001all right ben you ready i'd like to please call to order the board of education meeting for civilian area schools for august 23rd 2022 at 6 30 pm if we could all please rise for our pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you we have a small but lean crew this evening and some some expected absences this this evening moving to superintendent message dr lodge we're gonna and we're gonna delete that one um this is our first opportunity for public comment betty do we have any public comment forms well this is going to be an efficient media isn't it uh so i just acknowledged that there were
002no forms for students or community members turned in moving on to extended public comment we have two that were requested and approved for this evening so if i could welcome brian theresa bridget and mike to the podium to discuss the return to school and saline community partnership and friends no problem i know it's a really really busy time for you right now whenever you're ready just toggle the mic on laura knows how to do it thank you good evening and thank you for granting us the opportunity to address not only the board but the community as well here tonight is bridget corey brian bowes representing the selene education association myself and carol melcher representing sasa and bridget will be representing esp as well tomorrow morning all saline area schools educators administration and staff will officially
003kick off the start of the 22-23 school year hundreds of hours have already been devoted to preparing for the start of the year it takes all of us and what we accomplish in a day is quite astounding as president and vice president of the teachers union we are extremely proud to represent an incredibly talented staff they have worked hard all summer um it's been a challenging couple of years but they um our staff has worked really hard to do a lot of amazing things from obviously teaching young kids to read to amazing ap test scores to excelling in science olympiad and robotics and on the field and on the track our staff continues to go above and beyond and moving into this year as we go into a brand new school year we're really hoping
004we can have all the support of the community uh it takes a whole team effort to to be successful our community and our district has always had a great relationship in educating kids here in saline and we are really counting on it to continue this year and i'm standing in for mike puckett he could not be here today so be on on behalf of his group the esp they really are the glue that holds us all together they represent the bus drivers cafeteria workers custodial staff grounds para educators literacy and english language tutors and others in both instructional and facility maintenance every staff member takes great pride in the work that they do to keep saline area schools safe you can see that when you walk into the buildings they care deeply they're also community
005members they care about what it looks like they want it safe they are they want it clean and they also want to connect with students as i say in safety is their number one priority and just like the sca they want nothing but the best for our students they build and foster relationships and a community of strong learners and leaders thank you carol melcher on behalf of the saline administrators association we are very small 14 member leadership team united in mission and vision and also in our devotion and dedication to adhering to high standards for ourselves and those that we serve we stand in unity with the sca membership and the esp members in our collective commitment to excellence at all times we lead with passion and with a shared obligation to the saline compass
006we don't take that compass lightly we own it it goes without saying that we cannot do this work alone we need and we appreciate your support at home and in the community the passage of the upcoming bond renewal is a key component to maintaining and upgrading the excellent facilities technologies and classroom spaces that we all enjoy won't you please join us in sharing the message to get out and vote on november 8th thank you for your trust and your support this business of educating children is truly a shared partnership that instills in everyone an excitement for lifelong learning thank you for participating with us in this journey for many of us we also call celine home we are honored to work and live in this community and we can we are committed to keeping celine
007stella reputation of excellence at the forefront of all that we do we promise to take care of your most valuable assets our students thank you everybody we appreciate you being here um if somebody could please email if you're comfortable emailing that statement so our trustees that couldn't be here this evening and allison can read that that would be that would be wonderful thank you very much um our next extended public comment we have um we have mom's demand action we have susie trebert did i pronounce that correctly trevor and monique hunter on gun safety whenever you ladies are ready okay hi i'm suzie triber and i am a resident of celine and i have five daughters who graduated from celine one who is currently a teacher and i've been a volunteer for moms demand action
008for about four years and this is a group that advocates for gun safety hi i'm monique hunter i'm a saline resident i've had three children graduate from saline schools i've been a volunteer with mom's demand action for about six years so we're here tonight to request that saline school board pass a resolution in support of gun safety and safe gun storage um one of the programs that moms demand action promotes is called be smart and it ties in with while we're here tonight and i'm going to tell you a little bit about that program be smart is a national campaign to educate adults on the importance of safe gun storage be smart volunteers provide free presentations on safe gun storage to adult groups at schools and throughout the community we do not endorse nor condemn
009owning guns but focus on safe gun practices we encourage adults to follow five steps to help protect children from guns secure guns in your homes and vehicles model responsible behavior around guns ask about unsecured guns in other homes and recognize the roles of guns and suicide and tell your peers to be smart so what exactly is safe gun storage firearms should be locked and unloaded with ammunition locked separately and no access to keys or opening devices by miners this is the recommendation from the michigan state police the university of michigan institute for firearm injury prevention and the american academy of pediatrics and these recommendations are the ones that the be smart program teaches michigan has we have several supporters and partnerships with the be smart program including the michigan state police office of school safety
010the michigan pta the michigan education association and the michigan veterans affairs agency and all of these organizations have links to the be smart program on their web page we also have be smart programs in the community on september 8th at 7 o'clock there's a zoom presentation and on september 19th uh at 6 30 there's an in-person presentation in milan and we can get information if you're interested in seeing those so why are be smart volunteers asking schools to pass resolutions to support gun safety firearms are the leading cause of death for american children and teens in the past five years an average of 3 500 children and teens have been shot and killed every year and another 15 000 were injured there were approximately 49 000 gun deaths in 2021 of all ages which is
011the highest number to date in us history every year nearly 700 children under the age of 17 die by suicide with a gun most often using a gun belonging to a family member and this number has increased 59 percent over the past decade every year nearly 350 children under the age of 18 unintentionally shoot themselves or someone else in 2021 there were 392 unintentional shootings resulting in 163 deaths an estimated 4.6 million american children live in homes with guns that are both loaded and unlocked an estimated 54 percent of gun owners don't lock all of their guns securely in 2022 there were at least 102 incidents of gunfire in school grounds resulting in 41 deaths and 79 injuries in 2021 there were 202 incidents of gunfire on school grounds resulting in 49 deaths and 126
