001ad place hi Zack I'd like to call to order the Saline Area Schools Board of Education meeting of April 9th 2024, uh standing as you are able would you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Brad Gerbe. Will do it, better Choir you ready? Where are they? 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 Choir. Guess you weren't afraid that they wouldn't speak up I know I we have two brief uh pieces of Superintendent Recognition to begin with. Okay I will start um on behalf of Directors Floetke and Price we have tonight the SMS and SHS Choirs and I'm going to read a long list of accomplishments the
002Saline Middle School Choir program is 200 plus singer strong and is composed of five choirs the 6th grade, 7h grade, and 8th grade Curricular Choirs and two advanced extracurricular choirs that rehearse before school Girls Choir and Boys Choir. Middle School singers learned the fundamentals of singing using a diverse selection of music. Singers learn how to work together as an ensemble to make beautiful music and make lasting friendships at the same time. They perform multiple concerts a year ranging from a 6th grade behind the scenes concert where the audience gets a sneak peek into a 6th grade choir rehearsal to our formal prefestival concerts the 7th 8th Grade Girls and Boys Choirs are currently preparing for their Annual Pops Concert where singers get to learn and perform pop music with our live four piece band. The Middle
003School choirs consist consistently receive high ratings at the MSVMA Coral Festivals including this year where Girls Choir also received a perfect score in sight reading. We also have multiple students audition and make it into the Middle School State Honors Choir Program. This year five singers made it to the state level. The commitment and enthusiasm that these young singers have helps continue to make the Saline Choir Program the success that it is today. Now on to the SHS Choirs, Saline High School Choir Program includes three extracurricular ensembles and three extracurricular groups who rehearse outside of the school day. Students learn diverse repertoire and styles from around the world and throughout musical history. Choirs sing and extended major work with our Orchestra students students are currently rehearsing for their Pops Cabaret Concert project project in which students create manage
004and perform their own acts in a musical variety show format. Saline Choirs consistently receive top ratings at MSVMA Coral Festivals and Solo and Ensemble Events and singers place into the State Honors Choirs every year. Choirs have been selected to perform numerous times in the MSVMA All State Festival, the Michigan Youth Arts Festival, and the Michigan Music Conference Coral Hour. Students sing alongside of the school setting at events like our fall choir retreat, caroling in the community, and while touring at major venues like Carnegie Hall, the Detroit Opera House, Hill Auditorium, and Chicago Symphony Center. The choirs went on their first European tour in 2019 to Prague and Austria and returned to touring last year on a trip singing in Chicago. This past Year's highlights include Chamber Choir's performance at the Elite Coral Invitational at Michigan
005State, a collaborative performance at Mozart's Coronation Mass, multiple perfect scores at S and E and coral festivals, work with guest conductor and composer Dr. Brandon Waddles from Wayne State University, and a new student-led barbershop quartet group. The Saline Choir's dedication to fine, expressive singing has built their prestigious reputation in Saline Community and beyond. Now I'm going to ask for the choir all of you to come up one by one make your way to the podium and state your name your year in school and your role in the choir or choirs and then we're going to work our way over to the side here by this monitor and take a picture with the um Board of Education so come on up we'll make a line and then we're going to start at the podium by making
006sure that the green light is on so go ahead and there's a little push button if you push it and it's green we can all start I'm Anna Peavler. I'm in 7th grade. I do 7th Grade Choir, Girls Choir, and I did State Honors Choir. I'm Aurora Gust I'm an 8th grade, 8h Grade Choir, Girls Choir, and I did State Honors Choir. Hi my name is Shiloh Livingston. I'm in 8th grade. I am an 8th Grade Choir, Girls Choir, and the and I was in the Michigan State Honors Choir. My name is Anna Klumstrum I'm in 10th Grade and I'm the Ensemble Manager of Colla Voce. My name is Reece Welliver. I'm in 10th Grade I'm in Chamber Choir and I'm also a Ten Tone. My name is Meghana Sennerikuppam. I'm in 12th grade. I'm
007the Hornet Harmonies Ensemble Manager and in Chamber Choir. My name is Abigail Sartori. I'm in 11th grade and I'm part of the Publicity clue Crew for um Colla Voce. My name is Munya Elawar. I'm a Choir Council Vice President. I'm also in Chamber Choir and in Hornet Harmonies. My name is Delaney Niven. I'm a sophomore and I'm the Colla Voce Student Director. My name is Addison Lenga. I'm in 10th Grade and I'm in Colla Voce and I'm in the Publicity Crew. My name is Isaiah Gifford. I'm a senior and I'm the Ensemble Manager of the Ten Tones. Hi I'm Nikki Steiner. I'm a senior. I'm in Chamber Choir and I'm the Secretary of Choir Concert. Hi I'm Otto Spitler. I'm a junior and I'm in Chamber Choir and in Ten Tones. I'm Callahan Miltenberger. I'm
008a senior. I'm in Ten Tones and Chamber Choir. I'm Katie Booher. I'm a senior in Ten Tones and the Ch the Choir President. I'm Finn Goss. I'm uh in 11th grade and I am in Chamber Choir and in Ten Tones. My name is Evan Schlitt. I'm in 10th Grade. I'm in Chamber, Ten Tones, Chordsmen, Barbershop, and I think that's it, yeah. My name is Isaac Roughton. I'm the Student Director of Ten Tones and I'm a senior going to the Berkley College of Music next fall. My name is Tirian Cooper. I am in Chordsmen and the Barbershop Club and I am going to be going to a college for VL performance next year. I'm Sarah Price. I don't know what grade I'm in anymore, but I've been here for 10 years it's my 10th year at Saline
009and thank you so much um for honoring us tonight we have an incredible crew we're really proud of everything we do I just want to brag because a couple people couldn't be here we have two others going on to be music teachers next year at um Michigan State oh Isaiah and another one as well so we're just so proud it's when off to do music and to continue singing in all their different ways that they're going to so. I am Eric Floetke and this is my 8th year here in Saline and thanks for having us and what I like to say is all those older high schoolers that you saw they were all once this small with me from 5th or 8th grade too so it's so awesome to see what they're doing now too
010so thank you. Okay all right let's give them a big hand [Applause] and if we can get the Board of Education up to take a picture you -may want to start smushing together just a little bit -Ms. Martin will help us out. [Applause] okay and now we are ready mo to move on to our second superintendent recognition which is the Saline High School Boys Hockey Team. So on behalf of Coach Zagata and the other assistant coaches and parent supporters want to introduce the 2023-24 Saline Hornets Boys Varsity Hockey team which just went back-to-back-to back on SEC Championships. [Applause] This this past year's season though and team took a much different path to the title than it had in years past. Faced with adversity from the very start of the season this year's group may not
011have always come away with a win but never let it knock them off course facing the toughest schedule of any SE SEC team the Hornets played in 12 games that were decided by one goal or less. Six of which were decided in overtime. With the SEC Conference coming down to the final days of the regular season, we were neck and neck with Ann Arbor Skyline needing a win in the last two regular season games the Hornets clinched the Conference Championship with a 4-1 win over Temperance Bedford led by Senior Captains: Tyler Schroeder, Mateo Iadipaolo, Aidan Rumohr, and Blake Woodrel. Blake and Mateo both eclipsed the 100 Career Point Milestone. While Tyler set the program record for most career wins. Tyler, Matteo, and Blake earned first team All Conference Honors while Aiden and sophomore Antonio Giacalone
012were named All Conference Honorable Mention. This year's team earned Academic All State honors with a 3.4 team GPA among one of the highest in the state. I'd like to introduce the Boys Hockey Team. We'd like everybody to come around kind of where the choir was over there and we're gonna ask each of the boys to come up say their name year in school and what position you played for with the hockey team and then we'll ask coach to to follow it off all right Mato you're going to start it off. Hi I'm Mateo Iadipaolo senior captain and I play center. I'm Blake Woodrel senior captain and I play Wing. I'm Tyler Schroeder senior captain I play goalie. I'm Ethan Phelps I'm a junior I play right wing. I'm a Jack Boyle sophomore and I played
013rightwing. uh Owen Warner senior and I play defense. uh Johnny Iadipaolo I'm a junior and I play center. I'm Jack Derksen. I'm a sophomore and I'm a goalie. Well I'm Tyson Jacobs I'm a junior I play Winger. I'm Chris Thornell I'm a junior and I play defense. Tony Giacalone, I'm a sophomore and I'm a left Winger. uh I'm Cooper Dylan. I'm a sophomore and I'm a left wing. Well thank you guys I'm Kyle Zagata. I'm the head coach on behalf of my assistant coaches as well just like to thank you for all of your support, the community support this was my fourth year here um we could not have done this we have a parent board members uh in in attendance here um Nat Iadipaolo, Kit Woodrel, Janet Dylan, and James Giacalone they are the
014uh part of the parent group that helps make this run and makes my job uh easier because I just get to focus on coaching also uh Theresa Stager our principal is one of our biggest supporters here so we're just fortunate for all of the support from our community and uh Dr. Laatsch we got you a little gift here as well [Applause] all right picture time I'm bringing this up don't be shy parents with cameras go ahead - 1, 2, 3 all right [Applause] tack it up in support of the team of course I bleached my hair as well hey hey I'd like to uh take a moment to introduce he said just call me Rod uh the Hot Rods Motorcycle Awareness and Prevention Foundation and they would just like to present a little gift to
015us to the to the Saline Area Schools so come on up it's all yours. We never go anywhere alone I know one thing I don't want to play against that defender no that a big boy. Good evening Superintendent Steven Laatsch, President Michael McVey, and Saline Board of Education High Rods Motorcycle Awareness and Suicide Prevention Foundation is honored to be part of your suicide prevention and mental health efforts. Tonight we have the privilege of donating two suicide prevention benches to the Saline School District. Mental health is not a fad it is very real and as a group we know that any and every way you can help a student with resources such as flyers, posters, or benches it gives them a message that someone really does care and they are not alone. The toll-free number to
016call is 988 for the Suicide Crisis Lifeline. This lifeline is confidential free and available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The lifeline connects those experience a suicidal crisis with trained counselors. The person will listen to them understand how their problem is affecting them provide support and get them the help they need. We know this message a number of works because of stories shared with us where individuals that were contemplating suicide reached out and got the help they needed. Our benches provide hope support and recess resources to connect just one thing I want to add here is uh Amanda Evers is a 2017 graduate from Saline and her proud parents are standing right behind me Bob and Donna so so they wanted to make sure that everybody remembers that we do have a Saline
017connection. So far we have donated benches to Milan, Dundee, Monroe, Airport, Ida High Schools and Monroe County Community College. Thank you for your time this evening God bless all of you here today and keep up the good work and thank you. Any questions? Can somebody bring me that camera back and I'll take a picture of all of you. Oh we were going to get with the school board and everything over here by our bench if it's if it's possible? I just want to thank you again from the board on behalf of the board and the next time you do a presentation you'll be able to add and Saline Area Schools too. Thank you so much. Right on. [Applause] Let's go over to the bench [Applause] Mrs. Jahnke thank you it's well it's hard to top
018all that so let's just end the board meeting now is it oh no wait got a few more things on the Agenda there are no uh we have nobody in our list for Public Comment so I'll skip all past that I have no response to previous Public Comment um I'd like to move on to the uh revisions approval of the agenda items can be added or deleted from the agenda or the order of items changed at the request of an individual board member or the superintendent and the agenda should or must be approved before proceeding further do I have a motion to approve the agenda as printed. uh so moved Steben. Yes thank you. Support Estep. Thank you very much Estep. All in favor please say I. I. Opposed hearing none it's all seven of
019us tonight? Right. Right. Thank you very much. uh we I'd like to pass over to the uh our wonderful Student Representatives please. Tonight's Student Showcase is Pleasant Ridge Student Council, they'll be talking about their leadership skills and how they've helped their school thus far this school year. Supposed to there was supposed to be a yellow rope that they were all going to hold and but if the person at the front you hear laughter that. I suppose I do have a response to public comment if we go back um I want to thank the uh district for everything they did to provide uh solar eclipse viewing glasses to everybody hope you all had good view uh and I did do some investigation there will we will be in the path of totality for another uh future
020eclipse uh September 14th 2099. I'm passing my glasses on to my daughter she'll be 104. I I'm not 100% sure I'm going to make it come on up guys. Hi I am Mrs. Stacy Garin and this is I'm Trina Bell we're the co-advisors of Pleasant Ridge Student Council and this is our student council. I think that works [Applause] I'm Garnet Music. I'm Adair Beeman. I'm Madison Richardson. Hello I'm Madison Miller. Hi I'm Addison Kendrick. Hi I'm Jude Scadding. Hi I'm Reece Brennan. I'm Peter LeCompte. Hello I'm Hayden Yentz. Hi I'm Juniper Pando. Hi I'm Kate Daiek. Hi my name is Skyla Kulik. Hi I'm Brielle Brabbs. Hi I'm Norah Timmerman. Hi I'm Elizabeth McHugh. [Applause] You all can come closer we don't bite come on up. We are reorganizing for a moment. We like little Hornets.
