jumper Hurdler and Sprinter. My name is Cruz Hansen I run the 400, 4x4 and 4x2. I'm Charlotte Warren. I'm a Sprinter, I run the 100 and 200 and I'm a future Captain for this season Hi, Brian Boze. I was the interim women's Track Coach last year
005and I've been the varsity Sprints coach for a long time here. Very proud of all these people. Thank You, um I'm Kailyn Austin and I run Sprints and Hurdles. Hi I'm Phoebe Ward and I do Sprints and Hurdles. My name is Grace Oberski I'm an upcoming track captain for the season and I run 400, 800, & Mile. I'm McKenzie I'm a Future Track Captain for next year and I do middle distance so 800s and 400s. I'm Jillian Hayes, I'm a distance and Hurdler. I'm Shyla Smith and I'm a Sprinter and Hurdler. My name is Ryan Steban and I do mid distance. I'm Jake Szalay and I do the 16 and 3200. I'm Jack Day and I do Jumps and Distance. I'm James Rush, I do Sprints and I'm uh gonna be a junior Captain next
006year. We're all gonna, we're all going up, we're all we're all going to smush together and uh the board will join you. Thank you, thank you very much. Before we get on to the public comment section I just wanted to uh uh move my uh response to previous public comment up to the front uh very briefly last Thursday as most of you know we hosted a special meeting of the Board of Education uh and since that evening one of the many issues of concern raised was that we didn't live stream the meeting and uh and I realize now that this did create the appearance of a lack of transparency and that was not our intention or my intention so this was a decision made entirely by me before the meeting I just want to clarify
007that uh the agenda for the meeting was originally supposed to be that we were going to gather and we'd go to close session and maybe have some public comment afterwards. I had no idea we would have as many attendees as we did I also didn't think that streaming an hour or two of dead air at the time would have been very helpful to anybody so uh I kind of stuck with the decision. Now I've since been made aware that SCTN our local cable network uh regularly does this with City Council they go into Closed Session and they have two hours or so of dead air and then they come back out but it's streamed the entire time. I appreciate knowing that we're going to try to be consistent in the future so going forward uh
008as long as I'm board president I will automatically stream all our meetings uh dead air or not and I just want to say thank you for understanding, I really do appreciate uh the comments I've received about that issue. Obviously it stuck out in a lot of people's minds. So, I just want to say that we are in the public comment section now. A member of the public may address the board briefly for up to 3 minutes or request to be scheduled on the agenda of a future meeting, please note the students will be given priority to speak on any topic whether it's on the agenda or not just... I've lost my track here uh, the first public portion of the meeting will be limited to a half hour, 30 minutes, normally uh is limited to
009agenda items. A second public participation portion will be offered at the end to allow for any other comments. Individuals addressing the board should really take into account the rules of common courtesy and public participation cannot be used to make personal attacks against a board member, district employee or students. Oh my gosh I'm gonna have a little trouble, I got it now um we have two student speakers this evening, Isaac Furlong and Jaden Coleman so in that order please and thank you. Hi uh I'm Isaac Furlong I play Football, I'm the center um I want to say thank you again for allowing me and my teammates in my community to speak tonight at the board meeting I come again asking that uh the School District administration and athletic department just do what is right in regard
010to the situation concerning the forfeits and the eligibility of my teammate I just ask that there is more effort put into this appeal with the MHSAA then there was with the request to forfeit. I just asked that honestly and integrity be completed and used in this process regardless if it was done in the initial investigation. I've always been taught that correcting my wrongs is better than just letting it go knowing that it was not done correctly, nobody will remember what was done wrong if you finish by doing what is right and I think it's right that we overturn these forfeits and allow my teammate to play out the rest of the season. Thank You for uh listening and thank you for your time. [Applause] My name is Coleman Ross and I'm a senior and a
011captain of the football team thank you for giving us this opportunity to talk today today I am asking that the action towards the appeal for the forfeiture of our first three wins and eligibility of my my teammate is made with more urgency. The MHSAA board meets next in November, by then it'll be playoffs and the playoff points of the wins we had to forfeit will be officially lost. Me and my teammates have worked so hard this season and have gone through so much together just to get punished for something that we didn't have anything to do with. I thank you once again for giving me the time and effort or I thank you again for you giving the time and effort into what's right me and my teammates. I appreciate it, thank you. Hello again
012my name is uh Jaiden Leonard, a senior captain for the football team. I want to thank you guys for letting us uh speak once again. Now we only have officially two home games left of our senior year and uh we obviously deserve a chance for more than that with us being an undefeated team um and I think that you guys should uh once again uh of course reconsider um the choices and also try to make the appeal process go faster because playoffs are coming up um very very shortly and I think we need to make that decision happen fast thank you so much. Thank you, we're at the point where uh we look at the agenda. Items can be added or deleted from the meeting agenda or the order changed at the request of an
013individual board member or the superintendent. Agendas have to be approved before we proceed, I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the agenda as printed. So moved. That's Gerbe. Support Austin. Any discussion all right hearing none all in favor please say I. I. We have 0 opposed okay we have a quorum tonight at 7 thank you uh student showcase I'd like to pass the microphone over to our student Representatives who have set up a student showcase this evening thank you. All right thank you uh today's student showcase we reached out to the Saline High School Key Club and asked if they would present on what the organization is and what they do and today's presenters are Maddie Finocchiaro and Ria KAC so if you guys are ready we're ready for you thank you for inviting
014us to Showcase this lean High School Key Club you oh so the Key Club is a high school sling Club that's focused on volunteering and we provide students with enriching volunteer opportunities that promote leadership and build character in the high school and like the S and an aror Community we participate in Acts of service that directly impact the lives of others with our local Regional and Global communities yeah and and right now we have about 85 active members um collectively we have about 2,138 hours of community service and then we've also participated in 187 Service events and we have three monthly Partnerships which are the Selen Rex Center um Selen area social services and give 365 and then we also have three affiliate programs so we work with Seline kaanis and the Seline middle schoool's
015Builders Club along with Circle K and then our three main areas of Focus are zero hunger good health and wellbeing and quality education um so we have four outstanding um service leaders Fria Maddie Jacob and Eduardo three of which are our board um members but besides these four there are many more members who are above 20 plus hours of service and have achieved this Merit W um through their volunteer hours okay one of our monthly Partnerships is give 365 which is a volunteer program in an arbor that focuses around like the parks and like cleaning up those areas so what the s High School does with them is we plan like certain cleanups that focus on like the trails the nature and in the past we've cleaned playgrounds bike trails and just like kept their
016park system up and running and that's open for the public additionally like we have like assisted events going on in the park so upcoming we have like a trick-or treat thing that's going up in Gallup Park that will'll help assist with and then another organization that we work with is Seline area Social Services which is located in Seline Michigan um it's a 100% Community funded organization that provides food assistance and emergency aid um what we do though we help pick up food organize sort and stock the food and then during the winter and like around Christmas time we help provide presents and give families in need pres presents um additionally we have house by the side of the road which is located in in Arbor but it works with um a bunch of under privileged
017people in the wash and all Community um providing clothing and small house uh items that they can't may not afford so we work with them by organizing and um giving out and distributing these products um in their store final finally uh during our meetings we have service activities so the M Children Hospital an arbor Meals on Wheels and the hon Valley Humane Society are the main like organizations we work with during these meetings so for the M children's hospitals and past meetings we have like tied and made handmade blankets for the children and um um like given them out to the hospital additionally um on our past meeting we've worked with Ann Arbor Meals on Wheels to make like holiday cards so the past one was like fall Halloween cards to their clients and we
018Dro them off so they like citizens and clients can have cards to open and handmade cards especially for these upcoming holidays when they might otherwise not and additionally in past meetings and previous years we've worked with the hon Valley Humane Society to make like their um pets and dogs like animal tie knot toys so in those meetings we'll just hand make toys for them and give them out to that organization and that I believe is it so thank you for showcasing her Club they disappeared so quickly were there any like really simple easy peasy questions for them um one question and then a statement are are they still doing the PBJ project or is that so because the PB&J project happens like Saturdays in the morning we have to have student drivers for that so
019I'm trying to see if there are like club members who are comfortable driving other students available cuz I know last year we had stopped that cuz there wasn't enough students who felt comfortable driving other students it's an hourish away but I'm trying to see if there are people comfortable with that yeah it's pretty that's a pretty neat project um then I also just want to say I I just love the Key Club and um you know the mission of the Key Club a servant heart is it does wonders for the people that you serve but it also does a lot for yourself too and uh it's just amazing so thanks thank you thank you Mr gerby yeah and I'll Echo that sorry and um so I want to thank thank you guys for being such
020a welcoming organization my my my Graham is is part of the Key Club and and it looks like he needs to really get going on his number of hours but um I I I ask this often of groups that come to us so what can we do as a board to support you um I think just like as far as I know Key Club at least arsing Key Club doesn't have a lot of funding as well as like trying to like make our own events cuz I know it's kind of hard because our club members have to pay to be like an official member and trying to be like a active and welcoming club we don't like really like officialize that like to be a member you don't have to pay to like participate in
021our events but to be part of like the International District like organization we have to pay like each of the members high school students so I think if like there's available funding for those who can't pay like the $17 in person and $21 on R track so if there's like any available funding for the students who may not have the money to like allocate to those member fees thank you Ria and Maddie I'm not sure who the third person um my name is Ana Linker Anya um who's your did you may have said this who do you have a staff advisor yeah it's uh Jennifer denzen I've never heard that name before what would she be in the audience by any chance thank you thank you for sharing that information with us so any questions
