Saline Area Schools: Budget Hearing & Board of Education Meeting (06.13.2023)

001button before you talk right I'd like to whoa I'd like to uh call to order the budget hearing of June 13 2023 uh as standing as you're able uh please Facebook flag for the Pledge of Allegiance one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you everyone uh here at the public comments section 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 uh before we go on is there anyone for this section then I will pass over the rest of this and move right on to the revisions slash approval of the agenda items can be added or deleted from the meeting agenda and the order could be changed at the request of an individual

002board member or the superintendent the agendas must be approved before proceeding further I'd like to recommend that we I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the agenda as printed and that's just for the budget hearing I'll make it so move support oh Tim Austin I miss that now Austin got the support okay all in favor please say aye we have one item it's the budget presentation by assistant superintendent Miranda owsley good evening and so one of the things I wanted to start out with tonight is just the what and why why we do this what we're here to talk about and so one of the pieces that is a unique part of Michigan school finance and the State Legislative school year and our year and their year none of them aligned so our fiscal

003year goes from July to June every year and the state budget goes from October to September so it creates this kind of time then we do a modified accounting accrual so in general some of those state aid payments that come in July and August are actually crude back to June so it's kind of this time period where we're in two fiscal years at one time kind of continuing those um in general this is a requirement by law we have to adopt a the budget before July 1st and no more amendments can be done to a budget after June 30th and then this budget hearing is also a requirement by law the action that we'll take tonight is the FY 23 so that one ending June 30th of this month and then also we'll adapt a

004original budget for the fiscal year 2023 2024 and that includes the tax rates that we send off to the seven agencies and then for just reference only are some future year estimates and those are as I'm in budgeting those things giving us reference to where we're going and what things that we're talking about and again this is all funds we spent a lot of time talking about the general fund but you'll see in this in another slide in a minute there's lots of funds that we're talking through so one of the big pieces that that this time of year is Saline schools is 100 summer tax so this is the first tax since our um in November this past November so you'll see in the second piece of this the first line is just the

005operating Mill engine that's part of anybody that kind of owns one home doesn't pay that operating millage we just renewed it just this past May um then I'll go for another 10 years the in the red box so you'll see this is where we are going down to 7.5 mils that was part of the whole proposal that we talked through and and that we said that that would be happening and this is where when that starts so you know after this meeting I go out and give these the seven agencies Pittsfield York Lodi Freedom Bridgewater the seven taxing agencies that covers cleaner schools and so they then well you will receive your tax bills some from there then the last two we have a sinking fund there was no Hedley rollback this year it's basically

006kind of a calculated thing that kind of keeps there's a cap on what that increase can so it reduces the mill rate because the taxable values are increasing at a calculated rate that did not apply this year so the rate still stays the same and then the bottom one is the cares the recreation millage as well the debt syncing and cares is paid on all properties so it's very different from the operating millage that we talked about and we just renewed so this is kind of what I was talking about of all the different funds you know from the very outside you see Saline Area Schools and you see all these things happening all of these things incorporate what we do to see everything we see on the outside so we talk a lot about

007the general fund that's at first going across the top row then the special revenues fund so you kind of track that down Community yet and that's kind of where that cares millage rolls up to and also you know our facility rentals happen through there as well as Community education courses and things like that food service fund a lot of federal revenue coming in claims that has to keep its own fun then also the Consortium then we run the technical schools for the county a lot of um a lot of different figuring to go into that to where people pay in even our we pay in for our saline students and then we have costs that are associated with it all gets balanced out of that fund then our fund um I wrote 6129 accounting practices

008a couple years ago change and that moved that into a special Revenue fund so it's kind of think of the fundraising arm in general we manage those funds for people but it's basically extra funds that are used on the side for a lot of different variety of reasons but it forces us now as a special Revenue fund to budget for that private purpose trust kind of thinks scholarships is money we were hosting for for those purposes debt funds that every time pass a bond we pull money if you remember um just in this past year we have pulled another series one of our new bond that is now now we are starting to pay that debt so we collect on the taxes and we are now paying a 2023 that we have added on there

009then in our Capital project fund is the actual cash in hand that we are using to do those projects the bond money that we draw draw um Peg fusions with their cable commission that's also a maintenance fund that we kind of Reserve money there to some of the things that aren't bondable and that we do need to continue to keep um keep to keep our district going and our sinking fund that does a lot of repairs in the district and kind of has a reserve fundance very specific purposes we can use that for so this is kind of a reminder we kind of hit this home a little bit with our operating millage in general the state dictates what a large portion of our funding is even the local taxes so as you see from

010this example Foundation allowance is an example of 9700 and if we have 4 800 students that's about 47 million that 47 million is established by the state we collect those taxes but it doesn't change the the whole piece of what we collect and if we don't collect that the state does not chip in more money we just have to do this part of that proposal a even though we have to go back to voters to say please renew this when it gets to that expiring time so that's all and part of proposal a and has kind of been in stone for since 1994 actually another big piece I wanted to try to work through in that education kind of and playing a big part in our budget even this year is something called we use

011This Acronym uaal and it's always been there for you know Pat over 10 years they do the pension reform so I think of the state pension system as a whole so this affects every school district in the state of Michigan when they did that pension reform it stands for kind of this unfunded actuarially liability it's basically though if they were to say what we think it's going to cost us to pay out all of our liabilities as people retire we owe money to people and our assets would do not cover that liability so therefore the state you know was working towards trying to repair that and get get to the the point where the that it is a funded pension system and so that was a large increase in our actual expenses but in addition

012the state wanted to to put more money from the state budget into that unfunded liability they wanted to pay that down they want to put assets into the retirement system at that time they did not accounting principles in the legislation did not allow the state government to take and put money directly in there they said no you have to give this to the schools then the school has to turn around and give it back then to the pension system that kind of came in the same time as we saw on our financials in the our that became a liability for us so we you know every school district State admission is pretty much negative because we all host a little bit of that liability on our books so with that being said that's been around

013for a long time we basically get a payment in every month and I give a payment out so it is a zero net difference we have revenue and expenditure so it's always equal the thing that makes a very big difference and even this year is that that is significantly increased in total the state with extra Revenue that they have on hand they said hey we'd like to make an additional since you know we've been making this payment for the last 10 years they would like to make additional payments to it with this extra revenue and so it really is start to skew if you look and point into some parts of our budget you know four million dollars is a big number and to kind of shift it but it's a net zero change on

014both sides so I really wanted to point that out this is a nine million dollar thing that gets on both sides of that Avenue and the other piece is is really note that when that comes in and I have to pay that out it goes to every single salary line item that we pay so it goes across our funds every function code all of those it has to get spread across all of those so as we roll these things up into the large buckets it's in every one of those on both the revenue side and the expenditure side so I wanted to take a minute to say that because 4.4 million dollar shift in one year is is significant so basically going back to just kind of where our general fund gets our revenues from

015you know the large portion is the state side these just barely decimal places change from one year to the next but it's basically just a large portion of it even though um they dictate even some of the local taxes the state still is a very large largest portion of our Revenue federal grants kind of come into play for a very small portion intermediate is basically an ISD and a lot of our funding from the Intermediate School District has to play into our act 18 our special ed funding that the county collects and then gives to school districts so this is kind of looking at those years the white are the actuals those are things that are set in stone and that have been kind of closed books and then we have in the blue that

016is where we're mending our current year that's ending here in a couple of weeks and then our original budget with a couple estimates on there we did a couple years back as we started to get some of this one-time money that was really skewing things you'll see we've pulled out that state one time in federal one time even though we've said this one time some of those things have repeated a couple of times but though it's still a very temporary source that we know that we're trying to have those conversations in the long run that those aren't staying they're not going to be there ongoing for a long period of time and so how that plays the fact Factor you see in the bottom kind of talking about some of those assumptions that go into

017this obviously our enrollment plays a big factor in what we get for using our foundation allowance so you'll see that each of these years I am predicting a loss and I've used the word roll up because I'm kind of considering that if I was to just move the classes ahead I exit the seniors and just roll them all up that's where the number would be obviously we know there's a lot of coming and going throughout the whole summer in our enrollment gets pretty in-depth in in all our different programs but this is a general way to say kind of a baseline number for us so it's very conservative in that fact that we saw some growth in classes last year we do hope that we see that again but I'm not predicting that and using

018that as a starting point in these numbers so that's the 67 loss in this fall 75 the next year and 90 the next year so with that being a loss that is a loss of Revenue as well so then in general the foundation allowance this number it isn't settled yet the they have all three of the legislation branches have put out their budgets I have used the governor's budget in in that 458 per pupil that's right in the middle actually one was higher and one was a little lower so that felt like a pretty good number in general they are very still larger increases than we've seen obviously over a long period of time in schools these are still a good number but in Revenue generating conferences that they've they've shown a lot of decline

019in kind of flattening out of a lot of numbers and so in the following year I put in a hundred dollars per pupil and then fifty dollars the following year so as those those we'd lose students and then we aren't seeing as great we obviously can see that that would be trending in the wrong direction that we have to continue that conversation um the other increase in the FY 25 years they're kind of some special ed increase due to some kind of positions in the year 24 that kind of lags in that it kind of looks back at the prior year timing this chart is kind of one I like to show the blue line is a dollar per student and the foundation allowance that line goes to the left bar to be the dollars

020on the right side the red line goes across to a retirement rate and why I kind of like to show these even though they're two different scales so they're not you know in unison they are showing trends so the red line is an expense for us and that's per the percentage is per every salary dollar so if you know if you Lo look back it started in I think 07 I think I see and it's about 17 so every dollar in salary we paid we paid 17 cents on every dollar and you roll all the way up to where we are today in the red you know in this next year it's going to be 31.34 so that's a significant increase over time and you'll see right when schools had that difficult time we were

021losing revenue and also gaining one of the larger expenses that we had it was trending in the very wrong direction so though we are seeing these large increases in our per pupil Foundation we're also starting to see that a couple years has been auras has been flat that retirement percentage but we do have seen this next year is going to increase about three percent so that is a significant thing to keep an eye on in the next couple of years um this kind of pulls out our expenditures and again this side shows it broken down by what we call a function code and so in general you'll see a lot of our funding still goes into instructional programming and the support that goes on is that these again change this year by you know decimals

022these percentages um with our numbers now this is the same way to look at the exact same thing all of our expenses but just looking at a different way what breaks down of our um our total cost of expenditures 46 salary 41 benefits so benefits include not just the ORS percent that I said Health Care all the ancillary things and that ORS number that I said gets spread along to all of our salaries is in there so that pie part is getting bigger in part to do to that uaal in general the combination of them so that 87 is salaries and benefits and that other eight four and less than one percent supplies purchase Services materials that part is staying kind of the same it's just the between the salaries and benefits is kind of

023changing I'm the expected I mean the expense side we see that in general taking that I've already mentioned some of these yours percentage increase you know in general I also the next two years you know kind of rolled up a percentage a half a percentage Point um steps that the our biggest um expense on the sca side on our teacher scale kind of rolled those up there's known Lane changes where they're changing bachelors and Masters though there's a financial implication there replacing we have known of some resignations and retirements that are happening in general there's a still a large significance not necessarily an um inflation so much is it just a lot of things pulsing like our insurance is one of those pieces that is the whole Insurance Agency is kind of changing how they

024have things brought back um we had an in-house kind of um scenario and we're switching back to our city of salinasaro the ual we talked a lot about and so those are some of those significant ones that are rolling forward so this is a quick snippet of the expense side of things and where that rolls forward um this will also be posted obviously to our transparency website if you've ever seen the little pop-up that pops up on every school website you'll click and you'll be able to see these um online hopefully tomorrow or by the end of the week as well as in the board packet that you can find online um then this kind of takes the the the all of the revenues and expenditures and boils them up to what's the difference in

025each year I did leave on this Slide the very tap to be very pointed about those are those one time so a lot of those revenues in total at the the above part the state and the federal is showing what was considered like kind of these one-time funds that will be drying up here so as we see in that green column in fy25 we don't show any of those anymore are there going to be some probably some categoricals that the state will still approve and still do yes but the concept is when those come about and are approved there's also probably new expenditures that kind of come with them at that time so there may be able to be means to where we might be able to continue some some programming if those grants do

026come through but I don't want to assume that those grants will continue in those kind of ways so we'll kind of balance those as they go but this is a starting point and as you can if you think about it globally what we just talked about is if our student accounts going down in the per pupil is not kind of keeping up with those ongoing increases on the expense side we're going to be in the opposite directions you know and revenues kind of dwindling off and revenue is continuing to charge forward and so this is really that conservative layer of if we don't do anything and then we aren't talking and considering these things that we can be in this situation very fast now this is an ongoing conversation you know in in multiple layers

027throughout throughout our day and I really like to keep these in Forefront of all of these small decisions we make kind of add up to all of this as a whole and so it's is I don't feel like that we will get there because we will make changes along the way but it is kind of that starting point is if we we just if things all Trend in the wrong direction and we don't take actionable steps that that would would fruition so it's kind of that that a little bit of a a starting point to make sure that we don't get there this graph is just showing celine's history as a long-term history of our fund balance and so that's you know kind of cash on hand what we have in our own reserves and

028so one of the things you will not see on the action items later this evening is there is no state aid borrowing note so when we don't have enough cash doing that cash flow looking at what's coming in and out we usually have to borrow because Celine has historically for many years not had a large fund balance and so there is times when we get to where we need a cash influx so that we can make ends meet at certain times by having a larger fund balance that we have currently we are not needing to do that as a projected out a year that we don't need to borrow that and then we don't need to pay interest to obtain that money so that's one of the the benefits of having a fund balance and

029also gives us the luxury of time being kind of strategic as we make changes we can do them in strategic times and very pointed uh this is the other fun summary it's basically just taking all we're taking action item on all of those special Revenue funds the debt funds as well as the capital projects funds and so this is just a global summary um you'll you'll notice the big spike is really in the bond fund and that's because we actually Drew all of series one money so we get the whole big money at that time and start paying that debt but it's a one lump that kind of comes in so the timing of a 6 30 time is not really referenced in a lot in in some of those funds because it's kind of

030an ongoing project obviously we're planning now for projects that are happening far in advance in the future so that kind of gets us to where we're ready for any questions board any questions you've done a fabulous summary by the way and try to keep it and I know the finance committee just poured over it as well um I want to make a general comment saying that you know to the the public this this looks neat and tidy and awesome because mirandaously makes it look so neat and tidy but um our budget document is a 60-page document um the number of funds we have I was trying to do like a just a general count on them and it's in excess of 300. it's so like all of these things have to be accounted for and

031kept track of and your office does an incredible job so I've always said like I have probably the easiest uh quote unquote chairmanship of of anybody and I I would say that I I still do but Brandon so uh yeah general fund is about 1500 lines yeah that rolled up to 300 is a roll-up yeah so you know I'm proud of I am really proud of the work we do from a budgeting standpoint and from a finance standpoint and I am also I will I will say out loud that I'm glad that that work we're going to be watching this year this this upcoming year is really one where we're going to have to be watching our revenues versus our expenditures and and this is going to give us a good predictor about any any

032you know things we have to do structurally and some of those kinds of things this year will be really different from us from uh revenue from the federal government side standpoint so so that that's very much on our mind well thank you very much thank you very much Treasurer Kirby I'm going to say I'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn the budget hearing of June 13th at 6 27 to prepare for our next meeting motion Miller Miller support Estep thank you all in favor please say aye aye looks like we have a budget hearing thank you we'll start up again in about two minutes and 32 seconds oh like after teachers leave it'll be less than yeah they're all here to see you to meet you hello citizens of Celine I'd like to call

033to order the June 13th regular board meeting uh of Saline Area Schools standing as you are able could you please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you first uh we have a slight um uh had a very quick discussion about this thing as there are so many people this evening for public comment which is great uh we are going to uh uh move the honoring of the retirees a little earlier in the agenda but first in fact they'll be uh right after this our superintendent has a brief message and we'd like to introduce Somebody To You thank you president McVeigh yeah two people in fact so this is a unique situation in that we had two excellent candidates for student Representatives on the board of education for next year and so we're taking

034the opportunity to have two that can kind of um balance each other these are both student athletes and they're involved in a lot of different activities and organizations so we want to make sure that we have the ability to have both of them here at meetings in the future or one or the other and so we're going to start by introducing Caroline Clark and she's excited to connect with the community and wants to be a leader of her peers and allow students to be more involved in board activities through the student board position and so Caroline welcome aboard and potentially say a few words hi I'm Caroline I just want to thank you all again for this opportunity I'm so excited for this year and I look forward to working with all of you and

035having great conversation thank you thank you Carolyn yay [Applause] thanks Caroline and next we have Mateo I de Paulo and Matteo's looking forward to Bringing leadership skills to the table uh he can be an excellent speaker listener and leader with a passion to improve education so Mateo welcome aboard hi I'm Matteo thank you for the opportunity and I'm looking forward to being a part of the board and looking forward to a great school year next year thank you [Applause] so nice to meet those two young people I'm looking there so they're going to tag team some nights it'll be both some nights it'll be just one and on rare occasions nobody but we'll work it out we'll work it out now their role also I just want to quickly mention their role is also to

036help to set up our student showcases at each of our board meetings so that's an added responsibility they've got to make some phone calls and do a little digging around and organize that and and then report out to all of us other people from other districts who visited our district have been so impressed at the level of skill and attention to detail our student reps have have demonstrated and so we're keeping it going with two new choices so thank you very much for offering to serve I'd like to call now assistant superintendent of Human Resources Mr Kurt Ellis to do something rather special that we do once a year thank you president McVeigh as we've seen here tonight at this time of the year we often are pointing forward looking to the next school year

037with great anticipation but it's also important that we look backward at times and honor those people who have really been important and foundational to the success of our school district thus far this year we have 13 individuals who are leaving us in in as they leave they're taking with them their years of experience wisdom connections to students Etc and we've had all facets of the school district once again affected by these retirements we have big classroom teachers Food Service folks bus drivers Etc we do have five here tonight and we're really happy to be able to honor them in front of the Board of Education we have a small token of our gratitude available for them in the back corner there and I know that Sasa has something as well but for the last 12

038years or so we've given everybody who leaves the district this same poem and I'd like to just read it to you very briefly here right now the poem says I once saw a group of men tearing a building down a group of men in my hometown with a heave in a hole and a mighty yell they swung a beam in the sidewall fell I asked the foreman are these men skilled the kind you'd hire if you wanted to build he laughed and said why no indeed for common labor is all I need I can tear down in a day or two What it Took the Builder 10 years to do and I asked myself as I walked away which of these roles am I going to play am I the type that constantly tears down