021We want be able to you see you for the camera so I'm going to move this Mr Goodman can you hit the slide oh Perfect. Who we are. We are third grade leaders, kindness spreaders, and inclusion makers here is a picture of us together wearing our t-shirts. Presenting Soctober we've collect socks for Saline Social Services in October as part of the national Soctober movement. We have provided thousands of pairs of socks to those who need them since the this project began. We kick off the month with a wild sock day October warm feet equal warm hearts and we have some pictures of people wearing crazy socks for sock day. Another event we sponsor is the Veterans Day Video. We honor veterans connected to PR students and families with a special [Music] video [Music] In December student
022council has supported the nonprofit organization Magic of Christmas for many years. Our families donate gifts to support families in need. We wrap the gifts and deliver them to the founder of organization and here are a couple pictures of us helping out. One of the things that we did for Student Council was say Hey Day. Student Council provided name tags to all the students in the school. We provided links to a book about how to say hello in many languages. We provided a list of many ways how to say hey. Our goal is for everyone to feel included many times throughout the day as people said hello to as many people as possible here are 30 ways to say hello. My favorite way to say hello is saying hi to my friends in the morning. My
023favorite way to say hello is howdy. Student Council has also sponsored This is Me Day. Student Council has sponsored a day where students dress to show their interests and personalities and an effort to find commonalties to be inclusive of all. Another event we do is Earth Day. Earth Day grounds clean up helping our Earth Stay Free from litter. We also we also sponsor student council store fundraiser for all of our charitable events. We get to practice our math and people skills too. Here are some things we like about student council we sponsor many fun things in our school we donate to people in need We help the younger kids know what a leader looks like. We are inclusion makers who spread kindness we have a nice community and we give back to the community. We
024encourage people to help others. We have fun. We are the leaders of the building. We are safe and sometimes silly. And that's it thank you. [Applause] Wait did the teachers have anything more to add because I just wanted to say you were awesome everybody thank you. One more round of applause for them [Applause] I think that's it. Thank you. for the minutes I mean We have five action items this evening the first is uh recommended motion to approve the minutes from the March 12th 2024 Close Session for the purpose of superintendent evaluation section 8A do I have a motion? Brad Gerbe thank you very much do I have second Tim Austin is seconding uh we'll do a quick review and uh put it to a vote Oh their sweet like to put this to a
025vote then all in favor please say I I opposed hearing none 7-0 uh I also would like to rec uh entertain a motion Jack yeah it's okay we can put up with that little bit of noise uh I'd like to entertain a motion to follow the recommendation of the CARE's Advisory Council to approve the allocation of funds as followed in the total amount of $54,418.40 as submitted by Brian Puffer directory of Director of Community Education and those five projects are the braille literacy project literacy uh Liberty Club $800, the equipment replacement at Saline Area Senior Center for $7358.00, The Lü, at Woodland Meadows Elementary $20,000, Meals on Wheels the Evangelical Home Foundation $20,000, the pool sound system for the Saline High School Girls Water Polo at $6260.40. Do we have a motion to? Do we
026have a motion? So move. Was that Mr. Austin? Yep thank you. Support Miller. JM. Thank you very much. Any uh think who was going to call you up but you just apparated. Thank you. Any questions for did you have anything to add? I can just go over just a couple things really quick a little clarifying things possibly. Uh one you'll notice the PEAC um was not approved. They had a couple um discrepancies so we just suggested the board they approve um apply for round three. Which is uh the deadlines ended this month so they're going be applying for round three. Uh there'll be plenty money left for that. So that's why they were not approved it was just denied to for resubmittal for round three. Uh going through it just really quick um the Liberty
027Club was the braille literacy project. It's a braille machine for their program. Uh, the equipment replacement for the senior center uh it was a new fridge and laptops, the Lü that is if you're not familiar with it is an interactive um projector. Jay could speak better to it I can but basically it's a projector from the middle of ceiling goes to the wall and it's interactive. Kids can touch it, do stuff with it, it's really cool. I explain that pretty good yeah yeah yeah so if you looked it up yeah it's the name's a little different but um they receive funding through they applied for CARES and the foundation. But it's the first one we'll have in there so it looks pretty neat um so that's what that is. Meals on a Wheels was an
028expansion on their program to help slomit the cost for the food and paper products for that program and then the pool sound system is self-explanatory. Uh as you can see we had $60,568 total 40 we approved $54,418. Uh we will have rounds we will have funds for round three at about $130,000. So hopefully we'll get receive more grants for run three. Thank you there any questions for Mr. Puffer? All right well thank you very much please all in favor please say I I I opposed hearing none Micheal can we make a change to the word in this motion please Change the word purchase to adopt adopt textbooks oh is it then sorry yeah I'd like to make a um um recommended motion to edit uh Item C to read to approve the recommendation per Board
029Policy 2510 to adopt Big Ideas text books and the rest as follows. Support a bit off because I'm using an old version sorry didn't have that one so um sorry just I my own note so it's a Steben moved and Gerbe backed it up okay for the amendment oh okay thank you I'd like to entertain a motion to uh I don't have the motion again in front of me. If you would read it for me please Vice President Steben? Yep, um I'd like to recommend a motion please to approve the um to approve the recommendation per Board Policy 2510 to adopt Big Ideas Textbooks and Associated ebook digital licenses through Cengage Learning for High School Geometry Fundamentals, High School Algebra 2 Fundamentals, High School Pre-Calc, 8th grade Math, 7th Grade Math, and 6th Grade Math
030as submitted by Kara Davis Executive Director of Teacher and Learning, Teaching and Learning. Thank You seconded by Brad Gerbe are there any comments. Uh no I just want to let you know that we have been using big ideas in many of our math spaces in the secondary level it would be a new adoption for 6th grade we've been looking for consistency 6th through 12th in many of these spaces to better support our math sequencing and instructional practices. So through the curriculum review process which I'll be talking a little bit about later uh this is one of the recommendations on behalf of the math department. I I. opposed? I've caught up now. Uh I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the purchase from InaComp TSG of speakers and signage to complete coverage of the InformaCast notification
031system at Saline Middle School and Saline High School in the amount of $159,575 as submitted by Jay Grossman Director of Technology. Support Miller. JM thank you. I'll do it Gerbe. Brad Gerbe thank you. Mr Grossman we may have a question or two for you Easy ones please. All right I have a softball is question ready I I know um for the past several board meetings we've been approving various additions and add-ons to the InformaCast system so I guess my question is simple. When is this project going to be done? Great question this is the last big project we're doing so um as we've been working through the InformaCast setup using our different uh sources of funding the last one we had which was the Michigan State Police Grant only allowed a certain amount per building
032so because the Middle School is so large we exceeded that and so we're using other funding this year to finish that building up add some outdoor speakers to the High School just to make sure we have total coverage and we're done. Fantastic well thank you that's that's a great answer. Are there any other questions for uh Mr. Grossman? Susan. So so are you adding um additional features for additional um like uh signage and stuff? Speakers and cover additional coverage okay so so we can reach more of the areas that we've found weren't getting those broadcasts. Cool thanks. Real quickly we yeah we discussed this like as part of our our finance team and yeah we just found out um through that process that the Middle School is just a really big building and so because
033of it we're finding that if I'm summarizing this correctly please correct me but like that we just in order to thoroughly cover that building and to do it with InformaCast and as safely as possible these were the things we found we needed as we went through the process. Correct. Well thank you very much let's um I'd like to put this to a vote then now. All in favor please say I. I I Opposed. Hearing none thank you very much. And uh Mr Grossman I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the purchase of new HP DL325 Server Appliance from InaComp or InaComp TSG in the amount of $201,456 in order to maintain current security and vulnerability updates as submitted by Jay Grossman Director of Technology. Correct. So moved Steben. JS. Support Tim. Thank you very
034much. Are these uh servers wearing out on us or are we reaching capacity could you just clarify this for us please? So the current software that we run to maintain our servers um is a 2016 version its end of life support is the summer so we are no longer able to get upgrades so to be able to continue that and securing our current infrastructure we need to purchase a new version of um Micro or yeah Windows Server 2022 which will be supported for like the next 10 years. Should keep us through that um additionally this is going to also come with our a phone system upgrade um we're currently on version 11 we're going to into version 14 there same same reason there are security patches we can't get with our current version and we
035need to upgrade to be able to maintain those patches and keep our district safe. If I can follow up? Is are these just firmware updates or do you have new handsets that come with this the telephones we actually bought the new handsets last year so all the new handsets that we got throughout the district were in preparation for now upgrading the the server and the system that goes with it. It'll work with it? Yup. Right great. Thank you. Are there other questions for Mr Grossman? No. Oh Tim no. I I just want to note that um both D and E are not coming out of general fund. Correct. Great not coming from general fund spoiler alert yes sir so all in favor please say I. I I. Oppose 7-0. Thank you very much Mr. Grossman
036for your serv. Thank you. uh we have one scheduled report this evening from the uh Teaching and Learning uh Team and I'll just let them assemble. Assemble Teaching and Learning Team. Are you it tonight? Thank you so much for always allowing us to do presentations. You'll be pleased to know there are no multicolored bar graphs with multiple points of data on them today. I'm very pleased it's actually really exciting when um Dr Laatsch you know we were talking about some of the board reports that we could be doing on the area of the Teaching and Learning Team a little bit more intimately is not something that we actually report on very often it's embedded into the other presentations that I give. So tonight's presentation is twofold one is to give you more insights into some
037of the behind the scenes or behind the curtain uh work of the Teaching and Learning Team and then the other portion is for Katie O'Keeffe Director of our English Learner Program to present on our the current state of our English Learner Program here at Saline Schools. Excited for both. So to begin while I'm most often as I said presenting on the District progress with our MICIP goals uh related student data and staff supports um I don't often get too detailed about the Teaching and Learning Team itself uh the Teaching and Learning Team was actually created in 2020-21 under the leadership of Dr Laatsch um and this was with the hope to create more cohesive um and coordinated efforts to supporting our teachers and thus ultimately supporting our students success so this creation um was really
038bringing together MTSS, English Learning, our literacy coaches, science supports, um and a number of other administrative roles, Kevin and Monica on there as our um Student Services they'll be presenting in May and so I'm not talking much about the work that they contribute as a part of the Teaching Learning Team tonight. But you can see it's a really collective effort um on the part of the district to bring together important roles to support um stu our staff and ultimately our students um in their successes. We of course cannot neglect the important partnership with all of these other roles throughout the district so it's interconnected roles and responsibilities plus uh Theresa Stager Principal of Saline High School is here with us tonight um and she plays a part of our um Teaching and Learning Team as