022more thank you very much and please be seated thank you we have two action yay we have two action to approve the minutes from the September 24th 2024 close session under adaa the open meetings act for both the purpose of discussion of personnel matters and superintendent evaluation coming Ste Ste Tim Tim Austin support thank you for those unfamiliar with this process since it was closed session closed meaning the public doesn't look at it we as the board members will just review the document to make sure that we've captured the minutes correctly and then um return them to secretary Miller and then vote thank you very much is there any discussion I'm sorry uh it was uh Jay St and Tim Austin or T Austin all in favor please say I I I oppose great thank
023you very much 70 um I also would like to entertain a motion to approve the bid of Dow equipment Service Incorporated as recommended by Le planners and submitted by Rex Clary executive director of operations for the diesel exhaust fluid and lubrication equipment for the new Operation Center in the amount of $4,670.00 many many years um so this will allow us to be efficient um you allow the proper storage meet EPA requirements uh for the new center it allow two stations for our two mechanics with an option to grow to a third Bay as needed um Dow's equipment also is our supplier for the new uh lift bus for the left for the new lift at the new station we are moving two lifts over that they' provided in the past so they'll be handling the
024installation with the extended warranty and um Mr upen is also a selary school resident he's got students in the staff he's got students that have graduated from selener schools um and been a you know a partner with us over the last 10 years that I've been in the transportation business I guess so um we may have a question or two I I do have a quick one uh I'm I never thought about this until this tonight but U we are moving some equipment some of our expensive pieces of equipment from the old setup to the new area we're not purchasing everything brand new from the ground up majority of our is moving over majority excellent besides a new LIF and this this I remember voting on The LIF a few meetings ago yes any questions
025from the rest of their group no no well Mr Clary thank you thank you all in favor please say I I I I uh opposed hearing none congratulations we uh have two or one scheduled report there she is ready to go I love it that you're all prepped and ready to to go we have your your Michigan in integrated continuous Improvement plan the myip for short update presented by Cara Davis wonderful thank you so much Dr mcfay and I am joined this evening by members of the teaching and learning team Jennifer Nelson Caroline Stout and Ryan Kerr and so they'll all be helping me to present out on some information related to our continuous Improvement plan this evening and we are so excited to be here to talk to you about academics tonight because we
026have so much to be proud of across the board and cly as relates to student achievement um as related to our district continuous Improvement goals specifically the one that we're reporting on tonight is the top one which is about increasing overall Mastery and content areas as measured by local assessments regardless of subgroup by increasing staff competency and the use of evidence-based culture responsive instruction our myip journey so our continuous Improvement Journey has really been oriented around our strategic frames and our district Mission specifically also leveraging our intentional work with cultural responsive instruction our di threeyear plan social emotional health and well-being and of course our SAS compass and it's important to note that all of these things play a role in us being able to achieve our goals um and each building also has building
027strategies that are part of our overall plan um and tonight you'll hear essentially some of those outcomes as related to us um putting our plan in motion tonight's going to be a little different than previous reports um that we've given AC across the years typically we have a lot of charts and graphs um they are within the publicly available slide deck however they are all at the end and we front loaded um some of the key highlights in about 15 slides versus 84 which I'm hopeful that everybody will appreciate all right and with that I'm going to invite Caroline Stout our district mtss coordinator to come up to begin a quick overview of the highlights of our assessment system hi thanks for having us um I want wanted to highlight um the different types of
028Assessments that we are going to be summarizing today and there's a couple new ones and a couple updates but first I want to take you back to college and the different types of Assessments this is something that um is part of the work that we've done with all of our staff and our teacher leaders to just continue to get better at being data driven and using student outcome data to drive our decision-making um in our curriculum reviews and um and department meetings and so we're really trying to make sure that our assessment Suite or toolkit includes um the right balance of all five of these types of Assessments and here they are with the corresponding little symbol that we made up um showing the ones on the left that measure both literacy and math um
029or and or other things um in the ones on the right that are literacy or math specific and I apologize because the yellow is a little hard to see but you're familiar with the Cadence we've been reporting on that for a while NWA um you are familiar with however there's an update there that I wanted to point out um last year NWA uh changed the algorithm that they used to present questions to students for both reading and math and for math they also changed the weight that each item was given their goal as we understand it was to try to better align their assessment with grade level expectations and the comic cor standards for each grade um but they did not rorm the assessment so we've had numerous conversations with them and they assure us
030that the current Norms are still valid however they also suggest that if you want to you can kind of use this transformation tool to try to make that adjustment the long and short of it is we can no longer show multiple years of data we can really only compare this year to last year because last year is when they changed that algorithm um and when we get into the trends I'll I'll point out one of the things that we think has happened and we've kind of done our own mini study here is we think that fall scores in math specifically are slightly deflated and we think that winter and especially spring scores might be slightly inflated we're not sure it's possible that everybody was just having a fall and a great spring that's possible um
031but I just wanted to give you that heads up because it means that we can't use that as as well as we hoped we could um and then below that are some of our state assessments and of course always teacher created assessments and observations um and then on the right I wanted to bring your attention to the the diagnostic foundational skills Assessments in K3 that's a tool that we added last year Jen uh and I did a lot of work with a committee of K2 teachers K1 teachers and then involving second and third grade especially this year um to kind of fill what we had is a little bit of a gap in the diagnostic area so we have a cadians at the lower L that helps us with universal screening product monitoring but these
032tools help us really pinpoint for instance where the specific phonic patterns that students still need to master and that was something that was lacking before so it's been really great it's been adjustment but we've we've seen a lot of positives from it um so one of the big highlights this year is that um that new assessment tool that measures um more indepth foundational skills fic awareness phonics letter sound ID we also ask students to do things that we did before like write their name and um and um identify letter sounds um aligns really nicely with gadance but gives us that deeper look when we say diagnostic we don't mean we're diagnosing anything right this is not we are not doctors um but we do mean that we're getting more inde depth more specific with what
033we are understanding of where students learning is what they what skills they require and what skills they still need so um with that we've been able to really triangulate um data a little bit better and to see some of the highest percent at Benchmark of um kindergarten first and third grade students that we've seen since the pandemic which is really exciting so I know the last couple years we've been up here talking about how yeah we're still kind of digging ourselves out and things are starting to look a little more prepandemic um which I think is grammatically correct um and the one exception is if you recall last fall we did have a first grade class that just for whatever reason came in with a higher amount of need right some um lower scores so
034that uh grade is now second grade and they entered second grade with 76% of them basically being at Benchmark which means low risk which is still good but was like our second best since the pandemic not our best so still pretty excited about that um we also have some specific information there that we have gleaned from the diagnostic foundational skills assessments and our overall trend is that we continue to have students who are doing great with overall reading and the the focus of reading which is always apprehension right making meaning out of text um and we know that based on Fon panel re the retail part of a cadians the NWA um I have that caveat on NWA where yes we continue to have all in all grades fourth through 8th um at least 80%
035of students scoring above the 40th percentile which is kind of that cut point for risk which is really great but asterisk we do want to wait till those new Norms come out probably next summer just to throw throw a party on that one um the areas to improve uh we have been working on this for a number of years and we're continuing on our journey of uh continuing to just solidify our foundational skills that we know will have an upward effect uh positive effect in accuracy um fluency and therefore comprehension and also spelling in the upper grades but what that means is that we have a close eye on some of those early indicators those early skills like students ability to blend in segment words um sounds and words rather uh in kindergarten what we're
036learning is that at the end of kindergarten even though we've had consistently 80% of students be really um great on those skills we have a bigger summer slide with that than we do in other grades possibly because our kindergarteners aren't going home and you know reading independently all summer um but we want to make sure that we get closer to 100 on that and then we have a couple other um points there with continuing to um get a higher level a higher percent of students who are mastering those early basic fing skills in K1 I'm improving inflectional endings which is like all the different s of Ed turns out it makes three of them um ing s s um vowel teams which is like e or i e sorry EA e e e or i
037e a i ay there's a bunch of them um and our controlled vowels uh and then also we're doing a lot to realign our scope and sequence K5 this time we've never done that before where we've had a a phony mcar and phonics um scope and sequence Continuum that goes all the way up to fifth grade so those are some of the highlights there that just happened there so in the math highlights by the way this is what happens when somebody says put all the data into one slide I apologize I know it's a lot of words um if you want the graphs they're still there they're just lower and if you want nerd out you know who to read out to um so in most grades K3 we did see spring scores in math