039as I make my way foolishly around or am I the type that is trying to build with care with the hope that the people will be glad I was there and I will tell you we are happy that these folks have been here we look forward to them being able to enjoy retirement I I do know that those that have retired previously all seem to have big smiles on their faces and I suspect these will as well but here tonight just if we could please have you stand up as your name is called Cindy Larson is here Melissa Rappaport Scott Marvin Jennifer Dodge foreign if you miss Jennifer if you watch the Tigers game she's often sitting right behind home plate on television there so it's got great seats there and last but certainly not

040least and we need we need to replace her along with seven other people but bus driver Sharon Hess is here so again on behalf of salinary schools I'd like to congratulate all of you thank you for your time and we've got a little something for you back in the corner over here thank you very much this is the oh and thanks a lot you guys you don't have to stay this is the public comment section oh would you like me to make a motion right now can I make a motion well let's um one second while we keep it thank you there is one motion that's coming from the floor at this point I would like to make a motion um that we take all of the comments that are currently marked for the first

041public comment um and extend the 30 minutes limit that we have do we have a second support Miller thank you and uh secretary Miller do you have a rough idea of how many are there I think it's 4 15. all right well that that would that's pretty decent all right thank you all in favor please say aye opposed all right six zero we'll extend if we need to think that actually we didn't have to wait uh the public comment section I'd just like to point out a member of the public May address the board briefly for up to three minutes or requests to be scheduled on the agenda of a future meeting please note that students will be given priority to speak on any topic first public participation portion of the meeting will be limited

042to one half hour 30 minutes normally um and limited to agenda items the 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 and if I could just reiterate that um I know we're not oblivious we know that this has been a heated discussion in town so I am just going to count on the citizens who I all trust and respect and love and appreciate that we will be civil and kind to each other and listen to each other uh during this session and I appreciate that oh did I end the

043retirees if you're if you're still here retirees thank you so much you don't need to stay through this you are the most relaxed people in the room I must say Bravo [Applause] say again there are now there are now additional seats up front if you'd like to sit in them please so do you want me to read the names while you do the timing as we said the maximum amount of time is three minutes uh secretary what's your name again secretary secretary Miller will hold up a yellow card indicating 30 seconds remaining and with the red light when the red card comes up uh we'd appreciate it if you please just say thank you very much and I'll try to give an on Deck to the next person uh using all this baseball stuff that

044we started off with the baseball theme coming up first is Jonathan Spencer uh and on Deck will be Alex Miller please press the green button we got it all right well thank you president McVeigh Dr latch the rest of the school board um my name is Jonathan Spencer I am the head coach of the Celine Elementary Science Olympiad team I have a rising senior and a rising sixth grader in the school district and what I wanted to talk about today is Science Olympiad and the stem Bond I'm going to start out first by acknowledging the wonderful season we had this last year for Science Olympiad we have an elementary school team that covers second grade through fifth grade a middle school team that's six through eight and the high school team that's 9th through 12th

045we have an amazing group of kids amazing group of coaches and they really rocked this season to be honest so I'm going to toot some horns first and give some kudos to the kids I don't think they get enough acknowledgment overall so I want to take this opportunity to give shout outs to them our elementary school team was pretty large we had 50 kids this year and we competed against 31 other schools in Washington County did very well came in seventh overall against all the other schools and I'm going to give kudos to my fifth graders we had two third place teams a fourth place team fifth place team for my elementary school kids so congratulations to Adeline Lawler Miriam Warner Carter Buchanan Nora Buchanan Logan chobe Claudia Fitzgerald seiseron savatprakash and I apologize I

046surrounded Claudia Fitzgerald and Alex Jordan my fifth graders who meddled this year the middle school team was a very eighth grade heavy team and we almost made it to States we came in third place in our region and just lost out to Clague and Slauson in this year we're going to take him down and get this days those Ann Arbor teams um and but they changed the rules this year so the middle school kids were allowed to go if they placed first in the region so we had some kids who came in first in their respective events and um I'm gonna start with my third place kids for roller coaster Kane oh sorry Kane did Rojo Janna oh wow I massacred that Vivian pawar uh and eighth place admire ready and Lily chai in their

047event and for a special shout out we had three eighth graders who came in first in their event this year uh codebuster was Cal Road loriency worry wave there she's back there uh congratulations to her and Oren Singh uh my high school team they did qualify for States and they made it to States uh they did a fantastic tons of Hardware um I'm gonna wrap it up because we're running out of time here um but if you want more information about all how that works I'm out of time all right uh stem Bond thank you everyone for your support thank you Kara Davis for all the work you're doing on this dunban uh thank you keep the stem kids in mind and make something we can all be proud of uh thank you very much

048everybody very much Mr all right appreciate that Alex Miller and on Deck is Megan Gunnerson my name is Alex and I have a second grader a kindergartner and two other children who God willing will go through the saline school system the district is attempting to challenge my legal rights as a parent and assume they have higher authority than parents of minor children on how they wish to influence my child on subjective and controversial topics was a district there when I brought my child home from the hospital was a district there when my child was very ill at 1 30 a.m where I had to make medical decisions and rush them to the ER does the district Comfort my child when they've had a bad day after school yet this District thinks that my taxpayer dollars

049they'll teach my children subjects that should be taught at home whether I like it or not and that I must plead my case as to why I choose to opt my child out and it's up to your subjective decision process on whether my wishes are respected or not the district forgets that it works for the parents and the families of this community and not the other way around the district states that it is inclusive yet you are focusing on pushing a curriculum that plays favorites solely to the loudest voices in the room in February 2022 the Celine post highlighted how the student population has fallen by 280 students in two years in the article superintendent Loch gave many reasons but the big one is the declining birth rates we've been getting these declining class sizes

050for a while he States if that is the case then why did enrollment rates grow in kindergarten through second grade from 21 to 22. the largest declines in enrollment according to the Chart provided by Maria ausley assistant superintendent for finance for 7th through 11th grade there are new neighborhoods being built on every corner of this District Maple Bemis milky Willis Celine Milan just to name a few I would say that six to eight out of every 10 homes in these subdivisions have children by that estimate our school districts should be grown by 10 to 15 percent not declining I know of at least four families each with three to five children again doesn't fit the low birth rate narrative that have chosen alternative schooling due to proposed policies and curriculum Celine receives eighty seven hundred

051dollars per student from the state that's a hundred and forty thousand dollars of funding loss the school district reported a two and a half million dollar loss last year alone based on the continuing decline of enrollment how much funding must the district lose before it recognizes that these policies and curriculum don't represent the values of this community how many teachers will lose their jobs how many extracurricular activities will be cut for the sake of pushing these policies I have no place in our school system most people are afraid to speak out against all these changes within the district because they will be labeled as some type of bigot or phobe just because someone strongly disagrees with the policies and curriculum being forced upon our students doesn't mean they Harbor hatred but it makes no sense

052that the demands of a minority take precedent over the values of a majority I close with two scriptures from the Bible the first James chapter 3 verse 1 my brethren let not many of you become teachers knowing that we will shall receive a stricter judgment God will hold teachers to a higher level of judgment based on their position to influence a child's character and behavior the second is Matthew chapter 18 verse 6. Jesus says whoever causes one of these little ones to believe in me to sin it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the sea we have a responsibility to these children and we will be judged on how we handle this wonderful yet serious gift thank you [Applause] Lynn

053Davis I'm trying to blow it up on my phone um so I I'm sorry I wasn't really paying attention as much as that sorry Megan thank you uh how long just be a second we heard booing from the audience so again I'm urging you to respect each other's statements please and thank you Megan Gunderson do you have to reset your timer now right we've got you we've got your timer sure um so my comment is directly about the draft that I read online and they might be operational questions but I just wanted to point out that the last line of the policy talks about the parents right to inspect materials for the classroom versus the district and so like I came um I have multiple children but I came specifically to look at one of

054my child's lessons and the teacher was great he sent me the packet and the book and then I just stopped by the district on a day that I had off work and the informational materials that were given me by the district office didn't align and so it caused some confusion and um I just want to point out that sometimes the district apparently I'm supposed to make an appointment to see them so I don't understand why you have to make an appointment to see the curriculum at the district level so that's one question and then two um it should be really easy for anyone in that office to pull off a lesson and hand it to a parent I happen to just have the day off work and popped in like my hours don't line up

055with your District hours and I think a lot of parents in this District are both working I think it's nice when one parent can stay home but there are a lot of families that that's not an option so I just wanted to point out maybe some um aligning might be an order and then um I'm concerned about time like this new policy talks about information being presented to the parent to look at and then they decide um yes or no and then it goes to some kind of committee right now none of my children have syllabi that are all inclusive regarding textbook and YouTube videos and handouts and all that stuff so I just feel like if you're not going to put it out in enough time to have somebody read it and then make

056an appointment with the curriculum director and then have some decision be made like I feel like I know my children best I have a variety of them and none of them are the same so I would I choose for one child I don't choose for the other um the focus of the last few meetings that I've been to have been very specific in objections to this policy and I just want to highlight that parents opt their kids out of a variety of topics for a variety of reasons and again it's child specific those topics include but might not be limited to health and wellness issues like eating disorder self-harm psych issues consent death chronic illness of the child a sibling their friend a parent someone who's important to them all of those things are important

057it's not always a moral objection or a value objection it's just that time that child that place so I feel like in all of this hostility that you know we some people opt out for different reasons and I just want that to be recognized and again if you do choose to do this I would hope that you would seems like such a burden to your teachers but really put together in syllabus so that parents understand exactly what's their viewing and what they're choosing to say yes to and choosing to say no to thank you thank you very much Ms Gunderson and Rayland Davis and on Deck is Amy tesselyn this is all right okay there um again my name is Rayland Davis I have been here for it with the opt-out policy for about five

058years um and I am interesting to see how it has evolved over the years and and stuff um one of my original complaints when I first interacted with this opt-out policy was the reading of I am Jazz and I was trying to understand why the district felt they could do what they could do and this was brought to my attention that they had the right to teach controversial issues as long as was age appropriate done in a scholarly Manner and did not tend to indoctrinate and then if I didn't like it as a parent my choice was to opt out and which I did I opted my children out I did not think was appropriate for my Kindergarten kid at that time and so I've always looked at this policy as a check imbalances this

059policy gives rules and guidelines for the school and for the teachers and the administrators and then it gives parents an option on how to balance if they don't like it well this process I see where they're having this process for opt out has some merits there are some things I can see that you guys are trying to do with with good um faith and effort I question how it will actually be applied I'm questioned how it will be applied in five or ten years when you guys aren't here and this committee that's supposed to decide if my opt-out is valid is very enthusiastically against what I believe you know um is there any way to guarantee that parents actually have the last say or is the only way to say sorry we disagree with you

060but sure keep your kid home he'll get an e for that assignment um and so that might be more operational stuff I again I have concerned the times I've used this opt out has been the imgs when they had to read the kindergartner and I did not believe the school a informed all parents what was actually happening and then the uh what was and how I was being taught I've used it to opt out of a last minute homework assignment there was no way I was going to get a hold of a committee to say by the way this book that has been read to three other of my students suddenly has a new homework assignment completely different than the year before and I had no time to go check it out of curriculum because

061you know maybe as a parent I assumed assignment would have been the same as the previous year and so I don't see how this will act in some of those shorter term immediate situations um and so again I kind of look but make sure that this policy has it's a check and a balances parental rights as a parent you guys have decided you guys can teach what you and I to teach but in the end it should be the parents ultimate right on whether or not we get to say thank you or no thank you um please have my kid to the next assignment and as far as quickly the this not being required in the state law the state laws they'll has always assumed that parents had the right to educate their child had

062the right to raise their child every time the law has changed and were when they added the sex ed when they added the wellness by the time they added more restrictions they made sure that the opt-out was still valid and I say please make sure our opt-out is still valid thank you very much and on Deck after Amy teslin is Darcy Berwick do I start okay my name is Amy teslin I'm a parent of two children in the district one at Heritage and one at middle school thank you president McVeigh and the Saline Area School Board trustees and for allowing me this time to speak happy Pride to everyone who needs to hear this Pride helps us recognize the human rights of lgbtq plus people and educates us about our history so a little history

063thousands of years of History the original inhabitants of this continent held lgbtq people in the highest esteem right here in Celine for over 1200 years since 796 A.D when the Three Fires Council was formed Ojibwe Ottawa and Potawatomi people revered nizmanian duduag people and an ishnabi word that means two-spirit for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years right here where we are today families have that included them were considered lucky people believe that a person who was able to see the world through the eyes of both genders was a gift from the Creator or what about the history of Agriculture here in the U.S and in Saline the amazing George Washington Carver impacted Global agricultural practices that continue today in Saline through the promotion and understanding of crop rotation or what about our beautiful Waters

064in The Great Lakes State Rachel Carson Who wrote Silent Spring was a scientist who started a movement that helped bring back the bald eagle from the brink of Extinction there have always been people who didn't conform to our 20th century binary gender roles let me be clear stating these facts of History did not make anyone gay or transgender but maybe these facts and others like them can help lgbtq plus students understand that they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and their classmates can learn empathy and recognize their humanity and even help everyone understand our history a little better educate I am proud to have my kids in this District where so many teachers and administrators are striving to ensure that all students feel welcome I'm happy that superintendent latch and SAS leadership are

065directing and encouraging all teachers to ensure that in every classroom students have the opportunity to learn about lgbtq plus people it was wonderful to witness a unanimous vote by the SAS board to support transgender and non-binary student policy in the diac committee policy in our fractured Society exacerbated by this pandemic with 40 percent of teachers in Michigan looking for other employment my humble opinion is that we should not spend taxpayers daughters dollars implementing portions of a policy that appeals to a small group of parents who are asking for something inherently uncivil to opt out of acknowledging other people's existence and Humanity instead let's follow the district's legal purpose to educate and support all students equally be fiscally responsible and support our teachers let's build the strong Community a community where everyone belongs thank you very

066much Amy Tesla and Darcy Berwick on Deck is Cary Grove Darcy Berwick parent at the last board meeting there was a presentation on restorative practices discipline and Title IX content aside I so appreciate that the district took proactive steps to provide parents with more detailed information about these fairly broad topics I'm now in more informed than I was with regards to what the district does and why I feel more empowered to advocate for my student and to collaborate with a school when issues arise and I feel valued as a partner in that process because of the presentation thank you I would love to see more of that in the future and I think that we're going to be seeing some of that tonight with a discussion of policy 2240 I've spoken before on the importance

067of policy and procedure and I'll reiterate that here clear comprehensive policies and procedures set an organization's expectations direct actions and provide for accountability policies are the what and why well procedures are the how our policies here in the slain Area School District must align with our community's values as reflected by our mission and vision must adhere to both state and federal law and be consistently applied with regards to the opt-out policy while I understand that we aren't legally required to have it I believe that there are tangible benefits in providing a formalized path for students to opt out of some materials and I encourage the board at this point to improve that policy because unfortunately is currently written and practiced I believe the policy is not appropriately aligned with our values and is harmful to

068our students so I believe that it needs to be improved upon and I appreciate your efforts to do so in reviewing the proposed policy I appreciated that it begins by affirming our commitment to a culturally competent and responsive School environment and I appreciate the reframing of the policy to appropriately recognize the individuality of a parent's concerns I understand that by the nature of it being a policy it leaves open some questions and concerns in regards to specifics but I expect that those specifics will be addressed in the formalized procedures to come so for tonight I wonder if it wouldn't be helpful to start this discussion by affirming that as our elected representatives you recognize and validate the humanity of all of our students whether their values align with yours or not you represent lgbtq students

069black students Hispanic students Asian students other students of color special needs students and our religious students I hope that with curiosity sensitivity and an open mind we can find a reasonable path forward that balances our differing parental values by allowing some parental accommodations without obstructing another student's right to a public education thank you [Applause] followed by Alberta Borneo hello I'm Carrie Grove I haven't prepared anything today um I just know there's a lot of division in the community right now I heard the Pledge of Allegiance and it was for all reiterated by people behind me and I believe that when you are looking at this opt-out policy what is the intention behind the controversial issue policy I think the goal of the school is to educate our students and there's room for traditional education if

070we're starting to look at a personal belief systems that can be done in the home it can be done in the community it can be done at Pride parades it can be done at churches I don't think there's room for that in the school and there's a sign behind me that says stop Christian indoctrination what about other indoctrinations and grooming our kids I don't think there's room in our schools for my student to know what political affiliation my teacher has I don't want to go to a student teacher conference with lanyards with buttons I don't want to see stickers on the computers I want my kid to have a neutral education in if that isn't possible then I think the opt-out policy is important to keep I think it's important that the syllabus is available

071to the parents in a timely match manner so that we can start to review the material and make decisions that meet my kids needs I think that covers it I have a personal story I don't think this is the time for it but you've no you've heard it that my child has been also uh threatened with being attacked and it was not it was a misunderstanding that snowballed out of control and so the discrimination I can see goes both ways how do you fight discrimination I mean let's look at your policies thank you very much Alberta Borneo and on Deck is Roy fgrove or F roygrove I can't one of those there's an F in there somewhere good evening my name is Alberta Borneo and I was here about two years ago I think it

072was correct me if I'm wrong on the time where we talked about the special education the over sexualized sex ed That was supposed to come into the school that was in front of the board the board was encouraged to pass it because parents could opt out and they'd get to review things beforehand and look where we are now now people want to eliminate that option where they were passed thinking that they could pull out of that so I think it's a little disingenuous that it switches for different situations it parents rights did not end at the school door I sent my son to a private school about in eighth grade for different learners they were going to bring in and I only found this out because I was looking at the school website they were

073going to bring in a speaker that Friday and that they have the speaker's name and I went online and looked it up and turned out with someone that was going to come in and talk about their transition surgery to the class and I called the school and said I'd like a different activity for my son that day and I let some of the other parents know and I said it's up to you do what you want but this is what the speaker's coming in and talking about so we came to a public school here and I didn't think we'd have to deal with that and so just telling people go to a private school you know this is a public school yes it's a public school it's for everyone our taxes go here we have