012injuries in 75 percent of school shootings where the shooter was under the age of 18 the firearm was obtained from their own home or the house of a relative or friend research shows that storing guns properly plays a vital role in reducing the risk of gun violence particularly among children due to unintentional shootings and gun suicides one study found that households that locked both firearms and ammunition were associated with a 78 percent lower risk of self-inflicted firearm injuries and an 85 percent lower risk of unintentional firearm injuries among children compared to those that locked neither so what would the resolution contain the whereas clauses would acknowledge that gun violence is a problem possibly giving some statistics with that it would acknowledge that storing guns securely is an essential part of reducing gun deaths among children
013and keeping schools safe and it would specify that safe state safe storage means storing guns locked and unloaded with ammunition locked separately and no access to keys or opening devices from miners and then the resolved clauses this first one specifically is like one of the key reasons um that why we're hearing what we're asking for so i might want to put a star by this one it would specify that the school board would inform parents and guardians and staff annually about the importance of safe gun storage and require a signature or a check mark that they have reviewed the safe gun storage recommendations so examples of the way that the school board could get this information to parents would be possibly like in annual school registration papers that go out or in the school handbook
014i know some of that might be too late to do this year but it could be possibly added next year and parents don't need to necessarily agree with our recommendations just acknowledge that they reviewed them and it would also specify that the school board would will continue to work with local law enforcement medical and mental health agencies and non-profit groups like ourselves to collaborate and bring ideas to parents and guardians and sat and staff about safe gun practices so some examples of the way the school board can bring safe gun practices to parents and adults beyond the gun safety resolution i've listed some examples here and i just want to specify that these would not be things that would be included in the resolution but these are some ideas that would fulfill that last statement
015about in the resolve clauses where it says that you would continue to collaborate with other groups to bring more information to the parents these ideas would fulfill that part so some ideas could be to update the district and school websites to include information about safe gun storage so for example uh the website could contain the be smartly link which incidentally as monique said is also already listed at the michigan state police some of those other ones that were on page one it could include be smart articles infographics public service announcement on safe gun practices which are all found at the be smart website some of the examples of the be smart articles that could be included are talking to your children about guns asking about secure gun storage which is how do you talk to
016other parents when your child's going for a play date to make sure that their guns are stored securely and keeping your home safe university of michigan has a great infographic about keeping children safe which basically emphasizes the same five steps that we've talked about and i'm going to leave you a copy of these articles in michigan's infographic tonight and perhaps link could do their own public service announcement plymouth canton schools resource officer has one on their website i listed the link there that you could check out and then in addition to adding things to the school website we could offer brief smart presentations to parent-teacher conferences at open houses pta meetings things like that and we could or the school could send home be smart cards which i'm attaching one here and other information sheets
017be smart volunteers could do tabling at conferences and open house and we hand out free locks at these tabling events and cards and pencils and stuff like that and i think another really nice thing that the school could do would be to send out a reminder to parents about safe gun storage during gun violence awareness month in june um and we as be smart volunteers would be glad to help implement all those things so you might be wondering who has passed a resolution in support of gun safety this summer the michigan pta adopted a resolution and as of july 22 10 school districts in michigan have passed the resolution which i've included here and after i printed out this paper i heard from our state lead that 21 states have now passed resolutions or have
018some schools within the medi past done safety resolutions so finally i'm going to leave you with some examples of what actual resolutions look like that other schools have passed and also some letters that could be considered to send to parents we would be more than happy to draw up a draft for celine to use as a resolution or work alongside some administrators to come up with something but i did want to just go ahead and give you some samples to get you started and as i said there are some two letters too that could be used to get your mind thinking about well how could we notify parents about this that is pretty much it we are thankful that you had us here this evening and we look forward to answering any questions you have
019outside of the meeting and working with you to help keep saline school safe thank you who could i give this to um you can bring it up to steve if okay thank you ladies we appreciate your your presentation moving on in a response to previous public comment i would actually reply to these um so at the request of suzanne monique electronic copies of the pdf have been distributed to all of our board of education trustees as well as dr latch and dr lach has invited them to the next district parent council meeting as well to discuss gun safety with our pta and pto leaders so thank you very much and would also like to acknowledge our guests from our three unions and thank them for being here and their their words about truly being stronger
020together thank you very much moving on to our agenda revisions or approval of the agenda items may be added or deleted from the meeting agenda and or the order of items may be changed at the request of an individual board member or the superintendent the agendas must be approved before proceeding further i'd like to please entertain a motion to approve the agenda as revised with the removal of discussion item a policy committee meeting update because it was canceled for yesterday for today that's right jenny thank you it was canceled for today um mouse and gerby brad thank you michael thank you all those in favor please say aye hi opposed hearing none not available and i'm joined with our executive director of communications and community relations anna brittnell who's been doing a very very nice
021job with a lot of our materials as it relates to this bond proposal and so we're going to just begin with the pursuit of excellence we talk you know really this has been a slogan of the school district for years and it really hasn't changed for us to remain an excellent school district and continue to offer first-rate programs for our students and first-rate facilities we are going to talk tonight about the importance of this bond proposal moving forward just in terms of the actual key dates the actual november 8th is the actual election date however we are very aware that the absentee ballot distribution begins on september 29th so it is important for us to get materials out to the community ahead of the absentee ballot distribution and so you will see a lot of