038and Cadance that were the highest to date also which was really great um we see fall scores entering that are on par or better than last fall again that second grade class is kind of the the one that for whatever reason was a little bit lower um and then we do continue to see that trend of students who have higher Concepts and um applications or rather reasoning skills then we do those basic skills so kind of the same Trend as in math uh as in reading and so we are continuing to work on building stronger number sense foundational skills like automaticity with facts and we're continuing to consult with Sarah Powell this year and doing some work in tier one now that we've confirmed that everyday math is going to continue to be our curriculum
039um for NWA math we spent a really long time looking at a lot of numbers there um and the trend looks really good but we really can't say for sure that it is entirely because of what our students have done um so to give you an example the average RIT is RIT is just their unit of measurement right um and so the average RIT score um from Spring to Fall in fifth grade um dropped by almost 10 points which is a really really big drop um before the change in algorithm they on average went up by 1.8 R Points and then there was the in between year where we had old algorithm in the spring new algorithm in the fall and there we went down by 3.5 points so same with the other grades although
040not as significant my hunch is that we are seeing a bigger impact of the algorithm change than the lower grades because if the assessment is trying to align with grade standards those grade standards in fourth and fifth grade are pretty set by the time you get to eth grade math the students have gone into a couple different trajectories so they're not as well defined so apologies that this is more K3 Focus um we will have better data in a year or so with NWA so questions on these slides okay all right so Caroline was speaking to our local assessments that we perform in school or in District um with students but I also wanted to take an opportunity to highlight our state assessment results um you know Seline this year I mean we are ranked
041among the top performers in the state um and number one in Washington County when you look at a series of batteries of test in combination so whether it is all of them third through 12th grade across mstep PSAT and sat were're ranked um number 15 so in the top 20 of districts in the state and then for our combined mstep tests so third through e8th grade we're ranked in the top 10 um and this uh performance of course we have um we don't always you know spend a lot of time talking about how we compare to our peer districts but I do think it's important to see um this Stellar performance of our students across um the the state itself and then of course in the county additionally in order to continue to think about
042our student performance we are considerate of our class Trends over the year so in those data slides at the end of the slide deck you'll see that continued um analysis of their state performance um but to sum it up here for you we are seeing impr performance and evidence-based reading and writing social studies in 8th and 11th grade as well as in science you're seeing a huge Improvement as well and in our AP test too um a place where we are still considering our focus is really in thinking about math this is true Statewide and Nationwide that we did see a little bit of a dip in certain spaces um in the PSAT and sat and math score so while our students are still scoring above the national norm and the state norm and right
043up there with those top performers it's an area we're still really thoughtful about this year uh the PSAT and sat sorry this past year the the PSAT and sat moved to digital format so was moved on to the computer and there were some additional new test items and So currently something we're focusing on is working with the math teams uh to analyze those results and the related strategies that they had just begun to develop last year as a part of the math curriculum review in order to think about how those are going to have a positive impact on math performance on um the assessments moving forward it was interesting and looking at the graphs the one particular grade was 11th grade that took a a drop um and the department chair at the high school
044mentioned to me that that was the grade that had the most disrupted of foundational math in Middle School um so we were wondering about if that was something that we could think about in terms of those foundational skills that were built up in those early algebra classes that then reflect on the later PSAT and sat classes or tests in addition something that we monitor uh Beth Russo was not able to be here to present with us tonight she's our secondary mtss coordinator is our attendance um and our supports that we're providing in school and we think that attendance is really important I know that you are really well aware of the impact that attendance has on Student Success because of that ability to have a continuous improve or continuous access to the school environment continuous
045experience with the curriculum as well as continuous access to all the supports that we provide I mean we are feeling really good about the trends that we're seeing in attendance rate across the last uh few years whether it is steady and or um improving in certain key areas um it's something that we're continuing to monitor but we are feeling like we had a positive end to last year and then that we're continuing to see those improvements this year uh we have continue with homework Hive and that data has shown that our our students who have been participating in homework Hive and have participated consistently so have attended the supports that we're offering um are able to see that success in their grades at a later time something that we're continuing to focus on this in
046this particular area is building cons continuing to build consistent systems for attendance that carry over uh whether it's turnover in leadership or Deans um so that we are and that we're building relationships and then looking at what works for attendance for school so that we can continue to lever strategies that will help our students feel really engaged with our um School environments and then I'm going to turn it over to Brian thank you uh so for the last couple of weeks I've been pulling uh subgroup data performance data from uh spring 2024 my data is on starts on slide 64 I think if you're looking at the charts I'm not going to go uh to it in this particular um presentation um but just trying to look at some Trends across subgroups and see if
047we can start telling a story and there are stories one of those stories is that it's difficult to determine Trends uh largely because many of these subgroups or some of these subgroups rather are particularly small so if you look at the data slides you'll see that there are some numbers and parentheses by each uh subgroup and I have them separated out by grade level uh in each slide and that represents the nend for each of those groups so if you're looking at the chart you might see that 50% of one subgroup is below Benchmark while 50% is exceeds and that might tell a story until you notice that it's an N of two uh which statistically is challenging to sort of develop Trends but um I do have this data for these subgroups going back
048to 2021 and part of what I expect to be doing for the rest of this year is looking at those Trends across those subgroups across the last four or five years um some other trends that we can identify though is that the district does appear to be becoming more diverse particularly socioeconomically so I've pulled uh just slides from three uh particular subgroups that show that Trend data this shows um a demographic Trends going back to 2022 I didn't include 2021 because testing for 9th and 10th grade had been disrupted at that time uh so you wouldn't get an accurate grid but the numbers that are available from that year I think um reinforce this trend so there's another data point that you could add to that but if it were part of this grid it
049would look very dramatic um but we do see a rise in that in sort of increased need uh I would argue for uh the disproportionality that we see in the subgroups especially when you look at the fact that um we are doing very well as a district um to sort of echo some things that Cara has said when you look at the disproportionality within subgroups I would argue that that uh points to the need for deep and culturally responsive approaches in the classroom um that's making my pitch for my job um one thing that I will point out and a sort of big win I think is to look at the comparisons between our multilingual our e Learners and those who are formerly in need of e Services if you look at our students who
050were um had previously been receiving e services and no longer are receiving eel services with one exception um no students in that former eel category are performing uh not proficient on these regards so I think that's a big uh tip of the hat to our eel services within the district um and acknowledge here also that we have brought on board recently a secondary eel coordinator and teacher to serve our six through 12 population uh to help sort of reinforce some of these trends that see we moving in a positive direction um and also acknowledge the work that's being done by members of our teaching and learning team by Caroline by Beth Russo to sort of work with communities and work with groups to make sure that these Trends continue in a positive direction and I
051think that's Jen good evening so one of the things that I get to do in my role a lot is think about how we can support our teachers and we're always striving to meet the needs that they have so that they can meet the needs of their Learners in their classroom so one of the ways that we're able to do that this year is is through the 35j grant so the 35j grant is a grant that's given to districts to use in K5 spaces to um improve literacy instructional practices by investing in high quality research-based practices and professional learning and so we have um been able to do a lot of really great things for teachers and impacting classrooms with that additional money this year one of the things that we did is we are
052partnering partnering this year with Julia Julia Lindsay she is a researcher she researched at the University of Michigan with Dr Nell Duke where she got her um doctorate degree and now lives in Washington DC and does Consulting she was a former classroom teacher and she is working with us she worked with us to give professional development to our teachers before school started it was an optional training before school we did pay teachers but we had over 95% of our teaching staff K5 come to school before a contractual day which was really exciting um she's also Consulting us in our phonics curriculum review which is also being paid for through the 35j Grant in addition to that she is running lab sites in Seline three times a year one at each Elementary the first one is
053tomorrow at Harvest so she's actually in District currently and today we spent time um visiting classroom so that she can see what literacy instruction looks like in Selene and feel like she's really meeting the needs of our teachers and our students so over the course of today we made it to 36 classrooms to see um reading and phonics taught so it was a busy day um in addition to that we're leading a reading Above The Fray book study at some point this year we were able to provide her book to all staff which um teachers have just mentioned that it's been helpful and we'll do a coordinated book study throughout the year we have been able to purchase a lot more decodable tax so I've talked about decodable tax before at the board at board
054meetings but these are the books that are really pinpointing the exact phonic skills that our kids are learning because we know that one things kids need as they learn phonics is they need repeated practice using um the skill practicing the skill that they were just taught in phonics and so decodable texts do that we were able to put um like five and six more sets in each K2 classroom through the Grant in addition to that every teacher got $1,000 um to upgrade their classroom Library so one of the requirements of this grant is that all teachers have to get professional development and best practice in is practices in literacy along with abundant reading and diverse text and so once teachers finish those modules or the live training and then the um an asynchronous module they
