001foreign now it sounds right I'd like to call to order the Board of Education meeting of September 26 2023 uh would you all as you are able please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much for some brief comment tomorrow marks an important day Jennifer Stedman is having a birthday there we go uh public comment a member of the public May address the board briefly for up to three minutes or request to be scheduled on the agenda of a future meeting please note that students will be given priority to speak on any topic the first public participation section a portion of the meeting
002will be limited to one half hour 30 minutes normally and limited to agenda items a second public participation portion will be offered at the end of the agenda to allow for any other comment individuals addressing the board should take into consideration the rules of common courtesy the public participation portion of the meeting cannot be used to make personal attacks against a board member district employee or student we have three oh four thank you we have four this evening and the first is from a student Cloud Rosenfeld oh well then I will she just got here oh I'll we'll move Cloud to the end then if that's all right not a problem at all uh so uh Viva is first followed by Rayland Davis hi I'm Viva Rosenfeld um I'm curious um how this policy or
003inclusive curriculum opt out is going to protect kids that live in households whose parents find lgbtq curriculum personally objectionable however you want to Wordsmith it controversial that are actually lgbtq do you really believe that these kids don't exist in these households can you imagine being one of these kids and seeing your parents going to the school to opt you out of um seeing yourself represented in school how would that make you feel about yourself or your parent or the other kids that that are opting out because their parents don't believe in your existence are these the people that you want to accommodate where are these kids safe place because clearly if they're being told at home that they don't exist they need a safe place and school should be that if you want to continue
004to maintain the status quo that is racist sexist heteronormative and Christian pass this policy as is but if you are actually if you actually want to protect kids then you need to include language that protects identities in this policy thank you thank you very much um raelyn Davis followed by Louis Barnett um I actually would like to have actually a few questions I hope will be answered later on but since I can't talk before then I'm just going to ask a few of my questions specifically about the new sex education presentation will be going on um one of my questions I would be interested is why now um we don't have anything through K through three I know times are changing but that'd be interesting to know that what why does we feel this has
005to happen right now um I I know it's supposed to be just a more of a safety you know key don't let people touch you but how will that be taught are they gonna will it be taught that girls have vaginas and boys have penises or will there be other terminology used to to to describe this because obviously that's some people feel that's no longer the case is it going to be separated like in fourth and fifth grade or is this like a one day thing so again I know some of these questions should be coming in the presentation but I just hope you guys will again ask you know normally some good questions and make sure that parents understand where this is coming from and why now and and um and why is it
006the school's responsibility to teach this and not my parents I mean we're talking five six and seven-year-olds um I really believe this again is the age where the family and the parents should have the primary chance to teach things and and yes the schools needs to be supportive but is it really the right time and place and is this really the right age group and for you guys to take on the responsibility of that um and again I am in support of this opt out I think it's a good compromise um it's not perfect on either side but it's a starting place and and I see again we need to know where the administrative guidelines come out I think that's going to be the teeth but I'm hopeful that we can move forward and continue
007to work together with this policy thanks thank you very much Ms Davis Luis Barnett followed by cloud cloud here soon thanks for this or the time to talk board um so I just wanted to hope that uh when the opt-out policy comes into discussion that um it isn't lost that people that are choosing to opt out are that they don't want other people to exist I mean that's ridiculous um I have different beliefs um I Believe In The Golden Law or Golden Rule I want to treat everybody as they would treat me so uh I just have different values and that's what makes this country great where we respect each other and that's part of the bridge of Civility where we may not agree but we we need to know how to get along and
008that's what makes this country great if we lose that then we're just kind of going towards being China or I don't know where it's like if we want to talk about like well the majority rules then we wouldn't be this great country where minority groups can be celebrated in Excel so it's just kind of crazy that some of the groups that are so against opting out don't realize that there may be a time when I'll just leave it at that and I hope that everybody on the board thinks about every kid and yes I want every kid to be safe I don't want any kid to feel left out or marginalized and thank you thank you sir Cloud Rosenfeld please oh okay thank you continuing to allow children to be opted out of inclusive lessons
009would lead to an ignorant uninformed Future these children whether they are your children grandchildren whatever they are our future no matter no matter the beliefs of the parents these children need to be informed of others existence there always has been and always will be people different from them it is no less ridiculous to opt your child out of being informed of others existence than it is to opt your child out of algebra if they are going to be productive and responsible citizens of society they will need to learn they will need to learn not just about the world but about the people in it please consider by the people in it as well please consider changing to uh to opt the opt-out policy to allow to disallow parents opting kids out of other people's identities
010thank you thank you very much give me a second I would like to reply to a previous board comments or comments from the public uh of recent days I just want to State at the beginning that this board of education really does believe strongly in the public comment portion of these meetings it's an absolutely essential element of good governance we certainly enjoy any positive words that come our way and we know that when we engage in difficult conversations and discussions we will hear from citizens representing many perspectives and I believe I speak for the board when I say we welcome your thoughts and comments however challenging or pointed although we must refrain from commenting in the moment we do follow up with the administrators the appropriate school or District administrators to address concerns where possible
011um during some recent public comments this board was taken to task by some speakers as not being fully supportive of our transgender students or LGBT student community and I have to say that over the last five years that I've been on the board we've heard families speak out about the harm experienced by their children and those concerns have lately focused on efforts to revise our old and poorly named controversial issues policy we have an overall desire from what I've heard to uh to maintain a policy of some certain this year's policy committee really has worked diligently to provide a more refined policy it may be rough but I want to say that they have sought input from students families local citizens like yourself teachers administrators and lawyers and however way this board votes tonight um
012it's with an awareness that it will be supported by our District's Vision the mission Compass commitment to Dei curriculum professional development and more so I just want to thank you for that brief few minutes of time uh revisions or approval of the agenda I would like to entertain oh items can be added or deleted from the meeting agenda in and or the order of the items could be changed at the request of an individual board member or the superintendent the agenda must be approved before proceeding further so I would like to entertain a motion to approve the agenda as printed thank you Port Miller thank you very much uh all in favor please say aye aye opposed all right we have an agenda students showcase tonight we have Sarah Youssef our academic All-American award for
013National speech and debate and it was very nice to have you I hope you're not nervous speaking in front of people this evening no yeah okay hi everyone Perfect all right hi everyone my name is Sarah Youssef I'm a senior at Celine high school and I was recently awarded the academic All-American award which is given to two percent of the top earners um and specifically with a focus on academics as well as a points by earned in the National debate and in speech Association so I've come here to talk about how debate has shaped me and how it's really formed my academic career so it all started in sixth grade when I watched my sister do debate as well because she was seven years older than me so when I entered Middle School she exited
014out of high school and up till then my childhood was filled with going to debate competitions on Saturday and the weekend specifically and watching her compete in the various events during this I did what any younger sister would do I told my mom that's what I want to do too but the thing is that I was a pretty quiet child so to her surprise she was quite surprised that I wanted to join debate in the first place and told me to have fun because she did not think that I would be excelling in this type of activity um and so it continued throughout middle school that I actually oh that I surprised her and placed at my first tournament so I continued doing this throughout middle school and I did a specific type of debate
015called public forum debate that was a partnered type of debate so through this I ended up competing at different state and local levels and I was able to win States the middle schooler and even compete in a national Toc bed which is at the University of Michigan throughout that I decided that I wanted to switch to a different type of debate in high school called Congressional debate the best way for me to describe it is as a congressional simulation of the United States Congress so in it your role playing a senator and you're passing different pieces of legislation these topics can be on anything from carbon tax to what's going on in Nigeria with Boko Haram you get about 30 topics per tournament and you're expected to write a speech on every single one either
016affirming or negating the piece of legislation and give a formulated thought out speech on the topic the thing is when I entered High School covid had just hit so debate was also completely online um so you can see on the screen over there there is me in a in a zoom debate but there was actually quite a peaceful transition to debate being online this was the first two years of my high school career a lot of times we go to the high school to compete in local competitions with the rest of my team wearing masks and trying to compete for more laptops in different rooms this changed when I ended up finally finding some success my sophomore year in Harvard finals which is the specific Zoom debate that's on that screen and then we were
017finally able to go back to in person specifically at the national speech and debate Association championship at the end of the year and that's the picture on the very top so it was a really nice team bonding experience and I was able to semi-final in that tournament the next year I went to as many competitions as I possibly could especially in person you can see just some of the places that I traveled and I was I was fortunate enough to make various final rounds at these travel tournaments speaking in front of almost at times 400 people so it was really an honor to be able to Showcase my skills and find success in the activity that I loved throughout my time in high school I've especially put a focus on helping other people gain the
018skills that I've learned in debate this has come through me helping coach assistant Middle School team and it's been really nice to help guide them to even some of the rounds such as quarterfinals and Nationals at the middle school level and find them have their own success just as I did Growing Up in high school and middle school through our debate program along with that I've joined student organizations that really focus on bringing this idea of debate and coaching to those who are less fortunate because it can be a costly event for those who want to travel and for those who want to get coaching but are born in an area that don't really have all the research resources like we do in Celine so I've helped expand that as well through student organizations it's
019helped me in every single aspect of my high school career from helping other people's confidence when it comes to public speaking to my very own in public in presentations and my own future career in politics hopefully I guess I'm open to any comments thank you the rest of the table are you all nervous to speak your family must be so proud I I hope that you're proud of yourself as well um debate and public speaking are such an a valuable tool that most folks learn a little bit later in life and um good for you and good for those those two first hard years as well and thank you for all of your contributions to the foundation for salinary schools as well thank you hi Sarah congratulations thank you I think I got to watch
020you at Middle School at some point um I wondered what some of your favorite topics to research and debate were and whether you changed your opinion on either of them after doing the research so it's interesting because a lot of times you go into a competition only researching one side of the topic because Congressional debate doesn't require you to do both sides of the topic but if you get it around and you realize that you're in a 15 people person round and there's 14 of those people on the affirmation you have to switch on the fly to maybe a side that you wouldn't normally agree with and so it's definitely helped me find like different perspectives even in the moment on various topics that I probably wouldn't have gone affirmative or negative on but I
021think some of my favorite topics have been within foreign policy especially I just think it's really interesting the complexity of how different countries play into the other conflicts in other countries all right I have two items uh the first one is how do you stay informed about potential topics that you can be asked so the thing is we get these topics like two weeks out from the tournament so I get about 30 to 40 topics two weeks out but a lot of times um they're student submitted so students are the ones that actually submit these topics to the tournaments and sometimes they do repeat but sometimes you get ones that you have no idea about for example I've gotten ones on like forced arbitration and different law topics that we're very Hefty that I didn't
022know about prior so I think my biggest thing was I've been like always reading my New York Times briefing that comes to my email every single day but also just taking the time to research every topic thoughtfully so that way I can make sure that I'm informed on both sides all right that's what I was wondering and then the second question I have is one that I often will ask how can we help you what can we do to support you in the debate team well I think the biggest thing is like coming out to support the kids especially when they're starting out we see this like on the Middle School level a lot luckily a lot of our middle schoolers have stuck with it over the years but I think a lot of them