039an Administrative Representative um because we recognize the important role that all of these different stakeholders play in helping us uh better understand the needs of the district and determining how to best move forward so in some way shape or form all of these stakeholders are involved in our continuous improvement planning. This is a common um graphic that I share as a part of monitoring our Continuous Improvement Plan. We're in quarter two right now so but what I don't normally talk about or haven't talked about in a couple of years is when you really look into it you can see that there is quite a big lift on looking at, collecting, analyzing, reflecting on data as well as really recursive cycles of um partnering with our stakeholders in order to make decisions. So this is all
040built into the Continuous Improvement Cycle as a whole and one of the primary roles of the Teaching and Learning Team is really to partner with these stakehold holders and then coordinate the actions around these different um components of the continuous learning plan. One piece that we have been working on really deep deeply is developing the shared assessment vision for all of our staff and building leaders as well as our district leaders across the system. Because we recognize that we talk about student data a lot and so we need to make sure that we're actually walking the talk um and sharing that ownership as a group I would this year we really did launch uh more into building that muscle where we integrated it into the teaching and learning process for time sake I decided not
041to go too in depth with that um but I did want to reflect that here because it is uh predominant in the work that we're doing because we want the decisions that we're making to be informed by the data points that we have as a district and then also for our system to be informed by data points as well and that's where I'm going to primarily be focusing my um my points tonight on is how we use the data points as a system in order to make improvements um for the adults who are doing the work on behalf of our students. So when we think about uh the data sources that we use um it's always our hope to have multiple points of data that we can triangulate not just looking at one. So we
042obviously use student assessment data, whether it's state or local data, direct communication um with stakeholders students families, uh listening sessions, District Survey data, one just launched yesterday. I don't know if you've completed yours yet but it is out there um and so that will be given to the students as well, we have internal surveys that we give to staff to collect data and then um small group reflective meeting, whether those are one to one with staff members or leaders and or you know a team meeting like a teaching and learning team or a building continuous improvement team um that might look like a old school improvement team of the past and as we collect this data one of the things as a part of building the muscle that I was just talking about it's been
043about using that data more authentically and really building it in in meaningful ways and in order to do that we have a cycle in which um the Teaching and Learning Team you know works to partner with the folks depend and what the data source is and ensure that ad the administration team has an opportunity to look at it and process it, that teacher leaders do, uh the teachers and staff do, and then ultimately you as the board and the public too to be really um looking at it closely and through multiple perspectives and again it just feels really important for us to show because this is one of our goals, because in order to get better at something we have to be able to monitor it um is that all the stakeholders in our system
044can use the data uh points that we have at our fingertips. So we've been really intentional about rolling out data set to stakeholders as appropriate and then incorporating perspectives um as related to those data sets to get a a better understanding of how that data influences decision-making, developing shared understandings and messaging about what the data actually means and what steps that we should take and then of course um an efforts to be transparent um and making sure that people can see when we say we're collecting survey data we are actually using it um and here's how I didn't include this in the presentation tonight but we actually have a document internal document that literally says shifts we've made in response to feedback so that because we one of the things was intent versus impact um
045and we'll see that in just a second because we have been monitoring for the last two years how we're doing as a Teaching and Learning Team at getting closer to a culture of collaboration this tool is a tool from the State of Michigan and it's it's a pretty wordy rubric um however I'm going to go through it really quickly. Essentially we've taken this and every year for well for the last two years and prior with had two but we got smarter last year and we've now aligned our language so it says the same thing every year so that we can collect year-over-year trend data um and because we want to know how is the Teacher and Learning Team doing to influence growth for the district as a whole so this tool is then divided down
046into different segments on a survey that we actually just gave last week we allowed the teachers to have some time and space to fill this survey out um last week uh during the early release time and then last year was during a cross district meeting so we have a really good sample size this about on average about 250 um staff respond to this and it's a really nice temperature check internally um in all of these areas what I was really pleased to see and I I need you to know that Friday was the day that they filled it out so I've not done any deep work but when I was thinking about this presentation I thought oh my gosh you should I want you to see how we actually monitor the work that we're doing
047um to guide our own improvement um as a team itself and the processes that we're using so I positioned last year's results to this year's results and by and large we're showing improvement in a culture of collaboration and how MICIP divides it up is in this case Vision to Mission so you'll see at the bottom um 61% was the previous year last academic year and then the second percentage is this year. So we've got 61 to 77% of um us moving in the direction of going towards accomplished and vision vision and mission. For policy and accountability we jump from 70 to 78%. For collaborative routines I was really excited about this because it was previously 65% and up to 83, so this one was feeling for me like okay I can kind of like I
048can start to attach when we dig into this with the Teaching and Learning Team the explicit moves that we're making to the actual results um that teachers are feeling as a part of their practice and the supports they're receiving districtwide. This one in terms of goals reflecting input I'm moving from 67% to 74 % um and then this last one sorry not this last one planning with both district and school perspectives um also improving 65 to 73, and then this is one area that did not show improvement and is still falling uh below 60% which is and I I've used this language with you before is like really worth us interrogating like I'll look forward to sitting down with the members of the Teaching and Learning Team and ultimately the admin team um and looking
049at more closely at what does this data mean where do we think it's coming from while we have some uh well imagine we'll come up with some hunches. It's actually something that because it's now two years year-over year like okay can we maybe we need to actually reask this question and ask what's influencing this um to get a better understanding and then better develop plans to be responsive to the data that we're receiving. So that's the one part of the tool that we use to monitor our success and impact as a Teaching and Learning Team and I felt like it would be um too shallow to just leave it there so I wanted to highlight a handful of things that we do explicitly to hopefully impact positively how our staff feels the overall organization is
050working to support teaching and learning and then of course students being successful in the classroom. So one of the things that we do we lovingly call these our buckets is we use the feedback that we receive from all of these different data points we talk with all of the different stakeholders that I showed you in those different cycles and we develop a professional learning plan and that's typically broken up into buckets based on the calendar that's approved uh by the SEA and the core team and you can see that we have um things like cross district meetings, teacher leader meetings, a symposium, staff meetings, goal meetings, and something that we've been working really hard on um is that these buckets have very clear uh goals and that everybody understands what's expected of them that it's
051aligned to our overall Continuous Improvement Plan um and that the messaging is aligned to policy, practice, vision, um and the work work that we've been doing. So it never feels like, where did this come from? Is it out of left field? So we we see this feedback here's all the different points that we make and then we design the Professional Learning Plan um accordingly. Another move that we've made in the last couple of years is to build out the curriculum review process um this also lives behind the scenes somewhat but similar to the math textbooks today it's a great opportunity in a smaller setting to bring our practitioners together our experts in the different grade levels and content areas um to uh get at some of the the growth areas looking more deeply at the
052data and making really targeted improvements based upon um what they've identified as areas of growth. It also is a great opportunity for us to really scale communication because the people the teacher leaders and the content experts who participate in the curriculum review meetings then are able to take that back to their either the department or grade level meetings and our cross district meetings so that the message that we're giving has a better micro or a better megaphone and that that message is much more consistent because we're using the same materials in the same language across multiple spaces. And the the hope of the curriculum review process is really developing collective efficacy in those four different areas um as well as making sure that we are always uh turning our lens on our diversity, equity, and
053inclusion practices and then of course aligning funding and making good decisions that way um so that we are being fiscally responsible and of course at the end their growing um District understanding actually at the end of year two um and we'll be getting ready to organize year um year's the next round which will start next year which will be um English Language Arts predominantly and Social Studies. Another piece of the puzzle that Teaching and Learning is responsible for is new teacher support so we always want to make sure we've got all of this information around how do we make sure we're on boarding our newest professionals with um Saline expectations and uh and providing them the resources and the supports they need to feel like they can get off to a great start uh the
054Teaching and Learning Team partners on what this best looks like and then Jenn Nelson and Kelly Widman predominantly facilitate the meetings in partnership with members of the Teaching and Learning Team and you can see in the cadence of meetings there I actually pulled this right off of one of their slides that new teachers will new staff will get at the in the summertime is that they have alternated the meetings to target um different uh focus areas to ensure that the um new staff sees us working in partnership together and that there's multiple points um for them to uh receive information see us shoulder-to-shoulder and um be able to revisit it in progressive months. And then finally another move that we make is to host District collaboratives um these are more like the the places where
055uh we've designed our MICIP plan, we have our two major goals the buildings have focused areas, and there's always little um projects or initiatives or focus areas that come up as areas of needs, um so we have taken the feedbacks these come often directly from teacher feedback around things that tend to best pop up as areas of interest a highlight one um of all of these um artificial intelligence obviously is on a lot of people's minds so we convene um small group of staff that actually is just starting this coming Thursday um they have the opportunity to sign up for those we'll get together meeting of the minds and um talk it through and decide what direction we want to go with that just to get a feel for because it's not a primary District
056goal and we also want to honor and value the ideas that staff are bringing to the table as places that they would like to interrogate more closely and the hope is that we are continuing to strive for that culture of collaboration um include a range of diverse perspectives, develop that shared understanding, and of course being transparent um and I shared a little bit about how we go about doing that um whe what happens inside of the collaboratives might start small but there's always some sort of um you know that's the pebble and then you get the rings of collaboration that work their way out and then back in as we get if there is a final decision to be made or a final document um we would take that out to leadership at the different
057levels, then to the teachers leaders and the teachers our district committee members if it's relevant and then back to um finalizing. So I did want to take because I won't see you again up here until I think August when I do the District Quality Report um there are a number of state grants also um right now that are fairly significant that I wanted to share with you because we also shared these with our teachers um in our most recent district update and we do partner uh with the district again that whole circle that cycle of um stakeholders to make decisions about the kinds of um work that we're doing to leverage the grants that are available to us these by no means are the only grants out there but the ones that are most closely