055get access to their ,000 to use for their classroom Library which is also creating a lot of joy for teachers and kids we're also um paying teachers that have attended letters training or paying for them to complete Orton Gillingham training and paying them to do that outside of the classroom purchasing new intervention tools we are running a full phonics curriculum review K5 we plan to use the 35j money to choose the resource that the committee decides as well as all the ancillary resources that teachers will need to implement that curriculum um so lots of exciting things happening because of this grant before we had the 35j Grant and we thought about the needs of our K5 staff we were thinking about math and how we needed to turn the page on literacy a little bit
056as our main focus and turn to focusing on math and so we doing that the 35 J Grant kind of caught us off guard and we couldn't miss that opportunity so we're kind of simultaneously focusing on the same thing or on both things but math is the real focus in K5 over the last couple years we were in a math curriculum review and we partnered with a researcher out of the University of Texas Sarah Powell to do professional development with the curriculum review team and the team overwhelmingly was like our whole staff needs this training and so this year in K5 we are partnering with Sarah Powell again she's coming in person on our halfday and um Coming virtually on our hourlong morning meetings and continuing the work that she started with our curriculum review
057team focusing on foundational math practices um like fluency building fluency with facts and computation vocabulary word problems all things that teachers have asked for support on turn it over to Cara to talk about some supports at the secondary level right and similar to 35j um last year the state of Michigan also provided us with the 23g uh my kids back on track Grant and that Grant provided us with over half a million dollars to Target um some of those places where we really could see where students may have been struggling and or be at risk and provide that extra assistance to them to continue to help them Reach their highest level of success so um Beth Russo has been really critical in this um and the 23g funding is partial funding it's not complete funding
058and it's not entirely used at the secondary level but because of all the funding that the state has oriented towards K5 we do have a large chunk of this going to support our secondary students um and that is continuing to build capacity with our homework Hive um in terms of ensuring that we have the Staffing there and providing them with a compensation to be there after school um providing private tutoring uh we have partnered with great lakes here in Seline to provide private tutoring for students who are at risk um we have also um provided a structure for our El tutors who have developed relationships with our students in our El programs to provide tutoring over the summer as well our summer boosters was in there too and that did extend through high school um
059with those were targeted classes that teachers picked in in certain um areas that they felt students most needed and then offered um throughout the summer through our Community Education Program um so those are some examples of things we've been doing with the 23g mondy um and of course continuing to build these systems that I referenced earlier so with that I would like to close up this uh presentation in terms of our um data that represents our mykit progress on our academic goal and some of the strategies that we're using to get there and the supports we're providing for teachers if you have any questions we are happy to take them I do have a few but we'll work our way along the table and I would also like to invite our student reps if they
060have any questions or something strikes you as a curiosity please feel free to mention it uh Dr gold oh yes go ahead uh I wondered if you could touch on what culturally response of math instruction sort of looks like like what are some of the changes that we're making um just I think probably people are curious sure yeah so when we think about culture uh responsive math instruction it's not just it's not just about Windows and mirrors which is a concept that we've talked about in the past it's also about instructional practices that we're using that might bring in The Art of Storytelling that might bring in different manipulative so different styles of learning that might bring in um thinking about where math lives in the world and how it operates in different spaces so
061that the examples that we're using of real life mathing um could reach lots of different student audiences um not just solitary one so um one example that we've talked a lot about um that might be really confusing for students not that we've talked a lot about it but that sometimes comes up as an easy example that's on the tip of my tongue right now is that if you give a student a math problem that's about soccer that is not something that is universally known globally and so it may be a barrier to that student being able to perform that math problem if we're not thoughtful about also providing the contextual understanding of soccer or multiple opportunities to access that math problem through maybe a variety of different sports that relate to them versus that one
062particular sport so that's one example that comes to mind that makes a lot of sense to most parents I think because we if we're trying to give our kids story problems at home to practice you pick what they like so you don't lose them in the first sentence so it's sort of a you know a more sophisticated way of doing what I think many of us have been doing for years and trying to get our kids interested in math um I also was wondering we're number one in washana county and some of those combined tests do all all the Washington County Schools take the same tests yes so it's the same everybody gets the same four tests they're all taking them correct okay yes great well congratulations this is so exciting welcome thank you all
063right um first of all I I want to start with a comment I want to make sure that I acknowledge um you know all the work that is in here that is done by our teaching and learning team but also by the Educators the par the people in our classroom who are who are in front of these students who are working with them every day like this reflects the quality of our staff at a very high level we have a lot of parents in the room we have a lot of people in the room who who have a vested interest in that I think we're we're doing a really good job so I want to make sure I say that out loud I'm really appreciative of the 35-day Grant and for our um strong you
064know residents of that and it's one my first question is is that a continuous Grant will it continue going forward do we reapply for it do we need to get to our legislators and be like don't take that money away we could definitely write to our legislators and ask for it to be renewed as of right now it's a one-year grant that expires September 30th of next year September 30th of next year yeah okay and uh I guess while I'm there I love the decodable text right like I just think that's a tremendous tool and I want to thank again our staff for you know you said that it was tied to professional development well that requires them to be really dedicated and diligent about doing those things and there is a nice little carrot
065at the end right of $1,000 for our classroom libraries but like I want to make sure I made those two comments first so thank you for that um my I I have two things that are on my mind number one is we moved to this intervention system ewms now and we did that in Fall of 2023 one do we find that this is a more efficient mechanism for identifying atrisk students and then number two is how are we getting students on our radar and how are we like going through that process with them so if I missed something please let me know because I was clicking through those slides so yes in terms of us focusing on eims one of our hopes was to look at the indicators of success for our student body and
066one of the things that we spoke about last year was the actual being able to use our systems that are in place logistically to pull this data and create something that we can monitor across time um this is something that Beth is been working with both the high school and uh middle school administrative and counseling teams on developing so that we have that and like today I needed some data on students who were at risk and she was easily able to send me the spreadsheet that they've developed together um so they look at attendance uh grades and then other risk factors as identified by teachers um they keep a really robust list and then they have um regular meetings to discuss students that they have identified that might have what we would consider um indicators
067are flags so we have like an intervention team you're saying uh it's Beth alongside of the teams in the buildings which consist of they vary a little bit but essentially the building administrative teams and then the counseling staff and maybe a Dean or two um and another special PBIS coordinator depending and do teachers and staff members make recommendations to them about students who might apply or there is a space where that happens um at the secondary level that's called an IT team or Student Success meeting um at the lower levels it's called something different but yes there's a place where that happens as well but we're also not waiting for the teacher recommendations because that system has been in place for a long time right this system is now really proactively looking at the real
068time data um on a weekly or bi-weekly dat uh basis in order to see where we have students who might be um demonstrating indicators of struggle or at risk behaviors or attendance or grade drops or things like that in order to communicate with the people who need to know in order to directly connect with that student so for example we're doing we've increased our attendance communication with families in a positive way and then I've been working really hard and this is I'm I'm speaking with Beth's voice right now because she wasn't be able to be here working really hard to be able to connect with those students to say like hey good job for getting to school because in some case it's a matter of getting them through the door um in order to see
069that success so some seeing some really great results because of that work that's been put in good and then my last question when I was going through the analysis report there under the Gap analysis piece there was an indication for CRI which which Lauren was kind of getting at just now about the need to hire like a specialist or a coach to to move that work forward are we in the process of doing it have we that's Ryan is that oh hi Ryan okay I just want to make okay so there we go so that was that higher yes so um in terms of coaching up you know how do we continue the work that we've been doing with responsive instructions so teachers have been meeting I don't want to really speak for you but
070you could check about some of the partnership work that he's been doing with teachers to look at different units or instructional components in order to make those shifts to better engage students so that's not additional support that will will it's already rebuilt it in um Ryan was hired last January and we built that into the 20 portion of his salary into 2 okay I'm seeing announc so thank you yep vice president St hi there um I just had uh two questions one opportunity for improvement and one um one strength so I I did want to go back to the average RIT score in math fifth grade dropping 10 points and was just curious what what the immediate followup would be to that well the first thing is Caroline and I spent quite a bit of
071time discussing the again the difference in the algorithm and we produced some family communication to explain that Caroline's better suited to explain that to the group um but we do feel like that difference has something something to do with the algorithm on Matthew I want to clarify that it's not a 10-point drop in what we think of is student achievement it's a 10-point drop in the RIT score from the spring last year to the fall of this year but again when I when I speak to Folks at NWA and and I'll be honest they did not even do this analysis themselves with their data they only did the fall and the winter one we thought well that's not the whole story we should continue so we did our own for Spring to Fall um they