023are really scared to start out so I think it's helpful to have people at tournaments especially now that our local ones are going back in person to come out and support and say even though you're scared we support the program and we want you to continue thank you Sarah I know that you have inspired a lot of younger students to take up just as your sister inspired you um that you have inspired a lot of younger students to take up debate and public speaking and you've worked with them to refine their skills so that they can be as skilled as you stand before us today but I wonder you mentioned your sister but is there anyone else that you Aspire or look up to as a role model in this area well my mom's definitely
024a big one she's sitting in the back over there with my dog and she's been a big role model to me because not only did she help my sister so much with the coaching she actually even took up the high school team for me when we were like in need of a coach so she's been there throughout my whole like Congress and public forum career and she's drove me to every single travel tournament so all those long drives to Boston and all those other states I couldn't have done it without her thanks to Mom and Pablo for coming and and uh and being here tonight and thank you very much Sarah for the work that you've done to support this for future Generations too congratulations thank you foreign I remember I think you did one
025of the first tedx no oh no you didn't yeah I should do it soon I am I'm speaking on the seventh yeah okay um but yeah um thanks for being um one of our leaders here at um SAS and um keep doing what you're doing and um thank you thank you do consider a career in Congress or in Lansing politics of some sort um I I a possible pathway I've seen young staffers in the Congressional offices there are no more than 22 years of age you're almost there and the senatorial staff the staffers are 28 years old I mean that's the big difference so and then they go back to their home States and run for office and uh and uh turn the United States on its ear so good luck to you did anybody
026else want to speak there well thank you very much Sarah we greatly appreciate and congratulations again all right thank you so much [Applause] next on our agenda the sex education Advisory board I would like to introduce co-chairs Cameron Cochran and Kristen Hoffman peebler who will introduce our 2023-2024 or is it a two-year term three-year term three years our Advisory board thank you all right thank you Dr Murphy well the student showcase is usually a tough act to follow but a professional public speaker we've got our work cut out for us tonight yeah Kristen so uh good evening everybody and thank you to the board for the opportunity to speak today my name is Cameron Cochran I'm the proud assistant principal at Heritage School here in Celine and also the district co-chair for this uh cycle
027of the sex ed Advisory Board which formed this summer after an application and selection process I'm here with Kristen Hoffman peeevler who's the other co-chair and we're here to talk to you about the sex ed Advisory Board I'll go ahead oh here we go hi board it's Kristen nice to see you all again students nice to meet you it's great to have you here um this is just a quick overview of what we're going to do tonight we're going to look at what is a sieb or sea AB our draft goals for this year's or this term are new members what's coming up and then our first public hearing of the Washington area Council for children body safety training curriculum that's it all right so just the s-e-a-b or C AB or C at a
028glance the Saline Area School of sex Advisory Board is made up of saline community members that include SAS students staff parents Healthcare professionals and clergy so as a board we will establish student-centered educational program goals for sexual health and wellness we also will research review and recommend materials and methods of best practice to our school board that are likely to reduce rates of sex STIs and pregnancy in our student population and it's important to point out that the sex Advisory Board isn't a decision-making body and that any recommendations will be brought to the school board for approval so you can see that we have our three-year term this new board started at the end of this summer again after that application and selection process a copy of the draft goals that we have that you
029can see up on the screen I'm not going to read to you because I hate being read to um so they will look familiar from last year because these are the goals from last term that until we review and revise them will carry over our goals inform the action items for each term and these overarching goals will be looked at and reviewed by this group and this term at our next meeting at the end of October up there for those of us like me that are a little slower to read let's make sure everybody gets through there so the other part of our presentation I'm very honored to introduce our members of the sex ed Advisory board for this cycle those of us that are present aside from Kristen and I will stand and be
030recognized so we have Valerie Arrington Anton biliauskas Kristin driver Trisha Farrell Megan Gunnerson Julie Myers Jennifer Whitmore Lauren Williams and Gina Wilson and then Susan Estep and Dr gold are our board reps so they provide support and serve as a conduit between the siab and the board they do not have a you know vote in our decision-making process in our meetings but again they provide us valuable support and then we're pleased very pleased to have three wonderful high school student representatives in the 9th and the 12th grade that attend all meetings and and serve as regular members as well so we plan to meet every month for the first year and then we'll determine the frequency of our meetings in years two and three based on the scope of our work so what is coming
031up for us um we I am going to read this part aloud our commitment is to ensure that students receive a robust and relevant sex ed curriculum during their tenure at Saline Area Schools this is really important Celine has a really long history of providing sex ed for their students and this is an excellent thing because in Michigan it is not always required but Celine is committed to teaching the whole child and part of that is our health and wellness and our sexuality and learning how to take care of our bodies is a huge part of Wellness so um what does that mean that means that we've got those action items that relate right to our goals and this year we are tonight in fact going to have two public hearings of the body safety
032training curriculum from wacc and it will be tonight and October 10th Michigan law is very clear in the process for sex ed curriculum recommendations and there is a very clear directive from the state that shows that we need two public hearings a board presentation separate from the public hearings and then a potential vote if it goes through that whole process um we also have um new uh sex ed rules from Governor Whitmer this summer on July 11th Governor Whitmer signed into law Senate Bill 66 which states that every school district in the state of Michigan must teach um sexual assault what it is how to report and how to get resources as well as consent this is separate from the optional sex ed curriculum because because having a sex eye curriculum is optional in another
033Lane Falls HIV and now this new Senate Bill 66 for consent and sexual assault meaning that even if a school district chooses not to provide sex ed curriculum to their students they must also teach those three things so it's under the umbrella but in a different Lane than sex ed curriculum we have a hard and fast due date of June 2024 to get that settled um and as part of that process we're going to look at the 6th through 12th grade curricula which is where that directive is aimed and we're going to look at what we have and what we need and where we need to go from here so hence the monthly meetings because we have a lot of work to do between now and June so we want to make sure that we
034engage and support our students through this process and do it in a way that upholds our district Mission our vision and our values that have already been well established in our district and just to continue on that point it's important that we continue to address the needs of a student body in Saline that is increasingly diverse and constantly connected through technology as we evaluate and investigate new and existing curricula we will also look at those things through the lens of inclusivity as it relates to our lgbtq students in the district as well so these action items are a continuation of the efforts by the previous cycle of the seab and we are eager to continue this work so in kind of closing the introduction to what the CF is I want to thank our board
035members for being present tonight and we are kind of Shifting Gears to the Washington area Council for children in their public hearing and discussion on the body safety presentation so I'm going to introduce these three lovely people and let you know that the Washington area Council for children has a long-standing partnership with Saline Area Schools and has been in buildings to give presentations on things like cyber safety in the past they partner with a number of different school districts in the county on these various topics including body safety districts such as Chelsea and Dexter Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor and so tonight we have three folks that are going to talk to us about what body safety is and what that looks like in schools afterwards there'll be an opportunity for some questions and answers and
036then if there are any remaining questions by the public or those that couldn't be here tonight we are going to send out a Google form through building newsletters in the K3 buildings to give families an opportunity to seek understanding and get their questions answered so I'm going to pass it over to the Washington area Council for children if I could I had a quick note and uh as we're going to turn we're going to do a little rearranging and so forth is that correct or I think we're just going to stay facing this way yeah all right well thank you well if I did a very quick thing this evening we have for the public here we have the first of two public hearings as required by board policy 2418 whenever materials or methods of
037sex ed are revised I have to note that in years past the Board of Ed has directed The the scab the ceab to hold these public hearings the Michigan Department of Education supported this interpretation of the policy however after a review of our policies and reaching out to Troon Law Firm for confirmation we were advised that we should hold these public hearings either as part of our board meetings or as a special special board meeting so from now on this is how we will proceed with the seab public hearings and as co-chair Hoffman peebler said the next hearing will occur two weeks from now during our next Board of Education meeting on October 10th so send it over to you it's all yours thank you thank you well my name is Susan Usher and I
038am here on behalf of Washington area Council for children wacc as we shorten our name I also hear with Christine and Robin and we'll I'll talk about them a little bit more in their involvement um very invested in this lean Community my other role is I'm the director of the Celine torilettes and I work with the marching band so I have a long history in Saline I've seen a lot of you met a lot of you my other role Now is working as a one of the BST facilitators so it kind of meshes my two loves and passions of keeping kids safe and looking at their development and that's what we're looking at with our body's safety program and feel it's so important for our young youngest children and our most vulnerable children so if
039you look at our mission statement this is what guides us in our agency we are a long-term agency we've been around for a very long time and we are the designated child abuse Council for the state of Michigan through Michigan trust Michigan if you look at our Continuum of our our programs at wacc we start with our safe sleep program which is you know teaching safe sleep to mothers with their babies and then if you look at how they Continuum into the most vulnerable we feel is our body safety training of teaching that child sex abuse program to our youngest children and then we kind of move on to our Continuum of our cyber safety which is Middle School and into our cyber safety and mental health resilience in high school Robin actually Batten has
040been involved and we have had a long partnership for 15 years with Celine schools in the middle school she provides has provided all the Cyber safety training that the kids have had in the middle school and the high school for many many years and historically we found out recently that even back to the 1990s that Celine schools in WCC has had a relationship in our first Babylonian encounter which was our first child abuse prevention program so way back when it was at Houghton and Woodland and Pleasant Ridge so we have a long history and now kind of coming back around looking at our body safety program so if you look at our body safety program is a is an evidence-based program from Dr Sally wartel it focuses on ages three to seven so we're looking
041at we've taught body safety from kindergarten preschool I mean preschool all the way up to third grade so if you look BSE empowers children with knowledge and the general safety principles so that they have the strategies to keep their bodies safe we also really focus on children recognizing responding and Report reporting inappropriate sexual behavior directed towards them so that we call it the three R's recognize respond and Report why do we teach body safety as you can see the statistics here 20 percent of children who report sexual abuse are under the age of eight 91 of children have been victimized by sexual abuse has been by someone they know someone they trust or a family member so I think these stingering statistics tell us a little bit of why it's so important for even our
042youngest children we teach BST because the trauma of sexual abuse doesn't only affect the child at that young age but can continue with them obviously through middle school high school and into adulthood so there's many consequences like physical health their mental health and Behavioral Health how do we teach BST so we do 10 lessons and we come into the classroom so it's more of an intimate gathering with their teacher and it's 10 lessons so it's too consecutive weeks and the lessons are about 15 to 20 minutes obviously their age to keep their attention and keep them engaged it's a small group setting we talk about stories and vignettes to keep reinforcing the themes this is the process once it's approved we coordinate with the school administrator whoever is going to be the lead if it's
043the social worker counselor Lead Teacher we set up lesson times of dates according to what works for the school we provide a letter so that the parents are informed there is an opt-out option we really encourage parents if they'd like to come in and sit in we've had many times where parents come in and so that they can reinforce the themes also at home of what we're teaching and then of course at the end we do a survey so that we can continue to improve our programs and look at the statistics of what's Happening this is a little bit of a recap of week one lessons of course in the very beginning this is the card that is shown card one and so we start off right away with teaching kids we put our thumbs
044up and we say I'm the boss of my body from the top of my head to the tip of my toes and everything in between and then for the next two weeks we're going to teach body safety and we're going to learn all different kind of safety rules to keep our bodies safe and we go into our second lessons talk about poison fire and gun safety and this is the chemical card that we show kids and so we say Don't touch don't eat don't touch or play with if you don't know you can have it then go ask your grown-up but don't touch don't drink don't eat less than three goes into different scenarios of being home alone to keep you safe if you have to be home alone without an adult and that happens