022our communication efforts happening between now and september 29th moving forward anna's going to talk a little bit about what we've done as it relates to the progression of this bond yeah i'll just use this one that's okay um so yeah you've kind of been along for the ride the entire time in february through april we held um stakeholder focus groups we partnered with obviously clark construction and king scott to run our mra market surveys which i think we we surveyed over the phone 400 different people in the community um and between those two things refined what we what what became the bond today in april the the team got together and really put together a scope we came to you in may to present what that scope looked like you had a couple weeks to
023review it and then give us our final approval on may 24th fast forward to now august we finalized the campaign we are like i mentioned in the last meeting we are working with legal daily almost hourly to get everything approved and they've been great about responding quickly and letting us know what we can and cannot print um and put out there um like dr lotch mentioned from september to november will be the campaign with a heavy emphasis on the next six weeks before the absentees become available november 8th is the election day and then a projected start date of summer of 2023 if the bond were to pass as it relates to how we've used future bonds to help support the district if we back up to that's when we did the harvest elementary and
024saline high school campus along with this edition of abandoned choir room at heritage elementary and that that shows the progression of you know older buildings coming in new and and you start to see the progression of from from then you know working on pleasant ridge and some of the other buildings that progress and we need to continue with that path so we keep our facilities to be first-rate as it relates to the latest bond issuance uh bond the theme of safe warm and dry in 2015. this is when we upgraded all the facilities with secure vestibules and the lockdown access controls and this is new roofs boilers hvac systems chillers and we're still finishing up that series as it relates to the middle school we're finishing up with boilers and such there so it's important
025that we continue along this trajectory and the community has been overwhelmingly supportive of us doing that thus far we reviewed a little bit of this last time but we have partnered with um a construction manager clark and the architect king scott uh the facility assessments are all done we've contracted our surveys um and then facilitated community focus groups the part in the campaign now is where we're circling back with all those groups we met with over 150 different constituents in that in that time period students staff community members coaches advisors all of that and so now we're circling back with them because we did promise that we would provide feedback on what the final language looked like and where the funds are going to be allocated so before we go into kind of some of
026the details of the bond board and some more of the special projects this is kind of our master presentation and then what we're going to do is as we meet with specific focus groups or specific community groups we actually break this down to make it specific to their group and and add in some renderings that might be from projects that will impact them directly we have met with the senior center we did that last week we met with coalition for a quality community which is a community group that meets here at liberty once a month we have scheduled all of our building level meetings we will be very present at open house tomorrow evening at the elementary level and then secondary in a few weeks we have about 30 hours of manpower at the community
027fair scheduled we will be right inside of the merchant building um and so rotary today we connected with so there's just a list of i think we're up to 20 24 meetings that we're just going to be either hosting or attending to make sure that we're on track with the campaign trail talk about once in the school generation opportunity and what what does that exactly mean it means that we're coming to a point in time where we have retiring debt from previous bond issues happening at the same time that we have an increase in taxable value in saline that's allowing us to look at a future bond proposal that will actually reduce everything by 0.5 mills meaning the tax rate will be going down while still being able to generate a very significant amount of
028money to better support the school districts moving forward as we also looked into this it's important to note that we have also done our homework as it relates to how much it costs for improvements to occur that previously seven years back 2015 we were looking at 225 dollars a square foot to build and you know improve facilities now that cost is moving into the 500 to 600 per square foot for you know cost to do the same kind of work so it does cost significantly more to be able to continue with these upgrades that we know are really important and at the same time our kids can't wait we we can't say that well we're going to wait for construction costs to go down we need to keep moving forward so we're providing the best
029facilities for our students as it relates to the financial picture and this is a really important slide because this is what parents often care most about and that is what does it mean for me financially so the a real easy example would be if your home market value is four hundred thousand dollars this would represent a decrease of a hundred dollars in your taxes moving forward and this chart breaks it down a little bit better it talks about what the current tax you would pay and what the proposed annual tax would be if the bond proposal was approved and it does talk about the reduction and we have certainly checked that through with our legal team and our financial people to make sure that this is accurate information and so this is important because we'd
030still be able to generate significant amounts of funding and lower the tax rate all at the same time in terms of a breakdown of how these funds would be spent this is uh talks about the percentages that would take place at the various buildings you can see that the middle school has the largest percentage at 34 primarily because the most work needs to occur there i mean you think about what's already been done we've um you know for example at pleasant ridge we've had a significant upgrade at pleasant ridge so it's not needing as much work high school too it's it's just a newer facility than the middle school and um we're still devoting 30 of the breakdown at the high school but this just gives you a little bit of a bigger picture you'll
031also notice that the transportation maintenance facility is at 12 part of the proposal includes moving the transportation center out of the middle school area to do a number of things one reduce the traffic footprint around that campus to get it in a different spot so we could expand the senior center and also move a steam center facility into that space as well so there would be a cost there but we think that's a very good move for the future of the district and so this just provides a breakdown this is good so this chart here this graph talks a little bit about how much money is spent in the various areas and so you start with new construction between 20 and 40 million dollars remodeling in between 40 and 60 million dollars contingency cost means