072found that there was an average um drop in Fall to fall scores based on the old algorithm compared to the new algorithm meaning that the new algorithm basically probably scores kids lower with a lower RIT for the same level of performance than the old algorithm they also found that in the winter was the opposite in the winter the new algorithm tended to yield higher red scores for what we perceive as about similar performance we didn't have that information from NWA which is why we looked at it ourselves and we saw oh boy in the spring you know our students did really well great but then when we see them coming in the fall they drop 10 points and I assure you it's not because everyone did nothing all summer right like this is it is
073such an unusually large number that we really can only explain it by the change of algorithm and we have good reason to believe that because what NWA gave us does that make sense it does thank you so much um my my other question was I was able to be in the foundation for Selen area schools meeting with Kira this morning and I saw a lot of Pride on your face when you're talking about some of the statistics that you shared here with us so as a subject matter expert I guess my question is what are what are you and the team kind of the most proud of like what what is a real shining star um that pops out for you off the top of my head I would think I my answer is the
074incredible collegiality that it's taken to get to this place in terms of um the resilience of our staff our building administrative teams the teaching and learning team to really dig in and take ownership over the data and commit to looking at our systems and being really reflective in order to make the improvements um and I know that especially since we have a broader audience here today they haven't seen this but we've been giving this report for five years and to see how far we I'm actually getting teed to see how far we've come um in those five years and it is a real tribute to the dedication of our staff their expertise and their willingness to continue to invest um in this whole process that's an A+ answer thank you I have one quick question
075I'm going to scoot it over to the students then we'll work our way back down but Jen what ises $1,000 do buy you these days are we talking little pul books we're not talking class sets we're talking individual separate titles unique titles well some some teachers are using using it to buy like more decodable tax if they feel like it that's needed on Amazon um teachers are having to check out twice to fill out fill the Thousand so Amazon caps you at 50 items in your cart so typically teachers are purchasing over a hundred new books for their classroom so like 100 to 150 new resources for their classroom on average is kind of what I'm seeing that's good to know thank you I don't think I've ever hit 50 items in my me neither
076we didn't know don't try it don't try this at home okay yeah yeah yeah challenge accepted yeah our student reps if you have anything if not we'll pass it over to Mr Aus nothing thank you um I just want to thank you for the um the SL this new slid show um it's a little bit easier and not as much data but uh at least you provideed the data as well and um there's so much stuff that you guys have to look through when you're doing all this and and crunch so you have to love when people just change algorithms on you and and it's it makes it so wonderful to track things so anyways um I think it's a great Improvement and I'm I'm really happy with it thanks thanks to okay um so
077as usual this will go to Ryan um so I have to get back to the slide I don't know if Ben can get back there I'm like 40 pages in right now so um so talking about like the subgroups um you know I I saw that I'm glad we're looking at like the intersectionality and everything um I know year after year I've brought up um the multi-racial uh category and how that's um you know the data we weren't able to capture it um I don't know if uh that came up last year um but weren't able to to capture that specifically um as far as like the breakdown and everything so um I guess I'm just curious with the um multi-racial you're looking at like specific um groups as well um so like race ethnicity
078um okay um have you found anything like um you know of course we need like the the culturally responsive instruction um and I'm hoping that we'll see a positive change with that as well um but you're also breaking down the data and everything and yeah the data that I pulled for this report only reflects the scores from the spring mstep PSAT sat 6 through 11 but I have scores for each subgroup across from 21 to 24 that my hope is when I'm standing here in April I can look at trends for each of those subgroups across the years right I mean that's that's almost a full report on its own to to look at each of those groups and the trends that are happening across of them but I have that data and so now
079the next step is to start looking at it in comparison with itself right across those years and looking at places where we can perform interventions or step in in terms of that culturally responsive peace absolutely yeah and you actually uh something that you mentioned trusty AEP that I didn't during my portion of the presentation was that intersectionality piece of it that we have some students that will fall into multiple of these subgroups right and it's it makes it difficult to sort of sus out precisely you know what students are going to need those supports you know what specific supports but I think that also speaks to the sort of nature of culturally responsive instruction RIT large and its importance of being applied in as many spaces as possible that's what I would say to that
080awesome I'm excited that um you're pulling that data and really looking at it um I'm excited that you're in place to to do that and I know that you will um do great work there thank you thanks great job team it's a great okay so this is probably my last report with all of you so I just wanted to say thank you very much for the last four years and honestly the last I think I don't know 20 20s something years um so it's been a joy to work with all of you and then to continue in this role um so just a couple of things that I was pulling up I'm super jealous of the um close work that you're doing with Julia Lindsay I have had the opportunity to work with her but
081not as closely and the opportunity to have her in in the schools and working so closely with teachers um and just thinking about some of the transformation that can happen with um increasing she calls them swaps like swapping out some of um you know maybe past practices for things that we know are um more research based and supported and can um support all of our students but especially our striving striving readers so I love that I was also just going to complement you um these reports although um you know the graphs can get can can fill up a lot of slides and and can create a really long slide deck I just want to commend you for the transparency in reporting and your acknowledgement of um your acknowledgement of the trends and um and even
082when they don't go your way I appreciate the responsiveness and the targeted approach that you have for supporting um the teachers and the staff because we know that powerful learning for students requires powerful learning for adults so um I just when we see these um numbers and when we see the data I know that you're taking extra care to convey that to the staff and then the staff is taking extra care to change and to um add and to supplement so that uh students are getting the best um instruction and I think um I pulled the powerful learning from the from the values but when I think about the professional learning plans that you um that you share with us each each year and how robust and how um just really um current all of
083the PD is that our that our teachers have the opportunity to participate in I think about the core value from this um schoolwide Essentials that says meaningful change takes time requires inquiry and revision and is never done so I appreciate that and then with that I have one more question tied with a little bit of an Accolade but I wanted to acknowledge um Caroline's Stout and her work on the dyslexia legislation and her advocacy for children who um have dyslexia or reading um struggles and I know that you went to Lancing and I'm I'm I'm sorry that I don't remember the student's name but maybe you could Elevate her name for us um but I just want to thank than you for going to Lancing and for sharing your expertise and your knowledge and also
084for modeling that for others and um highlighting the voices of of a student in particular and so then with that I wonder what kind of um changes I know that it doesn't technically go into effect until 2028 but I think you're on the right track and so what other kinds of changes might you be dreaming of in slen schools as that comes our way um thank you trusty Miller you you're gonna make us all cry with your final uh final input here um so it it is going to take a while to put in place and some of the changes I think um trusty Miller is referring to the passing of um bills SB uh 567 and 568 567 has directly to do with uh what we do in school from how we screen students
085to make sure that we are catching those early who are showing um challenges with decoding and dyslexia like characteristics again we don't diagnose anything we're not this is not just a bill about students with characteristics inia it's just about evidence-based practices so one screening with regards to that there will be a committee put in place that's going to make recommendations to the state um and there for trickle down to us as far as approved assessments that are valid reliable screeners you know back to where were we um back to this um making sure that we have Universal screening uh tools that are valid and reliable um that we have uh diagnostic tools that help us pinpoint the focus of instruction and then progress mining tools that help us ensure that for those who are getting
086extra support We are following closely to make sure that they're closing the gaps um with regards to um instruction and implementation the law also U encourages makes really districts um align their practices with both the art and the science of instruction as you pointed out to really make sure that we are using the best of what we know from research to get the best possible outcomes and so again we're well on our way there's been a ton of work done by this team on a lot of different fronts um I think we're in really good shape with regards to our assessments if we did have to add something it'd be like one Acadian subtest called ran um which I think might be good anyway but I'm not sure it's actually going to be required with
087the law it was in one of the earlier drafts with regards to um intervention and instruction we are already working really hard to align everything that we do with what we know from research we've implemented um the uh hexagon what we talk about is the hexagon tool from the national implementation research Network to evaluate um new practices we were in a meeting doing that today with some tools for use with our um students with IEPs so all of that is just I think very much in the spirit we would been doing that anywh insuline and that's why I'm so proud to work here uh one of the reasons and so I think what's exciting is that it's really getting us all on the same page at the state I think the more exciting thing is
088even that um as I've said before we have no FDA right equivalent and so this is kind of creating that for us it's it's making it so the state is taking a little more ownership over guiding districts in navigating this because it's it's hard there's a lot um there's a lot of stuff to navigate through and there's a lot of companies trying to sell us a lot of stuff um and then the second part of that bill has to do with higher ed and I think that's very exciting just making sure that we have teachers that come to first year teachers that come to us having had some really rigorous instruction around those practices we know to be um to be strong from the research um and that hasn't always been the case historically and