074an opinion that's not an option um and it should continue to be like that I see a sign um talking about Christian indoctrination in the background here it's not just Christian I've worked in different school districts I'm a contractor I've worked with different ethnicities different religions different backgrounds kids or kids or kids and um it's not just you know Muslim people from Africa none of them agree with that so it can't be just marginalized to a certain group um so because we say we're preparing kids for Global future um and the other point I would like to make I think that pretty much covers most but again kids are kids and it's the adults and we need to the adults if there's things going on bullying isn't right against anyone for any reason and I'll

075stick up for anyone's child that I see anything going wrong with that I've been in the schools and if that's not happening there needs to be more adults there and the adults are setting the best examples to children that's been my experience from working in schools over at least 20 years so um those are just some ideas to think about thank you very much Rory Grove and on Deck is a Luis Barnett well thanks for the opportunity to talk um I'm speaking to the upcoming policy about opting out people have many different backgrounds life experiences different values different upbringings we've had all of us have had experiences that were wonderful joyful experiences were horrible some of us even traumatic to claim that some experiences are relevant or don't exist and to say we're going to

076go ahead with certain educational elements and not give parents the option to know this is coming and to opt out of it I think it's just plain cruel it doesn't really matter what what the material is something that could seem very innocuous very innocent could be very damaging to someone we don't know what someone's experience has been what their background has been imagine different kinds of traumas that people could have gone through for various reasons I'm not going to say any but you can you know think of different dramas or movies or whatever you've seen there's no way of knowing what those experiences could be and to not allow parents to see what's happening to have an option to remove their child from something that could literally be very hurtful to them I think it's

077just plain cruel so we need the ability for parents to know what's coming down the pike and then we need enough time for them to evaluate that and to work through the process if there's an opt-out process hopefully there is and work with the teachers on that I don't want to see any child subjected to something that could be very painful for them and asking the parents to justify an opt-out could be extremely painful for the parents so I would hope that we would not look at parents as toddlers but look at parents as parents and if they say they don't want their child exposed to something I would hope that we would respect that and respect the parents have the child's best interest in mind I will close with a recurring theme I see

078a lot just because I don't celebrate someone's lifestyle or beliefs or system doesn't mean I don't love them or I don't care about them I think when we start telling people you must accept my choices you must celebrate my choices you must celebrate my values that's a very ugly Society to live in that's not a Live and Let Live that's a society where the cool kids get to decide what's okay and then it becomes okay to harass people who don't agree with that so again please uh maintain transparency give the parents a chance to see what's going on and support their option to opt out thank you Luis Barnett followed by Libby Williams greeting board thank you for giving me time to talk about the controversial topics issue I would like to start with the

079fact that I appreciate that the policy is being brought up for review and preserves parents rights to opt out I don't necessarily agree that a specific reason must be given for opting out this brings me to my concern that I have seen in the community and going all the way up to select board members where attacks are being made for parents for opting out individuals that are opting out for specific material are being labeled bigots and hateful this is very slanderous and it's an attack on individuals such attacks instill hate and Division in our community it is very disingenuous when individual attacks another for not participating in activities or beliefs claiming to be damaged by that especially when the only Act is refraining from participation one example that I can give you on being tolerant

080of an individual's rights is on the issue of standing for the Pledge of Allegiance now if someone doesn't do it we accept it we accept that ultimately it's in the individual's rights parents write top down up their child is no different than that Saline Area Schools are not alone in tackling controversial issues and opt-out policies on June 6 of this year parents from the family rights for Religious Freedom protested outside the Montgomery Country County County Public Schools headquarter in Rockville Maryland to bring back the opt-out policy during a heated school board meeting Kristen mink a Maryland city councilwoman said the issue has unfortunately does put some Muslim families on the same side of an issue as white supremacist and outright bigots said the Democrat Kristen mink of I would put you in the same category

081as those folks although you know it's complicated because falling on the same side of this issue the children that were labeled by the city council person during the board meeting had some of the following statements I'm here to talk about my rights my religious teach my religion teaches to respect all religions and human beings and their rights so does my country law and I want my rights back to have an opt-out option foreign okay I'll skip this brings me back to Selena and how I hope you make the right decision in protecting parents rights and following the SAS compass and particular to bring the bridge to civility where we can respect each other when we don't agree on something this is not a Christian issue an it or an attack on LGBT community but a

082freedom of speech issue Live and Let Live and don't force your views on each other thank you thank you very much Mr Barnett okay Miss Libby Libby Williams and on Deck is Justin coop good afternoon members of the school board my name is Libby Williams I'm a mother to an elementary student and I am an active Community member I'll attempt to make my points brief truthful and unsalted firstly the Celine school system has an opt-out form for sexual education in place secondly the sexual education law in the state of Michigan includes no overt sexual references to homosexuality gender identity pride month library books transgender bathrooms or gender recipe assignment surgeries the vague phrase human sexuality is the only term used to broadly describe the definition of the course itself the author of the proposed opt-out

083form greater School initiative is attempting to use that one phrase to push a bigoted fascist agenda it is designed to remove freedoms from the lgbtq community and censor what schools can put in their libraries on their bulletin boards or in their classrooms this form is intentionally misleading and it has nothing to do with child safety or parent parents rights this form is an expression of fear fear of the changes in our society the forward progress that has been made in this community thanks to groups like The Dei Spar and SEL programs The Forum screams of the impotent outrage targeted at the only adversary they think they can win against but they will not because this community chooses to progress rather than regress Together We will rise against a wave of hate thank you thank you

084very much Libby Williams Justin coo followed by Catherine Kelly if Christian conservative parents can be called bigots on Facebook by members of this board not only is it wrong but it is an inaccurate outright fallacy this board pretends to be inclusive and accepting of all people of different religions and Creeds unless you're a Christian or conservative you say this out loud so much that you hired a Dei consultant for God knows how much a year and I think we all have seen just how effective and necessary that position is sorry was our children aren't here to be your political activists our children aren't here to be your new voting base and our children aren't here to test your cultural perversion on the slippery slope we're on has gone from same-sex marriage to drag queen Story

085Hour in under eight years from we just spawn equal rights under the law to if you don't mutilate your child and chemically castrate them then CPS is taking them away my sons are not here to learn about sinful Pride innumerable genders or how to affirm mentally Disturbed adults transitioning their kids they're here to learn proper grammar and how to use math with some historically accurate events mixed in if Bud Light and targets Market losses don't tell you all you need to know about where America's pulse is really at then you truly are willfully ignorant people incapable of thinking for yourself you cannot and will not push your ideology and pretend gender theories on us anymore and you will not remove my ability to Shield my own kids from your evil perverted desires and practices I

086will continue to opt out my kids because it is my legal right as a parent in the state of Michigan to do so and I don't care if it hurts your feelings I'm not here to make you feel good about your bad decisions I'm here to raise chivalrous polite God-fearing young men how to stand up for what's right and for you I will sit down [Applause] Catherine Kelly followed by followed by Kelsey Larson hello hi my name is Catherine Kelly and thank you for this opportunity I didn't prepare anything I just wanted to speak about the bond proposal that's now become the bond projects I know that the bond proposal at the time was a very thoughtful process and I wanted to publicly say thank you to all the people and the Committees who spent

087so much time and energy to gather information from the communities the students the teachers the staff to come up with a thoughtful project and all the people who worked hard to pass the proposal and now that it has come to fruition and people are in the planning stages I wanted to say thank you again as a stem booster parent I've been able to see firsthand that participation that my students been able to take part in thanks to Dr Loch and Kara Davis and people who are forming the Committees my child's been able to find their voice and see how the process works from planning and executing and how these Public Works take part how they become a real thing and he has found his voice sometimes his voice is quiet sometimes it's passionate sometimes it's

088a little too passionate but I value the role that the Schools allowed my student to play and I value that the school and the school board allows all students to have a voice at school board meetings at in committees and things like this it's a rare opportunity I know not all school districts allow students to take part like our school does and I know that children should listen to their parents and parents rely on the schools but I think that as a parent I listen to my child's voice and I am very thankful that you all do too so thank you for the hard work and I'm I'm confident that going forward as the bond projects become real I'm thankful and hopeful that you'll keep including students in the process thank you thank you very

089much Kelsey Larson followed by Lisa Slauson and Lisa Slauson will be the uh you surprised me I was ready you shimmered in thank you thank you so much good evening board uh good evening superintendent latch good evening everybody out here in the sling Community I'm Kelsey Larson uh and I am a proud 2005 alumna of slain High School uh I am also a proud political science Professor now who researches emotion in politics so y'all be bringing a tear to my eye with this Democratic process that we're seeing tonight uh and most importantly I'm a proud daughter of retiring art teacher Cindy Larson of Celine here uh and yeah foreign we sort of rolled past that first agenda item so I would love to talk about it for a sec uh as many of you well

090know and as her Harvest team talked about at her retirement luncheon last Thursday my mom like many of the folks we're seeing here tonight uh loves to speak up at meetings I kind of do too uh she raises her hand she unmutes on the zoom she replies to the emails uh and she has this sort of deeply absorbed idea uh that the famous art critic Jerry saltz talks about which is that you show respect to art by critically evaluating art uh you respect the effort and the thoughtfulness and the vision of a Creator and what they create by challenging that Creator and what they create uh and so I hope you and the entire District here behind me uh really feel that deep respect that she has for so many of you over time and

091that her deep engagement and all these folks is deep engagement is reflective of that respect for this District uh you know she shows up to things she leads things she fights things because she respects the art of education but in that same vein I think we all want to briefly offer my mother the same respect so I'm going to do so by public critiquing her now uh so issue number one she's been a better Hornet than any of her children uh my sister was a genius I tried to lead students my brother was a sports star uh and yet she always gets recognized more at the grocery store issue number two she's good at everything neither to move to third grade for a while bring on the Lucy Calkins curriculum you need her to teach

092art via Zoom fire up that ring light we're gonna do some digital art together uh it's just really challenging to throw her off and it makes all of her children feel inadequate issue number three while time passes rapidly for some of us she doesn't seem to age she started as a Celine art teacher as a student teacher in 1981 that'd be more than 40 years ago and even through Friday she could take kids seamlessly from a YouTube video to projecting their Creations on the Elmo to doing these elaborate drawings based on an Ann Arbor artist she volunteered to direct and edit the Harvest students morning announcements I'm a millennial and I'm handing my phone to my mother to edit my photos it's frankly embarrassing my final critique is simply this Cindy Larson puts other people

093first thousands of students over the years her leaders her colleagues uh and I'm not complaining that they've all been ahead of me instead I'm really glad they got to know her as the amazing art educator she is I'm just upset that she wasn't first that she couldn't get what it feels like to have others take care of her the way she takes care of us so that's my final note the Larson family promises to take care of her from now on and give her half as much joy as the last 26 years of teaching sleep students has uh thank you to her and all the other amazing retirees tonight we're so grateful for all of your efforts we respect you all so much thank you everyone thank you we could have had you speak for

094all the other honorees as well one uh and we have our last speaker is uh Lisa Slawson thank you thank you president McVeigh my name is Lisa Slauson I am the parent uh proud parent of two Celine grads and also was the board president for this body for many years and Cindy Larson rocks because she was my kid's teacher so and Mr Marvin also rocks because he had my kids and a lot of other teachers here who retired we will miss you first off I want to talk about the opt out policy and I want to make one thing clear there's no person sitting here who doesn't support opting out of certain things they all support that and I think that's a rumor that has gotten uh you know out of control they all every

095one of them supports opting out of something because as a parent that will happen so for my problem is is what's the rush this has been four years and one month as Mr McVeigh told me um the reason it came up in the beginning was the board was just going to get rid of it and I looked at the language the language is incredibly vague I think you can drive a semi truck through it and you know I I've been told well the administrative regulations well I'm sure they're really written well Steve is really good at doing stuff like that and I'm sure that Steve is really good at explaining to people why they can or they can't opt out and as is his staff so state law allows opt out but the state board

096has also said to Great Schools initiative wait a minute your forms when you can't be this broad so the question is GSI what does GSI stand for the Great Schools initiative so here is from an article in MLive in February of this year this is from gsi's math the form wants to prevent students from use of pronouns from my student that does not match the student's biological sex teachers staff or administrators displaying sexuality gender paraphernalia teaching lessons or discussions in gender sexuality social justice gender sexuality activism d-e-i-s-e-l books material school-wide activities such as Pride week or transsexual week I didn't know that existed but okay so they are highly aligned with the Thomas Moore Society who basically said when you know schools have these policies we're just going to sue them and his this area

097cardall special counsel for Thomas Morrison they want schools to be Viewpoint neutral who makes that decision who makes that decision does Steve make it does the board make it does God make it I don't know but GSI is highly connected with Celine unsalted a Facebook group that is incredibly cruel and has been hurling insults at trustee Estep for simply being who she is now if we're going to get into reading Bible verses you know what I'm just going to go ahead and I'm going to read one to what the heck so Matthew 7 verse 1 and 2 judge not that you not be judged for with what judgment you judge you shall be judged and with what measure you meet it shall be judged it will shall be measured against you again so think about

098what you're doing here remember you're supposed to do what's best for kids kids are what matter here parents have rights but kids are the ones that are supposed to be first and foremost here thank you thank you [Applause] thank you very much there will be a second uh public comment section at the end um so uh oh sorry I do have something just have to find it here we go uh under uh response to public comment I often miss this because very often we don't have comments but I do have a response to the last public comment in the second public comment section of the last board meeting on May 23rd one student and two parents spoke to the board directly about some very personal and concerning things that had occurred to over the last

099several months either to them directly or to their children after discussing these situations with both doctors Washington and Loch I would like to share that each of these situations lay before the board had either been investigated or in some cases are actively being investigated in most cases corrective actions have already been proposed as a representative of the salinary School Board of Education I'd like to say that we acknowledge your frustrations but I'd like to also share with the community that the concerns outlined to us are not ignored in fact they are taken very seriously by building administrators in the entire leadership team I'd like to urge parents to contact the board directly through email address it provided on the Saline Area Schools website or through the let's talk app the board reads your messages and

100works to ensure that they are shared with those in this District who are in a position to act on your concerns or to reach out to you thank you and that's my response um so to revision or approval of the agenda items may be added or deleted from the meeting agenda oops oops um at the request of an individual board member or the superintendent the agenda must be approved before proceeding further do I have a motion to approve the agenda as written motion Miller okay second Derby thank you all in Kirby all in favor please say aye aye okay opposed all right we have an agenda okay I didn't hear you're all very quiet all right you would have said something okay I think uh I think I appreciate that uh so uh we have

101two action items please uh first is a I'd like to um I'd like to entertain a motion to adopt the amended General Appropriations act for 2022 2023 final amended budgets 2022 2023 original budgets and the 2023l4029 tax rates as submitted earlier by assistant superintendent ousley do I have emotion motion girby second would that be Austin thank you uh could we any discussion we do are you on standby do we have discussion yes I I just want to say that you know I've been absent for a few years so I really didn't dig into the budget until once again just recently and uh wow we've been on a sugar high for the last three years like 10 million dollars in uh one-time funds and the average over the last three years the average uh Foundation allowance

102increase was 459 the 10 years prior to that was only 66 one year minus 300 so we've we've been able to do a lot and now it's all about preserving and um you know just trying to make some changes slowly and methodically because we have the ability to Now where's three or four years ago we didn't thank you um this coming from the per the one person on the finance committee not to disparage the treasurer who printed out every page of the budget and and crawled through with a fine-tooth comb 60 Pages thank you very much I appreciate that so um at this point of hearing no other discussion all in favor please say aye aye uh opposed to me all right all eyes have it six zero uh I'd like to entertain a motion

103to approve the Food Service management contract renewal with Chartwells for the 2023-24 school year as submitted by super assistant superintendent Housley do I have a motion motion Miller Miller Derby second Kirby supports any discussion on this or any uh comment from the Chartwells people no I guess we loved it so much we're ready to to vote on this uh all in favor please say aye aye opposed Nate all right we guys have it um we've honored our district scheduled reports we had three we had her first and it was a wonderful one and thank you to the Larson so they've already fled the room uh foundation for Saline Area Schools update from Stacy Rumson please if she's still in the building laughs good evening Dr Loch and president McVeigh and the entire School Board my

104name is Stacy rumsum the executive director for the foundation for slain area schools and I'm happy to say I have the first year under my belt first school year and it has been an amazing school year um just to give you an idea of some of the things that have been going on we have here our list of our executive committee and our Board of Trustees and these folks are the real backbone to the foundation they help out with things such as social media Communications alumni relations grants fundraising and finance and I have to tell you I was recently at a Michigan Education Foundation meeting a couple weeks ago where many presidents and executive directors come from all of all districts all over the state of Michigan and I feel very blessed and to say

105that um it is an amazing thing that we have such a good relationship with the the school board the school district because I've learned that there are many other districts across Michigan that don't have that which was very shocking to me and so I I just feel very fortunate and I thank you for that um some of our financials and revenue you can see here that uh the last bar is this current school year this is the fiscal school years as you can see from 2018 until now the dates range from July 1st to June the 9th and um you can see for the year 2021 2022 there is a drastic jump and that's because the foundation was fortunate enough to have a hundred thousand dollar uh donation made to them so that's the difference

106between this year and last year and you can see that we've done 33 500 in donations 84 and 500 in sponsorships and 92 000 in fundraising events this gives you a snapshot of what's been going on with grants within the foundation this year we approved a hundred thousand dollars in Grant funds and we funded 25 total grants across all um school buildings and um just to give you a provide a reminder of the difference between because we have 32 000 in teaching and student grants and then we have 68 000 building and District teacher grants are the grants um for aimed at enrichment activities within a specific population such as a classroom or a school club the building grants are targeted at student populations within one of the seven saline school buildings that have impact

107across multiple classrooms and then the district grants are the broad educational initiatives that typically impact a large portion of students in the district often across multiple school buildings and this is just uh just some fun pictures of some events and fundraisers that we've had this year um it's it's been a very busy year and a very good one we've done things such as the Hall of Fame event and we've had several alumni events we participated in the kindergarten roundups for all three elementary schools and then we have attempted to have blue jeans in Blaine which um due to the power outage was canceled but was still a success in our mind raising sixty thousand dollars given that it was basically a non-event and our committee has already started planning for blue jeans and bling 2.0

108uh for next year and we are working on a date for that these are some of our grants in action and so you can see here the students that are you know able to be a part of these grants and um some of them have been decodable book sets for kindergartners um Zoom recorders which are professional recorders uh for students at the middle school this actually helps them like listen accurately and not just a playback recording um we've done Greg grant for girls who code the saline high school life skills program which teaches them product selling and profit making the culinary arts department that we provided a couple new resin 3D printers for um the 3D program the 3D printing program and it just goes on and on and on so that gives you just