045of course in different households in different communities so what what do we do when we're home alone and what do we do if we're lost if we're at the store we're at the fair what do we do then our next lessons go on to Karen Street safety keeping kids safe when you're in the car when we're playing outside with our friends we're playing at home or in the park and then we talk about stranger safety and we say we don't want to encounter if we encounter a stranger or someone we don't know you know we don't want you to be scared of strangers but we want to we want you to know what to do if you encounter someone you don't know so our whole first week is focus on just general safety principles and
046then we lead into our next week week two which on day six is private parts so we refer back to you know our bodies are from our head to our toe and everything in between and now we're going to talk about some of those in between parts and we need to take we need to keep our private parts safe too our private parts are ours they're nobody else's we have a right to keep them special and keep them safe so we talk about um the real names for our private parts because we feel that's very important that children know the real names so if they were to encounter a situation of abuse or intent that they can describe exactly what happened on what body part so we showed card 22 and we say girls have
047a vagina and breasts and boys having a penis and on our backside everyone has a bottom Robotics and we talk about everybody has private parts and everybody has a right to keep them special and keep them safe and keep them private card 24 talks about we cover our private parts for where we wear our bathing suits where we wear underwear so kids can really identify where those private parts are and we continue with uh lesson six and when it's okay and not okay there's times when it's okay for someone to touch or look at your private parts and there may be times when it's not okay so card 25 talks about a mom and she's cleaning the baby's diaper we talk about you know can the baby clean himself no the kids think that's silly
048no of course he can't clean himself so he needs help getting clean so that's a time when it's okay if the mom touches the baby's private parts then the next card talks about Dad so if we're in a first grade class I always like to use first grader this first grader is taking a bath and he needs help getting his private parts clean so his dad may help him clean his private parts that's a time it's okay and then we talk about being at the doctors if you have if your private parts are hurting or you're sick the doctor or nurse may need to touch or look at your private parts and your mom would be there or your grown-up would be there to give the doctor a nurse permission to touch her look at
049your private parts but the whole premise and we repeat this over and over is that um when it's okay for someone to touch your private parts is if you need help getting clean you're sick or you're hurt and that's it then we go into the body safety Rule and I really focus with the kids about teaching them like this is the most important rule you're going to learn all during body safety class the most important rule is the body safety rule the body's safety rule is it's not okay for anybody to touch or look at my private parts or take pictures or ask me to touch or look at their private parts so we repeat that many times that's the body safety Rule and then we talk about what if someone does try to break
050our body's safety rule what do we do so we talk about no and we talk I usually have the kids like this is a time you don't have to use your manners and you can say it's strong and we do it together no it is not okay and we talk about different ways to say no I don't like that you're breaking my body safety roll me try to engage the kids to give us those answers we go we get away from them we talk about where could we go like on the other side of the room we go find our mom we go find Grandma and tell who could we tell we try to get the kids to talk to us and engage you know Mom you know they um they raise their hands you
051know Mom Dad Grandma Grandpa who else could you tell we're trying to get to teachers bus drivers gym teachers our parapro and get them to tell us who are those different safe people that you could tell and then our scenarios our vignettes go into telling reporting okay and who who did it we want them to if they can remember their name if we can remember what they look like what they were wearing and what what did they exactly do so we really go into who and what and then the last sample of cards here is this is a one of our vignettes there are several vignettes that reinforce these themes and so this one is a um story about Ricky this little boy's name is Ricky and that's his big brother and his mom and
052sometimes his mom has to stay at work late and his brothers at basketball practice so his mother says Ricky you listen to the babysitter and do what she says which we always want to listen to Mom and follow what mom's rules are and so Ricky's with his babysitter Nancy and they're having a great time they're playing games and then it was time for him to get his bath so Nancy poured his bath and then when murky was taking a bath Nancy came in and said if you let me wash your touch your private parts I'll let you stay up late but we must keep this a secret and we really touch on this thing because it's a part of the grooming process about promising something special and different through our different vignettes we talk about
053you know giving us a gift a video game Legos try to get something you know that's relevant to the kids and then also about keeping secrets and then through our vignettes we talk about we don't keep secrets about private parts and we keep secrets about birthday gifts or a gift for our teacher but we don't keep secrets about private parts so then we talked with the children about what could he do he's in the bath what could he do and trying to get the kids that he said no like that's right he said no then where could he go because our next step is we have to go where could we go because he's home alone with a babysitter so trying to get the kids to think about where he could go and you'll see
054he's in his room so we're like yes that's right he went into his room and he shut the door and he waited for his mom to get home and then later that night when his babysitter Nancy left he was thinking about what happened and if he should tell his mom what happened then we asked the children do you think he should tell his mom yes yes he should tell his mom and then the theme is he did the right thing he told his mom and that's exactly what you should do and we really push the theme of even if someone does Trick you into breaking your body's safety rule it's never your fault the child it's never the child's fault so even if someone tricks you into breaking your body's safety rule so we really
055enforce that theme that's never ever the child's fault so as you see our last screen we want to always end on a positive note and try to empower those children that they are the boss of their bodies and it's never their fault so I'm going to ask everyone as I close to put your two thumbs up to everyone and we say please repeat after me I'm the boss of my body from the top of my head to the tip of my toe and everything in between good job thank you thank you very much [Applause] thank you again Susan so obviously Susan is a highly skilled presenter Christine is also very skilled oh thank you um yeah so very important subject matter to be discussing to promote that safety what questions do we have I won't
056just a heads up though we want to expect you to answer all of them tonight especially if they're complicated and extended but if you have a few that you can handle uh right off the bat that would be great uh questions will eventually go to uh Dr Loch or to either of you two and you'll blend the answers and responses into the next forum from what I understand correct yes great thank you I had a couple um questions I guess and maybe they can even be answered at the next meeting potentially so that they're more public but um I was wondering about um inclusive language identifying gender as boy girl and how we might address that especially in alignment with our transgender non-binary student policy yeah so we did ask that last spring of the
057presenter that came through and they said that the language is easily modified to say to say we we either have a penis or a vagina as opposed to say boys only do this and boys only girl do that and it just generalizes the room as opposed to putting people into boxes yeah so it doesn't say some people like it's very general because remember we're talking to really small children yes right we want to keep it as simple as possible for them to be able to understand yeah that's why I was wondering Simplicity but also inclusivity and the same with Mom and Dad there was like one scenario where it said like Mom was changing the diaper dad was doing the bath I think like neutralizing that to be inclusive there are so many and correct
058me if I'm wrong but there are so many scenarios okay great great cover all different family groups and types and relationships I'm sure I just those gender really good questions yeah they're a normative like yeah so just making sure that it's in alignment I also would um I'm curious about data in um and I don't know maybe I don't know if that's if it's public information but um the success of the program in other districts or other places so I'm curious about that and then the last piece too if you want to answer it tonight you can but the last piece I won I wondered about was um I know I remember when my kids were um in I think fourth and fifth grade they there was a home component that was sent home so
059that parents could have conversations follow-up conversations and so I know you mentioned the letter home but I didn't know if there was any follow-up beyond the letter for those conversations okay great thanks hi sorry it's awkward um so your previous question I'm sorry I wanted to go that one first um can you tell me what that was one more time I'm sorry yeah I just wondered um the we love data and metrics so just wondering um about the success of the program in other places so I have um eventually it's going to be given to Miss Betty I believe her name is there's a booklet where I wrote about background information about research information that goes more into it in the references and the slides I actually do refer to the actual studies but there
060it's been um empirically it's evidence-based like I said it's been validated and it's been replicated so those are in the study so you actually can see the references in there and more information in that booklet and then the next was a home component for follow-up at home so um I'm actually developing a brochure that goes into helping parents and caregivers on how to speak about it so my goal is to be able to send that home with the letter the letters can be more introductory about like okay this is what we teach these are the lesson topics and we allow for opt out um I know that might change with how you do your policies but you keep me updated on that so um but we also do that brochure but um after that that's
061pretty much it that's great thank you so much I'll look forward to seeing that and just to add on to that um so we will have that brochure that Christine mentioned that contains all of the the pictures the cards um Betty Yankee will have that for review this evening and then between now and the next public hearing that will be available to to view here at Liberty if and when this program is approved the K3 buildings would have a copy of that so that parents could come in to review that material beforehand and make an informed decision I think Miss Miller what you're referring to during the fourth and fifth grade sex ed curriculum the The Wonder Years there is that home component that promotes that dialogue it's definitely good feedback and something to consider
062I just remember we still talk about like the safe people that our kids wrote down that they could talk to even now that they're like you know almost adults and and an adult we still talk about like how they identified those people and that those people and people like those people are still they're safe people so that was important an important piece of that conversation at our house thank you treasurer gerby uh number one I want to make sure I stay clearly my support for this program and I appreciate the the work being done here and I'm oh I'm you know you you read about statistics like 20 under the age of eight it just makes your hairs on your back your neck stand up but thank you for being you know take Having the
063courage to do this um I believe that I I have one question and it is this I believe that this program carries the unanimous support correct of the entire CF team and I want to recognize that twice it was last term and this term both were unanimous in their support for this program thank you uh Mr awesome yeah so you answered one of the questions already about viewing all the slides so that sounds like after so that's perfect thanks um and then the other one was so will the students be will they come and do the slides to one class and will they not separate the classes then or yeah yeah so we will work with building administrators at the K3 level to determine what works best there may be an opportunity to combine say
064two classes at a time just to promote you know moving through those lessons but the goal again we need to work with building administrators to see how they want to identify you know which grades to start at which grades to focus on um and and then kind of go from there and then communicate that out to families so it won't be you won't be separating the the boys got no no that will be all students in a classroom together sorry cool about this program that I want to highlight is that teachers aren't going to be trained to provide this it is not an additional PD or learning I don't want to say burden but opportunity for them because we have the experts here in this room who come into the building the teachers only part
065in this is to provide the 15 minutes for 10 days in a row for this program to be done I think that's a really really cool benefit of this program especially for teachers um sorry uh trustee Estep and then trustee Miller Stephen one of them so I don't want to you know because this is a public hearing I don't want to um ask too much um so uh and allow for the public to to give that feedback um will you have any sort of survey are we putting out anything to gather that for as you said next time to answer some of those questions yeah we mentioned it really quickly during our beginning presentation that there will be a Google form that will go out that will say you know based on what you learned
066in these two meetings tell us how you feel about it there will be questions that will go out to current um Saline Area Schools families yeah and and will that be limited to um you know you can do it unlimited times no it so it's more no because we want the data to be really useful and if we are if I fill out the survey five times um you're getting five of me and what I want to say in the survey but that's not helpful to know what the real um tenor of the conversation and comments are so we want to make sure that that the data is useful okay and um yeah I wanted to point out the unanimous vote as well um yeah on on both um the new new team and and
067the last one um because there are um you know a mix of different voices and beliefs so um I think that's really important um and also our students um who spoke about um wishing they they would have had this and their peers would have had this um you know early on um and so you know that says a lot um and then one more thing um is Aaron's law which was signed in 2013 By Governor Rick Snyder and um that a lot of states have passed this but it allows schools to implement a program to educate and provide resources for students staff and parents about the warning signs of sexual abuse as well as available resources and counseling for children affected um so bipartisan um you know decision there with with having the state law