058related to teaching and learning. So right now we have 23g which is MI Kids Back on Track we were awarded my apologies let me go down so I can actually see it approximately $385,000 um and that's really uh that's one of the post-pandemic plea um opportunities for us to leverage funding from the state level to support students who may need additional assistance um with um academic supports to get them to grade level. 31aa is a Safety and Security and Mental Health Grant they actually took two different grants last year and put them together they were separate and that's about $1.2 million the um majority of that money is going toward Mental Health Services. Um so those funds are earmarked to continue those the student support services that we've put in place since the pandemic um
059as well as to continue to fund professional development opportunities um infrastructure updates and more. And then last but not least is 35j uh this is a Targeted Literacy Grant and there's been a lot of talk about this we are actually still we have our budget pending approval at this exact minute and it's going to be about $630,000 and the hope from the state there is that um districts will use those funds to train up all teachers um regardless of their content area um and grade level between K and 5 on the science of reading and literacy uh best practice so that all students have access access to the highest level literacy instruction possible. Um so on the horizon for us I could not help but put in um an eclipse I had to they were
060all too cute so I picked this one. Yes, looking ahead um we are going to more come back to that data the data sets that we have out there we've got the quality survey we've got the teach or the internal certified staff survey plus all the data that's going to be coming in at the end of the year so we'll dig more deeply into that um continuing to work on those plans for strategically leveraging those grants that I just shared with you. Uh we're working on a learning framework that's actually been in the work since 2020 but the pandemic pushed pause on it but it will be um examples of what we mean when we say graduate profile, when we say collaborative leader, when we say being inclusive, um and then defining that a little
061bit better I'm developing technology guidelines to support effective use of instructional technology as well as raise awareness of time on devices that's another thing we have in the works, and then more fully auditing the English Learning Program as aligned with the state requirements and that's why I thought it'd be a nice partnership today um to have Katie here with me to do a presentation on the fabulous English Learner Program all the things that they do for the kids to support them um as well as to have her staff here to go say thank you to all of them for the work they do to support so with that I'm going to turn it over to Katie. Yep Kara thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to present tonight and to our Board of
062Board of Education thank you so much again for this opportunity to be here and to present our Saline Area Schools English Learner Program. So first things first I want to go ahead and just tell you about the mission of our program our program is here to support all English Learners thank you our program is here to support all English Learners and their families by teaching not only the English language but also helping to teach our culture and to bridge the cultures um it's a big part of what we do and right now I want to introduce our EL team we have seven amazing EL Specialist across the district. We have Mrs. Kadrovich Kathy Kadrovich is right back there. Mariel Valdezs is EL Specialist and she's our um one of our professional translators um Spanish/ English and
063we have Mrs. Schamberger who is our EL Tutor at Heritage again thank you very much for coming tonight. We have an amazing team across the district um and we also have an EL Teacher at the High School, Abby Mayo teaches English for EL's and then myself, I'm the EL coordinator and EL Teacher. Over the the past couple of years we but we have presented a couple of professional development trainings, um we've done pres a presentation called Help Save Me: What Do Teachers Need, and then the EL Specialists were um invited and um invited to attend the professional development that was that was held by our Washtenaw County Representatives and it's one was called Implicit Bias and then each EL Specialist and we do call them Specialists um formerly they were called EL Tutors but this
064last year they had a title change to El Specialists across the district. The EL Specialists were required to attend one of the EL Net Meetings and that's um Washtenaw County um wide so they can either go to the ISD or they can attend virtually one of the meetings, and then every year we are gifted with the opportunity to go to the annual MABE conference which is the Michigan Association for Bilingual Education. So tonight I really really want to preface the fact that we have grown a lot over the past 5 years back in 2019 Saline Area Schools had about 91 EL students when I say about I'm sorry I didn't mean it like that we had 91 students and here we are in the year 23-24 school year and we're at about again we're at
065140 um EL students, but even though we've had an increase in numbers of 54% in the past 5 years what's really important to understand to to realize is that we've had 150% increase in Newcomers and Entering Level Learners. Newcomers are students who are brand new to the who are new to the United States new to the culture perhaps new to the language and Entering Level Students are students who come from a family that speaks a native language such as Spanish or um an Indian dialect to Japanese, Korean and they come to Saline Area Schools for the very first time and the children, sweet lovely children young five, kindergarten, first grade they're immersed in the English language for the very first time in their life perhaps never had a play date with an English speaking child
066so lots of great things but we're definitely seeing an increase in that area and that brings me to the diversity within our program. Spanish of course is still the top language in our school district followed by Chinese, then we have Portuguese, Russian, and our Indian dialects, those are the top five languages and then underneath that you can see the other languages that fall. So again the trend here at Saline Area Schools is Newcomers and Entry Level Learners we're seeing um for example the months of January and February all of a sudden just within a couple of weeks we had five five children coming in from three different families entry level, newcomers like okay here we go and we were equipped we knew what to do we have a plan, we have a road map that
067we created with Washtenaw County, with our representative Puja Mullins, who's absolutely amazing EL specialist for um Saline Area Schools so we've created this road map, we knew what to do, we're ready to go. Whereas a year or two years ago we didn't know we we had ideas of what to do with a newcomer but this time around we felt better about it so with that there's a rise in needs in the needs for students. So when you have a newcomer come to our district according to Saline Area Schools Caroline Stout and I sat down and we created a matrix and each student is entitled to about 7 hours of support if they are non-english speakers which equates to at least an hour a day from one of our English Learner Specialists and as you can
068see the Staffing or excuse me the the case loads are increasing so for our EL Specialists to be able to give an hour of the time to each one of those students that's new to the district is a challenge definitely so we're def so we see that increase in needs per student, the growth for EL support time per student has increased, the other trend is Russian Ukrainian population has increased, and then we have of course EL tutoring outside of the school and there's tutoring during the summer we've been gifted second time a row in a row second this is our second year um through the 23g Funds I believe we are be able to provide tutoring support for our students again either one-on-one tutoring or small group tutoring and our EL Specialists we had 5
069EL Specialists 5 out of the 7 that worked last summer to tutor um over 20 some 20 of our English Learners. They did it in person at the library or they did it virtually but those children's needs were met over the summer and the children that were invited to be part of the program were students that were at a intermediate or beginner level in English so advanced level we have a number of students who are at intermediate level and we wanted to make sure that they received all that tutoring support. Again with a growing population of now at 140 we had to choose The Benchmark and The Benchmark is at that 3.0 WIDA score which is around intermediate developing range. So now let's go on to so how else do we support our students not
070we're not just here for academic support. Majority of our time yes we support them academically, but there's a lot of other great things that happen um for our students we are here for after school help we have the EL Tutoring Program, the other support during the day is we have 5 iPads that we purchased for newcomers or non-english speakers, we are able to purchase those with 11t Grant money that's pandemic money we purchased those at the end of last school year um another support for our students is the El summer tutoring program which I've mentioned already, and then there's the digital platform. We have two new platforms Imagine Learning and Imagine Math that we are now able to give to the students again if they have a WIDA 3.0 or below if they're intermediate to
071beginner level learners and they have access to that 24 hours a day and bless their hearts I saw some kids over spring break because we get we are able to monitor the results and so over spring break I saw a couple of kids they were working on at 30- 45 minutes per day it's a yeah imagine Language and Literacy. Imagine Math is mainly used at the High School. One great thing too is our department came together and decided we need to improve the EL at a glance document which is very similar to the IEP document for Special Education we decided we need to do something we've got to step it up and work on that so we did EL at a glance, then we added required accommodations so when the GenEd teacher receives this report
072they're able to see immediately what's expected of the GenEd teacher and what is the student entitled to as far as support in the classroom. What are what are these needs what is what are the needs of this student versus that student each one of our students is unique and they need different accommodations. This year um we've had the pleasure of working with Beth Russo. Beth Russo is our testing coordinator for the District and she has she and I came up with the list of language glossaries and we had other specialists kind of help out help out in this area but now students who need a glossary, those students who are entering level students are newcomers they need a glossary a Korean to English, Russian to English glossary our students are so academically strong in their
073native tongue all they have to do is transfer the knowledge to the English language and they're able to do that now and now it show it'll show as the results will show on M-Step or on the PSAT and so forth so this year we really made it a point to provide those language glossaries that's a really great step. MTSS ELL collaboration and that is with Caroline Stout and I a couple years ago we came up with this the matrix that shows how much time each student is entitled um by the st by the State of Michigan we are required to give 30 minutes per day to each and every EL student even if they are close to graduating the EL program they're still entitled to at least 30 minutes of support. So Caroline and I
074came up with a schedule and her MTSS team follows that as well as we look at um increasing supports or possibly decreasing supports. And going forward for next year is the 24-25 El service plan that the State of Michigan has confirmed and they would like to see us working toward that looking at using some of those resources if you when you get a second sometime tomorrow or whenever you are able to access this slideshow slide again um just click on that it shows all the resources and service hours that we're supposed to be providing we're doing a great job in Saline, but we always could use more support with our um staffing so we can get this students even more. Last but not least is supports for our English Learner families we have registration support
075now for non-english-speaking families I say now but we've been doing it but now we've kind of stepped up stepped up a notch um registration support is simple things like a family that's non-english speaking they I get contacted by Mandy Rucky or um our other I'm sorry Mandy Rucky or Sarahanne in registration they email me and they tell me we have a non-english-speaking family can you please help them get the child registered so we do that in May we're working on um hosting tables at kindergarten and young five round up. Next thing is Talking Point Communication Tool we're working on we use that now as well as email and the old-fashioned phone call to connect with our families phone calls work really well but talking points has been really great as well really good resource. Third