109a quick view of some of the things that we've done this year and recently I was able to bring a lot of smiles to teachers faces with the um the grants being awarded and and the students being able to um to I just lost my train of thought be excited for them so these are some of our some of our upcoming dates of course we're always looking for volunteers but we have the Celine Summerfest coming up the Hall of Fame patio celebration and induction homecoming we're going to have our annual Fall fundraiser on October the 5th and then of course participate in the Celine holiday parade blue jeans and bling 2.0 and then again participate hopefully with the young five kindergarten roundups and that being said um Ben Goodman was amazing putting together a video

110that we had planned to show at blue jeans and bling he has condensed it and I would love to be able to highlight these grants that were done throughout the year with some amazing students and teachers [Music] I'm Trent trout I'm the manufacturing teacher over at the high school I'm through the grant this year we've been able to purchase two resin printers and the wash and cure booth for the resin printers those have allowed the students to create more detailed prints as well as play around with a different type of 3D printing so compared to the traditional style 3D printing where you're printing layer by layer this way they're actually using a resin bath and it's curing the resin layer by layer so they're able to get exposure to a new technology and a new

111type of 3D printing that's going to help them when they go into the industry so if a lot of my students are going into engineering and this is great because in engineering a lot of times 3D printers are used for prototyping so they'll take their model or whatever and then they're going to 3D print one and they're like okay well this worked and this didn't work let's print another one and it's quick and it's easy so by allowing them a new type of technology and another way to 3D print stuff it's just going to give them that advantage in the industry because now they know a lot of different skills and they're able to apply those to different things [Music] big thanks to the foundation these 3D printers have been awesome in the classroom and

112it's really got the students excited about 3D printing [Music] thank you sorry [Music] thank you hi I'm Tina D'Andre and I'm the Innovation lab teacher here at Pleasant Ridge and this year I wrote a foundation grant for the wall of wonder which is right beside me and you can see it's a giant magnetic white board and because it goes all the way to the floor it allows a lot of access for our smaller students to build vertically which is always an additional challenge for them so they've been excited to use it and try it out this year [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I would really like to thank the foundation for salineary schools for their generosity and their support of the Innovation lab [Music] thank you [Music] foreign hi my

113name is Heidi Phelps here at saline High School in the life skills program I did a grant for t-shirt designs called inclusive designs where the grant was going towards impacting students to have job responsibilities while creating shirts through the machine called a Cricut this machine has helped students become more aware of job responsibilities and problem solving which has been a huge impact on in the classroom whether we're working on the shirt designs creating them putting them together or selling them which has been a huge piece of this whole year this year we've already sold two different design shirts where the funds then go towards our community trips where we may celebrate by having a pizza party for the students supporting students who may not be able to afford the trips and also being able to

114provide additional supplies for our shirts for the next round which will be coming up soon [Music] foreign [Music] I'd like to really sincerely thank the foundation for contributing and supporting our class and our program by helping us become more inclusive in the community through our community inclusive design shirt [Music] so that's been the foundation's year in a nutshell basically do you guys have any questions yeah oh I'm on um can we have that some of the students especially that last one come to one of the events to talk about yeah the shirt of course yeah we're already starting to plan for the Fall fundraiser so that was a good time that I think we'll be highlighting some of those grants thanks okay well hearing no more but thank you so much for the work that

115you do for us oh thank you appreciate it I can't believe it's been only one year it feels like many right Rex and Care thank you we do I have another report from uh Rex Clary and Kara Davis on the uh Bond update yes good evening and uh thank you for allowing us to present tonight um first I'd like to do a big thanks to all the people that have uh been along this journey so far in the design process the core group community members students teachers and other support staff taking time out of their schedules for two and three evening meetings each and every week for the for the pretty much the last five months um it's been a journey we've just started but what you see tonight kind of represents about 45 million

116dollars of design for the first roughly three three and a half four years so start that to talk a little bit about the process will be Kara Davis executive director of instruction thanks Rex and thank you again to everybody who's been a part of this process and of course for the voters who passed this back in November it has been such an exciting project and so much fun and so energizing there are so many exciting things ahead sir I'm looking forward to sharing some of those with you this evening at the heart of the design process is collaboration so when we think about design how we are thinking about bringing in multiple stakeholders perspectives different user lenses thinking about our staff our students our families thinking about the people who are in the spaces right

117now and also thinking about the people who will be using these spaces for years and years to come so in terms of the design process and the collaboration included we have essentially three arms to that one of which is the District bond steering committee that is essentially the core team plus Jay Grossman I.T director as well as king Scott and Clark our purpose is to synthesize of course like the timelines and manage the projects and whatnot Rex is doing an absolute fabulous job of of leading that up as well as synthesizing all the feedback and notes from the two different arms of collaboration and brainstorming ideating and all of that so our primary design committee is what we consider the project design committee this was an application based design Committee of about 20 people for

118each of the different projects and it includes a wide variety of perspectives so again thinking about students family members PTO reps staff from various levels of the organization as well as administrators and a member a project lead and these folks have met multiple times related to each of the projects starting and I've got a little bit of a timeline to share with you but starting with some of the ideation and the brainstorming of what their hopes and dreams are for the different spaces as well as then in follow-up meetings looking at helping to refine some of those design plans and provide continuous feedback which then the steering committee comes through and and rethinks about and then makes adjustments to and then redesigns and presents over and over again so we've done that quite a few

119times with each of the projects in addition the project leads have also included a number of focus groups and one-to-one meetings this might be I'll have an example for you for the steam project at the high school we opened up a meeting in March once we had some ideas on the table to share with the students and staff there and invited anybody in during their lunch time to see where we were with those plans and then provide ideas about that and some iteration of a focus group or one-to-one meetings with specified stakeholders have happened with each project in its own way based upon those needs so a lot of opportunity for voice inside of the project design I appreciated the public comment tonight who will give those shout outs in terms of recognizing that because

120we have been very intentional on incorporating a wide variety of perspectives and trying to be really intentional about how we continue to consider the feedback and then make adjustments to the plans to get to where we are now with each of these collaborations there is king Scott thank you to Sarah H4 I'm coming up with these expectations with each collaboration there's of course some tenants that we're trying to live by the design process is very messy we have come into a number of things because it comes from our big ideas to what could this really look like to then of course what does the budget sound like and look like and then what do we need to come back to um is this meeting all of our needs some of our needs most of our

121needs trying to get to that sweet spot where we can afford the best solutions that we hope for with each of the projects so these are some of the tenants that we have and understanding that we'll follow this throughout the entire process in terms of a timeline as Rex mentioned there's been multiple meetings in terms of iterations so we are essentially right in that schematic design I thought that education had a lot of acronyms I'll tell you Architects have a lot more so we're in the SD part of it so the schematic design portion which is we are pretty close to having almost done designs based upon all the feedback that we've received and all of the planning meetings and now we're looking to come to get some estimates for what that will actually cost

122based upon the plans that we currently have and then we'll come back with some more feedback and you know make any adjustments as needed based upon those schematic designs and then go into design development and then from there go into the construction documents out into construction the timeline that's listed there in many cases we actually opted to slow down be that much more thoughtful intentional be responsive to some of the feedback so that we were really striving to get as close to right as possible versus rushing it and I'm not giving the process the time that it needed so right now we are still in the making design decisions and we are not yet to the documenting design decisions so I'm going to start off we're going to share some of the project work with

123you today probably it's going to be pretty small on some of these pictures but I'm going to start off with the High School aerial view so one of our big projects is the what we were calling the Steam and weight room Edition it is a great example of multiple iterations and responding to feedback originally in the bond proposal it was listed as one addition off the front of the building where the blue is located currently and after multiple conversations and thinking about the some of the hopes and desires for the use of the space we actually decided to split the addition into two position the steam center at the front of the building so that is the south side and the weight room off the back if you're familiar with the high school layout the

124back the north side that's the auxiliary gym that's off the back there and the main gym is off the front but we even considered at some point actually coming up into that March meeting where we open it up to the student and staff feedback even putting it in that big green area in the front to see if we could do something there and based upon that feedback we made some changes and decided that wasn't the best option for the different needs our students and staff had for a variety of different purposes and moved it back to where you see it now so I'm going to dive into that blue Center steam center at the front so the steam actually had a little bit of a unique element to it in that one thing that was

125really important to our group is that because we have some version of a steam either addition or remodel happening in each building across the district is that we really considered a cohesive Vision K-12 for our steam activities so we actually started our first design committee meeting by designing a vision for steam in Saline Area Schools this is a draft but it's a good Landing point for on where we are tonight just read saline science technology engineering arts and Mathematics programming will support students in developing a design thinking mindset anchored in empathy research creating and solving real world problems that will equip them to in a global society and benefit the better broader Community from in-school opportunities to extension experiences to Club participation a la SAA students will have access to steam and that feels really

126important because we have amazing cloud participation and successful oh award-winning opportunities and clubs right now where students are actively really doing great work in the steam domains and we also want to ensure that all of our students have access to that across the day during the school day and outside of the school day as well so we want to create great inspiring spaces where we've landed right now with the design Our Hope was to really dedicate to distinct spaces for Science Olympiad and Robotics those two clubs are very much thriving in our community and doing really great work and we know that the participation is going up and up and up because of the great leadership of our club sponsors and so right now they do not have protected space so this steam center does

127include protected space for both the Science Olympiad and Robotics clubs as well as has some Flex space there to be used throughout the day so you can see there's a flex lab and then also a collaboration station a lot of what you cannot see in this particular design is some of those movable walls garage doors where you can sight lines that go all the way through and open up and create much bigger spaces so that it expands at the actual space to feel much larger and for students to flex and use it in a variety of different ways and this is right off where you can see that drive in front of the high school off of that visitor parking lot um in the front of the building just to give you a sense of

128the design team work they've been very thoughtful about how do we create an inviting space it was really fascinating like when we were talking about wanting to create an inspiring steam space for our students and our community we wanted something that felt welcoming and that was really eye-catching while also being cohesive with the building structure itself so these next quick three slides I'll try to be as quick as possible is drawing from the pool parking lot down this is an overhang very similar to what you have for the main entrance at the High School attendance desk itself that to the far left is the pool entryway so you can see how there's some mirror in the angles there so there's that vestibule coming in whether it be a Lobby excuse me where we'll be really

129able to Showcase all of our students you know in terms of their Awards and the work that they're doing have images up and highlight The Sciences the math the design the engineering and the Arts all in that space and really bring it to the Forefront so that it gets the attention that it deserves because of the work that's happening and where we know our Workforce is going this is an example just showing you the mirror to um that attendance entrance where there's some parallel to the facade work in terms of the metal and the brick so sort of modeling that banding across the top and then a side view the design team has also considered some elements related to architectural I would call it Pizzazz there's a pop out on the right hand side there

130that's an angled area that is a Unique Piece because we also want this to be really something that stands out that the community can be really proud of so that's the steam Edition and I'll turn it over to Rex for the weight room description would it be better to ask questions now or at the end at the end note to self trophy display case we had a page turned today and what's that lots of them yes um so the weight room um I think it was very early uh evident early on in the design process that we couldn't put the weight room next to spaces that were going to be used as classrooms in the same day music noise um but we also realized that the so putting it out front was really not an

131option for us putting in the back at the North End of the building really allowed us to use that auxiliary gym space there'll be four garage doors that'll open from the weight room into that auxiliary gym space allowing um phys Ed teachers to have visibility into that space the students can use that space and also with this space we've also gone from pretty much one one and a half classrooms to three classrooms now of students can use this space all at the same time um we and I big shout out to Joel Welton um very thorough in his input did a great job of recruiting students to attend our design meetings we had coaches from football track cross country teachers community members every you know we had a really great group of input designers I

132guess for this space and we're it's really going to be some a place we want it to be a place a destination that kids want to be in this space and have as Joe says one Celine not just the football team not just the basketball team but all sports and all athletes being in this space to use this space whether they're in athletics or they just want to be physically fit um this kind of shows some of the weight room and how it's going to be laid out and it'll be um audio cardio on the West Side that'll look over the glass it'll be facing the tennis courts in the back uh the grade will be a little bit different you won't be able to see quite in there just like this but it'll be

133close to it a lot of natural light um and uh it's going to be it will be the place to be uh before I show you the next slide I want to thank Anna bertnell for her vision and her leadership she started off the Middle School complex we're calling it The Middle School Liberty Recreation Complex and ask for one word from the group and um we heard words like collaboration opportunity potential possibilities and her word was maximize um so this is our new Middle School um in the schematic design phase uh and it kind of shows what what we can do when this type of space to maximize this type of space you'll sell a new football field and track closer to the Middle School athletics you'll see a lacrosse field hockey complex with a

134soccer field you'll see the senior center seniors were also provided a voice and Anna did a great job of making sure all Community groups had a voice Selena youth softball and baseball field hockey lacrosse soccer Middle School athletics as well as tennis they did she just did a great job of getting everybody to the table that wanted to be heard and the design kind of reflects that you'll see that we still in the midst of Master planning we still have to figure out our traffic and how we're going to get people through this complex how we're gonna get them on campus off campus how we're going to take traffic off of Maple Road so we're still working through that now but this is a placeholder even though this project probably will not start until the

135summer of 2025 this is a placeholder for what's going to be next and how we can design the trafficking in and around it so we can make the right decisions for the Middle School Steam for the senior center and for cosmetology which will be moving over to this facility in the future the Operation Center the operations team has been meeting every Friday for two hours working with Hobbs in black as well as AR Brower two local companies uh as you know we've finished the purchase of the um land in teff park we've started that design process um this is a tenant this is pretty much a this is we're starting the D and D on this type of of we'll have the estimate to you guys probably the week of in July right now we've

136got tentative bids out for the steel pre-engineered building which is the big larger building that is set there on that on that footprint you can see we'll have three Bays for mechanics a wash bay room for grounds an HVAC so those those departments will be leaving this campus at the middle school in Liberty moving across to the teff park process to the tough Park location we'll have the operations team as well there with the transportation manager facility manager the construction manager we're putting a security Command Center in this place that'll have access to all cameras all access controls throughout the district um and uh this it's really come together and it's really been a great process working with Hobbs and black as well as AR Brower next is playgrounds I think I've said this before

137there's nothing as fun as planning uh playgrounds with all of the stakeholders in the district so there are four different playground projects taking place one of each of the three k-3 buildings and at Heritage because as a district we recognize the importance of play I always have but of course now more than other more than ever getting students outside interacting with each other and our hope is that we are creating spaces that are really inclusive safe and welcoming for our students to feel good about getting out there and exercising their bodies being next to their peers engaging with all of their peers across the day in that time so this is Woodland Meadows we decided not to put all four of the designs up because there's some very common elements that I'll share with you

138so just for the sake of time really looking again safety accessibility and inclusivity we were looking to improve the pathways so there's a lot of Pathways around each one of the playgrounds where students can walk there wheelchair accessible you can have bikes or trikes on those we are looking for improved sensory opportunities along those Pathways for students to stop and play whether that's musical whether it's blocks to make sure that we're engaging students with both gross and fine motor skills and then of course opportunities for Coldplay with inclusive equipment where students can play side by side with each other regardless of Mobility needs or gross motor needs so being thoughtful about that so in addition we were thinking we've had to really think through some of the coverage so that there's shade out there some

139of our playgrounds do not have a lot of Shades so we've added some shelter there and then are looking at picking out those pieces in order to embed those into the playground space while also having the appropriate ground cover in order for those to be accessible for Walkers Wheelchairs and whatnot as well so students can access them they're really easily alongside of their peers these are not a full overhaul we're maintaining much of the playground equipment that is there and then adding additional equipment and surfacing in order for it to become on the space that will really bring all students a sense of welcome and inclusivity as a part of that and feeling really good about being outside to play every day maybe multiple times a day foreign projects right now uh for this summer

140are the Harvest roof that started on Monday the 12th uh we hope to get roughly 60 percent of that roof done this summer and it'll be 40 next summer um due to the size of the roof and the fact that it's three stories in the air uh it is going to take more time it's that can be completed in one summer but they did start on Monday and um we're moving forward with that uh HVAC at the high school so we did a lot of behind the scenes work this spring with the infrastructure piece today or Monday we started in the classrooms so we are ahead of schedule and we're on budget on both of those projects Harvest has just started but HVAC has been well underway enough for about three months looking forward to

141providing better Comfort at the high school air conditioning and heating both with the three-story building it's been a challenge um and Theresa and their staff will will let you know that it has been a challenge for us to keep a positive learning environment and then we've also during the high school this summer we will maintain the pool as well as the theater to make sure those spaces can be used for rentals our community groups can use those spaces and students can use those spaces so we have done that and then the last is the Harvest Bus Loop so next summer with the playground in Asphalt replacement on some buildings we will do the pla the Harvest parent Loop and Bus Loop hoping to improve safety with our students and improve safety with our parents as

142well getting in student parents in and out of that safely we've got to replace the parking lot as it is but separating parents and buses has always been our priority for this district and we'll continue to do that and we that will happen sometime at next summer with those with those final designers drawings coming to you guys in April I'm going to say July or August so for your approval and with that creating places you'll love I like questions I like the logo any brief rapid fire questions for the team Jenny it's really more of a comment um but I was really happy to see that you showed the Woodland Meadows playground because I have um in the past not currently in working in the district I've worked in all of the buildings we're getting

143new um new playgrounds and um the one that provided the most injuries for my students was Woodland Meadows and we had thought a lot about how to improve that just independently in the school with maybe PTO funding things like that and it just was not possible for us to do that and so I am thrilled to see the work that is being done there one of the issues that we had is that the topsoil had been removed when the campus was created and so um when the topsoil was put back on it wasn't as deep and so it washed away and so it was almost like Concrete where the kids were playing so um seeing seeing the the spaces become safer is for me just really exciting to see I do have a question though

144in looking at and you had mentioned shelter and providing shade there if there'll be any opportunity for any natural shade will there be trees or anything like that being planted because that would also be sustainable uh you know for our environment too yeah yes we they've looked uh the Liberty Sports Complex has several trees and that can be added one of the metals was a gravel pit they didn't have topsoil none before so um yeah we that all came in uh from outside the city of saline yeah I knew there was um topsoil added when they placed the the seed or sod or whatever but it didn't it didn't last a few football games and it was gone and with the rain and we really feel that you know having space that that one's having