068and kind of wish we would have been doing this since 2013 but it's always a good time to start right yeah and just to go back to your second Point um miss eastep somebody during our CI meeting drew the connection between this and Safety Town that occurs in the summer and if you've ever tried to register a kid for Safety Town you know that spaces are limited um and families are obviously opting into that so we felt this urgency and again the need to be inclusive and provide this opportunity for learning for for as many students as possible in Saline president seven first I just wanted to Echo Brad's comments that this is difficult to hear but we cannot shy away from having these conversations so thank you very much I just had a procedural
069clarification off of what president McVeigh said because this is a different format so can you explain the differences um because I'm not on the sex ed Advisory Board as a board rep can you explain the differences and how the meetings ran last time and how that public comment or perhaps a Google form then was was crafted in in taken in versus how you're doing it this time just to kind of Ensure continuity and yeah absolutely timing so the only thing that's different is that all of you are sitting up here on the dice um what what was different last time is that the meeting date was on a different day and we had board representation with the two reps in this case Dr gold and trustee Estep would be at the meetings and then the
070rest of you would be invited as you could come but the process for a collection of comments afterwards will remain the same and I have to say it's sort of nice to be able to have the group of you ask a few questions because I know that some of the questions that you've had are what people are thinking out in these seats and in homes watching and to be able to sort of head off some of those questions immediately has actually been really sort of nice tonight so yeah the second question Kristen it actually goes to something that you spoke to and goes to state law so I I just wanted to ask about the procedural instruction within the classroom and very nice presentation but want to make sure that we are adhering to state
071law so in order to teach sex education teachers must be qualified to teach Health um I won't get into what it says about secondary level but but basically if course content and lessons are being taught outside of the classroom setting the natural day but within an instructional day state law regarding teacher qualification also applies because the classroom teacher is ultimately responsible for all instruction they must be in the classroom even if guest speakers are presenting so can you speak a little bit to the qualifications and background and very informative I just want to make sure that we're adhering to to the state law on that one and that the teacher would also be present yeah so in addition to what you just read there's also a part of the state law that talks about the
072person presenting you can bring in guest speakers as long as they are also qualified and the people that we have in the room are more than qualified to be able to teach this content so we are covered in state law that this is a completely appropriate way to bring a qualified person in to teach the content yep and honestly this curriculum doesn't have to fall under the sex ed Advisory Board because it is 50 a body just a safety curriculum but we wanted to make sure because we are addressing bodies and we are doing something new with our students that we wanted to make sure that the process was very very clear and very transparent with our community and to say look we know that your kids are going to hear the words penis and
073vagina not every day not for the entire 15 minutes but those words will come up and we want you to know a and be ready and see you will always have the option to say you know what I don't think my kid is ready for this because Michigan law tells us that parents have the right to opt their children out of any sex ed curriculum so we are putting it in this box but it wouldn't necessarily have to go in this box if that makes sense yep thank you very much that our student Representatives have anything to say can pass okay I just wanted to say well maybe I should have given a four second pause okay all right uh two things I just want to say that to your last Point um Kristen um
074we did have that serious debate as to whether to move this to the public hearing or not and I appreciate your your validation of that that is the right spot for it as for the rest of you all on the seab pardon me the ceab thank you for your service and we'll see you in two weeks thank you very much for the presentation I appreciate it thank you we have four action items this evening and you're welcome to stay if you if you want to have our board meeting inflicted upon you uh we have uh four uh action items I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the recommendation of A.R Brower to award contracts to the below listed contractors in the amount of four million 860 436 dollars for bid pack number two for
075the new operations center as submitted by operations director Rex Clary and I will not read each of these and the amounts they are available in the packet if you want to see them second week uh second Austin thank you and we have Mr Clary available for discussions anything you want to add to this a set of numbers um so this is Bid pack number three um I didn't bet number two our first well yeah okay um the first one was a steel building then we had two big packs come out after that and big back number three then is on is out right now to be bid um we are trending under budget from the budget you approved in July um and uh we're moving in the right direction um AR Brower has done a
076great job of getting bids um most categories have three if not four bidders there is a variance there uh in the but um they've done a really good job of getting bids and getting competitive bids super any other quick questions uh secretary Miller I just wanted to say a special thanks to Rex I know that we've been thanking you a lot this year for all that you're doing but I know that this work in gathering these bids and and soliciting the bidders so that we can have the best product moving forward for our district um is not lost on on me definitely but I can um speak I think for the board that uh we're sincerely thank you thankful for the work that you're doing in this thank you but also we've hired a good
077company to do a lot of that work for me but we're in constant communication every day but yes yeah I want to make sure that I say that too he's being way too humble in my opinion I mean we're under like I I asked him a very pointed question via email and he gave me a much more pointed answer about being under budget and I know they're being cognizant of it and they're being good stewards of of of money and so I want us to hear again that we this portion came on your budget because of the work of our team the bidding process Etc so thank you thank you very much any other questions queries quibbles um congratulations on the groundbreaking it's exciting to see this go and in addition to thanking everyone involved
078um thank you voters thanks for remembering the voters all right uh all in favor please say aye aye opposed seven zero thank you very much on to the next action item uh which also involves Mr Clary I'd like to entertain a motion too thank you to approve the Celine High School prototype classroom Furniture recommendations and purchase in the amount of forty six thousand eight hundred ninety dollars and five cents as recommended by operations director Rex Clary yes um so we have a motion so move seven seven Kirby Brad gerby thank you sir Kira uh executive director of instruction Keras um Davis could not be here tonight she is at a conference um Kara has worked uh very hard with bushing with three teachers in the high school to develop these prototype classrooms um this this
079process started before covid when we had three classrooms these are three additional classrooms Kelly um will Design her instructional designer Kelly she'll be working with myself to kind of survey and and Cara to survey the teachers the students with these six classrooms and develop the steps to move forward we think after these initial after they get installed we'll probably have two semesters this spring and The Following fall to gather data and then they'll make a decision as to how we want to move forward in the spring to have it installed in the summer of 2025. um this was on the agenda at one point I pulled it off because we needed to refine it and make sure we were in budget to take this globally through the high school we've got to keep it in
080budget and we were a little over budget so we refined those numbers made some um we did some give and take with the teachers and we're at a number now where we feel comfortable we can move forward with this with these three classrooms as prototypes thank you I may have missed where those classrooms are going to be precisely do you have locations uh Free Burn Foster and I see the numbers now thank you Maine no that's the manufacturer it says c304 for example Foster uh I got it now all right good great thank you any other questions queries nope well thank you very much all in favor please say aye hi hi opposed okay thank you very much thank you uh we I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the September
08118th 2023 closed session for the purposes of collective bargaining 8C of the open meetings Act do we have a motion would that be Mr Austin okay support Urban port gurby thank you for those of you new to this if you're an apgov what's going to happen is that our secretary will be handing us uh privately the minutes from the from our closed session which was not open to the public we on the board are the only ones are going to look at it we're going to review it see if it's a correct uh representation of what happened and then we'll return it to her and vote on it so that's what the secrecy is all about um and for the those of us who were not there and a decision was made are we able
082to see that contract as well I assume so we can Mr Ellis can give you the notes from that yeah I mean well that would be nice to have it sent to us so sure yeah so there were two missing that evening Mr Ellis if you just you know thank you I'm not sure if we returned those documents to you or not no we didn't because it was going to be voted on it was voted on later thank you thanks thank you thank you Susan Easter oh spell all the words maybe not I caught one last time but I know all right thank you I think it was the name it was all right thank you very much all in favor please say aye all right post thank you very much for the minutes secretary
083uh Miller got the right one this time uh I'd like to entertain so just to clarify Michael so that's that's a five oh was five you did not vote this time that's correct trust us okay Bible thank you very much I appreciate that I'm sure Betty Yankee would appreciate that clarification you got it good he's got it I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the instructional materials opt out policy as recommended by the board policy committee so move would that be Tim Austin so moved to Austin support stabbing steben thank you very much we'll open this up to brief discussion um is there anyone who will speak in favor of this motion and then I'll pass it over to a poach to the motion and then back to favor and then we'll put it
084to a vote well please I'd actually like to offer um an amendment to the the motion for the team to consider and the amendment that I would propose is that we add on a time frame of six months for revisiting this uh this instructor opt-out policy just to see about its implementation um that's exactly what I'm looking for uh Amendment uh there are two ways of approaching I I would say I would want to add in okay so I would want to is recommended by the board policy committee and recommending a six-month review where we evaluate the policy how often it's being utilized plus topics where opt out is being accessed would you be amenable to having that as a separate motion after this is voted on I would be open to that idea we
085wanted to do it all at once as opposed to an amendment I certainly would I just didn't want to muddy the waters and do it all at once so are you withdrawing your Amendment until after we vote on this one it's if that's what the team would prefer I do that's fine right less cluttered I think okay thank you please so I would like to acknowledge to the rest of the board in the Greater Community the complicated landscape that we are debating this policy in I hear the pain of having materials that represent your identity minimized degraded or opted out of I'm acutely aware of the Nationwide push to ban a variety of books in our classrooms and the dangerous backlash against increasing visibility of lgbtq students and Families I share the fear that all
086students miss out on valuable lessons on diversity and inclusion and that that will be a missed opportunity to protect our most vulnerable kids from bullying however I would like to say that this policy allows opt-outs from instructional materials not from individuals you're valuable and you're seen well executed is the intention of the policy that students opt out reasons will remain private what this policy allows is a School parent partnership for narrow exceptions to the school curriculum I think it is important not to overstate the actual impact of this policy the one this one policy in the effects of having a few students opt out of some materials should not negate the larger work the district is doing on offering a diverse and inclusive curriculum not every app that will be motivated by hate or Prejudice
087even some parents who are saying not now for their students might not mean that ever I'd like to review our goals in uh considering this policy we would wanted to stay and a lot of these goals were also shared by our deic deiac committee we wanted to State our vision of Windows and mirror mirrors we wanted to keep opt-outs narrow and so I'm going to read what instructional materials consist of instructional content regardless of format that is provided to the student including printed or representational materials audio visual materials and materials available digitally opt out requests should be considered with respect to individual circumstances and should not play us undue burden on teaching staff requests may not unreasonably include large portions of the curriculum we also wanted to avoid impact on the education of others in
088the classroom avoiding book bands or whitewashing of books or materials available in the classroom and we wanted to allow for a run-in procedure taking the task away from an individual teacher or family conversation this also allows the board as trustee gerby has said to request updates and data as to how the policy is being implemented we wanted to provide a mechanism for objections to material that were not covered under the religious policy to avoid harm as determined by families what were our options no opt-out policy I'm speaking for myself here but in my opinion optelts will continue to happen teachers are likely wanting going to want to rightly keep a good relationship with the families because we all agree that benefits students so that would allow for a more subjective unevenly applied policy with more
089burden on teachers to decide optouts might simply be transferred to the religious policy with less ability for the teaching and learning team too clarify uh and tailor narrowly restrictions the old policy used external value system controversial issues that's us saying that something is controversy virtual as a district the new policy and I feel and have heard the objections objections to the world's personally objectionable I'd like to try to explain uh it was supposed to mean just that a family's internal objection not the values of this committee myself or this board I understand that the word objectionable is look loaded and for that I apologize we really did try several different uh forms of language to address this the question of adding protected classes language is something that has kept me up at night and I