076so the district has approved home visits last year we did about five home visits this year we've done a couple of home visits that's helped to bridge that gap between home and school it's been a real pleasure to be able to meet with the families there in their home to discuss academic concerns, discuss any issues that they might have, or just anything that pertains to school in America. Some of our family um engagement events that we've done so for the second second year in a row we've done it we have gone to the apple orchard as an outing, Literacy Night at Imagine Movie Theater, we think I think we've had this is our 5th year of the annual International Potluck, and that was we pulled it off this year with a lot of support lots
077of donations. Last year with our 11t Grant money we were able to um take the kids on a field trip to the Toledo Zoo and the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum and we have um of course now 24-hour access to Imagine Learning and Imagine Math for our all of our students and then we have um the EL Collaboration Family Resources this was a document put together by Washtenaw County um led by Puja Mullins and it if when you click on that again in your spare time you'll see so several different tabs and each tab says at the bottom of the tab it'll say things like um home res or it'll say financial resources or resources for um Medical Care, Resources for home housing, d da da so it's all like social service resources, and that
078in our department what we do is we connect we connect the families to the people. We have a lot of Spanish speaking Representatives that work for wash health plan so we connect them we just say hey Adriana Salazar could you connect with this family they're new to this to our school district we're trying to register their child they need health insurance. So that's what we do we just we connect the families and last but not least but our plans for next year 24-25 school year we are planning to not just planning but we're we're doing it the EL Parent University night for the very first time and that's it so thank you than you again very much thank you for the opportunity. Well we may have a question or two from the crowd Well we'll
079start with Dr Gold at one end I have a few questions too, but thank you very much by the way if we neglect to say that I don't want to neglect to say that thank you. Dr Gold. Thank you. Yeah thank you for that excellent presentation I was wondering if we have any um outcomes for our EL Learners over time. Like you know how how are they doing? Like how I I I don't know what measures there are I don't know all the lingo of the measures but how are the kids doing? How are they getting integrated? How are the families doing? What what outcomes do we have? So first one how are the students doing so as far as um them exiting the program um academically speaking we on average our students exit the
080program in about five years we've had students that exit in within 3 years but 5 years um and then if we need more support let's say some teacher consultant support it could take up to six or seven years. How are the students doing though socially emotionally and feel feeling more included. Our staff our GenEd staff is doing an an awesome job including the students um as far as like the DEI movement CRI uh Diversity Equity Inclusion Movement, Culturally Responsive Movement that has been awesome across the district I know Pleasant Ridge did amazing job this year the winter holidays if you were able to go over there they had tables set up with several different types of holiday celebrations across the board so that went really well um families do feel more included um thank you
081for allowing all of our field trips for helping out with 11t Grant money being able to provide all these resources has been great. Um so little things like that really help the families feel more a part of the community yeah. And then on a District level um it is on our we talked about this at our our last Continuous Improvement Update where uh Caroline and Jenn we're both here along with Beth Russo is disaggregating the g the data by students who are in the EL program and our Special Ed because a lot of the bar graphs that we share often not then tracking those year-over-year we're showing them in one year increments um and with the addition of Ryan Kerr our DEI Specialist that will be one of the tasks that I've talked to him
082about taking on so that we can then dial down and see like what are we seeing in terms of growth um or areas of ongoing need by by social identity or cultural identity. Go ahead. Um so um I you were talking about earlier um the case case loads um increasing and um the number um of uh families and students entering our district um which I think is great and that you're um you know the things that you all are doing um to strengthen the program and um sounds pretty exciting um so I was just kind of looking at the numbers and um I believe like Harvest had like a huge increase um so I I was wondering if like the case loads if you are moving any of the families like to different um buildings
083or how you're navigating that is it just staff members kind of going to different buildings. Yeah thank you for asking ask in and you know and noticing too like the increase in student enrollment um Harvest has you know it continued to increase in the EL population, this year it went down a little bit, Pleasant Ridge increased, and then Woodland Meadows increased slightly. So what are we doing for all this there a lot of those kids went over to Heritage and Heritage went up it almost, it doubled in size we're at about 28 ELs so we had the pleasure of Mrs. Zbikowski Angie Zbikowski she's our EL Specialist at Woodland Meadows and she over to Heritage to support those students and support um Mrs. Schamberger. I have to credit Katie with um constantly rematrixing to be
084responsive to student needs um and making sure that we have the supports and we've made some adjustments our District level as the EL coordinator Katie really is centering students first and um if we need to shift some of her responsibilities in order to meet the needs of the students while we're we're in current audit of what our next steps are um we've made some moves in that way too. Thank you. I just have one quick question with regards to Kara's part of the presentation and support for new teachers. Are you pairing those new teachers with um teacher mentors within their building or other buildings? Yep contractually um all new certified staff are um given a mentor assigned a mentor at the beginning of the year um and that we do our best to pair them
085with a person who'll be an appropriate mentor for them within a similar space and content and grade level area. Okay awesome. When you mentioned coaching in the upper right hand corner is that coaching coming from that mentor? No it's actually an addition to and it was in my notes I didn't say it out loud so Jenn and Kelly in order to differentiate because it um in our in Saline our coaching model is really more of a consulting model and we have a coach and a half um to provide that um additional differentiated support for new teachers um and the staff at large so it's for the entire district and so when we um have uh new higher classes they will work with Kevin, Monica uh the Teaching and Learning Team and to determine what kinds
086of needs are there get some feedback from the new teachers uh also with Carol Diglio um the HR Director and then differentiate um those needs based upon the populations like right now they currently meet with a small group of Heritage because we have a pocket of new teachers there um they've done some individual coaching based on teacher goals uh with other staff members to ensure that everybody's kind of getting out what they need model with the resources that we have. Thank you. You're welcome. As we work down the table I guess I do have a quick question question um your your the training for our teachers um I discovered recently Talking Point, which is great so in a nutshell it'll take information out to parents and translate into the language of their their needs and
087uh is there much training needed or required for Imagine Language and Imagine Math and are all your teachers trained in that? Thank you that's a good question no um well first all the Talking Points communication tool that has been very helpful and because it comes out as a message right it's like a text message to the parents which most of our parents appreciate that um a lot of our parents are not comfortable with emails so we have to teach them that piece right so Talking Points has been very popular with our parents. Second as far as getting trained for Imagine Language and Literacy and Math are EL Specialists those who are using it yes you know they've gone through some training and so forth but staff has not as far as um Certified GenEd staff
088they have not received training in it yet. All right thank you I appreciate that. I did have another question about our Ukrainian students I'm assuming they're doing all right I I don't want to put anyone on the spot but I mean with that particular population we're talking trauma informed instruction and other. As far as our Ukrainian population refugees we could use more Social Emotional Support at Heritage um and just thinking forward to um if you know we start receiving more families yeah we have really great success stories as well as with our Ukrainian families and how they have acclimated to the community and become not only just part of it but actually looking for opportunities to work within the District yeah. Thank you. Move that on the table thanks Jenny. I um wanted to give
089an opportunity you mentioned Kathy but could you um share your colleagues who are here tonight that are not the microphone I just would like to recognize them because I know the hard work that they do too. Yes thank you Mrs Miller. Um yes we have Taña Huyck she's our EL Specialist at the High School. Taña Huyck has been with us for over 17, 18 years, and we have um Annette Blank she's our Middle School EL Specialist and she's been the specialist there for 20...28 years and then we also have Floriana Salanta and she's at Harvest Elementary. She's been with us for over 16 years and then we have Angie Zbikowski who's been with us for about three years now so thank you. And of course our EL Specialists who are presented Mrs. Kadrovich so there's Kathy
090Kadrovich, Mariel Valdes, and we have Kathy Schamberger as well and then at the High School is Abby Mayo the EL teacher. Okay thank you I I knew you were here and I I always love it when you come and update us and share with us some of the good work that's happening but I know that your team is large so I wanted to recognize them also. Um so thank you for the presentation tonight and I'm really excited to see the positive I mean you've done so much this year I can see with your team the development of the work that you've done um and I I would love to see the metrics like Lauren um had mentioned but I also believe that based on um observing what's been happening in the schools and in the
091community when we come to our visits and um Steve and Kara both point out things and and you can see the evidence of the success of the program so thank you so much. Um I also just wanted to highlight the new teacher support that that you've developed and I know it continues to develop over time but I really appreciate the thread of support that happens throughout the year because when new teachers are hired sometimes late in August sometimes even in September um it is a lot to take on so um the work that you kind of do to wrap them up in um support throughout the entire first year um I think uh is is um an exemplary model for other districts to follow so thank you for that support. Thank you and I'll be
092sure to share that with Jen and Kelly too. All right uh I'll try to be be efficient here uh so I already kind of asked my question to you uh Miss Davis and and I appreciate that the the question I asked her was I asked her about how we utilize points of data to to drive change and drive instruction and and that kind of thing and I I would just want you to know how much I appreciate the fact that you incorporated so much of that information um in a crazy thorough presentation you just gave so thank you for that okay um, and I guess part of the reason why I said that was because I sometimes will get people in the community who will say things to me like you're you're surveying us again,
093you know or you're giving us the a survey you're yeah and you know they get this I like this past Friday right I got a couple of texts and we use this data right like so I guess what I'm saying is that when you take the time if anybody's out there in listener land when you do you know we uh we do take this data and we have incredible people who who these are this is what they do these are their expertises and and so I I just want to reiterate that and I want to say how much I appreciate the fact that that was incorporate. You're very welcome and it it is such a part of it that I wanted to make sure to reinforce that tonight uh because we do appreciate the time
094to the community for taking the the different quality survey the perceptions of exper survey the individual surveys from building principles and then of course our staff too who tend to get all of those things um and then multiple buildings you just add it up I know it feels like a lot but we do really value your input and hope to use it in the decision- making process. And a and I as a board member am pleased to hear that we do because I value the community support we have and all the things that they provide for us so anyway so so that's awesome. Uh Miss O'keeffe I I so I I'm interested about this increase in in numbers and when you have a community events do they tell you what is making them to Saline?