145space for the students to roam like Heritage and harvest uh where a Pleasant Ridge and Woodland metals are pretty much uh that's the only green space that they have that's why we felt it important to add that uh playground Turf it's not really an athlete it is a Turf but it's not the turf that you play football on but it does mean all your safety fall standards and it's very it's much more inexpensive than the actual football turf so that'll be great and I think the the paths too I I know in all the schools that I worked at there were lots of kids who um enjoyed walking those paths um for a variety of reasons but uh like to get in the laps that was sometimes one of the reasons but also just sometimes

146it was um the movement or the maybe time alone or time with a couple of friends that they needed so I'm happy to see that included too and of course the excess possibility and the ability to co-play that maybe hadn't been provided before so I love seeing um not just a single swing for someone with a different ability but a place where four people can join together and play so I'm really really looking forward to seeing those and I know Pleasant Ridge is already enjoying their playground and some of the third great parents have shared with me that the kids are sad to to be leaving that space so I'm excited that the future is going to have provide that for all of our elementary schools so thank you others quickies um try this end

147of the table on the topic of inclusivity I'm wondering about at the high school with the weight room you talked about making in a space that everyone can participate but you know it's a little intimidating um sometimes for students who aren't uh in the athletic teams to participate is their plan for both inclusive equipment uh similar to what there is at the elementary level that could be uh you know more adaptive as well as uh perhaps times that could be set aside for students in various with various capabilities to use the rooms yes on the cardio side of things we haven't dove into that design that piece and what pieces we'll be purchasing for that area but Kevin Musson director of special education has attended the meetings and his voice has been heard so as

148we get into those other spaces there other than those General weight room racks the it will be something we will consider at that time that warms my pediatrician hurt and also you know if the Middle School spaces uh my my middle schooler would uh ask me to please bring up that it's really sad that there's no recess after sixth grade and and at any time to spend in play in seventh and eighth grade with those new Middle School spaces would help him learn better [Applause] I would think with softer ground too you'd be really happy that the teachers aren't saying Walk It Off so much to the injuries hey Susan um so just to clarify so all of the playground will not be like a hundred percent inclusive so just components of it it's correct

149okay thanks I had a question I couldn't quite figure out the scale of your bus Bays there are three bays are they pull throughs no they're currently pull in and back out got it all right um this is an overlap with Psy Ollie so I'm watching out for you guys are but the bus is a drive-through I'm sorry the bus washes a drive-through got it that's those are the top three Bays like when you're looking at the schematic it's actually at the end of the building yeah um oh good okay that's what I thought they are pull through thank you um and the infrastructure um just know that even though we don't own electric bus all the infrastructure is putting put in place for when we do move forward with that and the charging stations

150the generator I mean to size generator to charge 20 electric buses would would break the budget right now sure um we just can't do it but you know if we do good through grants and we do move forward and it comes Things become more affordable uh all that would be to slid into a pipe without having to change or tear up the asphalt or the design and those solar panels that I think I'm seeing over the buses are they they won't be they won't generate sufficient power is that correct we will still put them in place to power the parking lot lights to start with um it's at some point we hope to have electric buses and also know that geothermal is the steam center no no pun okay so going back to the sci

151Ali in the robotics um if you hold that slide there was it even though it says robotics there's going to be some overlap between the two areas like whoever's maintaining the use of the building or that area there will be some overlap it's not strictly robotics right so this space yeah the turquoise these are permanent spaces Robotics and Science Olympiad have talked together about what parts of the workshop in terms of tools and workshop benches and whatnot that can be shared and there and see and safety for Robotics and Science Olympia because the supervision required this space here is open so if they were to do a small out of the middle school competition field for robotics can fit inside of the high school robotics you could actually have some viewing a small competition here

152these walls will be opening obviously passes display is going to expand here Science Olympiad and our staff and students during the day it's easy to access between these collab stations the scientific theorem and to this space here as well so the flex um so you could you know variations of uses across the time this is designed right now to see about 100 people at tables so you can fit more with just chairs the Plus space I appreciate that thank you very much I did have one last question but I think I can give you that by email it's about the air in the gym the Science Olympiad folks like to be able to turn it off and it's been like an act of Congress to make that happen because they're they're delicate as we speak

153so they're delicate little creatures that they're flying around get the controls of that building as you know is when it opened we're out of the company was out of business and it has not been supported since 2002. um so we're replacing those uh it's rather costly repair but it's something that needed to be happen and needed to be done I'm sure there are a lot of folks are very happy to hear that thank you um Brad or Tim oh first off I want to thank everybody for all the work I mean there's a lot of work that goes into this and um exciting you know we got the slide for the robotics uh stuff up there in stem um they do need their own space they currently don't have their own space and they kind

154of I hear they work out of the hallway sometimes or whatnot so it's kind of encouraging to see this but uh to the Liberty complex and all that change I think it looks great the other thing we hear is and you mentioned it the traffic you know during drop off and pick up at the middle school when is that going to be addressed at the same time as this okay and that's what you don't have figured out so we did a traffic study we had a counters put at all the exits and entrances onto this campus office lean and Arbor Road between Woodland and Heritage off the front of Maple Road we count they counted they're supposed to have those that traffic study back to us with options that we can design and show what

155that impact will look as far as staging and queuing and stacking cars on campus right now we stack cars on Maple Road we can we can only stack about 20 cars on campus on the middle school campus at drop off time and that's what's causing the safety concern in the morning if we separate the entrance and exit we want to look at that as one of the options and separate that out and where where do buses so if we have a transfer facility in the future where does that transfer facility stage on this instead of staging it at the front of the middle school what if we moved to the back of the middle school as we bring high school middle school kids together what does that look like and so that's something we're working

156into and then the entrance to the senior center the interest in the cosmetology and the efforts in the entrance into this Middle School steam center are all three things that we have to have right before we pay for it twice yeah yeah I just heard about it you know and I've driven down the road when there there's that stacking occurring and it's just like wow so great I'm glad we're working on that yep I think I'm delighted to hear that thank you very much uh Rex and care I appreciate that thank you thank you um I'm going to say two things all at once uh without unless there are objections what I'd like to do is after Brad's uh brief comment we'll take a bio break for about 10 minutes okay thank you will that

157speed you along or oh all right uh with a finance committee met today and uh it was pretty much a a prep meeting if you will for the the budget presentation at 6 00 p.m and uh for those who might have missed that uh some of the highlights of our budget were that well first of all on your taxes this summer you're going to see that it will reflect seven and a half Mills versus eight in Prior year so there there will be that we did not have to borrow any money this year to maintain our financial obligations over the summer so that should save us anywhere in the realm of 50 to 150 000 so we believe that that was fiscally responsible thing to do and uh we're grateful that we're in a position

158that we we can do that I don't want to get in too much into the weeds because we did it at six o'clock but I do want to once again say how much I appreciate the stewardship and uh of of of Miss Housley as the leader of the finance team and we are certainly fortunate to to have you leading the way on this oh you know and uh that is all unless you guys have have questions I have no questions thank you very much Treasurer girby uh so we'll reconvene at nine hey sorry 8 32. thank you very much exercise oh my God um [Music] thank you everybody we are reconvening uh for those of you keeping tally we have about eight uh public comments at the end of this meeting so uh just to

159let you know so the next uh and I would like to uh to introduce in just a moment uh Jenny Miller trustee or sorry secretary Miller who is the chair of the policy committee she's going to uh make a brief introduction about how and about the basics of policy 2240 um and uh once her discussion her introduction is over uh board members this is just a reminder to you you will uh speak you know I'll I will recognize you if you have something to say and I'll try to you know not miss anybody but um I so we'll just leave it at that uh secretary Miller floor is yours okay so um tonight is a discussion item we have um policy 2240 which is currently called the controversial issues policy and I'm going to give

160a brief background and then read the policy draft that is proposed currently and then I'll hand it over to Michael for his facilitation of the discussion um so first I want to just give a bit of um background in terms as far as my my timeline goes so I when I was running for the board this was a topic of conversation I know that it was a topic of conversation prior when I was an employee in the district and um my first year that I left was the 2018-2019 school year which was when I am Jazz was read and so I know it was a big topic of conversation then um when I joined the policy committee last year um it was discussed then um and it did not um it did not make it

161out of committee at that time when I was named policy chair at the beginning of the year we made made it clear that it was a priority for us to move this along this year so it began discussions began in February we had um we had a we've had several policy meetings in different formats since then with opportunities for public comment and um and so I want to just I wanted to just say that this has been on on the timeline for for a while now I want to clarify a couple of things um first there this was brought up um tonight but it's also been brought up before so I want to clarify a couple of things there are some legally required opt-outs this policy is not one of those so these legally required

162opt-outs are in separate policies and in separate legal documents so I just want to make it clear that legally students have the right to opt out of sex education that is not a part of this policy that is something different um students have the right to opt out of surveys analysis or evaluations that inquire about sensitive information that's the second thing students have the right to opt out of instruction in the characteristics of symptoms of a disease that are in conflict with a sincerely held religious belief that's another opt-out fourth the right to opt out of instruction on sexual child sexual abuse fifth the right to be free from compulsory physical examinations or medical treatment in addition to those five opt-out reasons there are also times where accommodations might be made for students who have

163disabilities or because of their religion so I just wanted to make that clear that those are different distinctly different than what we're talking about here tonight and those are not going to be changed tonight as a result of this policy there was also a question about why parents would be asked for a justification for opting out so in in the process of opting out and actually and thinking about this perhaps a better title for this policy instead of opt out would be alternate assignment so uh when a parent or a child over 18 is requesting to be opted out of an assignment it doesn't mean that they are no longer responsible for the state requirements or for the curriculum and um demonstration of skills so teachers and the teaching and learning team would need to

164know why a parent or child is opting out of an assignment so that they can respond in kind so if you are asking to be opted out of a book because of a specific reason the teaching and learning team alongside the teacher would need to know what that reason is so that they could choose an alternate assignment or instructional material there's been some discussion around burden on teachers and so I want to just address that really quickly that a policy like the one that is being proposed tonight would create consistency throughout the district currently this has been handled on a case-by-case basis and there are different things happening in each building which is creating discrepancy and inconsistency and so a policy such as this could help align and create consistency from one building to the

165next this particular policy is instructional materials only so we are talking about instructional materials we are not talking about other items if if the board or Community feels the need for additional um something additional to the instructional materials there could be a proposal for a policy 2240.1 or a 2240.2 so it could go on and on and these could be connected um okay no this is my report you can ask questions in a moment thank you so um so then the next thing that I wanted to just address is some have asked why the rush so we have been discussing this policy under um under this current policy committee for since it it started in February we had our first public comment opportunity in March so it's been for several months we have sought legal

166opinion we have have had input from the table and from the public we have had examples shared with us that have presented harm to students especially because of the inconsistencies we have also heard about teachers who have felt that um they have had to make these decisions individually instead of with the support of the teaching and learning team because the policy and the administrative guidelines were not in place at that time so when a parent would approach a teacher the teacher would be in in the decision maker seat and that places an undue burden on the teacher and so now in order to create consistency and also because we have people on the teaching and learning team to support it would be a team of Educators who would who would support that instead of just

167one individual teacher um there's also been kind of I've been referring to it as a game of telephone so even people who are in the same room hearing the same information are um are speaking in public comment or online and it's the game of telephone and so often things have been misconstrued and the um the final reason that I'll share in my decision to ask for this to be moved to the full board is that the time that this policy is um used the most or the time when parents and teachers have to come together to make these decisions often happens at the start of the year or at the start of the trimesters and because of the way our board operating procedure works with policy this policy would need to come to discussion at

168least twice in the summer we have a one June meeting and one July meeting so if it was only going to come to the table at those two meetings maybe we would need another meeting so maybe in August we want to have this support in place for students families and teachers this fall so that we don't have some of the things and inconsistencies that have happened in the past and I mean no judgment on what has happened in the past I think that people were doing the best with what they had and with the best of intentions but this would be a support that would be in place at that time so that those are some of the reasons I'm now going to read the um the the proposed draft and then in accordance with

169board operating procedure I am going to turn the discussion over to president McVeigh to recognize members of the board for this discussion okay so this is in um the section 2000 and this would be policy 2240. currently um the title is instructional materials opt out Saline Area Schools are committed to creating a culturally competent and responsive School environment where individuality of each student staff member and Community member are recognized the Board of Education shall adopt instructional materials based on a determination that such materials are an effective Learning Resource to help students achieve grade level competency and that the materials meet Criterion specified in law instructional materials shall be aligned with academic content standards and the district's curriculum to ensure that they effectively support the district's adopted course of study properly introduced and conducted complex instructional

170materials can help students learn to identify important issues explore fully and fairly all sides of an issue wait carefully the value values and factors involved and develop techniques for formulating and evaluating evaluating positions if after careful review of District curriculum activities or content a parent Guardian student 18 or older identifies that the activities or content are personally objectionable the parent Guardian may fill out the district opt-out form such requests will be considered by an educational team after the appropriate District opt-out form has been submitted opt-out requests shall be considered with respect to individual circumstances requests may not unreasonably include large portions of the curriculum instructional materials means and means instructional content regardless of format that is provided to the students including printed or representational materials audio visual materials and materials available in electronic or digital

171form formats such as materials accessible through the internet for the purpose of this policy specific administrative guidelines will be developed to support the tenants of the policy these are the four four areas listed core curricular frames commitments to positive Partnerships decision making regarding instructional materials procedures for opting out parents and then this is the next sentence sorry parents Guardians and students have a right to inspect instructional materials used as a part of the educational curriculum for their student then it lists related policies policy 2210 curriculum and development approved courses policy 2270 religion in the curriculum policy 9130 public complaints and policy 5780 student parent rights so now I'd like to turn it over to president McVeigh for facilitation of the discussion well first of all thank you for that great background I did a comparison

172a side by side just to see for myself it's just helpful to see the difference between the terms and I think the new policy does have a number of materials substantial substantially clear I think clarify you've clarified a number of things I had heard from one member of the public that the word complex might not be accurate but in reading it in the context of the whole paragraph complex seems to work for me as opposed to a term that was recommended as sensitive or other terms like that oh and the title you're calling it a silly working title I mean just in my own personal reflection I was thinking that it might be clearer if we named it alternative act like an alternative activity or alternate alternate something like that just because um in in

173talking with members of the public and in reviewing things myself I find that um excuse me I find that um it could it might be confusing um in that it's not just any Erasure of the skills or requirements for the course course instead there would be an alternate provided so that the student still has an opportunity to demonstrate Mastery of the curriculum thank you Floors open to any of you who'd like to add or weigh in I'll really weigh in but um so question you had mentioned 0.1.2 Etc what did you mean by that comment I I didn't understand it I meant that this particular policy has to do with instructional materials so there were people who had questions about additional opt-outs or additional um additional considerations that weren't mentioned specifically in this policy and

174so as is the practice and other related policies there could be additions this whole policy could be revised in the future or there could be in addition to instructional materials other other reasons or proposed opt-outs so like activities and things like that I'm not I'm not proposing that tonight but I think that it's been um in questioning and in conversations people have asked well Does it include this or what about that and this is specific to instructional materials so if there are other things that need to be considered or discussed that could be a revision to this current policy or it could be a separate related policy okay I appreciate that clarification uh trusty gold so um one of my concerns with this draft is that part of my reasoning for wanting to work on

175this policy is not only what's happening locally but what's happening uh Nationwide in terms of materials being taken out of classrooms which is of great concern to me and I don't know if it's okay for me to read from the draft administrative guidelines I wanted I think or I could just generally reference so um what the audience needs to know is that we have access to a rough rough draft of the administrative guidelines but they are going to be based on an hinge upon how this policy eventually so maybe I won't do that but what I will do is say that in the Dei committee guidelines for us and in considering this policy they had I think that we had um this policy does a great job trustee Miller of uh for filling three of

176their sort of pieces of advice but I do think that there is a piece that I would like to see made more explicit which is that um one parents opt out cannot interfere with the education of another parent's child and so that's why I sort of uh given the board a copy of uh just a couple of editions um and sort of most Rel most relevant and thanks to Ms teslin and the DIC the opt-out request must not impact the education of other students books posters choices from Choice boards and other prepared instructional materials and learning activities must not be removed from the class or the school as a result of parent opt-out requests because so much of what our kids are learning in instructional materials are put out in the classroom there's always classroom

177libraries I do not want to see certain materials relegated to second-class status because that that takes away some of my parental choice to have my kids learn in a broad way and I know that that is referenced in some of the administrative guidelines but I think it's important enough that it should be in the policy as a whole do you may I just ask if do you have some recommended language to cover that and and well I'm you had mentioned that just at the start of your talk where when did you send this to us or give it to me so it was suggested to me that I not send it over over email because that might be that that I just brought you the printed papers so I made a bunch of times so

178one of these papers it's the two papers and it's the exact it's the same policy with the Shaded editions um which I realized would not be great for brevity of time but I just really feel strongly that it's important that and and maybe that is a second policy but I feel like them it's gonna I feel pretty strongly that I'd like to at least make the argument for the board to consider that having a more specific and robust defense of keeping a wide variety of instructional materials available to all students is also worthy of parental rights and other parents choices thank you pardon my confusion earlier it might it's been snowing on my desk it seems and I got lost thank you please so um I just wanted to respond just briefly because this was

179something that we had considered out of right at various points and I just wanted to to put it out for the public and and for the rest of the board that um Steve and I had an opportunity as the board operating procedure is that the policy chair and the superintendent can request to meet with legal and so we did and when we met with legal they did give us um they did give us quite a lengthy um explanation but they did not include everything so we went back to legal and this time a different lawyer from the same firm did did send us some some additional pieces but I did want to mention that legal did state for us that this policy is written to be narrow in scope it specifically allows opting out of

180instructional materials on a case-by-case basis instructional materials are defined specifically in the policy and in alignment with policy 2521 it does not allow for the removal of instructional materials from other students nor the removal of posters Flags nor the removal of library items it does not allow for parents to opt their child out of placement in a classroom with a teacher of an identity that is not preferred so legal did read through and did make that recommendation however if the board feels that that's something that should be specifically stated in the policy that could be considered too I just wanted to say that this was something that was discussed with legal to save time do you have some recommended language if we were to oh great oh this language that yeah I got it now