032the override in other words um any time you're doing construction projects you do need to factor in well what if costs increase further over the course of the upcoming years we need to make sure that we have some of those costs built in so that we can complete the jobs that we have scheduled within the bond proposal you talk about instructional technology just under 20 million this one loose furniture and equipment does include furniture but it also would include things like musical instrument cycle upgrades because that is part of the bond proposal as well it also talks about the bus replacement schedule that we've been working with that with rex and his team for years now in how we're bringing in new and used buses to replace the aging fleet and his team has done
033a very good job of figuring out what that cycle needs to look like site work actually includes things like you know breaking ground on various areas that were digging and and maintenance of that that all connects to both the new construction and the remodeling site acquisition that would be if the transportation center would move to a different location in saline we would have to acquire uh a land land position there and um a e cost that's architecture and engineering costs cm stands for our construction management team and then issuance costs there's a cost for borrowing the money and so forth as we move forward so this just breaks all that down okay in terms of bond boards and it's going to talk about this i'll just talk about our kickoff so on friday of last
034week we brought in all of our building level admin principals assistant principals and did a little on board kickoff so each building received a specific bond board to their building which highlights three different areas facilities future that that outlines exactly what's going to happen in that building we provided them with an easel to take that back and put it in the place that makes the most sense in their building in terms of voter foot traffic and then each school also received color copies of a couple different pamphlets that again are specific to their building and just kind of tried to get our building level admin supplied with what they needed um at that level when we can't be in every building every day um and then we also have a set here that we'll be
035able to take with us as we go on the road to meet with people and we'll just run through them really quick and anna and the team have done a very nice job of getting these organized because they consistently look the same so that people will be looking in the same areas on the bond boards for various information so if you start on the left side it's talking about how much money is proposed to be spent at the specific building this is the high school then it moves into the same statement about you know it's 180 million dollars in the bond proposal that the expected tax rate decrease of 0.5 mills and then it does a little bit of mapping out within the building and shows for example at the high school this is where
036an addition would be built where it would be a new weight room which would move the existing weight room that has some serious structural issues on the second floor of our high school down into an area that also connects with a new steam facility the science technology engineering arts mathematics area which would provide us with more space it would provide a a field here for this is mapped out to look at what robotics might look like in a robotics competition and um that again these are renderings meaning this is not exactly the design but it's what it could look like as we move forward also on this side of these bomb boards it's broken down into the three areas for education for facilities and for the future and so for the education piece you're going
037to see things like steam labs and upgrades new classroom and media center furniture this this particular building talks about a weight room addition for facilities we talk about intercom system for increased safety and security the technology team and jay grossman has been working hard on a system that will take place in former cast in all the buildings that also we received a safety and security grant for back but we need to complete those projects so that we have a much better way of locking down our facilities making sure that we're communicating better in case of emergency and jay and his team are working hard on that this would provide support for that and then it talks about some of those you know replacing flooring roof replacement uh cooling for our gym and our locker rooms
038the high school doesn't have air conditioning which is i'm sorry the high school gym does not have air conditioning so this would add that upgrade um and then some athletic facility upgrades too related to the pool and baseball and softball concession areas and so forth and then we look into the future about instructional technology and replacing technology devices we need to continue with that cycle just like we replace buses we need to be always replacing our technology so that our students have access to um more cutting edge equipment so that's the high school then when we keep rolling through these i'm not going to spend as much time on each board but the middle school does have some specifics that are unique to this area we already talked about the steam center moving into along
039with an expanded senior center where transportation would get moved out of we also look at some an addition of some of the athletic facility that would be housed between liberty this building and the middle school where we would redo the footprint of crabtree field additional softball baseball lacrosse soccer facilities new tennis courts that are that really need to be removed they're becoming unsafe and that that would help not only with our own athletic programs for the school district but also the community usage we think would be really valuable as well and then some other additional um upgrades parking lot um redoing the site uh the way in which people are coming into the middle school is certainly an issue you see it backed up you know you move the transportation center out you open up
040some space you redo some of the way that site works with parking and so forth and we think we'll have a much better we'll be in a much better position moving with heritage you start to see it heritage this is adding on to some additional classrooms and a steam facility so we think that's exciting you also start to see at the elementary level that this is where we are redoing our playgrounds for greater accessibility making sure that all of our students have access to equipment whether it's students that use walkers wheelchairs or whatnot that everybody has greater access that's important at our elementary buildings and we're working towards that and then again you start to see that upgrades with technology the steam the additional furniture and equipment for media centers harvest with harvest it's not
041an addition it's an upgrade to have better position to offer a steam area and that was deemed to be not necessary to do an addition at a harvest but that we would uh meet the needs by doing that way and again you're into things such as eventually you're replacing the rough flooring the boilers all those things need to be continued to be upgraded and again the playgrounds same thing with pleasant ridge and expansion now an addition to provide steam lab spaces at pleasant ridge which we feel very good about and a nice connection was that one of our teachers at pleasant ridge helped spark the need for more accessible furniture i'm sorry playground equipment and wrote a grant in conjunction with the foundation for saline area schools to start that process and that's underway and
042then the idea would be with the bomb proposal to take that to a whole new level and do that on all our elementary playgrounds woodland with a similar footprint of an addition to provide a steam lab along with those flooring areas and and the playground and so forth along with the instructional technology and liberty a building that we've already done a lot of work on needs less now because of all the upgrades and additions that we've put in but this still would look at what are we doing with the cafeteria here um i know ms melcher who uses it on a regular basis with our alternative education program would like to see some upgrades there and then safety and security heating and cooling upgrades and then again it's that replacement of devices and technology upgrades