095Like what is driving interest to our District? Is a school of choice? Is it I mean people from Ukraine are coming here. How do they even know about us? Oh my, so no I have I have I've definitely asked that question how did you choose Saline especially to you know just currently we had um some families come in a family come from South Korea and they chose it one because of because the hou of housing, however so that was that family it was a housing related issue. On a super positive note though our family that just came from Russia um and their entry level students um they chose Saline they had the choice between Ann Arbor and Saline and they wanted Saline. So they liked it here. They felt more comfortable here and I mean it's
096super exciting when I talked with them over the phone had that first initial Zoom call so that's another thing that we do too we survey the families when we find out that they're coming even while they're working on registering I'll call them and say okay I'd like to to start talking with you and asking you questions about your child's language background and um what they enjoy yeah you know even that little initial piece kind of helps them to decide to come to Saline so. Katie is Katie has being incredibly humble I have received multiple points of feedback that the welcoming environment that she creates when families call is what helps them decide to come here and by demonstrating what wonderful resources we have with the teams that we have in place as well as the
097the culture and the building and those are direct conversations when I go to the family events like the international dinners and the breakfast and they tell me like when we came here she picks up the phone she has the conversation she makes the time in the space to really make them feel welcome alongside of her team members um and other districts don't necessarily do that so. And I hear that and I think about how incredible our staff is of course and then I also think about students and enrollment and the you know and then how that pieces together with our financial piece and and so it's the chair like anyway so thank you for having such an incredible program that it is attractive to um and and thank you for for building it and doing
098this. Yeah we can't forget how how great we have I mean how our EL Specialists have really like created the team they're the ones they are the foundation to all of this so I really appreciate it and half the team is here so. I I don't have much but um couple things so kind of like what Kara just said um going through the whole presentation it it it appears that it's more than just about education for these family it's it's the whole family in community so I think that that's really appreciative and I think that's great. Then I also really like the idea of the document you created for the Required Accommodations and EL at a Glance I think that's a really good idea for these uh teachers to have that so thank you Um
099first I say like with the new teacher policies and stuff I I'm blanking on the new business teacher's name but Mailloux yeah Ms. Miss Mailloux who came in like third try I've I had had him I had Mr Brehmer before and from like friends and other people um who have him now he said that like he's he's more comfortable now he's having they're really liking him so that's super amazing and thank you to the EL team for like integrating all the um non-english speaking people into the community and that's super cool yeah thank you. Yeah I also want to speak on the EL Learners um it's been really cool cool to work with them in AP Spanish and hearing from them I recently took the Seal of Biliteracy with a couple of them so it
100was super cool to see um them and like kind of work together especially in that class so that was really unique. High praise indeed. Thank you. I don't think we have any more questions but if we do we'll I'm sure we will send them along to you. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you for the time. We have um some dis could you oh doesn't matter we have a few discussions I am going to hand the mic symbolically over to a facilitator Jenny Miller who is chair of the Policy Committee to discuss four um uh first readings of uh policy updates and changes ladies are you ready? Fantastic. Okay so if you let me see if I can get this closer if you are looking at the packet that Betty
101sent to us online it is we're beginning with uh page 16 of the packet. Um I'm using that packet rather than um what I've done in the past with pulling up the individual policy so that I'm sure we're looking at the same thing okay so uh these are these were both um or all of these were um discussed during our uh report last at our last meeting um and so I just want to reiterate a a couple of things so first of all with Policy 5113 School of Choice Program um we're revising just some language um as uh suggested by Steve um to update that Policy and also so that it's in alignment with um with current law. Um should we should we pause at each one. That might work for if anyone has any
102specific questions. Let's talk about that policy so this policy if you wanted to see the red and green changes is on page 17 of the packet I got new contacts today and I am feeling a little like dizzy so um I'm enlarging my screen too so go ahead yes all right uh any questions or comments about Policy um 5113. Okay then we will move on to um the next policy is Policy 8300 and this is um Continuity of Organizational Operation Plan and if you look back again at that page 16 there's just a brief overview of this policy so this is new to us, but it was original to Neola in um 2021 and um it's it's sometimes referred to as the COOP plan which is the acronym for um Continuity of Operations Plan so
103this is um this requires uh this is required to be added to our board policies it is related to school safety , partnership with law enforcement designated it includes the designated District liaison and required reporting, and threat assessments. Which we recently heard about from the team um at one of our board reports. Any questions on policy 8300? Okay moving on um Policy 0141 Student Body Representatives this was a change that was requested by Vice president Steben to allow our practice that changed this year of including more than one representative so with the option of having two student representatives so it doesn't mean that we will always have two but it opens it up to having an option to have two and uh there's a note there that the scholarship fund is um allocated appropriately when
104there are two. Any questions on that policy? I I just want to note that um a couple years back when Tim was president you did not actively engage in looking for the uh no and uh I was not not I was just a little surprised but uh pleasantly surprised let me say that the board president has taken on that role as well you started it. Uh I'm sorry wasn't actively looking for I don't understand? Oh I'm sorry. We're at the uh the interview of you didn't actively look for or sat down with the principal of the high school to look for. There was there was just an application process and then the superintendent and the principal. And the names were presented to you okay? No, they they picked the person. Well yeah I get it
105they picked a person and that person, yes, and you were informed. So and then Vice President Steben when she was President started actively engage with it and I did it as well and if anyone has any concerns about that I just want to say it's an excellent opportunity I think it's a very very good opportunity for the Board President to be uh involved with the selection right from the beginning, so uh thank you for adding that part uh sort of adding a new duty to the Board President but I appreciate that it's a. Yeah so I I I definitely agree obviously because I was involved with it um but I think it's I think it's important to also note how involved the Principal is at the High School as well so both David and Theresa were
106actively engaged as a um precursor to the application so before the Superintendent and I went over there um it had been fully vetted so they're very involved as well or. And and I like the idea that the President is involved. No I agree, this particular update though is just a revision to the language um the number of student option so one or two students. There was that and there was the addition of the Board President but that's that's great. Oh sorry that was not in the notes at the top yep that's fine thanks. Thank You. Um and that was requested by uh Vice President Steben so thank you thank you. I've got nothing more to add. Okay okay moving to Policy 6152 Student Fees, Fines, and Supplies so this is a new to us policy
107it was original in um 2004 with revisions in 2021 this was requested specifically by Assistant Superintendent Owsley because uh the purpose of this policy is to be consistent with the District's preferred method of payment which is currently RevTrak um and so this policy um allows for that consistency. Any questions around um 6152? Okay oh go ahead so um this Policy was brought um to the Board in December um 2021 um and I'm trying to to remember I'm kind of looking back on the minutes right now um I'm not sure if it was pulled um or if we adopted it so I I um because we did go over it do you recall because you you became Pres or. I I do recall so okay if I can illustrate a or add add a little light to
108that um we from the Policy Committee we pulled us out because we wanted to verify and check with with Miranda Owsley, who was not part of the Policy Committee, about this whole um uh student fees etc and it also seemed I'm not sure if it was redundant or not but I I just I ran it past um uh Miranda Owsley and she didn't see any issue with it whatsoever and so at that point I was no longer on the Policy or no longer Chair of the Policy and I it just floated off down the river and I'm not sure but we we need to uh I I appreciate that it's coming back for a final vote, final discussion. So we are. That was my memory of it and that's and it may be cloudy but.