181sorry I can't take credit for the language the language is almost directly from the deiac guidelines for us we asked for their guidelines and I thought that trustee Miller's uh uh policy did a very good job of addressing most of them I felt that that particular part though the lawyers felt like it read nearly enough that I thought that the community deserved to hear that particular part because I think there's a lot of alarm that one Parent's Choice to opt out could impact another bus parents students educational experience and comfort in the classroom so I think it's important enough to Merit specific inclusion in the policy can you can you read your the language that you have proposed can you hear me okay uh okay so I also added one other gray part so I'll

182just starting in after careful review of District curriculum activities or content apparent Guardian student 18 or older identifies that the activities or content are personally objectionable the parent slash Guardian may fill out the district opt-out form such requests will be considered by the educational team after the appropriate District opt-out form has been submitted opt out requests should be considered with respect to individual circumstances it and here's a part I added since I was adding and should not Place undue burden on teaching staff requests may not unreasonably include large portions of the curriculum instructional materials means instructional content regardless of format that is provided to the student including printed or representational materials audio visual materials and materials available in electronic or digital formats such as materials accessible through the internet okay here comes the part the

183opt-out request must not impact the education of other students books posters choices from Choice boards and other prepared instructional materials and learning activities must not be removed from the class or school as a result of parent opt-out requests that's really the only change please so this new language that you're proposing right here in Gray has that gone through review there'll be review process through our legal partners okay so this is brand new I don't know where the committee's been right right the question last month the question to Legal was are there limits for opting out of things for example could a parent opt out of a classroom because the teacher is openly gay are books different from people Etc and then they chimed in with the document you saw the document yet well this is

184our discussion right now correct I I prefer that say that I do have a PR I do have a preference that I mean if we choose to include this or not I would like to see that go through that process just to make sure that from uh from a legal standpoint that it's buttoned up we did that with the rest of the policy I think if at minimum we should do that with this as well if we chose to add it in please so I think it would be important for me to give an example of how we are currently operationalizing the current controversial issues policy but how we perceive uh this revised policy providing more guidance while still working with that parent partnership so for example not too long ago parent comes in and

185says I'd like to blank it opt out of X subject area and we won't Define that area so teaching and learning team got together with the family and said well we don't do a blanket opt out requests like that because we need to narrow down the scope not with the family determine specifically what the opt-out request was determined how they would operationalize alternative activities and that worked well for both parties and moved forward so it wasn't oh overly complicated but it's not the district's intention to say that you can't opt out of something per se it's to understand the scope so that we can actually operationalize it which is why you know in the in the policy and the guidelines that says you can opt out of large portions of the curriculum that's what we

186mean by that that's saying some broad subject area say biology for example that would be too difficult for the science teacher to know how to exercise the specifics of the logistics around that but but when we talk about positive partnership we say that's why we want to meet with the family to specifically understand what the request is and then work together to operationalize it in its simplest form and we that's what we're currently doing but providing more administrative guidelines around the four areas that trustee Miller secretary Miller said Core Curriculum frames commitment to positive partnership process for partnering and decision making regarding the instructional materials and also how we would logistically operationalize the opt-out that will just help the process along and provide the consistency that you had mentioned earlier thank you chair recognizes trustee

187estep's hand yes question like the blanket opt out like lgbtq um so where is the teacher teachers and this so if there's I'm just like your scenario about somebody so so first of all the guidelines aren't a board thing right so the superintendent creates the guidelines um from our overarching policy so you know Implement implements it from there so there's technically nothing holding anyone back from using the current controversial issues language and have administrative guidelines in fact we should have administrative guidelines for all of our policies where it states that um so you know I I I'm not sure what changes um anybody is waiting for but um that that's something that can be done now um so I guess the question if somebody says I want to opt out of all of this um

188is that the teaching and learning team um contacting the teachers and sitting down with the teachers or the teachers responsible looking for this blanketed for example lgbtq assignments are they digging through that to bring that out like how what does that look like on the ground respond to that so in essence it yeah it is working with the teaching and learning team for example if a parent makes the request to the teacher directly the teacher who and they're often already doing this at this time would contact Cara in this case director of teaching and learning and so there's this request I'd like to have you help me work through the specifics and the logistics around it and they meet to determine how that works and um we just think that by having more structure around

189that process that will be helpful for our teaching staff to identify that that's how we do it you know parent submits an opt-out form in this case and then the teaching and learning team become involved to help the teacher operationalize it provide the alternative activity not ostracized kids we've we've talked about that process as well and it just would be a more consistent policy whereas I'm not sure that all our teachers know that that's exactly how how they should do it now if if a parent contacts them sometimes the parent contacts the building principle we just need it to come through a more central location have a a better Central process and we feel like we can better operationalize it in a more consistent manner with that type of positive partnership and clearer understanding of

190how it will work just a follow-up question if that's okay um so again the follow-up to that um are we and and I don't know if we clarified this within the policy when we were doing committee work um if so Clarity around um are they submitting a topic right um or are we having them go through the process which we don't have um that administrative guideline or form either um with the public complaints where there should be a process on reviewing the material so being a legal right federally State um to be apparent to be able to review the instructional materials for their student um is that when that comes into place and then once they've reviewed whatever that is from the teacher then they say I don't want to do this assignment or is

191it the teacher like building through all of um their curriculum ahead of time at this request well no it it is what you said initially the the third part of the uh guidelines would be processing for partnering and decision making regarding instructional material so that's at the point where a parent might say I don't want my child involved in an activity related to this specific type of lesson and then that would be identified and this is where and I you know care has been pretty explicit about this she is working with the teaching staff to make sure that parents are understanding what what the curriculum entails so that they can help work on making those decisions and that's that's a process that continues and we have talked about how that sometimes looks different at the

192elementary level than it does at the secondary in high school classes there's more of the syllabus type of you know kind of in I don't want to say in lockstep but more of a sequential order of specifically how things are taught Elementary for example often involves readers Workshop that involves all different types of books relating on kids interests and you know in a second grade class 25 students might be reading 25 different books so it may look a little different at the elementary level at than the secondary level but the intention is to work with our teaching staff to make sure the parents are aware of what what is being taught to make sure that we aren't apologizing for the need to diversify the curriculum more and make sure that those materials are not taken

193out of the classroom just like uh trustee what gold was saying but then recognize that some parents may not want their kids involved in all of those activities and that we work directly with them to make sure that we can operationalize that is that like opt-in wait um I'm sorry I'm confused about that piece so just real quick I guess um and I guess this is a guidelines piece but um so we're so the parent request right or we're just sending everything out front like I'm just it maybe that varies but well I mean I'll I'll give you an example of how you know one of our elementary schools is is working right now with this that um they send out a more or less A diversity Equity inclusion statement the beginning of the school

194year talk about culturally responsive instruction and the importance of it and that um parents are said you know if there are concerns that they have about any of the materials that may be taught they can contact the classroom teacher and and discuss it again we would want to have a clearer process on that but that's an example of how it plays out there at the high school level it may be more of the you know here's the curriculum here's the syllabus these are the five books that are specifically going to be read by everybody these are the choice books and that parents would would need to make a better decision but I do want to also respond to something that trustee gold mentioned about you know adding some of that language about by one person

195opting out it wouldn't take away from the others in the classroom to be to have access to diverse materials so that that has played out that played out at Heritage the last week of school Heritage had a choice board to recognize a pride week and gave students some options to read some materials related to lgbtq families and so forth but they had said to parents that um certainly students would would could opt out of that choice board or choose something else but they weren't going to say if a parent chose to opt out of having their child you know make that choice they weren't going to pull all that material out so that others couldn't have it so that that's an example of how Heritage Opera operationalized the statement that trustee gold is concerned about

196questions uh I don't know I'm just speaking specifically of what I saw happen at the last week of school in June okay because of that time I think it speaks also to a clear relationships that our teachers have with the parents of their students and how important those are and that no no teachers no parents giving up their responsibility to oversee the education of their students but again in working with the teachers these are the conversations they have to have the teacher may not well I'll just leave it at that I just I think that the policy here and the admin regs rough rough rough draft that I saw seems to address that pretty clearly that it's solid conversations with the parents regarding the curriculum in the classroom so just in in response to that

197um one thing that this policy does is it does take the the burden off the teacher in a few different ways first the teaching and learning team can help to facilitate the creation of an alternate an alternate material that could be used um and can facilitate in the conversation and so just as an example or as a scenario potential scenario if a parent were to come to a teacher and say I do not want my child participating in X topic or an X material it places a burden on the teacher because the teacher is put in the position of deciding if they're going to accommodate that request or not and if that happens at the beginning of some of a trimester or at the beginning of the school year that can be detrimental to a

198very important relationship that exists between a parent and school and so instead with this policy the teacher could say thank you for bringing this to my attention there's a form that you can fill out that can help us to facilitate the discussion and decisions around your request moving forward and so then the teacher can say I hear you and I hear your request and this is the process and so it in it can preserve that relationship between the teacher and and the parent so that it's not the the teacher who is ultimately making that decision in isolation I should say great thank you for that so there's a lot of information that was sent over to go through um and I appreciate you getting all the information over so and then now all the conversation

199I'm kind of losing my train of thought here but um I guess I'll just kind of start piece by piece and we've talked a lot about the administrative guidelines and when I read the administrative guidelines I think to myself the policy you know we can make a policy and we can fluff it up like explore full and fairly all sides of an issue you know I hear numerous times about a a classroom situation where we're not getting a Fair all sides are not being discussed and so we can put it in the policy to make it look good but I think it comes down the ministry of guidelines are the muscle behind this whole policy and you know when I look through the administrative guidelines I questions pop out you know and some of the

200questions have been answered like clarifying questions to better understand scope of material stuff like that what is the issue with as much interest that the community has had in this policy can we get can we get this administrative guidelines out to the policy this is what they're going to have to follow through with and I know in our policy um the last part instructional material means instructional content regardless of format that is to provide to students include print uh representational material audio visual material all that and I just labeled each section on my thing here for notes but that was section e and you know that is right out of the administrative guideline or that administrative guidelines use those exact words there but then they also expand on it too to say what it what

201it doesn't include and you know some of those things are you know a reading of a book so you know I know we have people that go in and and we'll just do you know read a book in a classroom and stuff mostly in uh Elementary School so so parents not going to know what that book is about ahead of time and that is so you know so a parent could go in there and read a book on Christianity and parents aren't going to be able to opt their kids out or whatever other book and and so I think I think our community should be able to see the administrative guidelines on this the administrative guidelines kind of scare me I'll be frank with you because they can change at any time and we don't

202see it from a board level so um so that's one thought you know I don't know Steve you you know I could respond to that I know you don't have to we generally don't have administrative guidelines out to the public they're operationalized for the um Administration to help do that but you know if if that feels like this would be helpful for this particular draft or actually this language once it's finalized to get released I don't see that being an issue but I do want to point out that Kara and the teaching and learning team started by putting a draft together to respond to what we think would be the best way to operationalize this policy before you have even revised the policies so let's just say that the policy does get revised and approved

203by the board then the teaching and learning team has to go back and revise these administrative guidelines to make sure that it matches it well and provides enough guidance and that would be you know you reach back out to the teaching staff and say this is some of the proposed language do you feel his teachers that this is language that will help support you and operationalize it and if there are some tweaks that need to be made we'll make them in other words the administrative guidelines really follow policy this was just an attempt to get organized around what we believe it should look like administrative guidelines follow policy but the administrative guidelines are much more in depth in the policy itself yeah I would agree and so therefore I mean it even says you have

204two weeks from the time an assignment comes out to opt out but I've been hearing conversation back and forth that are the are the teachers putting their syllabus and their instructional material somewhere and how long will that be out beforehand that's what I was trying to address previously though that care and the teaching and learning team are working on uh making sure that parents do know what is going to be in the curriculum and I tried to describe the example that that looks a little different at the elementary level than it does at secondary level but that yes that um you're right if if if parents have no idea what's in the curriculum we don't know how they would be able to opt out if they had a concern so that is something that will

205be worked on so yeah parents would have to have ample time to really review the curriculum I mean now we're asking our parents to go through if we're not going to have a you know any kind of blanket opt out type stuff you're asking parents to that some might work two jobs now they're gonna have to go through the curriculum and and decide what they want to opt their kids out of or not and um so so I think the administrative guidelines as written because I think our policy has kind of mirrored some of the current administrative guidelines I I think I think it'd be a good idea to to make them public for anybody that wants to see them right now and have the input we've got a lot of input from our community

206already and I don't think it would hurt um the other thing is is you know when talking through this I I and I know Lauren mentioned in her revised thing um placing a burden on the staff and to me it seems like this this could be more of a burden on staff that this way and have the staff been discussed you know I know the teaching and learning team has talked about this has the staff been involved in in any of this the union talked about any of this that's what I was also trying to mention previously that the teaching and learning team has started by trying to engage with some of the teachers but um they and if you have been engaged a few of our teacher leaders have talked through some initial frames

207but we do need to go back and work directly with them after or if the policy gets revised but I do want to point out one thing that right now we are operationalizing the controversial issues and I know that sometimes people are thinking well oh is this so overwhelming I don't believe it is we've been operationalizing this for years and so therefore when parents do come to us and they say they want to opt out and they cite the controversial issues policy we feel we're effectively doing that now so people say well why do you need to change the policy because people have made it clear that they don't like that it's called controversial issues we don't want our kids to be considered controversial and that we need more succinct guidelines but we are in

208my estimation effectively already operationalizing it so to think that we won't be able to do that moving forward because there'll be too many one-offs with people being so confused about what we're trying to do really doesn't make sense from past practice so I do want to point that out that there is to our knowledge we aren't having issues working with parents that are contacting us now I don't think for a second that we won't be able to operationalize this I just think that we need to show the full scope of this policy change in that full scope entails the administrative guidelines and I and I think that's fine if if the belief is that we want to get the administrative guidelines for people to weigh in or or or you know have more time to

209discuss that we can I don't see that that is is a big issue in fact clarify that I'd like to weigh in on that as well but as Tim I appreciate that um to put out the administrative guidelines because you're right there are there is a lot of teeth there are most of the teeth are in those um as long as we all know that we aren't uh organizing or controlling or even uh agreeing to the administrative guidelines we're just we're maybe putting an eye on to make sure that those guidelines follow the policy that are it's it's hooked to the policy correctly um and that's about as far as our job in that goes there are a lot of details in this including there's a form uh and I've been looking through the form

210and just what sort of information they're asking for none of it seems overly onerous to the to the working family uh and I think it's all very good you also do raise a good point go about the time restriction I know as a former teacher just how difficult it is to have things uh that far in advance and sometimes lessons turn on a dime based on on issues that are coming up in the news or something that's happened that's relevant to the classroom and sometimes you don't really have a lot of opportunity to get that stuff out well in advance however that's what these parent nights and and opportunity and and conversations with with parents are all about yeah and it does change on a dime because you know I don't know two three weeks

211ago I was getting texts by friends and stuff with their kid in the English class and their kids in an English class my son was in the English class as well and 60 60 uh slide document and one of the slides for the majority of the slides they were they were fine one of the just slides straight up asked the kid or the kids to why are you racist well that slide was eventually taking down but but it's things like that it's so fluid that you know you could a parent could review something and then think oh okay it's gonna be fine and then then then it changes we've had issues like that just in the last uh within the last eight months during I think it was during this Academic Year won't go into

212any of the details but there was a there was an assignment that was put out and given to a substitute teacher who who may not have had the nuance and how to deal with and said oh yeah this is an inappropriate slide and and drop it right away uh so again a quick conversation with the teacher to clarify things uh and um and one one letter of concern from a parent was all it took to get that conversation resolved I trust our teachers here a great deal and they're they are truly professionals And when they see an issue they do respond and they they have been for the most part very responsive to our parental input sorry for uh stepping on your question earlier no I just wanted to clarify that the two two weeks

213that's mentioned in the administrative guidelines is not just an arbitrary like they didn't just come up with that it's taken directly from policy and it's it's the public complaints policy please so I guess what I would I've I've just been trying to listen here for a minute uh there's a couple of things I guess I have some thoughts on on the whole thing overall number one to think about the all administrative guidelines in sharing those the only thing I would say is an educator is that sometimes like we don't know about stuff until it kind of happens to us and we so I guess I would want enough ability in the administrative guidelines for our leadership teams to be able to live with it and change and be able to to figure those things out

214as they present themselves and so for me like that is the danger of sharing the administrative guidelines right is that they might have to live and modify and evolve based upon situations and so I want to empower Steve and the team to know that in his team to know I Empower you to do that in to make the best decisions you think for kids I guess so um yeah I'll I'll leave it there and I do think for the most part that's the way it is this this policy and you know Jenny and everybody has said has had numerous meetings they've you know stepped outside the box and done different kinds of meetings to engage the public and with all that with administrative guidelines being the muscle behind all this I I think this is

215different than most policies and I think that that requires something to be looked at differently go ahead um so I guess um to what Tim um said there is law um it's one addition to the I printed this off um from the parents parent rights um so there's a section about so it's 380 state of Michigan 380.1137 and its powers of parents and legal Guardians policies or guidelines um in this and actually in our public compliance policy where we should have a form and administrative guideline for um reviewing materials um in this law it does say the board shall make the policies or guidelines available to the public so that's not necessarily this specific like opt out policy I guess but as far as like you have a right to review um so and and

216the specific policy uh nine the public complaints so 9130 um our policy um says the superintendent shall prepare administrative guidelines to ensure that students and parents are adequately informed each year regarding their right to inspect instructional materials and the procedure for completing such an inspection so that has again the form that's not you can't find it online but it should be made available to the public like to your point and notified that there's a right um I don't know how that's done maybe at the beginning of the year but and I would say to to these right now um since there there is a decision with these guidelines to I guess wait um until we have the policy I think it would be um not helpful in my opinion um not helpful to put those

217out before we pass the policy or if we revisions um but I know um Lauren and I have requested uh multiple times to try to get teacher staff feedback on this and um it's only been the learning team that we've gotten feedback from directly I'm sorry just who who did you ask for for feedback on what the policy committee meetings you've asked for we've requested to get teacher feedback oh okay and comment on this policy and also we talked about students and um so just to clarify again on the original policy or on the draft that you're what we've been actively working on as the policy committee before this got sent without the committee got it please learn Dr lash I'm just wondering um sort of you you touched on sort of the boundaries of