089I know when I talked to my colleagues we weren't all in school at times when we were talking about well what do we know from research works best um so that's really exciting too well I can't I can't um leave the table without one more plug um in the legislation there is a lot around literacy coaching and I know that the the um the district gets funding through the state through the intermediary of the ISD um but it's really not enough for all of that's um legislated in those um in that in in that package of bills and so um I hope that Jen will have some Partners to work with her because I know that when teachers work with Jen I hear just how effective it is and how um motivating and engaging that
090can be and then the turnaround into their classroom practices is um increased even even more so I that's my wish that I'll put out into the universe so thank you thank you secretary Miller I just have two very brief comments one is that that this has been a long time coming uh four years working with Jeff Irwin and right from the start trustee or sorry uh secretary Miller has been right in the mix of it we've even have an interview with the two of them which uh I think was too long I had to cut it to the point that it was unwatchable yeah who somebody likes to talk and also I did want to another Accolade um uh Ryan Kerr you thought you were done with statistical analysis but now Dr Ryan Kerr congratulations
091sir on behalf of the board uh yeah it never stops that was just your uh your union card that dissertation I tell you much thank you very much congratulations that's great thank you very much Cara Davis thank you we have a very brief uh don't mean to be little or make it smaller than it is a a brief statement from uh vice president stean regarding the Board of Education ad hoc committee uh and she'll fill you in on that now oh oh well we talked about school too much they can if they have homework if they have homework they can go all right um is that that growling I heard if I may before we move on I I just was sitting over here smiling because we're going to not only Miss Jenny but miss
092her expertise on the board in this particular area so thank you um I I did write something that I wanted to read and then I would like to invite Susan and Brad if they wanted to add anything as well um and because you know we hear the word transparency quite a bit and that's why this is kind of detailed um and and look forward to talking to um the board more about this uh later this evening um so here we go in last Thursday's session the board directed Dr lot to get information on how the board could appeal the decision by the mhsaa that required the Seline High School football program to Forfeit their first three games and for one of their players to be deemed ineligible for the remainder of the Season subsequently president
093mcfay created an ad hoc committee for the appeal process per policy 0155 which partially reads ad hoc committees may be created and changed at any time by the president and each board committee shall be convened by a chairperson who shall report for the committee and shall be appointed by the president only three uh trustees can serve on a committee being vice president I was selected to chair Treasurer gerby and trusty eastup were added and trusty Austin was named as alternate by President mcfay due to her policy and education background public comments in Thursday's special meeting and understanding our procedures and policies as a board I selected Candace Jones for the committee and asked her to co-chair I felt it was important to have a balance of board members and parents from the football team Candace
094is a parent of a sophomore football player we then added Tammy Carr junior parent and to me M Leonard's senior parent coach short was available to us to answer any questions during our sessions thank you to all contributors we quickly met twice to discuss not deliberate what may go into an appeal letter the ad hoc committee took no actions as a team knowing that this would go to the board today Susan took minutes for transparency and Candace Consolidated our thoughts in two documents for the board to discuss in close session tonight thank you to the student athletes who came to share their opinions with the board at that special meeting as their voices are always important and thank you for being here tonight as well they are working hard on and off the field and
095the situation is no fault of theirs we hope that the players feel listened to and supported this process has reinforced to me how strong we are when we work together as one in service of our students I hope we have a good discussion later tonight as a board and have action after the closed session in order to move forward to file this appeal this is a challenging task but we need to try um Susan did you want to add anything um I guess thanks for letting me be part of this um I wanted to do something and um approached and said you know we need to to draft something and um and so was um happy to work with um Jennifer and Brad and um uh other members of the community um we spent about
0964 and a half hours the past two days um and um you know I think um what we're going to discuss um and hopefully have the board uh work work on together and hoping to submit something um yeah I I'm I just um thank you all for for your feedback and uh comments and emails that um I haven't been able to to respond to um even individually so um you know you are being heard um and I'm glad we're moving hopefully moving forward with some things yeah I'll just acknowledge that as well you know and say that I I just think whenever as a community as a as students as parents as coaches when we come together I think we we can do a lot of good and um so I want to thank uh
097I I was glad to be a part of this team and I'll be honest with the the biggest reason why I wanted to be a part of this team and I wanted to do this work over the last couple of days is for is because you guys okay thank you for coming to talk to us thank you for talking about your experience Thanks for for for for those connections right we serve you H and so I was glad to do that was happy to be part of of this team um on behalf of your team so thank you and thank you Candace and thank you Tammy and thank you to mik it was it was awesome to work together with you and that and I'm just excited now to get to work and share with
098you guys about what the team put together thank you at this point we well where are we okay Administration board updates Dr L first so yeah I'd like to start today with some concerns uh about growing anti-Semitism and racism that we're experiencing according to the ADL us anti-Semitism incidents have skyrocketed 360% in the aftermath of the latest conflict in the Middle East and at our own high school we've seen races and anti-semitic incidents most recently in our parking lots and we do want our students to be aware that we have cameras everywhere and ultimately do discipline students that perform these acts of hate um all of this is really disturbing and and I'm hoping to call on our community our parents and our staff to continue to address this with our student body we have
099to be more Resolute in our efforts to promote civility unity and finding common ground I also want to talk tonight about um the ongoing discussion we've had uh specifically over this last week and hearing a lot of feedback about what our athletic department is not doing right and I'll acknowledge that there are some things that our relatively young athletic department will improve on but they do a lot of great things and it brought stability to a department that has consistently turned over athletic directors every few years so I'm going to talk to you about the accomplishments of our athletic department specifically athletic director mantha since she's come into the district she's worked to change the process as there was none on how we onboard coaches at the beginning of new each new athletic season second
100she's established an evaluation process for coaches using the grit Leadership Model and again there was no process before and this process now allows for the first time for students athletes and families to have a say in how coaches are evaluated the student grade check process has improved tremendously under her leadership with frequent grade checks and students do need to sit out of competition so they're not able to keep up with minimum standards to play sports next the interview process for onboarding coaches has changed for the better and is much more much more a comprehensive process it's helped to improve the expectations of our coaches to operate with the highest level of professionalism she along with Jeff Pike who's the assistant athletic director have improved the visibility of the department significantly they have an ad or
101assistant ad at so many athletic events both home and away and that did not happen with previous athletic departments they've updated the SAS athletic handbook which has not been comprehensively updated in many years they've required that all head coaches are CPI certified which is beyond the mhsaa minimum expectations they've held seasonal annual coaches meetings to have all coaches get acquainted with the rules and policies and provide feedback to constantly improve the SAS athletic policies the athletic department now uses big teams which allows for greater communication through a well-maintained website and allows for collection of all athletic registration materials can now be accessed by coaches and trainers electronically along with the ad from Pioneer Ashley has created for the last three years run the SEC women's leadership con conference at which 10 female students from each
102of the 14 SEC schools attend a program that includes speeches and lessons on leadership thanks thank you very much I'm not sure which direction to go uh we'll start with our students please uh I was just going to make a quick announcement uh the marching band had uh competition this Monday and I'm proud to announce that we receed perfect scores in every category and a in every uh subject and and I would just like to do a quick shout out to the to the football team for all your support uh throughout our season uh it's my fourth year in the marching band and and I know a lot of other people around Michigan and other marching bands and uh having the support and relationship between the marching man and the football team that we have
103here is something really special and I know it may not seem a lot to you to just come out and watch our Monday performance or practice Monday performance and eat pizza but to a lot of the members of the marching band especially the younger members who uh look at you as like some like sometimes like the stars or the heroes of the school it it definitely means a lot to have eyes on them and to have our work and our recognize so thank you for that you [Applause] guys and I just want to say thank you to the Key Club and sleen track for their presentations tonight and then sleen football players coaches and families for coming tonight and sharing thank you yeah so quickly I just want to I want to thank all those
104that have come out and spoke here students and parents recently um it's such an important part part of our process we should welcome the tough comments and the posit as well as the positive ones it's okay to be critical of us as a district and we need to use that to improve we need to do this in a respectful Manner and for the most part we have I did hear some comments that kind of claimed that Mr lch or superintendent lch was was racist in some of these decisions and I just want to tell you Steve that that is not you so I appreciate you keep going I I'm not ready um I this was the first Homecoming in a long long time that um we couldn't attend and uh we missed it uh having
105two collegia athletes um has proven to make my fall a little bit busier than than normal and I know Drew was um was probably the saddest Miller to miss it um he was hoping to Crown uh Charlie the next king he didn't know it would be Charlie but hoping to Crown the next king but um was diving and uh that was a surprise to us and so I um am sad that I missed it but I was following on all the socials to try to like see how the game was going and and how the band and the halftime activities and then seeing all the pictures on Saturday so I just want to applaud uh the Committees for their work in I know it's a lot of work to um put together all of the