109So I am I am starting to think about um the transition of Policy Chair and how how that works because this is now not the first time that things have kind of been lost in that transition so trying to um trying to update the practice so that that doesn't happen but one of the things that we are changing is that any changes that are made to Policy are happening on Betty's computer with the Neola platform so when we're in the meeting instead of having multiple documents running um Betty will have the Neola platform up and she can make the red and green changes for us on a single platform instead of multiple. So that's one of the ways that we're hoping to streamline um some of the discussions and revisions that are happening um that
110then get lost in someone's Google Drive. So we're we are starting to think about that transition and how that might work so that we don't have items that don't carry over from December to January when new people are assigned a committee. And I appreciate that. Yeah I had in my notes um I think moving forward when it switched to McVey's as Chair that we had passed it but yeah looking looking over the minutes um it was pulled that December 14th Meeting to go back to the Board which yeah like what you explain so thanks. Okay so any other questions on that Policy 6152 or any others this evening? Just a note uh since there are no comments on these does this mean we would be able to pop this into the consent agenda for the
111next meeting I think I'm just seeking clarification on that process. I don't think. We need to have another full discussion and... Because these are because these are not Neola updates it has to go to a second reading of the board um and then a vote. So it could be an action action item. It can be an action item. Yep. That's correct so not consent but what. Action. Right Cue. Great. Well thank you very much am I taking the mic back? Um yes I'll save my other comments for my board update. All right and I will pass the mic over now to uh Brad Gerbe for a quick update from the finance committee please and thank you. Yeah Finance Team met today at five o'clock we had a couple things on our agenda and what have you
112I'll cover them quickly um we talked about we started off talking about sometimes we get FOIA requests that have a financial component to them and so we talked about some of those things and and I'm we're comfortable with how we're handling those and we have people that are are doing those things those are important things for our you know community and being transparent and all that so that was the first thing that we we just discussed to make sure about. Um number two we talked about enrollment numbers and uh we talked about the fact that um the enrollment you know and the impact has in our budget now what you should know is and I even have to remind myself about this every time is that the spring count is 10% of our FTE for
113next year right so they do a 90/10 blend but it's based upon your spring count the previous year and your fall of the like so like what it really does is we talked about how like we use this number and our number this year is a 30 FTE reduction okay so that was the number that that we realized okay for our count in the spring. Is that it really informs more our overall budgeting process when we are making projections about enrollment for the 24-25 school year so so we do that and then we can currently look at and we talked about this a little bit too is we look at okay now how many learners are we going to be taking into the District and we we try to get as much information about that
114as we can uh whether it's through having you know you could drive by and see the signs around the school you could you know Kindergarten Roundups we try to make the best um decisions we can based upon you know what we can find out about how many students we're going to have enter our school and how many are going to graduate right and we're always trying to figure that out because student count times you know um per pupil allow allowance is is how we it's our primary funding source. So anyway so we had a conversation about that because it's important to look at our budgeting and be mind ful of that going forward and I appreciate Miss Owsley's uh diligence to that process and you know and we and we're conservative about that process we
115always have said we would because we'd always like to be in a in a position where we can uh you know be proud of of the things we're doing and speaking of which I'm I'm I am going to say this because I've I've heard such you know we've I've heard things as the Finance Chair in the past month and uh I am incredibly proud I say this every time and thankful for the team but I am particularly proud and thankful for for um Assistant Superintendent Owlsey and how how on top of things she is like for example one time pass through money right like it was it's a significant thing but if we don't account for it and we don't have it directly in our purview and in our view all the time we you
116know anyway I guess what I'm saying is she's on top of that she's on top of the one time money so that we don't make sustained budget decisions that have structural implications and Dr Laatsch has a lot to do with that too but I think he would give away that uh that thanks to her as well I think he'd be comfortable that appreciation going her way but it should goes yours too. Um so the so we talked about that um we talked about IT purchases there were two you know large ones and so we wanted to to talk about those things and how cool is it that we get to do some of these really neat projects with the grants and the bonds and the things that are you know our our District is being
117really diligent about applying for things and is partnering with the community and because of that we get to do these things so it I'm I'm I'm excited that our schools are safer things of that that nature. Ongoing work for us there are two things that are ongoing work for us number one we still have a a goal of right sizing and and doing some budget things that we need to do to to be stewards of our of of finance and I could tell you that the team is on that and then the second thing is is we are continuing to have ongoing conversations about early childhood I told you and budget implications and some of the things that come up with um staffing ratios and and some of those kinds of things and how do
118we partner with you know our Community Ed Department and some of those things to to make sure that we're getting those students and we're capturing them in as our youngest learners so that's ongoing work for us and and again Dr. Laatsch is having conversations with legislators conversations with other districts and how they're doing it and talking to people in our departments like one of the cool things that we do is we do have Community Ed under the umbrella of our school district so we work hand in hand together and so I think that that's a a really a positive thing for our school um and those are the five things that we discussed. Well thank you very much. I have a question. Oh yes go ahead. So can you go back you said you talked
119about FOIA updates sure yep we did you talk about financial piece of it or yeah we we we tend to I mean we're the Finance Department or Finance Chair, Finance Team so yeah we focused more on the FOIA side of there could be things that people ask us about that have a financial component how much money what is this person's salary or what is the in you know how much did you spend on this particular program and that kind of thing and it's more just about like making one sure that we're transparent with our community but also being stewards of okay when we receive a FOIA request how do we do that well you know Miss Jahnke's you know on top of these things as our FOIA Coordinator and then she delegates and says okay
120and we find there's a process you have to go through to make sure that if um if somebody asks us for information well there's a redaction process that can happen to for for um FERPA protections and those kinds of things and so we we we focused more on that and not necessarily like I don't I don't need to pass judgment on the FOIAs themselves so I guess that's does that answer it. Yeah I mean it's good to I think um have that information especially when stuff gets put out in the community and you're not even you know aware of it I think that's um important communication and I'm glad that there's going to be a more solidified process with that um but yeah that's helpful whether it's you know Finance, Policy or just in general
121um that that we are informed of that and um okay thank you. And we're and we're still I'm not sure if you just mentioned this or not we're still working on clarifying that that process not every FOIA that's requested and we send the bill to the person the member of the community and they sometimes say I'm not interested anymore and so we're trying to follow just to keep a simple simple note with no details it was fulfilled or not fulfilled and. Correct. That was it because otherwise we think we I was under the assumption that every one of those FOIAs went out to a person in the community but they don't always they sometimes they just requested and then they change their mind and that's fine at once they see how much the cost is
122so. Yeah and the public has access to any um FOIA requests that are made and received um people can request to have those materials as well. And there are also FOIAs about FOIA. Yep. Yep. Well and sometimes it's people like seeking information that's already readily available through our website or readily available through a report that we gave but they just weren't at the Board Meeting tonight you know like so there are just things that also we can just simply give information to people that so sometimes that's happened too. Yeah and and Board Members shouldn't have to FOIA a FOIA as well. So thank you. I'm good unless there are other questions? I'd like to uh move on to Administration and Board updates now Ben as on standby we're going to start with Dr. Laatsch and
123then begin at the end of the table apparently it's easier for the camera operator to follow us if we follow a sequence and gonna to start with Dr. Laatsch and then skip on over to our Student Representatives thank you. Okay I will begin I have five uh positive updates the first one is uh with President McVey President McVey is one of you did something good um you're one of eight trustees in the state this time around to um complete and receive the Level 7 Presidents Award Recognition with which means President McVey completed levels 1 through 6 total of 29 advanced classes and a minimum of 1,383 education credits so that's very impressive and appreciate that ongoing professional development. The second one is for Athletic Director Ashley Mantha she um received the National Interscholastic Athletic Administration
124Association Certified Athletic Administrator Endorsement that's a mouthful uh and that means she completed five courses focusing on athletic administration skills and passed an exam to receive that credential so well done Athletic Director Mantha. Also uh just published on MLive this came out today and I'll share it in the board update on Friday because it's a subscriber only article but I copied and pasted it so you could read it um anyway so it's 4 Michigan teens invent Sitter Upper for seniors and this will showcase their work at MIT this is the EMU Invent Group that um we spoke about earlier and we have two students on this team Suhani Dalela who is our team lead and a senior at Saline High School and Alice Jang, Communications Director she's a junior at the High School and in
125short they're putting together this invention to help seniors sit up which is a big deal to get out of bed and get out of a chair I I know because of my mom to be completely honest and they're going to MIT this summer they're one of eight one of seven teams in the US um competing to showcase their invention so uh send you the article it's really good and it really it really puts a not only Saline in a good light but how they're working with other kids from other high schools around the area. So it's just really really neat news, uh and then wishing the following teams luck coming up the SHS Ethics Bowl team is in Chapel Hill North Carolina coming up April 12th through the 14th trying to bring home a National
126Championship and then we also have the Heritage and Saline Middle School Robotics Teams in Houston Texas on April ail 16th and they're seeking a World Championship so uh good luck to all of those teams. Moving over to our Student Representatives Caroline Clark. I have two updates first of all congrats to the Youth Council and Student Government at the High School they had a really cool lunchin with Congresswoman Dingle and they had really great conversation that they came back to tell us about. Also me, Mr Gumenick, and team of volunteers are working during Hornet Time April 24th for voters registration um it's really cool we get to work with the League of Women Voters. So we're in the planning process of that to help high schoolers uh learn how to register to vote so yeah. And
127I just want to say um hope everyone had a fun and relaxing spring break and to all the Juniors good luck on this week for testing their taking the M-Step, SAT, and ACT Work Keys this week so that's a lot but they'll definitely do good and good luck with that and with spring sports starting now it's also super exciting to go support the like women's soccer team, lacrosse teams, and baseball teams and with the construction going on at the High School it's super cool to see the bond money and everything getting put into place finally and the High School's done a great job with moving the front office to the auditorium side and it hasn't messed anybody up with anyone I've talked to so that's also super cool and lastly we thank on all the
128students thank the school for getting us the solar eclipse glasses. Cuz like yesterday when everyone was trying to leave everyone just was just turning around and looking at the sun with them so that was cool thank you yeah. Don't have a ton but I um and I don't really like to talk about my child much here but I I think it impacts the school too so we were at Michigan State University Admitted Students Day uh on Saturday and so he's going to my my son's going into engineering mechanical or maybe computer science and so going through the um in in into the engineering department and just him interacting with the staff in the computer science and knowing what they're teaching in the 300 level classes it it's just a testament um all the CIM classes
129that he's taken and knowing all the different lays and all the different things that we have to offer here it was really impressive and I think the this the teachers were really impressed with the knowledge that these at least our Saline kids are coming in with so that was pretty good. Um all right so I have a few items number one um so with regards to you know like I want to thanks uh the coaches and the people that are getting our teams and teams and everybody out there doing things you know like I I got an email from Coach Stafford the other day and Middle School Track and she's like we have 205 track athletes and I just think about the assistant coaches with her, the equipment the coordination, the processing like how how
130cool is all that and that our kids have that that many kids get a chance to do something right and and be involved and I know it's not just Track it's all these other items but like I'm really proud of all the things we offer for kids. Right and anyway so that is that. I want to reiterate about testing today exhausting right so every Junior who went through SAT and everybody else like uh to the Juniors out there it does get better the next two days I swear M-Steps and Work Keys and all that are it's nowhere near SAT. So uh I want to recognize I I I was reading about the fact that like there it was we had Para Professionals Day and we also had School Librarians Day and I would call them