043this is just a closer look at the senior center it's blown up in terms of the expansion but this talks about you know are we putting some pickleball courts in the wellness area there and um what it would look to do a remodel you obviously have the steam area that would be going in and again that only takes shape if the transportation center is moved out and then anna's going to talk a little bit about the individual projects okay dr lotch touched on a lot of those details but some of these renderings that you're going to you're going to see are just came out today so it's a first look for all of you and just kind of highlight some of the bigger projects that he listed within the individual buildings this would be the
044the rendering of the off-site transportation center so like we mentioned it's obviously a more eco-friendly place for buildings and grounds transportation to to live and thrive again getting them off of the liberty campus does a handful of things a majority of our projects that are at the middle school and at the liberty athletic complex all depend on this moving so it was a lot of if this happens then we can do this safety obviously with getting the buses off of campus and then our hope is that the drop off and pick up system will work a lot more smoothly with some of the buildings that we have on campus this is an aerial of the liberty athletic complex so i'm directly impaired so i'm going to tell you that the the crabtree field gets moved
045right next to the middle school beyond that our two full-size soccer lacrosse field hockey fields that we're able to use like dr lotch mentioned our tennis courts are not usable right now so that puts in a whole new set of tennis courts and then closest to liberty over there there's a replacement of what was a varsity size baseball field a varsity softball field and then a handful of youth fields so it becomes a place where not only our middle school and community ed programs can really thrive but it's a community space they it's not pictured in this rendering but there's a walking path that goes around the entire thing and obviously it's really neat when for any of you who have been to athletic events that are surrounded by great playgrounds they're able to utilize
046some of those new playgrounds at heritage and woodland when they are on site and it's it long term hopefully is something that we can utilize for revenue for the district this is a rendering again from the front side of the high school the building with the glass would be the weight room and then beyond that is the steam center and um they they they put this together on the inside of the weight room again like like dr lodge mentioned the current weight room sits on the second floor not only is it too small for the amount of student athletes that we have coming in and out it's also becoming uh not a safety issue but it's starting to to not work well with the foundation and we need to find a different place for it
047um a couple renderings of the inside of a steam space and again that steam center and the high school is right off of that side of the gym and they will be able to utilize it during the day with as classroom space hopefully and then be able to have a really nice competition space for all the things that our steam groups are able to do technology uh again like like dr lotch mentioned i think we want to obviously um keep up with the standard within all of our classrooms and make sure that all of our you know our young five through third grade buildings every classroom looks the same in terms of what uh technology capabilities that every teacher is able to use long term all that device replacement will will be a part of
048this as well and then playgrounds uh at all all of our schools we want to make sure that those are inclusive and and are well kept for not only the students during the day but our community as well questions comments yeah michael go ahead uh let's start with the easy one um i haven't asked this question already in looking at the crab chief you want to go back to the crab treat sure ben um parking let's say we have an active evening of soccer baseball softball whatever uh do we have a plan for parking or is that going to be absorbed by the school buses that are yeah so they didn't do they didn't do a good job with parking on this rendering but from the discussions that we have this this becomes a lot
049of parking over here there's actually we talked about a smaller lot going along t-ball and then um some of this section over here closest to liberty will be utilized for parking so we definitely talked a lot about parking and then maybe some of this space it just didn't come up in this rendering but yes i appreciate that um thank you that that that's very helpful that it's been considered it's not somebody threw it at me as a kind of a gotcha question and i didn't care for that because i know that we're on it uh the other question was uh let's talk uh somebody had come across the let's talk somehow it doesn't seem to be right at the top of our webpage is it gonna be more prominently placed in the next few weeks
050or let's talk is in the specific bond let's talk or let's talk in general sorry in the specific bond one when you have yeah yeah i mean we put the bond page on as a floating badge on the main site uh so if you click on if you just go to saline schools the bond is the first thing that pops up and so if you click on that that's okay yeah maybe i'll change the color i'll dig in um the first thing i wanted to do is thank the voters from the 2015 bond um as we complete the really important work at saline middle school especially in these last few years with school shootings i'm so pleased that that passed um especially around secure vestibules when we were at pleasant ridge so i just wanted
051to thank the voters for that um i heard a lot of themes the one that kind of screamed at me the most was safety so i just want to hit it on a couple of things steve is right the main gym at the high school does not have air but it's not just that the wrestling room doesn't have it the strength and conditioning room doesn't have it and the gymnastics room doesn't have it so it's it's a concern and and it's it's um it's troublesome for our student athletes i think and our visitors what's that and they yeah people want to prop the we were talking about that the other day people want to prop the result but then that's not safe so really glad to hear that that is included in here um our
052transportation friends moving and alleviating some of the bottlenecks that we see on maple road would be very very welcome for a lot of middle school families and everyone in the community that has to drive by there um i am sure i'm not alone especially with other middle school parents um and and laura i see you in there and she knows so many near-misses that i've seen on maple road so really grateful for that as well and the intercoms and the other the other safety equipment so thank you for paying attention to safety always um the other thing that i wanted to ask about i saw i grabbed the little brochures on the way in so i wanted to ask about community members who might not have children in the schools right um i know that
053you know you mailed out the the kind of financial update and that was really nice to see going to our community members who might not necessarily be in our buildings and are able to see these are these being mailed to people in our community can you talk a little bit about the marketing plan for people who um might be alumni families or not have had children in the district sure um so plug for allegra printing over by the high school we've been working with them and they have been turning things so quickly for us we will have a series of three different six and a half by 11 postcards that are scheduled to go out to the entire community allegra and i worked with the post office to make sure that we could map out