218when we can't honor parent requests so you said of course we couldn't uh let a family opt out of biology but what about evolution what happens like what kind of requests cannot be accommodated because you know not so long ago people wanted to opt out of evolution I mean at this point we don't have it I don't recommend that we're listing like you can opt out of all these things but you can't opt out of this necessarily so at this point we don't have it defined as to specifically what they can and cannot opt out of so this is kind of in my wheelhouse so I guess this is where I would see the wisdom of this policy and what I mean by that is the mde right has um standards and benchmarks for evolution

219okay and so you know Evolution can be a really difficult topic to teach because absolutely some individuals see it through a different lens but the reality then is this allows us to partner with our you know I I totally see this as like a parent School partnership policy you know and if that's that maybe be the name I would give it okay and and so I guess what I would say is we are required by law like me as a biology teacher I'm required by law to cover those standards and benchmarks and so for me then if you want to opt out of a particular lesson that I'm doing with it then we do have to work collaboratively to make sure that that Benchmark is still covered by that student's biology education uh so I

220guess I I would I guess more specifically the Michigan Merit curriculum right yeah so so along those lines you know and just yes like as to uh trustee Austin's point about the one slide I mean if we're raising critical thinkers one slide in a 60 slide thing shouldn't be something that needs to be opt out right like let them argue about that that seems like a pretty like at a high school level like let's have an argument about that and discuss it like that doesn't seem like the kind of students that we want to raise uh who can't handle one slide in a 60 slide um thing so that's why I'm just wondering where the boundaries of when we send our kids to professionals to educate them where the boundaries of that are and you

221know everything that to me some of that is just like okay your kids come home with that and then you have the conversation about parental and family values back and forth and that's probably a more appropriate uh way to work it both for schools and for families because that kind of conversation is really helpful people but I guess I was wondering also you know it seems like in terms of the blanket opt out uh it seems very difficult to predict as uh president McVeigh was saying what goes on in a classroom and so I'm thinking of both the you know the example that trustee Austin gave about reading a Christmas book um or you know if but students themselves have all sorts of opinions and all sorts of families and all sorts of religious beliefs

222and they write papers and I know my kids would go on Google classroom and they're one of their assignments would be to review other students writing so if for example a student wrote about um their parents uh inner religious uh marriage and how that caused problems in their family and their mother was disowned and another family said that they didn't want their students talking about uh you know religious disordent or something or if a student talked about like how can you control and predict the kind of spontaneous critical thinking discussions that our students are having in the year 2023 and is that something that the policy that parents are expecting of our Educators because I don't see how it's feasible so I don't know how we can reassure parents like yes we'll be able to

223accommodate that request and still have vigorous classrooms respond so this is this is an example of where I was saying that this particular policy is related to instructional materials so if there were um if there if we felt that there was a need to have additional conversation around um around other discussions or other formats um that would be that would be in addition to this particular policy so the first thing that I'll just say is that um in response to the evolution um example that would be an example of two different things that I'll say one that would be an example of a blank adopt out which this policy is clearly saying that we're not going to blanket opt out so that would be a discussion between that parent and the teaching and learning team

224with the teacher involved where as has been the practice over the last couple of months Cara would then meet with Cara and the team whoever is the expert in that situation would meet with the parent and say can you tell us more about what you mean can you tell us more about um about which pieces or parts of this so for example you know Cara might give an example do you mean this and the T and the parent might say well no that I didn't know that was included in in that umbrella and so um it leads to more understanding on both sides um so so that is that is first I just wanted to say the second thing is that um this policy is not censoring um students so that would be something different

225if we wanted to discuss that that would be something different than this policy so if a child has a different um home situation if the child has a different religion such a religious situation we are not censoring um the free speech of those kids in this policy I didn't think so but I sort of just wanted to highlight for the community there are limits to what students can in a public school setting in a diverse Community can reasonably expect not to encounter in their education yeah one one other thing that I just wanted to say is that um you brought up the idea of evolution so I just wanted to also mention that when I read the um the legally mandated opportunities for opt-out um one of them is that there is a right to

226opt out of something due to deeply held religious sincerely held religious beliefs so um that is separate from this policy also if I might no so Brad and then Steve okay so maybe he should go first I I'd like to if you don't mind pivoting get back to the language piece here about like so I've been Mr like clean copy right so the reality for me is that I would like to get back to discussing I first of all I want to make sure that I State a couple of things number one is I wanna I wanna applaud I'm so glad that the name changed right like I want to make sure I say that out loud like there is nothing in my mind controversial about being the person that you are and for walking

227our hallways and for having you living your life experience okay I want to make sure I say that out loud so I'm proud of the fact that we're changing that piece all the way now as far as like the language goes I really do see this as like uh as a parent partnership policy and so when we talk about the and and I I I we've talked about operationalizing it and how to how to do that for administration but that's also going to trickle down to the the staff and the teachers and people have to live this and the parapros and all everyone is in the school so I guess I would like to discuss the two additions which are should not Place undue burden on the teaching staff because I would like us to

228come to some consensus if we support that or not and then the other thing is about the opt-out request must not impact the education of other students books posters choices Etc I don't care if we marinate on it over like you know the month until we come back in July but the thing for me that will be hard then is if we choose to change it then and I want to vote on it that will provide challenge just personally for me right as far as I understand the process those two language inclusions and any other bits that come up between now and then are going to be discussed in the policy committee when they next meet on the 20th next Tuesday all right thank you um so there will be some marinating there and they

229will provide eventually another another draft to us to or to consider and they may also decide that including undue burden on teachers is already covered in the um in some other part of the policy and and share their their their their thoughts on that with us so the pop the policy committee so we're continuing down that route the board operating procedure says that at any time any board member can call for an agenda item it also states that the policy chair can notify the president when um when they would like to bring something to the agenda it doesn't say anything about having consensus or having a vote on it and I have already stated previously the reasons for bringing it to the table at this time well in Iowa State to follow up on that

230then I would be the one who would be making the request then that we bring this back I'd like a policy to discuss this and the additions of those two well that's also in the board operating procedures so if there's no sense of consensus we can take it off off the cycle and send it back to the policy committee but it sounds like they're darn close I'm getting the sense that they're very close they could be wrong so yes it was sent to the policy chair and I don't want to I mean go into this too much um or sorry extent to you um clearly the committee as the three of us um I believe are totally not ready especially after getting legal um like four or five hours uh prior to our meeting um

231and when we talk about consensus um which even if it was going to go to you um there should have been a consensus under um actual like board meeting agenda procedure and um I mean are we actually going to work together and collaborate or is this you choose any time to take whatever's here and then use I versus we as a committee I could ask the same question well I feel like but but here's the thing if that's a question there is a policy there is a procedure so to to avoid arbitrary and capricious comments let's say we had some Rogue policy committee chair and not you Jenny Miller who says I want to oh I've got a policy I'm going to ram it through and bring it to the board well if it comes

232to the board and it's obviously ill-formed or ill-considered as we discuss it policy 0131.1 the policy on policy making it goes back to the policy committee so there's a there's a cycle in whatever we're looking at now in a lot of respects is a draft and you even open the door to Jenny Miller to the concept of sub policies on dealing with different kinds of materials as well which which boggles my mind I mean I'm still trying to wrap my head around how that could be did I step on you Brad earlier or did you I I guess what I would like to say is on that is I feel I feel this has been a good discussion and I do feel that this language is close and I do think we're close to having

233something we could operationalize first for families and for you know and for educators this upcoming fall so I I appreciate that I would agree I most of as I said before most of the drafts that trustee Miller has proposed I'm in agreement with I just would like more uh and and if we I mean we could just vote on that that because mine is not up to be voted on so we could just vote on that and make a decision as to whether we go forward with that but I just in really considering this and reconsidering it and considering it again I wanted something in policy or at least to consider something in policy that gave us a little bit more detail about um book staying in the classroom and materials seeing in the classroom

234not that I don't trust that right now students freedom of speech that that's not what's happening now I just think though that as a community who spent this much time and research and effort and parents are very invested we owe it to have a policy that has a little bit more uh specificity about that that's really I mean I'm not complaining about everything or even complaining at all I just that you know that that's my uh that's my concern I guess in moving forward with the policy as proposed initially with our revisions all right thank you Dr gold um Dr Lech I know that we um the staff does not make decisions on policy but I also want to ask for the board not not to overthink this understand that we as the district we

235do need to operationalize this we have confidence in ourselves that we're already operationalizing it um you know the community in large has asked us to respond and be more culturally responsive with instruction with equity and inclusion we're delivering that and then at the same time we hear a parent saying that hey but don't take away our rights when we object to some element of the curriculum we won't and we aren't but at some point allow us to continue to do the work one of the because we don't want to stay here till midnight one of the things that they talk about a lot of these meetings is that to try and land the plane when it feels like we're close to them we start hearing repetition and so forth I think the airport is in

236sight I'm not sure but I'm going to pass it over to uh to Jenny Miller but I I'm just going to say if we can aim toward trying to land This Plane for a while and then deciding on the next steps that would be really helpful so there were two two final things that I just wanted to um State for the public that have been shared um that have been shared with the board because um we I did send at their request um documents from legal and um recommendations from the deic ETC so I wanted to just respond to a couple of those pieces that that are not necessarily public facing so there has been a lot of talk tonight about me unilaterally bringing this policy to the table so I just want to State

237for the record that we have been collaborating on this since for months since at least February first of all and second of all um for the record I will say that Lauren trustee gold has sent um revisions via email to us so that we couldn't so that we could consider those things trustee Estep has audibly given us um her ideas and also I did meet with her one-on-one and we crafted most of what you see in front of you um in the policy so there has been a bit of collaboration around this um so I I wanted to state that for the public so that the public is aware of that the second thing that I wanted to say is that there has been some discussion in the community around um specifically around protected classes

238and this policy and so I wanted to say to all of you that we have discussed this with legal this was a specific question that came from the deiac and a recommendation from them and so I wanted to just let you know what our Council Jennifer Starlin what her response from True legal was so in looking at this act meaning the Elliott Larson act it means that the district in this case lean area school shall not discriminate against any individual based on any of these protected classes this act does not apply to a parent who wants to opt out of a specific lesson based on a specific belief in fact it could place protected classes in conflict with one another if the school district chose to interpret it this way so for example if a

239parent with religious views said that they wanted to opt their child out of an LBGTQ protected class activity or lesson and the district said no it could be found discriminatory towards their religious towards their religion which is also a protected class so further granting or denying requests based on viewpoints could result in a discrimination claim against the district the district should determine what parents are allowed to opt out of um in a generic manner not based on content so I wanted to just state that um that that was the legal opinion and then personally I personally had um had a hope that we would be removing the title controversial issues because we didn't like I personally did not like or appreciate that people were labeling um members of protected classes as controversial therefore I put

240my own personal belief was that I did not want to have the protected classes listed in this document as to give a list for things that people might consider opting their kids out of in addition I don't think that it is only um only text or materials related to protected classes as someone stated during public comment there might be a child who needs to be opted out because of some personal trauma or personal circumstance and this policy allows for um for for all of those opt-out requests to be considered um so that's what I wanted to say about that particular piece in response to public comment s trustee Easton yes um so I want to point out that our current policy is vastly different from our these revisions and I would actually um maybe we

241consider because it's so different um that'd even be a different policy number um because yeah it's more focused on the opt-out component when previously it was really tiny at the bottom um so just you know I want to put that out there there's some other things but if we're going to committee and we're going to work collaborative collaboratively I have some items as far as you know we were talking about their and legal said that as well about um that there's no credit if you opt out of like assessment material um so like design like the state state prescribed standard right unless there's an alternate assignment for that standard that was taken out of the um that it's not uh doesn't include the language so we could think about that the language that's in the

242current policy just to clarify um that piece um I do I do want to um the legal thing that we got from Throne uh was concerning to me um in that multiple times it says which we've known this um for a while um that it's not illegally required uh policy in fact in 2019 after I am jazz in the previous fall this was brought to the committee this was my first year brought to the committee and requested for it to be removed um and so those conversations um have been ongoing and we finally I mean I wish we would have as we requested gotten this before we really dived into so the legal before we dived into the policy um so so we're not legally required to have it I'm not suggesting that at this

243point that we get rid of it because there's been like really great you know examples like on individual um bases um you know so so that that's that's good having a one-on-one conversation about some small assignment um with your teacher that there may be something that might be triggering or you you know want to talk um talk talk that out first um so yes not legally required um we we were cautioned about creating opt-out rights that parents do not currently have um so we caution the board um and clearly there's you know specific rights that you have um so it goes beyond the mandatory opt-outs um also the application um of this opt-out being neutral um when we talk about protected status protected classes um stated multiple times that this opens the district up to

244claims of viewpoint discrimination um and let me see and that this needs to be a permissive process so I think that needs to be clear permissive process versus um this is a right for you like we're going to automatically Grant you this opt out that you've you know this assignment or topic area that's going to be automatic no it's we review it and um so so that's um you know and it's considered but yeah I'm going to try to wrap things up soon I'm gonna okay I'm just saying okay that's fine um so again um the caution and um being careful and all of that um in this three and a half page document that we waited for a while for um I think we need to use caution and how um we do write

245this um or you know um and then also um I do um you know I have requested um that language um be included that um that an opt-out of specifically on protected classes because you're biased against and you're just simply saying any character that you know if there's two moms in a book like and I feel bad for like the queer teacher that has to possibly go through all of their material and you know look for like what they included or you know I almost feel like that's a bias that the teacher has to have a lens um we've been told by superintendent Lodge I believe it was a comment um that there are teachers who are hesitant to do lgbtq curriculum just because of you know the burden right I mean didn't say the

246burden but there are teachers who are uncomfortable with and hesitant to put that out there um so that's not in line with where we stand um as a board and uh District so that's unfortunate but you know I do believe that the non-discrimination policy should be in there listing the protected classes and that just strictly because you know you just disagree with lgbtq people um or seeing black characters in a book and you want to um I'm going to say around the country Erasure of lgbtq people um you know it you do have to be careful with um discussions in the classroom you know and freedom of speech in that way as well when other classmates are talking about an assignment or it does come up on a test and it's like oh crap I

247should have taken that off um so you know I think that needs to be clear I think doing it in a doing it on the purpose of being biased is different maybe than um the topic of the book and um you know if it's one book and like the you know the it's a difficult topic for whatever reason um then that makes more sense than than literally just saying I'm biased against and I do not believe in lgbtq people we exist period thank you very much um what I'd like to do is say that we really I'd like to try and end this board meeting at a reasonable time and um that we are going to have this conversation again uh we'll continue on with this conversation for sure the next word me and I

248think we've had an opportunity at least I'm really grateful that we I've been able finally to see the policy and the draft that's out there and to see what its strengths and possible weaknesses are so if if there's any like final wrap up really quick and pithy thing before we get a chance to listen to the seven people who still are sitting and waiting to talk that'd be great I actually was gonna I always seem to be rushing you Brad I'm not sure no no no I I actually was gonna say okay I think this is solid language and I I think we should have a discussion about next steps okay right where do where do we take this next you mean tonight or if yeah like you know like where where are we going

249to go with this because I don't necessarily wanna you know I I think this is better than what we have now by a lot and so the reality for us is if we kick this back to committee to America you know to discuss the the two additions I'm I'm fine with that idea however I would like to send it back to com I don't know if I'm allowed to do this but with the focus of the meeting being on those two editions right but I don't want to step on the toes of policy committee either right in the work they want to do but I'd like to see this come back I think personally that it was really helpful to have more feedback tonight from the entire board I would like to have feedback on

250the particular um uh example or the particular topic that trustee Estep just raised because I do think that that has been a sticking point with public comment and with moving it forward to this point so I would like to um I would like to hear more about how people here at this board Envision that being included or not included but I I know that um president McVeigh is hoping that we wrap this up so perhaps we move I'm proposing that we move um this particular language that was shared with us tonight to the agenda for the policy committee meeting next week to determine if we are going to add those pieces and that we come back to the to the table at our next board meeting and discuss the the other piece if we don't

251have time to do that tonight so um I guess follow-up to my request then with the administrative guidelines are we gonna take the approach we gotta pass the law before we know what's in it kind of a thing or are we going to show it I got the sense that superintendent Lodge was saying he is willing to share the administrative guidelines with some caveats attached that's right yeah that okay that these are draft draft and we're still waiting we'll have a sense of what's coming up you can share it at the policy meeting I mean I just think you need to get out there yeah you just want to share the policy committee it open yeah better so that people the the public can see them is that going to be enough just real quick

252so is this a first reading or I feel like it's not but um and the two editions are you're talking about what um okay uh the specific ones you all received um and the one that I talked about I I don't see why we if we have time can't discuss it during the policy meeting versus bringing it all here yeah you had asked a question the first question you had but maybe uh we have can let that one go because I don't recall what it was you asked two well I was just gonna say I because we have proposed a language here I was proposing that we discussed that we don't have specific proposed language and we do have two different documents from legal advising us not to include that so I I if we're

253going to act in opposition from legal which we already are in even having the policy but we've also we also have other policies that are not legally required and in my tenure here the Dei AC policy that transgender non-binary student policy none of those are required by law this particular policy legal has said we would prefer that you don't have it but if you are going to have it here's how it should it should go um I do feel that in having this along with other policies that I just mentioned mentioned we are being responsive to public to the public comment so if we are going to include something that legal has advised us not to include I would like to have more input because that has been a sticking point in the committee of

254three well it's it's a choice so it's a choice whether we include that or not they don't say don't include it they just said What viewpoint discrimination would be I think to avoid that and how you know you need to be careful and there may be legal liability I think that's for our taxpayers is probably a really good thing to talk about yep so I would like to suggest that this I get this I'd like to have this go back then to the to the policy committee I'm hearing that's the directions going anyway right now to talk about some of these substantive changes that came out tonight and we will have the discussion as for whether this is a first read or not I'm not really sure I don't I don't think so we're not

255we're not we're like I said we're getting really close closer than we've been in four years one month two weeks I check my emails and uh that's when this first came up so thank you so I'm going to move on then and uh first of all with great appreciation to Jenny and and Lauren and Susan I would request specific language though it was really helpful for Lauren to bring specific language to us to consider yeah I'll send it to you again absolutely thank you so uh the next step is Administration board updates Dr latch thank you I have two of them the first one is that I have been receiving a number of questions about transparency around who is on our sex education Advisory Board so in working with District co-chair Cameron Cochran who's going