090hear those who are concerned rightly about this I hear trustee and I have the greatest respect for her vision the question is how to apply it fairly and some of our concerns were from the legal team as well uh it's also hard to know what the motivations of any one family would be for example uh if I have if one of my kids is a Jewish person was struggling around Holocaust materials and I decided at that point in time they it wasn't something I wanted them to read for class might I choose to use this policy I'd like to back that up with the fact that it is my personal opinion that opt out policies should be really narrowly used because I think I would say my kids could probably learn for that and we
091would have a conversation as a family but I get the families occasionally may have different opinions than the school on timing of introduction of complex and painful issues and may narrowly want to avoid a specific book and not an entire identity we were concerned about two protected classes intersecting and we were concerned about the transfer of possible opt-outs to the religious policy again meaning less opportunity for discussion with the teaching and learning team we heard the deic on this and we tried as much as we could to follow their recommendations we thought about adding this language and improving the the vision of the policy but wondered if it would really I wonder if it would really improve the implementation in other words if people are going to opt out anyways with either no policy or
092under the religious action policy are we really changing anything for our students which is always my Guiding Light I want to say that I hear those of you who have objected to this policy it is not perfect I hear the pain in families voices and I hear our students I've also heard those of you who have asked us for an opt-out policy for a myriad of reasons and we have tried diligently to address all of these concerns and try to come up with something that we will task our excellent School teachers and administrators with implement along that light Treasurer girby and I spoke earlier and I am in favor of some sort of formal mechanism to ask for data on this and I would also like to publicly say that while I support this policy
093and it will choose to vote for it I would like to hear from the families and students if there are ways where it is being implemented that are not within the vision that we've laid out here today thank you thank you very much trustee gold we have a I'd like to go ahead just really quickly I just wanted to add um to add on to what Treasurer gerby and trustee gold said I just wanted to to read this um while the intent of the proposed policy is to narrowly allow for the protection of individualized students in individualized circumstances we do hear that families of marginalized students at least I hear that families of marginalized students fear harm for their children and I humbly and I believe at the proposal that trustee gerby Treasurer gerby has
094mentioned in the trustee gold has raised um humbly commit to holding the district accountable on these matters and not accountable in a negative way but in a way that we aren't just finishing this policy and moving forward so to that point I'm in support of the request for updates and metrics from the administration and I would request that those come before the end of the school year so that provides us with an opportunity to assess this policy how it's being used harm benefit analysis teacher impact Etc it would be helpful to have this information with time enough to make necessary improvements for handbooks and other revisions that are made before the start of the following school year foreign thank you do we have anyone who would speak in opposition to this motion and your hand
095is noted oh I'm I'm just a point of clarification Susan sorry to interrupt you we should be talking about D not not the future motion that Brad plans to bring okay uh uh Vice sorry secretary Miller did jump the gun a little bit but that's a right will but well I wanted I I want to acknowledge that we are hearing and listening to families who have spoken in public comment and as an action item after them after the motion I want I I want to make that point so it's an intersection of the two um but I do want it to be clear during this vote um that that that is on our hearts and Minds got it I was actually clarifying something that Michael said because he said does anyone else have feedback on
096on Brad's motion which isn't on the which isn't on the table right now okay no I'm so in opposition to the motion we have uh trustee isep wait opposite in opposition to the motion to approve are we having discussion now or no anyone who would like to speak in opposition to the motion that's on the table right now to approve the instructional materials opt-out policy okay I have questions yes is that okay that's it so this will be your statement then questions okay that's right I have all sorts of things um so um I sent a last minute um email but I'm hoping um superintendent Lodge has some of this information already um last time um he brought up that uh The Advisory time and they're currently being no students opted out but multiple board
097members had had said Hornet time which is at the high school so I'm curious about those specific numbers um I'm curious because if we're talking about measuring um and the outcomes and the effectiveness or where there's um you know needs to be strengthened more that um you know how many children like what's our base how many children have been opted out this year what are the specific topics and subjects that they've been opted out of and just something for the future how many um which would come possibly how many children um are you expecting to opt out of this revised policy which would be kind of what's what's the outcome with this and then I have more but I would like that to be addressed uh last I checked um I did ask Miss Denise
098at the high school and she said that there were four students that were opting out of some of the um Hornet time lessons I don't know how many are opting out of all at all the other schools as it relates to like you said you sent that email this afternoon I haven't had time to research I don't have those numbers readily readily available I can look into that what was your third question expectations about how many opt out I don't know how to predict that I don't I don't have expectations of how many people are going to opt out I don't know what that would look like but I can research how many have opted out in various lessons and activities in all of the seven buildings I just don't have that information yeah the
099topic subjects was one of the questions too because I know you've mentioned that there's very few um opt-outs that do occur so I was just hoping that you had some of that details I mean well but if we go okay so if we say very few if there's zero opting out of advisory time and four opting out of hornet time out of you know 24 2500 students I do consider that a small amount I'm just to put perspective into it as to all the other lessons I I will need to research that because this would be in within classrooms as well right so I want to make sure you have the opportunity to finish your statement in opposition to the motion okay um so well I guess uh okay um I do want to thank
100you for some of your comments here tonight um you know I I just I've talked and talked and talked about the harm potential harm or harm actually that has happened in the district with um allowing students to opt out of bias against identities um so not specifically just you know based on an identity um but bias I mean one of our policies um you know that I'd read at one of the policy meetings um talks about the expectation of the teachers and the superintendent and admin to make sure that there is no bias within the curriculum and you know it's the equal equal opportunity policy that we have and so um you know in making sure that our students are seeing diverse curriculum and uh so that's that's one of one of the things that
101I think is important as far as you know us us excluding children who have a right to education um a right to an equitable education I think we are impacting that well Equitable public education um and I feel like this this um is harmful for those who um don't necessarily have supportive families at home and may identify as lgbtq that we are saying here at school um that we're not going to provide that windows and mirrors for you we're just closing it um and so you know I I want you to think about those students um or you know the the families who have children who are um you know um families who are lgbtq or siblings and um so yeah I think we need to think about how this impacts um marginalized historically marginalized
102communities um and uh and so I know there was a comment um earlier about compromise um about Bridget's disability um and so you know we talk about Bridge's disability um as something um you know we've talked about it at like an administrative level um and expectations with our community I don't know why the Bridge's disability um isn't I think it has been talked about at the high school I've heard you know students say that they they know what that is um and so I think not only that being expected of our adults um I think that needs to be expected of our children too and honestly the the comment um that I did hear about that just says to me yes we can come together and recognize the existence of people and um you know
103that that yeah that doesn't cause actual harm um so you know just the origin of this policy in general um you know I I it it's disappointing that we are continuing to allow that practice because compromise would be adding that you can't opt out because you were biased against a person against a community that's compromise that's compromise um we've had legal advice that that we you know caution against an opt-out policy um the one we currently have and also this one because they don't you know it it's they don't support um you know giving these extra um extra rights I guess um in the sense of um they just cautioned and um did not seem to be supportive of us doing this so um you know I wanted wanted to point that out again um
104and um so whenever we talk about um so I guess we could talk about this next time but um or if we're providing um that other motion um but also thinking about because part of this policy does have um you know the expectations of the windows and mirrors and and you know what what our um what we stand by um here in the district and I'm interested in seeing measurements of what we're doing with instructional materials that are inclusive um so having that along with you know the the opting out piece because you know that was kind of the thing oh we have all of these policies that we've passed and we have you know these like this success and and having inclusive policies and practices um but I want I want to know that
105those practices are actually happening and that our teachers are supported and um aren't worried like like we have heard um to to implement and introduce um you know material that is inclusive and really creating um that environment where all children and families uh feel seen um and yeah I just I I ask of you to um think about um just think about um your vote here um and and the times um and are you going to be on the right side of History I'm just saying it so thank you very much trustee Estep is there anyone else on the board who wishes to speak in favor of the motion if not we will put it to a vote all in favor please say aye aye opposed I'm sorry no sir we what they sometimes say
106is the same sign but we can say nay if you're opposed please say nay nay thank you that just recording that as six one thank you very much for everyone's time and oh we have another motion which has been proposed I actually tried to I tried pardon me I tried to craft the motion we have I'd like to entertain a motion at this point we have a motion that I believe is coming from uh Treasurer girby to have the superintendent provide a review of opt-outs by the end of the year is that an accurate representative that's fine I want to provide the administrative team enough time to to do the work and then I want to also provide us enough time at the end of the school year to evaluate any changes we might need
107to make or Implement for you know 24 25 handbooks sounds like you're arguing in favor of it could we have a second to this motion uh trusting sorry secretary Miller do we have anyone speaking in favor of this motion aside from Mr gruby can you read the motion I will uh a motion to have the superintendent provide to the board to the board a review of opt-outs by the end of the year roughly seven or so months from now could I I guess we add a little more specificity to what we'd like to know that's that's word Smith this motion oh um I.E a number of opt as as uh trustee passed earlier the number of opt outs the subjects they came from and that would assume I just made the assumption that would be
108part of a review but I think trust estep's language would be probably good to use all right well let's use that language uh can you help us out trustee Estep uh a review of opt-outs including and I know you're following along Yankee um so so um the number of children that have been utilized number of opt-outs number okay um and then specific topics subjects that they've been opted out of okay instructional materials specific instructional materials okay and then um I had said what what are the outcomes and um I think that's something we need to think about when we're doing policy making and implementing um but measuring it for I mean I guess that's yeah those are the two big metrics then the number of opt-outs and the ins specific instructional materials I will let's
109see if we let's see if we sync well it's still yours sure yeah our board recording secretary our board recording secretary Miz Yankees fall we're going to see if we're synced out a motion to have the superintendent provide to the board a review of opt-outs including the number of opt-outs and specific instructional materials by the end of the year school year thank you Academic Year school year I don't know that it needs to be included in this but I I think another big piece of this that we've been talking about is the impact to teachers so maybe anecdotally um you know we could have that included in the report but I don't know that it needs to be included in the motion but then I'm sure we'll come up and then just discuss that in
110the footnotes with us we did it was yes well to that point I know there was um discussion of trying to get possibly the union um to do some sort of survey so I think that would be appropriate to do I'm sorry just a point of clarification we asked the union to do a survey of that that was something that we had talked about because we hadn't gotten teacher we didn't do you mean we policy committee because I don't remember hearing that one I don't remember uh the union I I can see I can follow the line that trustee Estep is going in that the union um kind of measures the workload and and making sure that it's an undue burden um you know an overwhelming burden to teachers so I can see the the
111line um where that could have fallen under the purview of the the union I think at this point since we don't govern the union we could maybe ask them about that but I think that what I am asking for is that in the conversation that we might have um some anecdotal notes around uh whether teachers feel that this is supportive or not so um this is a discussion obviously about this motion and and all policies are easily brought back to policy committee to be looked at for whatever for various reasons um you know this one we're kind of we're asking for data so what's gonna what's gonna what's the Matrix gonna look like who's going to make this Matrix on is it effective is it not effective is it one is it two is it