054exactly what our school boundary looked like both businesses and residential addresses are included so i think it's upwards of 13 000 addresses we'll receive all three of the six and a half by 11 postcards one is scheduled to go out the week before absentee um mid campaign and then right before uh the election date and they will have all the information that you've you've seen right and i know you mentioned open houses and other things where we have um we have families we have sas families another idea would be events like oktoberfest and partnering with our city and townships just to kind of get everybody out there uh having been at the summerfest i know how heavily attended it was maybe oktoberfest would be something similar and i just wanted to um to point out
055this financial piece again because i've read some comments on social media and i've had questions like i'm sure other trustees have had about about quote is this going to raise my taxes i think particularly in these times coming into an endemic being respectful of the financial impact that has occurred to a lot of families in this community and everywhere um appreciate you highlighting the decrease and continuing to illustrate what that means financially for saline area schools um community members i think that that's incredibly important as well so add that we feel that that is something we also learned from the survey that we did with the epic mri survey that families you know are are feeling some strain with with the pandemic and the financial you know that everything costs more and we're recognizing that
056and we're trying to be sensitive to make that adjustment to have it be a decrease in in the millage rate so that we would make that adjustment the other thing i wanted to back up and talk a little bit you mentioned the transportation center it's also important and i know i mentioned this at the last board meeting but we really need bus drivers we need we need um you know we want to be able to safely transport our students to and from school rex and his team have been working really hard on that we also need to be sensitive to provide them with you know better conditions better safer buses making sure that they're being supported because that also we anticipate is being a draw we want to maintain our bus fleet and provide our
057students with with with great buses and and a facility that also reflects um our commitment to transporting students so we do think that's an important move yeah good good point any other comments yes candace yeah just a quick one um so president stemmed mentioned that the mention the cost decrease overall in in terms of taxes and i think that's important to mention but also i was thinking as you were talking about the increase in cost construction costs and things like that something that i've seen floating around as well related to the bond is that they're what we're getting for the amount um for the 150 million is less than what we got the last time around so you know i think it's clear in terms of cost increases etc but just communicating that regularly so
058that they don't feel like where's all this money going right yeah thank you some of the um public feedback that i've gotten kind of stems i think from um maybe maybe it's because i'm older too but uh the way that public funding for education has shifted in the last like in my lifetime and how the need for bonds is different than maybe it was in the past some questions that i've had are things like um well is the school not budgeting well enough to maintain what they have and so then why why do we have to come in with these bonds periodically to support ongoing facility development and i think i think that that is something that is is kind of um weighing on people too um and so i think one of the things
059that might be helpful would be to talk about how we are being such good stewards of the things that we have and how we maintain those things and i'm thinking specifically of rex and his team and how our buildings and facilities are are maintained to a degree that they the longevity of those buildings and those structures is long term much longer term than than if we didn't have a team like rex but i think um i think that people wonder like well why why do we have to come back and do this again and i think highlighting those changes and those needs like for example in the last bond um you know when we were kids there wasn't maybe as big of a need for those safety things like for example moving the pleasant ridge
060office that became something that that was dire that we needed to do that to maintain the safety of that building so um i just wonder if maybe we can talk a little bit about why the district or why school districts in michigan have to come back to the public you know every five to ten years for um these fund funds yeah i can i can talk about that that's a that's a good question it's a little bit complex in that there are really two primary ways in which school districts can raise revenue primarily it's through the per pupil expenditure that we get what we call the general fund and so for each student that has increased some and is at around 9 100 per student so you take that by the number of students in
061the district and that creates the general fund now what we feel is a real compelling statistic that we're proud of is that we're in the upper 10 of all school districts in michigan in terms of instructional support and 83 percent of that is teacher salary benefits retirement costs because we feel like it is so important to attract really great teachers that we have we want to provide as much instructional support out of the general fund as possible but then the great thing about potentially using bond funds to do things like upgrade buildings replace roofs boilers and so forth is we don't have to touch the general fund as much to do those needed repairs and upgrades and the other thing that we're proud of as well is that we're in the low lowest 10 on
062administrative salaries because we really have strategically chosen to put more money into the instructional program than the vast majority of districts in michigan primarily because our residents have recognized the value of supporting bonding as another way to support schools so you don't have to go out of the general fund that's a little long-winded answer but but that's where we're at any other questions or comments i was just going to say i am also really proud of the amount of general fund to dollars that go directly toward academics and student learning and i think that that is a piece that we can really highlight as a point of pride for the district and then another point of pride being the support from our community that allows us to maintain such excellence in our facilities and in
063our offerings that we have for those students so thank you yeah and i'll echo that real quick about like you're right we want to maintain our talent we want to retain our talent if we want to do that then bond dollars allow us to have that relief off of our general fund because we we'd have to pay for roofs we'd have to pay for boilers we'd have to do these things to maintain our buildings anyway and so every dollar that we don't have to spend you know is is another dollar can go into classrooms and that and that's where i want to um thanks oh yeah can i say just one more thing i think the other thing too is that um just to keep in mind is that these renderings are gorgeous and they
064look like like i want to be active on that crabtree renovation i i want to walk there i want my my neighbors and and family members to enjoy the steam editions and all of those pieces and i i just think that they can be really exciting but they also might appear to be a little bit flashy and so i think one thing to keep in mind is that um we're not going to we're not going to ask for funds to do anything subpar that we are going to you know use those dollars to maximize the benefit for our community and for our students so while i think like sometimes people look at those renderings and they're like well yeah that would be nice but but we also are being good stewards of that money so