256to co-chair the upcoming version of the sex education Advisory Board this is how we're going to proceed we're going through the process right now choosing new members to the sex education Advisory Board every District that chooses to implement sex education in the state of Michigan must have a sex Advisory board but in previous years the names of seab which is the acronym members were made public and unfortunately there were several instances of harassment that occurred online and in person towards these community members which led to the decision to keep the names of the ciab members private we as a community are always growing what was once a real obstacle to partnership and Trust does not have to remain an obstacle and after collaboration reflection as a district team we have decided that the names of

257the seab members for the upcoming version 2023 to 2026 would be the term of this board will be provided to the public in a similar manner that we provided the names of the Dei advisory Council the goal in doing so is to promote transparency and Trust while maintaining our commitment to Civility and the sex education Advisory Board is tasked with important work to establish program goals and objectives review and recommend materials and methods to the school board and then evaluate measure and Report the attainment of program goals and objectives related to sex education curriculum while the CF doesn't make policy decisions as that's the role of the democratically elected School Board it's essential that individuals on the sea of are treated with respect all questions and concerns and feedback for the ceb should be directed

258to the district co-chair Cameron Cochran and my final comment tonight is that many of you do know that June is pride month and I was honored to take part in the raising of the pride flag at the saline City Hall on June 3rd to demonstrate my support of our lgbtq plus students and community members and I appreciated the other attendees who joined me thank you let's should we just do a quick whip around the table um just want to thank all the the people that were involved with the uh graduation that was a great graduation and that is a highlight of being a board members being part of that graduation ditto and I want to say and appreciate everyone we had a really awesome Retreat where we connected with the city of saline and talked

259about common goals and how do we promote Celine and our school districts and and together so anyway I appreciate all the efforts and all the things that went into that uh I just wanted to again Echo appreciation for graduation specifically naming Carol Melcher Laurie Dawson Theresa Steger and and everyone who participated in the organization of that it is pretty remarkable that we can graduate that many students in well it was less than an hour 434 in an hour and 15 minutes and it was a beautiful ceremony for those of you who weren't there if you have an opportunity to watch the video um I particularly appreciated the musical pieces that were shared I appreciated the speech that was given by the class officers and um just seeing each of the each of the graduates one

260particular highlight for me is that officer Gasaway is often requested by students to be part a participant on the stage and I just think that that is a beautiful reminder to us that our students connect with people who are not just classroom teachers on a daily basis and that those people matter and have an impact on our students lives so I appreciate that the other thing that I wanted to say is happy summer to our students and teachers who are enjoying their second day of summer today and the last thing that I wanted to say is that it is post did but for those of you who haven't seen it our next policy meeting will be on Tuesday June 20th at 4 pm in this room thank you thank you very much I just like

261to comment that yes at 432 handshakes I missed two because they whooshed right past and there was one hug so that was for Allison Doran so so I'm really sorry to go on about policy but I have like lived a breed this um and thought a lot about this and I just had a couple of thoughts um sort of for pride and sort of about this policy um because we don't get to speak up as board members as a group I'm speaking only for myself but we do get a lot of community feedback student feedback I've talked to people I've listened to public comment I've read the written communication to the board and um I just I'll skip quite a lot of what I said because it's been said but I want to just highlight

262that the three things that I think there is some Community consensus on which is hard to find is that most people do support the idea of some parental discussion and opt out so we hear you about that uh we've as we heard you know people say I don't want to count calories in health class because I have an eating disorder I have a bunch written but I think many of them were mentioned uh second the policy is not used frequently but Educators need more support and guidance in applying and lastly that the title of the policy controversial issues caused harm um I I have gotten some feedback and we have gotten feedback from the community that if we just left politics out of the classroom or left uh diversity out of the classroom and we

263just got back to basics uh that this would somehow solve these issues and I just want to speak to that for a second because it's pride and because we talked about science and because I was thinking when hearing about this about Alan Turing who many of you may have watched the movie Imitation game which is um you know about this amazing man who essentially invented the computer and broke Nazi codes he also died at age 41 before he could contribute anything else to the world after being chemically castrated for being not a gay man uh this wasn't that long ago and he changed the world and what else could he have done and he had to spend a lot of time and energy uh dealing with people who didn't like who he was beyond His

264science and what he had to offer the world academically so when we say Back to Basics we're uh this is exactly what I want to let the kids do I much would rather be talking about computer science uh but if we tell them that they are welcome and we make it safe for them and we honor their families then we can move forward in getting back to basics I'm not a Pollyanna I know that we don't all agree and we don't all see things the same way and uh but I just want to say to those in the community who said let's just get back to basics the schools that are winning the Science Olympiad are talking about Dei it's lean and others it's not like you go to a place where diversity is honored

265and all of a sudden academic standards go down I think the evidence if we looked would show us exactly the opposite so by honoring the diversity and talents and families of our students and our Educators and our staff and our community many of whom are there in our families we are not uh we are not abandoning their academic success in fact we're contributing to it so happy Pride everyone um yes because I haven't really super prepared um so we had a Dei AC meeting um last week where um the committee came together behind the scenes and um did a little um I guess goodbye um like a celebration for Dr Shannon Washington um and so that was really um wonderful to to see and and to witness um you know uh and talk about you

266know all of the the great things that um you know Dr Washington has worked on and how she um you know I feel like it gave us a lot of energy as like the current committee because we are all so sad um that she is um not going to to be with the district um any longer but um you know her Legend carries on and um you know we just have to be committed to the work um and you know we could have great policies all day um but you know uh you gotta Implement them and and um you know make sure that we're living that mission every day um so I'm sad to see that she's going um I'm hopeful that the committee um you know will really continue and become stronger um so

267I just wanted to mention that and then um trying to think okay so um I did happy Pride I'm I'm happy that there were people out there who came with their rainbows and um you know um that that um meant a lot to me personally um to have you all out here um so thank you um and hopefully you know if some of our students were here and I think that was um wonderful for for them um to see that support as well um so just I just wanted to comment um despite what um was said that we don't legally need uh recent policies that we have passed um I do want transgender and non-binary students to know that um there are are laws out there associated with the policy regarding Title IX protections at

268the government level and anti-harassment policies within our policies and you know non-discrimination and rights associated with that so I just I just want you to know that um you know hopefully you are getting the support that you need I'm talking to our transgender and non-binary students I hope that you are getting um that support and if you're not be able to to speak up um I'm here if you you want to come to me um and I just want yes I just want Celine to be um a better more welcoming environment for all of our students and for them to um be recognized and curriculum not be taken or you know adjusted um you know in them to witness you know um people who you know disagree with you but so anyways I I just

269I want you to know that um I see you um I hear you I'm sorry that you're hearing um the stuff that's going on around the country and um yeah I'm here for you thank you uh consent agenda the consent agenda is listed in this agenda and will not be read aloud the motion noted will allow for the authorization of all listed items without discussion unless a member of the board requested anyone be considered individually like to entertain a motion to authorize the consent agenda as printed second second gold second gold uh all in favor aye opposed and we have a 6-0 uh consent agenda so items on the next agenda sir uh primary reports and update on District enrollment EOP okay no uh so we have a few uh we I think we lost

270our student speakers so we have a few a few on the agenda oh Chan Ming van so we'll start you know the rules three minutes 30 second warning okay um thank you so much I want to thank all of the parents here stay this long and talk something so important though so I want to thank the board the police makers to try to solve so many problems so many success so many frustrations we are going to have more continue to have more one of the things as a Observer what I noticed American K-12 system has a lot of challenges more problems we can never solve the problem until we have systematically Improvement Einstein said you cannot solve the problem at the level of the problem being generated that means paradigm shift so we want to

271cut it very short also I want to thank garbi and Dr Large encourage me to speak up about proposal and this is one thing related with Echo amazing Barbie again about the retreat between the cities and the board very very successful I took about 22 pictures some are photos you're all looking great but also but also important discussion between the city on the board now here we have the problem and also we have the new advanced the public school cannot run only at the school and also have the parent and school partnership we need a bigger space so more policy changes more thing involved that's why I cannot wait to see how we can work together K-12 based on the best the compass is not enough we can't move on further that's why I mentioned

272before care 12 which is k a r e 12. that is in more bigger picture and that is the practice unless we have something new new structure we can never solve the problem just look at it we're losing students and also the confidence are we building on more confidence so therefore I strongly I encourage parents you wonderful parents and School Board what I proposed before is not thinking one day and it can never stop in one day but let's work together and we move we have to move on because we are all in the theater of Wars what it means worse the second thing is the open GPT this is something even much much more threatening what if some of students or more students commit suicide because of this new tools the whole world open

273AI this new tool is cannot stop anymore so please go ahead and move forward rather than stay in the same level thank you thank you Mr fan it's a pleasure to have you at our Retreat last week uh Shannon Brewer and on Deck is uh Jason Rogers good evening um first of all I wanted to say thank you to not just the board but Dr latch and all the school administrators for all of they've done to support all of our kids during pride month this is a particularly vulnerable group of kids and as trustee Estep alluded to there is a lot of negatives talk within the community and they hear that and it's been shown time and time again with substantial data to support it that if kids who are lgbtq have even one supportive

274adult in their life they are far less likely to try and harm themselves or kill themselves and I'm really proud of our schools for attempting to be that place that they feel safe um this brings me to the topic at hand tonight with the controversial controversial issues I agree that that's not a great name for it um I find it very ironic that we even have a policy like this we lived overseas and had our kids in a number of schools in other countries and the idea that parents would have this amount of control over the individual teachers in the individual classrooms in in conversations with all of my overseas friends is just laughable they think we're pretty nuts because although the policy May state that no child's education should be impacted because of the

275choices of just one parent the reality is that's already happening we've already lost teachers because of the negative talk and the negative feedback that they received on things like the sleen posts from many of the people in this room and as a result my children's education is being impacted we lost English teachers we lose Elementary School teachers we lose a lot of teachers and we need to step up and take a look at what this policy is going to do and make sure it really does not impact any other students and that it really doesn't create more work for the teachers because we are asking them collectively as a society to do everything we're asking them to parent our children we're asking them to teach them life skills we're asking them to teach them academic

276skills I mean every time I turn around it's like something else that teachers have to do so having any sort of lesson that has to be created for one family seems to be just another burden on the teachers and my fear is that it will just be easier for them to say you know what I'm not going to teach this topic I'm not going to bring up this book I'm not going to bring this into the classroom because I might have a parent come in and it might come down from this committee that now I have to do something differently and it's just not worth it so I hope that whatever the final iteration of this policy is if we absolutely have to have it is something that is extremely Limited in terms of what

277people can opt out of and has no impact on other kids or on the teachers thank you Jason Rogers and on Deck is Lisa Slauson thank you I first want to say I'm sorry for not being as involved up until this point um thank you trustee Miller for your uh bringing this to the to the board that was really really helpful to me I had a very different understanding of this policy when I read it online um so I think that the conversation today has been in my viewpoint has been great uh Aristotle said it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it and I think that's part of what education really needs to be doing for our kids it's not indoctrination on one side or

278the other one of the problems I have with the policy was that it wasn't specifying timelines I think we heard there's another policy that does talk about timelines I'd like to see that in this one because it would just be easier to have it all one place I am in favor of having the administrative guidelines publicly available online to trustee Gold's point of not being able to handle one slide out of 60. I think if that slide was something about Christian religion there would be a lot of um backlash honestly and I'd like to read something this is from trustee Estep I think a lot of the uh vitriol if I can call it that in our community comes from things like this the controversial issues policy board is on the agenda tomorrow the board

279will discuss proposed revisions unless the policy explicitly states that bigotry is not an acceptable reason to opt out the district will continue to accommodate such requests this is not in proposed revisions from discussions and comments at public meetings it's become clear to me that a very small number of parents use this policy with the overwhelming majority opting out of lgbtq plus identities and Dei topics and trainings this has been allowed to go on for several years and has a chilling effect on our Educators Children and Families especially our lgbtq community there is no legal requirement to have this policy it's a choice and she goes on that is true there is no legal requirement for it but what I hear in your statement there trustee Estep is a I'm sorry I can't direct you but

280what I hear in that trustee statement is an implied bigotry and that hurts nobody knows why people are opting out of things we heard tonight about traumas I've worked with a trauma counselor who has told me stories of children who can't even bear the word father because of the traumas that they have experienced in their lives it's not fair for anybody on this board or in our school administration to imply bigotry thank you thank you Mr Rogers [Applause] Lisa Slauson followed by Megan Gunderson first of all you know who I am because they repeat that again good discussion this is good governance also please understand that these discussions as trustees they're personal don't take them personally this is good governance it's what you signed up for if you're gonna take it personally leave it's not

281personal it's good governance secondly thank you sir who just came off the podium um you get me to my topic quickly there's a Facebook group out there called Celine unsalted I'm not going to say that it's hate it's a hate group I'm going to say that it's a fear group that it's a disinformation group based on no education into these topics um they they are pretty much serving trustee Estep up on a platter of of fear and disinformation uh you may ask what can we do because if you do nothing it looks like you're supporting them policy 5517.01 demonstration of appropriate behavior treating others with Civility and respect and refusing to tolerate harassment or bullying is expected of Administrators faculty staff and volunteers to provide positive examples for student Behavior that's what you should do

282condemn this Behavior against your colleague this is none of you understand this none of you are gay if you are please raise your hand tell me I will come and give you a hug but this is ridiculous you guys have to stand up and you have to say this district will not stand for hate we will not tolerate it full stop no also uh the last thing I want to say is I want to give you this little bit by Abigail spanberger public servants should be focused on serving the public not any special interest group and good governance should be an expectation not an exception I have been through what you've been through it started in 2010 ask Steve he sat right next to me during all of this it was an awful time I

283received death threats my kid received death threats all the kids in the gay straight Alliance received death threats from people who are maybe in this room it's awful I watched this go on in 2018 2019 2021 I have lived here for 25 years and as I came into this community from Indiana and I'm not praising Indiana trust me but there was bullying there was all sorts of things going on I appreciate and I applaud and I expect nothing less that you all talk to those parents from the last meeting but understand that we can't retaliate against anybody we have to admit that we have problems we have problems in this district and we've had them for at least the 25 years I've lived here this district has problems also trust teachers Kara Davis is one

284of the best teachers in the state probably the country trust teachers Thank you Lisa Lawson uh Megan Gunderson followed by Michelle Valentine thanks um I had a follow-up question from the last board meeting um which I know you can't address back but I just want to raise it again so there have been multiple discussions um about harassment intimidation and bullying and the bullying policy being brought up again and again and again not really the policy itself but the actual implementation of it so I wondered um one of the trustees asked about having the statistics posted or shared about how many harassment intimidation and bullying complaints for lack of a better term that are being investigated by the school are because they're not available anywhere I have said before that my family has been a embroiled

285in this more than once with more than one child at more than one school and more than one year and I've yet to see any statistics what I did here at one board I mean last year is that there like weren't any and I just I don't believe that so I wondered um where the numbers are and when they're going to be shared and if they're going to be shared with the public as well as the board or if they could be included and maybe somebody's um soapbox three minutes at the end um and then I something that was said really struck me as concerning why would it ever be suggested that something not be sent in an email to this board your report comes under um or the whole District comes under transparency issues

286again and again and again and this just raised like 15 red flags to me like why wouldn't you want something in an email is it does it have something to do with foia does it have something to do with Discovery I mean everything's discoverable after a while but that just is really concerning to me um and then I would like to know how the district defines undue burden can you define it and quantify it and the reason that I ask is because there's a number of um direct definitions out there and you know we we can't keep rewriting definitions so I'm wondering are you using the one that the Ada uses since we should be following that with our IEPs and our 504 plans anyway or are you using another definition and if I would

287just like to know what your definition of undue burden is and how you're going to quantify it and then um there's talk about these teenagers being critical thinkers which I think is great but I also want to remind everybody that not every 15 to 17 year old is the same 15 to 17 year old and we talk about books and classrooms we read a ton of books in my house we read all kinds of banned books that some people in this room might read some people might not I haven't and would never say that I've read them all but I'm I'm going to give you an example typically in English class you would compare Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Platt great women great authors both met tragic ends they both died suicide rights are out of

288control in this country and it is not right for me to say I don't want my child to read or do this comparison paper when they could have a sibling who self-harms or is on a psych unit right now I don't owe you their story I want to be able to say not now not never just not now and you don't get the right to that story that's ours Michelle Valentine and anchor leg is Darcy Berwick is Michelle Valentine here okay Darcy Burke you're up nope is that that working I'm also short so let's put that down um I I think that what I was hoping to see tonight I did which was um great discussion from a variety of viewpoints and I wanted to share a mantra in my house which is that don't

289let the perfect be the enemy of the good and I think that I'm hearing some sticking points here but when I look at this policy overall it's something that I've personally have been waiting for for a number of years because I the damage that the current policy is doing by calling you know my kid and I'll uh controversial issue is incredible I mean it makes me cry it's incredibly hurtful she's a human being and um I love her and many people love her and her right to exist shouldn't be questioned um so I'm again going to encourage you to move forward on improvements with this policy again it's its values centered it's a policy it's um the teeth are in the procedures having said that you know I don't know that you can work out

290those procedures until you've established what the values and the goal are so it's a little bit of a court cart and a horse problem I understand that you want to sort of narrow down what it is but that's determined by what the policy says first um and I do think that we are heading towards the new school year it would be lovely if this was in place usable for teachers in that time and having said that you know um it's got to be a balance between what we need and what we want and it doesn't mean that this is the end of the this discussion at this policy right it can come back up again there's always improvements to make as we evolve and we know more it should be able to be changed but

291I think we're trying to do the best that we can with the information that we have and I know that we can do better than we are right now so I you know I think that it's important that we have this policy as I said earlier there are tangible benefits to having that and um I don't need to know what some parents reason is for opting out it's their reason I may not agree with it as my values but it doesn't matter right it's it's their kid and their lesson and um I liked what Megan Gunnerson said which is it might not be the right time the right place the right child so my kid's going to miss out on your Viewpoint and your perspective and um yeah so you know my kid's not learning

292from that but that's okay right because there are other opportunities you know my my kid will see your kid on the bus on the playground at after school activities um well I'm obviously Meandering but thank you and and please look at passing it thank you very much Darcy the next Board of Education meeting will be held on July 11th 2023 at 6 30. most of us are going to be there I had one possible maybe no show uh I'd like to entertain a motion to adjourn the regular Board of Education meeting of June 13th at whatever my glasses 10 37 well nobody wants to yes yes Kirby support Kirby east staff all in favor say aye aye opposed I'm always waiting for that one actually Jenny's the movie