106activities for homecoming and and uh to the team for another uh great Victory so thanks for that um I think that I also have been reflecting a lot on last Thursday I was glad that I uh could be here and hear all of your comments and um just really taking um a moment to kind of think about all of those and um and just really keeping students Central um in in decision making so thank you again um for for writing us and for coming and speaking I know that it's often not super comfortable to come up to the microphone but but your voices were heard and so we appreciate that so thank you thank you secretary Miller uh a week ago Sunday uh few of us some of us in this room ran in the
107Chad Tough Run tough race including Zack caster and superintendent lch and I stumbled across the finish line maybe 30 40 minutes after you uh you were already home having a bath by the time I got across the line but it was a it was a great race was a great opportunity to meet so many people and it was just wonder just it's very energetic very exciting to to to start off the race with all of those people and then watch the uh the antelopes uh Dash on ahead and it was great fun I also wanted to say thank you to those who walked in the homecoming parade in all of my years on the school board it's number eight now I have never had Schoolboard members walk I know some of us were busy and
108I get that but we actually uh Ste gerby McVey and EAP walked and threw candy uh with some of us with targeted aim at at the people and it was it was great you know there's a there's a winter holiday um parade as well you know we could always there's another chance for you to walk but thank you very much I'll pass it along um Tommy thank you for sharing that I I I had heard about that also and I really appreciate you bringing that up um I I got to know coach short obviously more over the past couple of days and I'm sure the dance team will invite you all to something I can tell you the cheerleaders are going to invite you to something um so we look forward to having you support
109them as well and um I know there's a lot of really difficult conversations going on with our our athletic Hornet family but um I'm I'm I'm proud of um the resilience and the effort to work together so thank you um this morning was our foundation for Seline area schools monthly meeting um I gave all trustees a a card it's an invitation to our fall luncheon this is a fundraiser and a wonderful opportunity to better understand what is going on with our building and our staff grants um the foundation does a lot of incredible work Stacy couldn't be here tonight I think she said it was um uh senior night so she's doing that that um but please sign up and if you are so inclined to sponsor a table I'm sure that they would really
110appreciate that uh the foundation also wanted me to remind everybody that this Friday is the Chad tough night and our Hall of Fame so hopefully we'll see you on the porch um with regards to Thursday I I did want to make a comment also I I know how hard it is to facilitate meetings um when there's a lot of passion and a lot of different opinions and viewpoints and information to be quite honest um so I I appreciate the meeting happening um I think we need to continue to work through our bridges of Civility around some of the comments from the podium and and um it's difficult I I totally get it but we can accomplish so much more um through civil conversation and respect um we all love our kids we all love each
111other's kids in this entire Hornet family and and I I look forward in the coming months and years to to um to working closely together uh in Partnership um I never thought I would have to say this from the board table uh but I've had the pleasure of uh being Steve's first uh board president for two years and working with him uh since he is not a racist he has been an incredible partner in our work around diversity equity and inclusion through various policies and working with all of us and um I I know that that was hard to hear and I um I am sorry for that that you heard that thank you Mr groy um I Echo a number of things that are are here uh congratulations to our band I want to
112thank everybody who's associated with homecoming I had a I did I had a really good time with the with the parade and throwing candy and having kids run into your legs and it was lovely um and so I just wanted to know that I appreciated all of those things and yeah I said earlier about I appreciated that we came together to problem solve right I just think that's important for for teams for students that's a good message for for learning processes and all of that and while I'm thinking about learning processes um you know one of the things that I know is a is a constant tenant and something that is definitely speaks to our superintendent is his incredible desire to always be reflective in changing and Improvement and all of those kinds of things
113it is something that lives within this school district and I'm proud of our school district I'm proud of our leader and um I think that we will be reflective we will look at having tough conversations and we will look at making sure that we we do the things we need to do to to get better and uh because we've always done that right and so I want to make sure that I I say that out loud and uh you know I find Hope everybody finds as much orange as they can in their their closets and I'm just excited to support Chad and their family and Chad tough and all that this week so thank you um I'm going to start by mentioning National Hispanic Heritage Month which runs from September 15th to October 15th celebrating
114the history culture and contribution of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain Mexico the Caribbean and Central and South America so um honoring uh those folks this month um I also don't want to let a board meeting go by without reminding people as we see um ballots come out of the millage um proposal um and I just would like to take a minute to name the kids who um are helped by uh this money uh and just a reminder if this millage doesn't pass the money would have to come out of special fund to help support our Learners with autism deafness and hardness of hearing deaf blind disability Early Childhood developmental delay emotional impairment cognitive impairment severe multiple impairments physical impairment otherwise Health impaired specific learning disability speech and language disability traumatic brain injury and
115visual impairment but in in other words so many of our kids and Learners who mean a lot to each of us and um I have special um place in my heart and mind um personally and professionally for these kids and these Educators so um please give serious consideration to that millage renewal um lastly uh I'm sorry that I was unable to be at the meeting the other night um but I would like to take a moment to wish Jewish Family amilies in the district shatova and uh for Saturday an easy fast thanks kind of spoke spoke to this um already but um I just wanted uh to say that the the leadership that I've seen from the Seline football players um their families um the coach who I got to spend time with and the
116team staff has been so very inspirational um seeing like that kind of advocacy for your um teammates um and not necessarily being focused on the loss that you all had um during this um it's so important that you know seeing you lift up your um teammate um I really appreciate that and um I think um all students um look up to that and um you know I appreciate that um I don't know how to respond to this um I want everybody's experience that they share up here um to be validated and heard um I'm not going to tell someone what they have or have not experienced or how they feel um and so I you know do not want um I don't think it's fair to to sit up here and say um things when
117when somebody has has shared something um so personal um so I yes I when when somebody says something I'm I'm listening in and um that is that is your experience and um I appreciate your sharing of that thank you the consent agenda is next the content agenda is listed in this agenda and will not be read aloud the motion noted will allow for the authorization of all listed items without discussion unless a member of the board requests that any one or all be considered individually I'd like to entertain a motion to authorize the consent agenda as printed so moved and who was that Lauren gold Lauren gold thank you support stean js7 um all in favor please say I I I post right 7 Z we have a consent agenda approved thank you very much
118uh items on the next agenda sir right we have one scheduled Report with uh a bond update from Rex and his team I am looking forward to that this is the public comments section as noted earlier uh usually people get up and rush to the podium not rush away from the podium thank you for coming tonight um members 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 we have two uh speakers who have signed forms right now uh Eugene rush and pardon you have more thank you oh good it's not three or 400 thank good all right um I'd like to call up Eugene Russ and I'm I'm afraid I can't read the name very well but sabr Sabrina
119good could you tell me how you say your last name because you're thank you if you've not spoken before uh we're getting our timers set and we have a at the at the two minute Mark you'll get a yellow yellow warning card oh 233 at 302nd to the end mark you'll get a you warning card letting you know you're you're nearly the end of your time and the red card means time is up thank you of there we go all right um we are here this evening because we are disappointed part of my job is to be held accountable to all of the C citizens of washingon County so I don't come to you today as sergeant rush I come to you today as Eugene Rush We Are The Proud parents of one Joshua Rush
120who graduated here a few years ago and now Junior James Rush who is here today A AAA rating is one of the highest ratings that you can get but I urge you I ask you and I challenge you that the AAA today should be for actively advocating for our kids the short history is this we brought our children here for educational purposes as well as athletic purposes a few years ago our oldest son was the victim of racial discrimination the outcome of that was sever several committees several things that were formed several changes that were made but we're disappointed because bigotry in our society racism in our society is real and it is still here and our youngest son was attacked as well as other teammates on his team and we have not gotten that
121AAA rating that we request or ask from the district or from the board we want active advocacy in communication active advocacy in transparency and active advocacy for our kids not just our son but for all kids we want active advocacy for Nolan for Lincoln for Isaiah for Jaden for danne for Allen for Austin for Ryan we ask you and we challenge you because the pro and professional if you take the pro off and put it in front of active it makes it proactive and we ask you to be active to be proactive and to be accountable to all of our kids not just some of our kids thank you thank you very much are is this a separate three minutes yes okay thank you for letting us know appreciate that so my name is Sabrina
122I'm Joshua and James mother and I say Joshua because in 22 he graduated from Seline he also played on the football team and he was also um I don't want to say victim but he was um targeted racially when it was on CNN on the news he was part of the football team and we had to endure that we trusted Seline we sat back both of us in law enforcement taking a step back let you do your job it's not not enough here we are again I am so Furious what are you doing who reached out to us what's the plan Where Do We Go From Here who's talking to my son teacher is saying hi how you doing if he's not doing well do they actually have the opportunity to hear them out or