065that we can do those incredible things great thank you very much and i know uh this will be highlighted on our agenda for some time as we continue to get updates about how things are going um moving on to number nine we have one action item this this evening i'd like to please entertain a motion to approve the minutes from july 12th uh 2022 closed session for the purpose of discussion under section 8 a and 8k um so if we could have the motion on the table and then we will follow our procedure per oma secretary jones will pass out the minutes um five copies tonight we'll take just a moment to read those privately to ourselves she'll collect those make sure she has five copies back and if if approved those will go in
066a sealed envelope to buddy yankee she's ready motion first yeah i would like to make a motion to approve the minutes and um and uh let's see the minutes from our july 12 closed session all right brad thank you all right candace whenever you're ready we'll pass that out and then see if there are any questions or discussion and then all right if you're done reading if you can pass these into canvas whenever you're done thank you all right any questions or discussion on those all right seeing none we'll move to vote all those in favor please say aye aye opposed hearing on motion carries 5-0 um [Music] administration updates dr lodge thank you and president seven at the very beginning the agenda had me down for superintendent's message and i had that in my
067mind that i was doing that during admin comments so here is the superintendent's message along with my admin comments it's primarily that just i'm very excited for the start of the next school year we've just had um a really good summer in terms of a lot of hard work uh done by our staff to to get to this point where we're really ready and eager to welcome back students i also wanted to highlight four key areas that i think are really critical moving forward for our district the first one is um you know this this piece about academic rigor centered around the sas compass and the idea that you know um you know mr bose brought up the point that you know we have high test scores and our ap classes and and we do
068really well we want to make sure that we are continuing with that academic excellence we saw some significant gains in early literacy scores last year still with really strong ap scores and we just want to maintain all that while exceed you know excelling as well but we still want to center it around the compass i mean we talk about the idea that we want students to be lifelong learners we want them to be contributing society collaborative communicative and so forth and we want to make sure that we're embedding all those skills so that by the time they do graduate they're really ready for whatever their next steps are so that's one of the keys the first key the second is creating this culture of equity for me it's simple we want all our students to
069feel that they are part of the school district and that they see themselves in the curriculum this is a key that we've talked a lot about and we want to continue with that moving forward into this school year the third piece is this civility and unity that part we've talked a little bit about the celine bridge to civility we've been doing some professional development with our staff around that but this idea that we as a community you know our community members our students our staff we can all do better about having some tough conversations and things that we may not agree with and and finding that common ground that that unites us and that's going to be an important step moving forward and then finally the fourth key is improving sas for the future we
070talk about this bond proposal and the idea that we need to be building for what's happening next for our students that's going to be a key moving forward as well so really going to be focused on those four keys moving forward and we're excited about the direction of the district a couple other thank yous too i want to thank everyone for attending the ice cream social that was by far the biggest turnout we've ever had um anna um and cheryl haft in particular did an excellent job coordinating that but the overwhelming number of students and and parents and guardians there said something to me and said that we're all ready for the start of the school year we're excited about it and we're glad to be back together again and it just it felt good
071um being there the other day uh also we got our athletic season started and that's that's exciting and then tomorrow is our opening day for staff and so we're excited to welcome back the 600 plus employees and i know that um assistant superintendent ellis in particular has been so swamped this summer because there has been so much hiring and and that's a lot of work to onboard staff but we're excited to get going the hiring process continues uh but with that said we're just eager to go that's it all right thank you see that would have been great right that's my secret in this message it's good at the end or it's good at the beginning either way it's it is very exciting i totally agree um any board comments indeed i just want to
072pile on thank you very much to anna brittnell and everyone who helped make that ice cream social such a success and um i do have two other things to say before i go to the most important part several of us attended the masb legal workshop where we covered a number of the hot issues resulting from some recent supreme court cases very informative and i know that a board president stebbin passed around some of those materials thank you very much for doing that also i want to thank everyone from the nhs national sorry the national health different nhs um national honor society sorry it's british for running the blood drive um i'm i'm passed past the 20 gallons now and still going strong i'm enjoying that and uh i they were great they were fantastic and
073every year they do this and i do want to say here's the most important thing the school for those of you who for some reason didn't read the selene post or the national press the school board crushed the administrators and city council okay we didn't we barely we barely squeaked a wind pass with with it with a second tie breaker word and that word is and first of all there were no there's no wagering involved with that but the we all and for those who didn't know all of us lost we missed millennial i'll never misspell millennial again millennium okay millennium millennial if we just a double n the winning word was tourniquet and look that up in your funk and wagnalls is what they used to say right and laughing but here's a here's
074a facsimile of the trophy that we will host for second year in a row there it is there it is oh thank you bring it down then no it's a facsimile we don't want to damage it i may i may have put the year on it and fingernail polish i guess my point is this we had a heck of a lot of fun the community had a lot of fun we all it was it was great to see everybody out and uh thank you all again once again anna for running that and whoever was behind the microphone and ringing the bells to get us to the appropriate things kurt but really once again two years in a row it's it's hours to lose now bored thank you i don't know who wants to follow that
075but brad you're going to take a stab at it i'll do my best uh the only person who crushed anybody in anything yesterday was rex at cornhole he's he's quite excellent anyway but um i want to i also want to reiterate my thanks for the ice cream social it was it was a lot of fun and there were a lot of people out there and it really was uh a lot of community members and a lot of staff and a lot of just people all coming together because we we love our schools love our community and it was it it was a ton of fun i had a great time i'm glad i was out there so um stuff the bus what what a cool event that was and connecting to miss celine you know