112three is it four oh now the fifth person now decided to opt out of something so now now we got to change the policy I mean seems like we're kind of getting into the weeds here we've talked a lot about making sure that we don't overburden the uh uh teachers and staff but now we're going to ask the administration to come back and get all this other data for us and it sounds like it might be difficult for Steve to kind of look for some of his data because he's gonna go to Every classroom almost too so I have no problem with us looking at a policy again I just think that this is we're I want to I want to see a matrix or what's the Matrix going to look like well if I
113if I could just respond to that that we hope go ahead well we did have a hand up a little bit so I'm hearing you speaking in opposition maybe to this motion but that's all right um and we'll let Jenny go ahead if you want to no I was just gonna say I I don't know that it's going to be the superintendent going to every classroom because we've developed now an opt-out form and so teachers if if a parent approaches a teacher a caregiver approaches a teacher and says that they would like to opt out there's a process now in a form so those metrics should be relatively easy together um so that's that's uh one piece of this and then in terms of why we would be asking for this six month review I
114think that we've heard a number of people in public comment over the last couple of months who um are fearful of the potential harm that uh they've they've raised some concerns at this policy could potentially um harm students and so we want to come back and make sure that that that we've done our work to ensure that that's not the case um but I think it's appropriate for us to respond to those fears and concerns in a way that lets them know that we've heard them and that we are going to be keeping and I don't have any problem with us revisiting a policy no but I have a problem with is us coming up with a matrix to say that we can only have this many or something I don't think and we do
115have we do have the administrative guidelines and if this is properly done it should be it shouldn't be disruptive to classrooms I don't know that I'm not I personally I'm just going to say I'm personally not asking for a matrix that would thumbs up or thumbs down this policy I'm asking for the data so that our board can make decisions moving forward and make the decision at that time whether or not it gets sent back to the to the policy table yeah okay so the data is going to come to the board it might not go back to the policy committee exactly so it's not going to the policy committee first right no I'm hearing that we need to have a sense of the impact of this so thank you are there any other comments
116yes there are two more comments oh thanks um so the first thing I just want to say and I know Brad feels this but didn't state it so I just wanted to just to Circle back to this um I trust the staff to um to operationalize a vote that's been had at the board table so I want to be careful to Tim's point of Dipping toes into operations a little bit this feels like a delineation of rules and responsibilities to be asking for something like this six months in advance I think it is wise to monitor this and agree that any trustee can bring something back to the table or request that it go to policy um but I want to make sure that if we do this that privacy is preserved for those families
117and children um and just wanted to to um to state that I trust the staff to operational operationalize decisions that are made at the board table so I don't necessarily feel we have to have this motion um the spirit in which it's offered I think is good but at any time I can request that something come back to the table whether it's six months or eight months or what not we yeah we we can do an inspection so uh and trustee so it has come up that the current controversial issues policy has not been um thank you I always get stuck on that um so I you know I I we you know so I I just want that like that's come up um and um we have seen that with how some of the
118accommodations have been made and how um you know I know we've tried to to um you know for it to not impact others in the classroom um that kind of thing but that has happened right I've given examples here policy meeting we've had folks um give that example as well where you know um we read one lgbtq book you know once once a month um and that student doesn't coming come in but then if you have a family with lgbtq or children with lgbtq family and they should have that representation every day um you know um so I you know I I think that's why it is important um to come back with that I would like to add um accommodations what upon like what type of accommodations have been made how is it being
119utilized as well I think that's important and you know hopefully that's spelled out on this administrative guidelines but um you know I think that's helpful to know like and I think that's important on all sides like is a student going to the library is um is a student staying in the classroom but has a different form um actually this was one thing that's been brought up to me too um maybe I should have brought this up earlier um but that it doesn't talk about alternative assignment so I don't know what's going on there but can can I just get Steve to respond to like how does he visualize this as being something that's able to execute like before we even entertain emotion because I I don't know the depth of the information or data and
120if it's if it's both quantitative and qualitative how are you going to create that I just was curious your thoughts um yeah I don't I don't think it'd be overly complicated to just when we have the uh greater guidelines with administrative guidelines for this right there's going to be a communication from a family to the teaching the learning team and or the teacher and we will be able to gather that data um I would think fairly easily since I'm trying to track this motion I do have a point of clarification for trustee Estep are you asking is also to note accommodations made you had said opt-outs specific instructional materials and accommodations would that be reasonable I mean I think that's something the that we would like to know in the public would like to know
121right are you you're okay with that friendly amendment to your information turn your motion okay thank you and I if I may just real quickly add in my two cents as far as um I want to make sure I State a couple of things very clearly uh number one I do have complete faith and trust in in Steve in our leadership team our our educational leaders our staff our our teachers are going to operationalize this you know as far as like a matrix goes yeah I understand I I don't want to start counting and put trying to I just want us to have some kind of feedback system established for was this a success or not especially with regards to some of the feedback we've heard from the community so that's that's the heart of
122the motion here is has has been uh stated and uh but I have incredible faith in our leadership team in our in our superintendent I'm glad to hear that this would not be an incredible burden upon them thank you that I believe was the sound of the plane landing so I'd like to put this to a vote please all in favor say aye aye say nay okay 7-0 thank you very much for that motion thank you very much hold on I have one more moment okay so with the adoption of this new policy that shall be named by Neola I would like to make a motion to rescind the former policy called uh controversial issues policy 2240. can so the last one we just voted on that's not stuff is that added in the policy
123I'm sorry is that language added in the policy or this is just this is a section second that's a dream that's the second expectation okay thank you yeah it's not added to the policy yeah it's an amended motion to the agenda okay thank you and now I'm offering a second amended motion to the agenda to rescind the current controversial issues policy policy 2240. well I'll support that thank you Susan we have a motion to rescind uh 2240 I'm sure you've got thank you very much and uh seconded by uh trustee Estep first I'm second I believe the motion was made oh never mind okay that's okay I'm I I'm going to just say that I I'm without objection I'm going to say that we have no further discussion on this so let's put this to
124a vote I'm looking around the table for objection all right so all in favor please if we're sending that motion please say aye aye opposed okay thank you very much now I just have to clarify our to our board recording secretary did you get that you got that uh thank you very much our scheduled we have one very important scheduled report from superintendent Lodge who will take the podium in just a few moments while we all stand and stretch our legs please you know the song secretary I would actually uh if you don't mind please if it's possible if it's possible please uh could I'd like I'd like to ask for a four minute recess four and a half minute recess prior to your presentation or if that's all right if without objection thank you
125very much we'll see you back here in 8 23. thank you thank you very much I'm gonna as soon as Ben says we're good I'm gonna gavel us back in thank you very much for the bio break much needed by everybody and uh so on to a scheduled report enrollment uh Stephen superintendent please and thank you okay thank you very much now some of the information you're going to see here tonight in this enrollment report you've seen before but I'm trying to put it in the context of what it means for the future of the district and some of the moves and steps we need to take in order to address it so we'll start by look looking at a chart that you've seen before and Miranda's done a nice job of putting this together
126over the years to track this is our data that looks at young 5 through 12th grade enrollment now I'm specifying that because it on this side it's not including Alternative High School some of the secondary options ecsc because this is just the number we've been reporting and looking at because there's greater complexity in that other part of data but it gives you a general trend of you know where we're going with enrollment where we've been and where we're going so if you look at the um the the three columns to the right that say straight roll forward that was what was predicted to come in by just who's exiting the district this year and prediction of what was going to be coming in and so if you go to the bottom of the First Column
127it says you know 46 73 a loss of 67. Miranda has been very close we're now predicting if you look at the orange column and you go all the way bottom a loss of 91 students so it is in that general area and as a result of that if we look at it if these Trend patterns hold true that's why that projection moving forward into 24 25 and into 25 26 continues to show this loss now the question is is when do you bottom out we're feeling like that would likely be in the area bottom out because what you what you're trying to do is you know when we look at Trends we're trying to determine uh birth rate affordability of living in the community and also we're going to look at the different options
128people have to educate their students that we're going to see a slide here that shows that more or less we're losing market share and I'll explain that in a minute so we're going to look at a number of factors here moving forward and then I will have some slides that suggest what we need to do moving forward this is difficult to see this was just what I was talking about it's very difficult to read but at the very bottom of this it talks about some of the other programs Alternative High School and some of that it's just showing that like this data at the top doesn't include that it's this bottom data just another another graphic but we're not going to spend a lot of time on it okay so we're going to look at
129the Nationwide picture the state of Michigan picture Washington County picture and then our our District's picture okay so this is just a honestly just an article I read the other day that talks about why more women are choosing not to have kids but it got into this information this just quote from the article since 2007 the nation's birth rate had been declining about two percent each year on average and then there was some speculation that during the coronavirus pandemic there you know increase in birth rate would actually happen actually no it doubled in Decline with our largest one-year decline of four percent last year okay so here's State you've seen this slide before but it just shows as sort of 10 to 12 10 you know 12 12-year pattern of you know 1.6 million student
130count in Michigan now down to 1.437 in 20 to 23. so it just shows this General Trend down this is a slide that I just picked up last night that I added in and it's it's it's uh from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services but in short again I'm not this this goes for every single County in Michigan but the general Trend if you take most of these counties show that the same kind of trend uh that there was a there's a decline in this in this 10-year span uh and so that contributes to the overall you know decrease in in the state this is another chart that I've shown you before too and in short um Washtenaw County back in 2003 had approximately a thousand more live births each year as we're
131seeing now or in the present time of 2021 and so over time that does mean there are less students in the Washington County region and it also means we're in Greater competition to keep the students in Saline so it's okay there's a number of factors okay so this is the site I was talking about about losing market share and I have some uh detailed charts that talk about where the students are going uh but you can see that um we're orange like so well Celine orange means non-resident students that come into the district so that would be largely School of Choice and non-resident students that are coming in Orange and then blue is kids that live here insulin area and are going elsewhere okay so that the trend is that we're losing market share and
132there's a variety of reasons for that okay now these charts basically say where the kids are going the issue here is it doesn't cap it doesn't capture private school data per se but it but you can you can guess private school data based on this shared time number so try to explain that okay so if you look on this particular slide it says Brighton Area Schools there are 102 students 102 students that live in the Saline area that go to the Brighton Schools okay that's not true there's 102 students that are getting their education elsewhere and they're being captured by Brighton at a rate of 18.52 FTE of the 102. basically what that means is if if Brighton employees uh their teachers to go out and teach those students art music some of the specials
133classes they're able to capture a portion of that ft in this case about 20 percent so that's what that's what's going on in Brighton and I'm going to highlight a few other places nothing on this slide okay Oxford Community Schools 88 students that live in the Saline Area are going to Oxford that's not true but they are being captured as a portion of the FTE from Oxford because they're delivering shared time services to these students in Saline that are going elsewhere likely a lot of them going to private schools and then one other uh look at the very top of this one South Redford there's not 90 students going to South Redford but they are going somewhere else now they could be home school private school but somehow they're getting those Services being provided by
134South Redford schools so those are the three primary districts that are doing the shared time services that are capturing a number of our students or well not our students students that are from the Saline area Okay so uh these are these These are what I deem are the three most significant factors contributing to enrollment loss now there are other factors but but I I put up here what I believe are the three most significant uh not necessarily in any order but we'll start with the first one significant decrease in Washington County birth rate over the last 20 years is catching up with us and many other local districts second families have more choices than ever before as to where to send their students they're choosing virtual options Charter academies private schools or homeschooling Technical College