123do they teach the class and he goes to the next class no one is listening I'm not worried about my son too much because he had an outpouring of love but what about the kid that's sitting in the corner that's not a superstar on any athletic team who's advocating for him what is happening here because I do not understand it is affecting the students indirectly and directly those two that are gone they don't have to worry about the chatter the looks the this the that he's still there who's who's reaching out to my son who's reaching out to other children it has to stop proactive we did this last a couple years ago it stopped we're not sweeping it under the rug the mama bear is out I'm out and I'm angry and it needs
124to stop it needs to be communication we talk about transparency I don't see it why do I have to reach out and say hey what's going on I haven't heard anything and then they want to talk about the two kids I'm not talking about them they're no longer in the system what's going on with the kids that are still in school how are the teachers handling it who's Reach Out reach out to coach what are we doing we can't sit here and talk about it and say beautiful words and paragraphs with no action that doesn't sit well in my spirit and it doesn't sit well with me as a mother thank you for your time thank you for your time thank you Sergeant [Applause] Rush Megan Gunderson please um well can I go Jen thanks
125um so first of all I would just want to reiterate the ask for those three um young ladies who were here from the Key Club who made the request of um financially supporting kids who maybe are unable to participate because of finances we are a district that has a lot of resources and I understand there's a lot of fingers in the pot but there's a way to apply for a scholarship for any sport in this school and I wish that there was one for every club and then the second thing I want to talk about is the ad hoc committee um I didn't know it was an agenda item because it didn't have a title or I would have spoken earlier today I had asked publicly that there be an independent review done and I'm
126a little bit disappointed that the internal committee um I just feel like a thoughtful attention to both the function and the surrounding Optics of some kind of an appeal would have been a little bit more thought out I appreciate that there are a number of people on this panel but I personally feel that it um shadowed that if you are a person on that committee that you have ties to the athletic department I think it would have been better served to the community as a whole if the members of that committee who are representing this board were not parents with ties to the athletic department Andor the team itself there are more um athletic teams who have had issue with the athletic department than the current situation as um discussed at the podium last week
127and previous weeks I believe when I counted them up with one of the trustees there are currently five teams that have been affected in a negative manner by um the current flow through that department and um again I guess I'm just a little bit disappointed I wish that it would have that this um overview would have been done by a third party or a more neutral setting um because it does affect more than um a single sport well I I got understand that the appeal itself is directed at one sport the um nuances of a review cover many more students than that thank you thank you Megan Jolina noar no I'm thank you nler well later we are seeing each other way too often here uh maybe this will be my last time here um
128first thank you again for taking the time to listen to all of us um and I just want to keep bringing us back to the point of the end goal here and that is to get these forfeitures reversed that has to stay at the for all of these other pieces are important I need those to set aside as Coleman Ross mentioned earlier time is imperative right now there are implications to our boy season right now that we have to get this appeal submitted we were Swift with the self-reporting I need us to be Swift with this appeal and I don't want us to stop with one if the first appeal doesn't work you try again and then you keep trying rules are guidelines I get that people want to say oh rules a rule we
129got to stop now that's not what we do we are here to make sure our kids are taken care of and that the people who need to be penalized are the people who AED our boys did not ER they deserve to have this wrong made right additionally I uh I appreciate having each other's back believe me I'm in a situation at work right now where I don't feel like my colleagues and my boss have my back so I appreciate that um timing is so important and with all due respect I'm not sure tonight was the best time to talk about the accolades of the current Administration in your athletic department that probably was bad timing thanks for listening whoops thanks Jina ner one more speaker I assume uh oh uh Danielle Sims Woods would like
130to speak good evening so I wasn't going to speak tonight but I sat back and listen to just about every board member talk about how great their experience is with Seline Steve that's not my experience nobody can tell me how I feel and until some of you guys are of color you can't tell me sometimes I'm in education too and sometimes when we we sit in equity meetings I get mad because I feel like people need to check their implicit bias at the door because when you start thinking of how people of color would think we you know we talk about the Jewish Community but let's talk about the people of color the black and the brown people around here and how they feel I'm not the only parent that feels this way I'm not
131only parent probably that stood up besides the rushes but you guys need to check your implicit bias cuz when I wrote my statement I checked mine I checked mine to see of how all the people that are non-color would feel about it but still spoke my truth I did not call that man a racist I said there was racist action towards me and my family my 8-year-old talks about all the time how she wants to go to Heritage I work for an arbor it's easier for her to go to an an arbor school her school is literally 5 minutes away from Skyline but it's not even about the five minutes at this point it's what am I about to subject my baby to the people that turn a Blind Eye of that racism is real
132it's real it's real to me and my children and some of the actions have been systematic racism and it's not just Seline it's the world but for Seline to sit on your cheers and be like I'm sorry that you had to deal with it bull because that's how I feel as a woman of color that's how my son felt as a young man of color and there's several of them others not just on the football team that feel that way Seline as a community as a whole the United States as a whole needs to check their implicit bias thank you have a great night thank you very much next board meeting will be held on October 22nd at 6:30 I'll be missing the first half and vice president stemman will take over the chairing duties
133that evening oh there's one more apologies Mr um Mr fur McVey oh he knows by my name that's great I appreciate it by he does he does that's why we didn't call you up I saw it in your hand it's uh Alex right no oh I'm sorry your name sorry Sean sorry my bad thank you I don't know Alex but I appreciate you allowing me to come in I was at the uh Middle School football game um supporting uh the kids over there announcing so I apologize for my um tardiness but I wanted to have an opportunity to speak if I can have that tonight well hopefully starts back right now um I didn't know it started nobody told me I didn't see the Green Card say go so just going forward I want to
134just thank you guys for allowing me to come in here and talk and um I've never done this before I always I've talked in front of people plenty of times I work for the state government I'm in front of people every day I work in Jackson very poverished Community compared to um Seline um and I work for a um a office that preaches Dei like nobody's tomorrow and sometimes I take it in and listen and sometimes I um fight against it um but that's just human in human nature and then listening to everybody talk it helps me to consider and understand the more and more reasons on why it's important but it's only important if it's used correctly and I have a director that knows all about it and preaches it all the time um
135and you know just it it's prom it's supposed to promote fair treatment and full participation of all people all particularly groups who have been historically underrepresented the issue with everything that's going on with the football team and with the um the school district is I don't think that statement is being followed it's pick and choosed there's more emphasis towards different groups um than certain groups and it should be all fairness Equity equal um and the situations I've endured in coming to Seline we have had our own issues issues with um sexism issues with um discrimination and stuff like that and I don't think it was dealt with the correct way quick everything's quick sometimes things have to be investigated with ESS and fairness um and in my job I'm I have to do that too
136so in your guys's job and you guys hold a um specific role superintendent athletic directors principes board members you guys sometimes need to take time and sometimes we make mistakes because you guys are all human and we and I appreciate what Miss um Eep said that and I've learned this myself that even though there might be things that she doesn't agree with people said things up here and you might not agree with them and everything but you're going to allow us to have our opinions and our feelings and stuff and say hey guess what we might not agree we might have different opinions but we can work together as a community to figure out what the common goal is so that we can have a community where everybody is working for the good such in
137my family and friends um situation they had a situation and I don't believe by based on what I've heard that they were traded fair and Equitable in everything based on what we'll never know but ultimately I just believe that the decisions that were made in regards to the football team were taken too quickly and wasn't given a proper time to be investigated and it was done too quickly and um sometimes we make mistakes but the best way to fix a mistake is to go back fix it say that you made a mistake and go forward with it and not just hide with it but I appreciate you guys' time I see the red Checker but ultimately the only way this is going to get fix is for we all just respect everybody and work together
138fairness Equity apprciate thank you sir appreciate it thank you um next Board of Education meeting will be held on October 22nd uh I'd like to entertain a motion to enter into close session at I'm going to say 8:35 with the intent to re enter Open session at approximately 10 10ish for the purpose of discussion of personnel matters under Section 8A under SE section 8A a simple majority is sufficient to enter into Clos session and there is a high chance that there will be an action item when we return but I don't know at this point for sure do we have a motion so moves Deon JS JM all in favor please say I hi opposed right off we go thank you e e e we have returned I'd like to uh entertain a motion to
139reent inter closed session of the board of education at 956 uh with the intent to reopen the session at about 1030 or so for the purpose of discussion of items under section 8h under 8h a simple majority vote is sufficient to enter into closed session do I have a reenter Open Session we we voted on that en closed so now I'm entertaining a motion to reenter close session is that Tim support Eep thank you all in favor please say I I I oppose 70 thank you we are going to return to closed session to cover an item that is covered under a separate item of open meetings act thank you I didn't hear you e e e thank you we've returned from closed session um I would like to entertain a motion to direct superintendent
140lotch to submit a formal letter of appeal to the Michigan High School Athletic Association on behalf of the board of education so move stean stean support support gerby uh are is there any discussion on this matter at this point there's no discussion all in favor please say I I I opposed a letter will be on its way tomorrow morning to the mhsaa I'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn the regular Board of Education meeting of October 8th at uh I can't see is it 10:32 10:32 so moved was that J Miller Susan support Miller Susan Eep J uh all in favor please say I I post thank you wait I get to tap it twice thank you