131literacy champions day but like long story short like thank you to those individuals for the work they do um in our schools. The next thing I would talk about is you know I already reiterated about data and climate surveys and all of that I that data is important please fill those things out. Choir I want to thank them for for for singing tonight and and for all of that and thank you for visiting my house and caroling in in the winter and I that was just awesome um for the good of the team April 25th uh there is a Prohibited Language Professional Development being offered at the WISD which with Trun and um my own child has a has a Track Meet at Bedford and if I'm his only source of transport I'm trying to
132figure it out because it does seem like it's going to be something important for us to be on top of this prohibitive language stuff is gonna or prohibited language and the bargaining that goes along with that is going to be essential to us to be on top of that so um again that's April 25th I the time is evading me but um 6 PM so um I am trying to get there as the Finance Chair, I'm telling you that right now to the team uh but I want the team to know in case there are other people who could attend and that would be good. Let's see and then the last thing I would say and I'm going to try to say this quickly is you know I was at at dinner last night
133my kid asks me, dad what do you what do you do like what does a board member do right like my kid asks me that I did dinner last night right and uh I just think about this meeting and I can't take credit for like any of the work that gets done right but what I can say is this like if you look at this meeting we had incredible programs with our our choir and our hockey team and those they're doing great things and they're achieving at a high level and then I think about like the Teaching and Learning presentation that we had and how on top of things we are with regards to data and English Language Learners and and so I think about that and I think about we talked about professional development
134and first year teachers and so like I guess what I would say to you just to keep it kind of short is that like we hired one of a superintendent who is on top of having an incredible teaching and learning team and incredible staff members who are doing incredible things for in leadership and in our buildings and so anyway long story short like what Graham what do we do well we did everything that we did tonight we talked about bond money, we talked about curriculum adoption, we talked about teaching, an update finance policy, diverse learners, like I'm I'm proud of what we do anyway so so that is that and I've talked for long enough and uh appreciate good. And if you want to learn more about what it takes to become a board member
135Mr. President McVey is going to tell you more about it. Okay so uh that commercial I want to just begin by saying on April 1 our first day back from break um uh Superintendent Laatch and um Betty Janhke and myself met with Melody Strang from Neola to get um legal alerts and um policy updates so none of them are um are critical in nature um in terms of timing and so we are holding those until our May meeting. So for those of you who um are keeping track of the calendar we met twice in March we are not meeting in April um part in part because our meeting is scheduled was scheduled during um Passover and so we want to allow for um our trustees who observe Passover to um observe that that evening instead
136of being at a Policy Meeting and so happy Passover and uh I do we say happy Passover I mean it's kind of it's a celebration yeah yeah okay I was like I don't know it's kind of a I mean we're happy that people that it was Passover yes okay so um I know what it means but I also know like it's kind of a little bit yeah anyway so happy Passover later this month. So we are not meeting in April so the Neola legal alerts and policy updates will be on our agenda in May so we can look forward to those. I also wanted to say to Caroline um two of your students will be turning 18 on the 24th so you can register them on their birthday so the twins will be uh prime
137for for registering that day so I will make sure that they find you and Mr. Gumenick that will be kind of special that you get to do it for them. I just also wanted to say uh thank you to um the choir um I had a student Otto Spitler who was here tonight. Thank you to the hockey team Jack Boyle and Blake Woodrel were also in my class and um loved seeing them tonight I didn't recognize Jack at first wow um or Otto actually and I think they were in the same class um I wanted to say um because I believe it is sundown there's no window in here but I believe it is sundown so um to our friends who um celebrate Eid Mubarak um and uh tonight wraps up uh ra Ramadan and
138I know many are celebrating tonight um also wanted to just say that April is Ar Arab American Heritage Month so some of our um community members who identify as Arab-American are celebrating some are not um and so uh but just excited to um to hear feedback from families who uh were happily recognized on our social media post so thank you to Jackie for that. I also wanted to say that um I was really excited to see Pleasant Ridge come and be celebrated tonight too in the work that the students are doing and how um how at such a young age they really are um embodying the uh points of the compass and we able to demonstrate that here for us tonight and our are able to be leaders in their building demonstrating that to to
139new students and to families and to people in our community. Lastly I wanted to say that April is also the Month of the Young Child um and I have an early childhood endorsement so that's been something that I've celebrated for a number of years but this morning um it was Illustrated to me and I laughed about it a little bit because um I was holding my coffee and I wore white today and I never wear white because I work in an elementary school and a young five student excitedly came over to me and hugged me and I wore my coffee on my white shirt for the rest of the day and it just Illustrated and reminded me of the work that our young fives and our early childhood teachers do and so um whether you
140were wearing your coffee today or a marker or um a handprint from someone's paint um the work that you're doing is really setting the foundation for our our youngest Hornets and it's appreciated it so thank you. And now you have a lovely beige shirt wonderful. I just wanted to two items to note uh one is I presented last week at the Annual Conference of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development ASCD in Washington DC to share examples of how effective school boards uh including this one believe it or not uh across the nation have found unique and powerful ways to uh engage with their communities and uh as as a what are you you now? Secretary. Secretary Miller said I will be presenting an information session uh for the community interested in how to run
141for the Saline Area Schools Board of Education the dates are next Tuesday evening April 16th at 7:00 p.m. and also Tuesday April 30th the same time. It'll be held at the Saline District Library just turn right as you go in the doors and uh the Brecon Room and um the ser this is a service provided traditionally by members of the board who are not uh running or not rolling off. Uh and uh eight years ago Former Board President Paul Hynek gave me the the quick walk through and I got to say it was very very helpful and uh I don't think it it convinced me to run but uh uh it certainly helped uh allay some confusions I had and and answered a number of the most pressing questions right off the bat. So uh
142thank you that's it I'll pass it on to you. Um I had two quick things so the first thing I would say is I looked at the clock and for over 30 minutes I had a huge smile on my face and that is one heck of a way to start a board meeting I saw all of you did and the parents and kids um if I could give every Pleasant Ridge student a high five I would um because they really lived their uh high performing team principles over on the Ridge. The choir was so fantastic and I really appreciate them coming to sing for us and I recognize so many people from Beauty and the Beast um such talented students and I'm glad to hear about a few of them going on to um pursue
143their dreams in music and and keep going on with that. Um and hockey I you know what it's a toss up for me what team at Saline High School has the best hair it's it's like it kind of vacillates I don't know the hoc the hockey the hockey showing was very strong so um but it's nice to see your your teammates and and and recognize them um so that was very cool. One thing that I get to do working at the University of Michigan and is I get to see former Hornets which is very cool um so when I can I take them to lunch or I get them coffee and have a conversation and see how they're doing. I got to do that this week with a current Junior um he is LSA
144and Ross cross um and uh son of a friend and it was so great to hear him really um embracing all of the opportunities that we have um and get some advice from him I said you know tell me about you know a few years out reflecting on his experience and um I really appreciated him sharing with me uh and I got to show him around my space and and he got to tell me about what he had coming up and we already have um something that we might be able to collaborate on. So I think it's so important to keep in touch with former students and see how we can continue to best serve them as board members so that was really fulfilling for me thanks. Okay um so um it's just we haven't
145met in so long so I'm like tracking back like the the meetings that um I attended in towards the end of March um one of those meetings uh was the SEAB Sex Ed Advisory Board um and um uh Trustee Gold was was there as well um but uh they started looking at different um options um looking at curriculum um and weighing those options um so each individual person's kind of going through all of those um and and so um you know we got to hear all that and get that information so that was good um the next meeting is April 25th. The DEIAC meeting was March 20th um and there was a uh working meeting um with in which the input on the guidelines on the Transgender Non-binary Students Policy um was given um we
146had uh community group and um invited student uh orgs um and continuing to have uh they're continuing to have those um conversations um and in the room there was small groups um got to hear from experiences from students, uh staff, and families um who um are navigating the policy um navigating their own experiences and getting feedback of um what is lacking um and needs to be improved and and so I think it's uh really good getting that that that the team um the subcommittee is getting that information and um so that was great. Last week I attended the Saline High School Extracurricular Night um and it was great to see all the sports um sports teams represented, and um uh student groups, and uh uh Science Olympiad, and um there was all all sorts
147of uh groups that um you know stu so uh it was for 8th grade um 8th graders uh going into um the high school next year and so um you know there was a lot of excitement for students to show off what what they have and um for new students to you know get interested in in different clubs and see what what there is to be offered and so um yeah I was I was happy about that and impressed. So April um as uh Secretary Miller mentioned um is Arab American Heritage Month um a student actually um made me aware that um the Arab American National Museum which is located in Dearborn um has free admission all of April um to celebrate Arab American Heritage Month. I was in Dearborn um earlier today it was
148about in my vehicle um not that but you know I remembered and um you know working in Dearborn for several years um it's a really great community and um I'm excited to hopefully get to attend that this this month um go to the museum. It's also Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention month um and Child Abuse Prevention Month. Trustee Estep quick question the SEAB meeting what date was that I I didn't hear 26 is that what you said? 18th. 18th. Oh no, no the the oh the next meeting sorry, March 18th was the meeting April 25th is the next meeting. Thank you So I hope everyone had a nice spring break I appreciate the Passover wishes and um we sent out as a board of Ramadan wishes I'd like to uh wish a belated Happy Easter
149to those who celebrate uh over the holiday uh including my colleagues here um I also want to highlight that it is World Autism Month uh I like so many of you love someone with autism and um and respect and admire many um people and families uh who are affected by autism in a myriad of ways um and thank our educators who work with uh individuals on the spectrum every day and thank those individuals for all the wonders that they contribute to our schools um I also just wanted to briefly invite the community and publicize uh Dr. Laatch's um upcoming Listening Sessions. It's a really great opportunity for people to um uh come meet with our Superintendent so um I'm just going to read them uh so the first session um on April 29th for uh
150Black and African-American uh families and students, uh session two uh for Asian Latino American Indian Alaskan Native Pacific Islander Native Hawaiian uh stu uh is on May 2nd, uh folks uh with a special education interest is on May 7th, LGBTQ+ on May 8th, and religious views on May 13th, and those are all here at 6:30 in the evening. I'd like to um just as a member of a religious minority um uh put out a special uh request for the religious views um you know we don't really have a way to specifically um reach out I guess for uh religious views is kind of broad and I'd like to uh personally invite uh fellow families uh who are in a min minority religion to uh come and have your voices be heard uh during that group
151as well. So that is it for me. Thank you all so much for your updates I appreciate that. Consent Agenda time the Consent 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 request that anyone or all be considered individually like to entertain a motion to authorize the Consent Agenda as printed. So moved Miller. Miller. Support Gold. Gold. Thank you very much uh so without discussion all in favor please say I. I I I Opposed. Great thank you very much and finally item scheduled on the next agenda Dr Laatch. Right so we're going to have another two Superintendent Recognitions, Auto Tech and Tim Timoszyk and their and a couple retirees actually and their
152storied programs and then FFA and AG Science and and Dave Miller so those would be our superintendent recognitions next time around and then uh two scheduled reports threat assessment overview and SWWC Annual Update. Thank you very much two two uh superstars for sure the next Board of Education meeting will be held on April 23rd 2024 at 6:30 p.m. and without objection I would like to adjourn this regular Board of Education meeting. For for the record can we just double check for public comment? Oh I'm sorry, there is this many public comments which is zero there are no there is no public comment. Thank you for noting that for the record without objection I'd like to adjourn this evening's meeting of April 9th at 8:45 PM. So move Steben. I said without objection but if you'd
153like to do it that way. No sounds good. All right oh we are we are adjourned oh I get to tap, thank you one tap. I was just ready to