135and so forth affordability and this is something that I've confirmed with uh ban over at the city planner and we talk about affordability well right now higher mortgage rates are contributing to this issue of you know if you used to be able to afford a home that was four hundred thousand dollars if you have if you have a really large if you're having to pay a lot for your mortgage that might mean you're really down to 325. so that that's contributing and and also in talking to other local superintendents for example Chris timmis and Dexter we've had that same conversation he feels the exact same plane out in Dexter the higher mortgage rates are are really stretching newer families to come in as to what they can can afford okay so those are three factors
136again there are others but but these are three that that we want to continue to talk about and address okay so are we looking into the reasons why people leave the district yes we are we have some current data from families that filled out the intent to return form for this school year and they told us why they weren't coming back um it wasn't everyone but it was it was pretty close now about 50 percent of those students said they're moving they they moved they moved out of County moved out of state but another 50 percent showed a combination of other things going to private schools other Public Schools home schooling and so forth we also have an ongoing study with Galapagos marketing and they are looking at the previous three years of Why students
137have gone and and they're making other choices so we're Gathering all that data because it does matter to us as to why and then we need to reflect on that and say are there are there things that we're able to do to show that the Saline Area Schools is is a better choice um and then it's also something I've been having conversations with communications director Martin about what is our our communication strategy around this once we compile that data and understand it more so we are certainly looking at that so what should we do next we should start developing a restructuring plant restructuring plan and I'll talk about that on on one of the next slides we're going to work to keep the kids we currently have in the district here and not going elsewhere
138let's call that retention we want to retain you know students are here we want to make sure they're they're happy and and we're providing the services that really support all our students uh second or the next bullet point bring students back to the district if they're going elsewhere in Washington County that's what I was talking about with communications director Martin what we we need to develop a strategy to get the word out there for families who are no longer in the district that hey come back to salinary schools we have a great product we want to offer and we need to communicate that uh the next bullet point says Mark at the district to those who may consider moving here from outside Washtenaw County so now we're talking about how do we get to some
139of the bigger businesses in the area to really showcase our relationship with them and uh that there'd be Realtors and make sure that they know that we want Saline schools to be the number one option when employers are bringing people into the region so here's a question people have been asking is it critical to boost enrollment to levels that we saw in 1617 that would mean in that 5200 student range I I really don't feel like it is critical because if if we think about how this plays out our primary source of funding is the per pupil allocation roughly ten thousand dollars per student so if we we our primary goal needs to be to offer the same or improved services for our students and if we end up having less students that doesn't mean
140we can't still accomplish that goal it simply means we have to restructure some things and that's what we get into next so how are we proposing to right size the district and what I mean by right sizing the district I mean that we need to adjust our staffing model to reflect the number of students that we have and if if our of our model used to reflect 5200 students and now it needs to reflect 4 700 students we need to work to make that right size so to speak and um so we look at three bullet points at the very bottom here these are three considerations that we're working now with our core administrative team and our administrative team on and those are one how do we adjust Staffing using the attrition model to trim
141FTE what do we mean by attrition well for example um Kurt and the human resources department on boarded 50 new staff this year we have more turnover than ever before and you could say well is that good or bad um we just don't have the longevity of Staff like we used to we used to have a day where uh I mean myself included I came in as a teacher here and I've been in the district well over 20 years that's rare now so we need to adjust our staffing model to reflect more turnover also means that we have the opportunity to just not hire back as many people in future years and we will work to do that the second bullet is what about looking at developing more efficient schedules in our buildings that could
142lead to savings so it's it's no secret one of the things that we will look at is we'll look at our high school schedule not to say that we're necessarily changing it but right now we operate on on trimesters what happens if we remove that to semesters we're exploring it the third is what about grade reconfiguration great reconfiguration is the most efficient way in our buildings so if you think about it the most efficient building in the district is Heritage because you take Elementary grades they're all there fourth and fifth grade and they really only have in theory the one teacher that you so it it's the most efficient model to try to reconfigure to be as efficient as possible we'll look at that it's not to say that we're going to reconfigure buildings but
143but we're going to look at it and that's that's it actually but uh that's that's the update and I have my list uh if people want to ask questions that I don't know the answers to but I'll try to answer it's like you're reading whatever questions you have in keeping with her in keeping with our new process if you have questions to fire at Dr lots you'll generate a you'll generate them if I can answer them now I will I just don't gently lob toward you okay sure go right ahead uh Mr awesome um so a few things written down that not a whole lot of work questions am I yeah um so the the straight roll up in the uh your first slide there I mean that was pretty good so this year our
144senior class looks to be more so than what the 22-23 year was yeah yeah which look which is good I think you know kindergarten took the big hit down almost uh 40. huh oh some other students yeah kindergarten kindergarten yes a young fives is up which definitely hurt our kindergarten class but even so it's just we continue to bring in these smaller classes and when you we're exiting bigger classes now the high school classes do typically grow they did not grow as much this past year um so we we do tend to gain more kids at the secondary level because if you think about it some may be going to elementary schools through eighth grade and they don't have a high school and they need to come back but not as much growth at the
145high school as we've seen in the past and then um you know slide four showing you know the trend in the number of students um you know that is just a sort of clarification yeah just for clarification that is for public schools right not yet so the 170 student loss might not be a true 170 student less students it's just now they're going to private school or being homeschooled right now yeah it could be I did inquire I sent an email to the um where I got the data at mdhhs and and they said the question yeah that was public school data Public Schools um then uh some of the later slides actually touched on it where it's like you got 110 students but then only a FTE of 12 or whatever and that's that
146shared Service uh uh program that these schools are doing so you those are probably private school kids that are going there most likely and then jump into that conclusion because they're that they're likely that because that that's the arrangement that I know for example Washington Christian has where they they get into share time services and so would uh Saint Andrew or or any honestly any of the um private schools are so some of these schools are using this as a funding mechanism yeah and yeah and a good way to find funds I guess um and then uh obviously the three different things the birth rates and housing as a contractor in this area I mean the houses are going in and people are bidding on them so and and I'm going in these subdivisions there's
147a lot of kids so one thing when we talk about birth rates what we don't capture is the number of kids moving into the district because Washington County has like a six percent over the last 10 years has increased six percent in the county in like total population that could be true yeah yep it's not in I did look into it it's not all in the school age because it's mostly 25 to 35 year olds but what we're not capturing is that increase in students that are coming from other that are moving in you know so birth rates as that does uh and you did mention that that's not the only thing right and so I appreciate that because we see like private schools around Celine like Washington Christian Academy 89 students in 2019 now
148they're 380 some strong 60 on a wait list and gonna add on uh Saint Andrews was ready to be a school for for years since it was built now they found a need and now they got 60 some students now they're not all sleen students but I think public schools in general need to really look at the way they're educating their kids and what their core principles are and I think because I think that's why that's one of the main major issues here thanks about the shared services and I know that um like for example and and this might be anecdotal and so maybe you don't know but I know for example sometimes um students might participate in an elective class at a homeschool Consortium or something like that so I'm wondering if students participate
149in multiple consortiums could they potentially be counted twice on the shared services if students participate in multiple consortiums all right give me another example so like for example if a high school student is taking biology at one Consortium but they're taking um apgov at another Consortium could they potentially have been captured twice I'm just wondering because the numbers okay but shared services are non-core classes okay okay yeah like a student from yeah Washington Christian Academy they're not taking biology I got it they're it's PE or music or something like that okay thank you so much that clarifies that thank you others others from the table uh Dr gold so I'm just looking at the numbers so are the numbers like for example Ann Arbor Public Schools 124 Celine kids are going to Ann Arbor Public
150Schools is that what that means a number of non-resident students enrolled number of Resident students enrolled elsewhere it means that we're gaining more share from Ann Arbor so we have 124 kids who live in Ann Arbor going to school here yeah okay the in Lincoln 150 Milan we have about 99. so those are those are kids we're getting for School of Choice is that correct is that only School of Choice or is that like special ed kids or young adult programs primarily School of choice but there are some factors like that where it could potentially special education and this also includes employee students that jump in so there are a number of factors but it's primarily School of Choice yeah okay and um when we have families and this might be in the data that
151you're going to give us and I don't expect you to be answered for this now but I'm wondering what ages of students are those that are leaving for reasons other than moving do we see any Trends there is it mostly people unhappy or want seeking something different in the elementary years and the high school years I'd be curious about that okay yeah that'll that will get captured in that report I can't yeah and my initial is my initial look at it is it's a variety of different trades from that intent to return form I read over yeah rationale and it's a whole lot of reasons it's a lot of so it's a lot of reasons it's not just one thing like they're not it would be interesting to know like the breakdown of going to
152a different public School looking for Charter School different like magnets because there's going to be a breakdown but that'll be interesting data to see yeah you're right that'll get captured though so that's good and then I'm wondering how would semesters going to semesters change the um you know how we're going to semesters change this model right right well in short it means that you you wouldn't need as many teachers to operate on that schedule because students um you know they have they go a whole semester and then they on one semester when you have three or three the trimesters the way the schedule works is that you need to they they have more elective opportunities per se then then in a semester one so it ends up being less FTE but again when I say
153that I mean we're exploring it we that's that's as far as we've gone we're gonna talk about exploring it does not mean that we would actually do that so yeah and I will back that up and say that I mean for the benefit of this team and the community like this is a big piece now what Finance is going to be you know looking into and lifting through the restructuring plan and all of that like this is going to be our heavy lift not only for the remainder of this school year as we identify this but also probably of next year's Finance team as we talk about how do we restructure and those kinds of things so um stay tuned but I want you to know that yeah we're the Phoenix team is very much
154going to be a part of this we are anxiously awaiting anything else from the table I do want to always thank Steve and the team for looking into kind of a restructuring plan early on because I mean we have to get out ahead of it I appreciate it as well thank you very much superintendent we have one discussion item the board policy committee meeting updates from our policy chair Jenny Miller okay and this will be brief uh tonight on our agenda we talked about an amendment to um policy 5113 School of Choice program and we voted to bring that to the table so you'll be seeing that Amendment to the policy that gives some guidance that has been historically followed but um would would now be in embedded in the policy and would live longer
155than than probably all hopefully all of us serve on on the sport so hopefully that will be a long-standing amendment to that policy and then um the other thing that we kind of discussed and and thought about was back in February it was requested by Treasurer gerby and by myself and I think in there was support by others at the table but those two in particular in my notes um uh consideration of uh the request by the be safe uh campaign and the women I'm Monique and Susie who came to who have been here multiple times to present to us on the be safe campaign and the district is currently working at the PTO level and also Steve is working at the administrative level two um roll out some of those measures but we wanted
156to consider a possible there's there in other districts at the request of or at the guidance I guess of the be smart campaign folks there have been resolutions that have passed one close to home here was the Chelsea School District so we took a look at that and we are considering writing a resolution and or policy in support of gun safety and safe gun storage so that is work that is ongoing and that we will be working on and one one point that was made by superintendent latch during our discussion today is that um this could be an amendment one one act could be an amendment to a policy around weapons because we do have policies already around weapons but the other piece and this kind of brings it's linked back to our conversation around
157um around our policy container so to speak that there are currently six policies that are called weapons and a part of that is because we have one for professional staff one for support staff one for admin one for students one for contract vendors one for visitors but it does make make it cumbersome for our administrators and staff to operationalize so just thinking more around that and if we were to make an amendment or proposal of another policy just keeping in mind that that bit of information too we also did not discuss but uh we made note that we have a couple of items coming up um because it is September which means we have October November and December to kind of wrap up the work that this current policy committee has because um in January
158there could be new people on the policy committee so we don't want to leave any Loose Ends so one item coming up um Steve and Betty and I on October 12th will be meeting with a representative from Neola to discuss the most recent Meola updates and to get more information and guidance around those so that the policy committee can work through those at an upcoming meeting and then finally uh we had a policy draft it was policy 5511 dress and grooming and Betty was getting some clarification for us on that policy that we needed from I think it was from Neola am I right Betty yep from Neola and she has secured that clarification so that will be coming up in a in an upcoming meeting so that we can um we can decide whether
159or not to move that policy forward to the table so that is the policy update today and we wrapped up in under an hour I just want to say we did good work I was so impressed 55 55 40 47 minutes 47 minutes exactly um so Administration board updates but I also would like to have on Deck our student Representatives if you have anything you are welcome to speak we'll let superintendent go first and then we'll start at your end okay thank you okay I have two primary points the first one is how how great it was to spend time this weekend for the foundation for senior schools at its annual Hall of Fame induction and and what I thought was so great this year it's it it's excellent every year but the the six
160people who were nominated and inducted they felt so honored and valued it was great and it and it shows how important the school district was for him they kept talking about oh they're great experiences and half were um you know former students who have done something great and half are former Educators and so that the people that were there just have really interesting stories so Ann Pellegrino is famous for the uh replicating the Amelia Earhart flight around around the world um Bruce Ross was a CTE Legend and driver's truck drivers training forever and just talked about these great stories of the district and then Emily Nash former student really successful Journal journalist in Denver in the Denver area now and then um Jerry doc Hasbro you remember him the famous calculus teacher who just spoke
161so I mean you know how great our students were and the tribute to his success was our student body and then Joe Schwartz a long time administrator who just loved his experience here and just raved about it and then Meg scaling is a locally she's got a local therapy business and it's really successful and so it just was great to see it and I think it's important that we keep that that going because it does show that the the tradition of the Excellence of the schools really really comes out in in events like that the next comment I wanted to make is the transition with the Middle School principal just wanted to thank Michelle chakowitz for her tremendous work uh 17 years as a leader in the district we've collaborated on on many many things
162in the district and wish her well she's got an opportunity to be the curriculum director in Holly Area Schools and I know she's going to do a great job and so with that we looked at three things to bring in the next interim principle at the middle school and these were the three most important elements knowledge and appreciation of middle school students and staff that was key two deep understanding in middle school buildings and how they're run and then three is consistency and maintain orderly instructional environment and so that is why we're able to welcome back David raft to finish his career here as he is getting ready to retire and to be able to pick up where Michelle left off and provide a really nice transition and then of course we still have Lindsay
163um getner as our really successful Middle School assistant principal so um David's going to start on October 9th and then we've got the posting up for uh those that are interested in applying for the longer term Middle School job and then we'll work to get in a um a great candidate in the very near future so we're just excited for the district thank you very much student Representatives seventh we have the tedx youth coming up there have been so many people from Celine especially at the high school who have been planning this so we're super excited to see how that goes for the students and we can't forget about the homecoming dance and homecoming football game coming up this Saturday and the parade on Friday and we'd like to thank the student council and everything
164they've done for setting up this entire week along with preparing the setup for the dance and everything else are you going to be marching in the parade I will not but I will be cheering off all right trusty awesome I kind of want to Echo what they're saying you know homecoming week this is an exciting week for uh Celine and uh student or students Spirit school spirit and uh so anyways so that's exciting just hope everybody makes good decisions on uh on Saturday stay out of trouble um yeah and then also uh thank principal checkowitz for her service here and uh excited to hear that Mr raft is coming back Treasurer Kirby yeah my my thoughts are exactly the same um excited for homecoming this week thankful for everything and hopeful the Kirby boys and
165everybody are safe secretary Miller okay well I just wanted to say um I have close ties with both Michelle and David um David often teases that he um hired me to be in my role as a teacher here in Celine a long long time ago um and uh I I credit him with a lot of um a lot of those um you know early experiences as a teacher and his support as an assistant principal at Heritage I also want to just say that when he was at the middle school um Ali my oldest was transitioning to the middle school and transitions have always been kind of tricky for her I don't think she would be afraid for me to say that but transitions have always been a little bit tricky for her and um Mr
166raft played a pivotal role in really forming relationships with her and I've heard people say that he knows the name of every student and I know that even in this short interim he will work ever he'll work without fail to form those relationships with students again and um just be that uh friendly face and support to both teachers and staff and families teachers and students and families um and to Michelle who was my principal I think for a decade I was trying to remember how long but I think for at least a decade she was the principal of the school where I taught at Woodland Meadows and I just appreciate her um her steadfast leadership and I wish her uh well in her next Endeavor I know it's going to be wonderful for her to
167not have such a lengthy commute so I'm really excited for that for her moving forward to homecoming I am really excited to be under the lights this Friday for homecoming and cheering on our Hornets I want to extend a thanks as you mentioned student council the student council under the the leadership of Lori Dawson who is our Student Activities coordinator and having two kids who are um I guess senior ref or I guess not Representatives what are they they're class people I don't know their Treasurer or secretary and and president so having these two kiddos who uh get up early and I know they're getting up because they have a vested interest in um planning the activities but that doesn't happen without someone like Laurie Dawson who steps in and makes sure and offers guidance
168when guidance is needed and um and maybe some revisions and so I just want to appreciate and and recognize the efforts that she puts forward and I want to thank the high school administration for supporting our students in their first pep assembly the seniors that was your first pep assembly since coming to high school since you started high school during the pandemic and so um what a rite of passage for them to be able to have that pep assembly this week and to have all the activities that um that surround homecoming so thank you for that lastly I want to mention on a personal note that today is the 13th birthday of Chad Carr and I'm wearing orange today to support Chad tough and for more information please visit chadtuff.org we did have an orange
169game earlier this year and so I just want to recognize the work that the Chad tough Foundation is doing to um to raise funds for research to um to move forward the efforts around a cure for Childhood Cancer especially dipg so recognizing that today and that's all for me thank you secretary Miller I just have a quick note is that I will be at the fsas fundraiser on October 5th if you plan on going make sure you register we've got a bunch of rocks from you last year Mr Austin we'll be bringing some more rocks this year oh they haven't asked all right thank you thank you so much um well you've repainted the stones for the connecting Club it was pretty it was cool it was cool I said it took me a while
170to figure out what was going on and I figured it out um vice president Miller uh Stephen sorry are you seeing Tim's full of rocks we're saying Rock on it um a lot of good things so I don't want to go go back through um but um to build off of Jenny's comment of course Tammy and Ann aren't here tonight because it being September 26th but we look forward to hosting them any upcoming board meetings so they can speak to the foundation and the Community Partnership um with regards to homecoming you know we focus a lot on our older children at this time which is great um but it's a really fun time for the littles as well whether they're being involved in spirit week and other things in our building and coming to the
171game and really feeling big and looking at the big kids running around and what they might be one year so it just fills me with a lot of Pride so I appreciate all of the students and staff really getting behind the spirit and pride and salinary schools this week last time Stacey rumsell was here from the foundation for Saline Area school so I just wanted to amplify a few dates Michael mentioned the fifth so that is our cultivating lifelong Learners luncheon a lot of alliteration um so if you have an RSVP please do so it's a wonderful fundraiser for the foundation but it's also a time to really learn about how that grant money is being used in our buildings and in our classrooms so thank you to those folks planning the event um I
172know they're excited about the holiday parade on December 2nd and the new snow blast whether it's going back to blue jeans and Ling I guess is March 9th so just some things to think about there and thank you for them passing the budget for the grants for this year you weren't here for this but she did promise that there would be no power outage that night don't jinx us don't drink okay um I wasn't planning to um make this sort of statement but um I it needs to be done um so the response to previous public comment um if this is a statement from the board president on behalf of the board I believe that these statements should be sent to board members in advance for input I do not support the response that was
173given tonight so to say that you know the board members um you know agree with or you know I think we I caution against that um this is at least the second time um we've heard um constituents being called out who have come to speak from their own experiences their children our students who are providing invaluable knowledge of how policies and practice impact lgbtq plus youth it's so important that we have these voices speaking up for those populations who a lot of times are not able to speak up themselves what disgusts me even further is that I haven't heard the calling out of comments that cause real harm to our lgbtq community I'm going I I'm going to read um pieces of a comment um that we heard Here In This Very Room um it's
174going to be difficult for me to to read this but children and it was aimed at me um children aren't here to test your cultural perversion um we spot so spawn equal rights under the law if you don't mutilate your child and chemically castrate them then CPS is taking my son's um okay CPS then my children aren't here to learn about sinful Pride um genders um to affirm mentally Disturbed adults transitioning their kids you can't push your ideology and pretend gender Theory theories um showed my own kids from your evil perverted desires um and not to mention the the social media that is out there um you know that that is is just personally um has been an attack uh on me um and I I'm just very sad that we had a student speech
175and I and that um instead of you know calling out this type of behavior um that you choose to call out people who are challenging you to think about your own commitment to True allyship um and so I I want to state that because I don't think it's fair I appreciate the note Susan esep thank you very much I appreciate that Lauren gold I'd like to entertain a motion to authorize the consent agenda as printed below sorry the content sorry the consent agenda listed in this agenda will not be read aloud the motion noted will allow for the authorization of all the listed items without discussion unless a member of the board requests that any of them be considered individually do I have a motion to authorize this consent agenda as printed support Jay Miller
176and oh hang on one second Michael I wanted to make a motion to authorize the consent agenda as amended amending c um the minutes were September 18 2023. sorry I just noticed it while I was reading it tonight we will call that a scrivener's error thank you very much I appreciate that so uh motion Miller with friendly amendment seconded by e Kim Jennifer Steven thank you very much all in favor please say aye aye opposed thank you and I've run out of pages okay sorry uh items scheduled on the next agendas superintendent only the siab hearing number two excellent thank you and uh public comment a member of the public May address the board briefly for up to three minutes or request to be scheduled on the agenda of a future meeting you going to
177pass this time sir maybe next time we'll put you number one the next time thank you very much sir okay if it's on the agenda all right thank you very much the next meeting of the Board of Education will be held October 10th at 2023 at 6 30. uh I'd like to entertain a motion to enter into closed session of the Board of Ed at nine well let's say 9 15 at the latest with the intent to reopen uh Open Session approximately 9 45 at the most and uh at the most for the purpose of superintendent evaluation section 8A under 8 a simple majority vote is sufficient to enter into closed session do I have a motion so move so move was that Mr Austin okay support oh all in favor please say aye aye
178great thank you very much there will be no action after this so thank you very much okay right now well we started back up we skipped the part where we said without objection we're going without objection we're going to go at re-entering to close open session at nine I'm this we're still in closed session at this moment 9 24 and which is a little early so we are now back in Open Session thank you very much um I'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn the regular Board of Education meeting of September 26th at 9 24. so move JS moves ta supports all in favor please say aye opposed good foreign