076i see so much connecting and you're going to hear me say that in a second more about but um just that was a great event and it was even bigger this year than it was the year before so who knows where that event goes and you know that you know but uh paul heineck had a big part in that and and a number of other people and and so i want to make sure that that goes um noticed orientation there were a lot of orientations and things associated with the start of school i know that my ninth grader experienced link crew my sixth the web program i know that different students were coming in and getting schedules and taking tours and and our staff and our admins and our people they they really go above
077and beyond to to meet our students needs and and those things really show up when you see the care and the amount of above and beyond that they go to and uh and so i you know i want to thank you for those things they don't just happen and uh and so i'm really proud of our school district i'm really happy with those things um you know the message we heard earlier for me was all about togetherness and synergy you know i i saw our administrative team our ea our esp we you know they talked about parents we've talked in this meeting about bus drivers and cafeteria and every single person who has a part in our students lives really makes a difference and so i want you to hear from me to you as
078we start a new school year that i thank you for that and i'm appreciative as a parent as a board member as a person who just lives here and loves selling so so that's that and then the last thing i will say is a little bit deeper um so gun storage and gun violence important issues to me and i want to implore us to take proactive actions to to keep these things on our mind to keep our keep these things where we are having conversations about it and i will tell you as a board person it is important to me that we do that so i'm asking that we continue to do that um i think it's really important that we listen to our stakeholders so i'm asking that you know our leaders our admin
079team our staff our families continue to have these conversations about what we want to best do and about our best paths for resolutions or whatever it might be so that our actions as a board can represent what we want what our community and what our staff says we should do i guess is what i that's what i'd be interested in knowing so i want to make sure that i say that a lot of those are important to me and those are conversations that i'm thankful that we're having and i'm sad that we're having i'll flat out say that but i think it's important for us to do it so thank you have a great night i can't really like add more than what you just said other than i am impressed with the partnerships that
080that were highlighted in in that um in the documentation that they sent us the partnership with the michigan state police american academy of pediatrics american academy of pediatrics um just some of those uh groups that have weighed in that are that are experts in safety and experts and kids so i agree and echo um what brad said so a couple of things speaking of connections um i also noted that uh you know a few meetings ago we talked about the need to have the bridge for civility um not just be the talks around the bridge disability not to just be things that are happening at school and i have noted that there have been some references on social media from other organizations and i just really applaud people for um for taking that into action
081and moving moving that forward in our community and it just gave me a lot of hope and optimism to see to see that happening so i wanted to note that and to thank people for continuing to bring that up as a conduit for for conversations that need to happen i want to give a special thank you to our facilities people because as i've been moving through buildings in our community just noting um the you know over over the summer um you know things are busy and and we've seen the work that you're doing to keep buildings clean and to work on the landscaping so that when our kiddos arrive on the first day of school they're arriving to a place that looks good and feels good and is safe so i just want to applaud
082rex and his crew i can't say it enough the work that i see that your group is doing is why our schools can can look brand new when they're 20 plus years old so thank you for that i also wanted to thank you mentioned web and link but we know that these buildings have been buzzing all summer long and especially the last couple of weeks so thank you to people who have been an integral part of planning teacher professional development opportunities link crew web and sports all the things that are that are um helpful as we're ramping up for the school year those things are noted too and a special note about link crew i know that like link and web are for our sixth graders and ninth graders as they're making those transitions but
083those leaders um those upperclassmen who are leading those um kiddos that are coming into those buildings for the first time i don't know who has more fun my kids were link crew leaders this year and the amount of joy and the enthusiasm that they have now going back into the school year is contagious so thank you to the leaders and to the staff who really facilitate and bring that joy that can then be contagious for our students and finally um i've been back for a couple of days our staff had some flex days like um like you all had options for earlier this this year so yesterday was a flex day today we were back at it so i am going into tomorrow thinking of everyone um here as they're kicking off their school year
084and having their first day tomorrow and i want to just um wish a special welcome back to our teachers to our students to our administrators to everyone who who maybe hasn't been in the buildings in a couple of of weeks the energy that happens when we have that welcome back day and everyone is coming together i think at the high school in the in the commons area middle school thank you middle school um is just uh there is a vibration of excitement and uh it just really um i i just feel the joy and the enthusiasm and the excitement around learning that happens at this time of year in fact we know that oftentimes when people leave and retire that they have to like um you know plan something special to do because they miss
085this time of year so they have to like move away from from the reminders that they're missing this because it's special so thank you to everyone welcome back um special shout out to interim director kevin mussen for stepping in and filling a very very vital and important role for our students so that is exciting that we have someone who can really take the reins and and support our kids and families so thank you okay we've covered almost everything but but i did want to mention the saline parents against racism had a gathering this weekend and it was excellent really nice to see everyone in person and just really grateful for the work that they're doing in the community to really support families of black students within the district but also supporting all students and really
086making sure that that saline area schools is a safe place to be so while there is a lot of excitement and buzzing for the school year there are also some families that are feeling some anxiety and concern about you know what may arise this year as it relates to comments that that may be made or things like that so it's nice to know that that group is available to provide support and also that area schools is really making a commitment to for this to be a safe space for diversity equity and inclusion to be a priority so um happy to see all that is moving forward and that there are support groups out there for our families what's up thank you and in candace the dei ac is accepting application right you want to say
087something yes the um dei advisory committee is accepting applications still thank you um they are due by september 30th i believe i have the date right okay great and there are six spaces available is that right yes so we welcome anyone who is passionate about diversity equity and inclusion to be a part of that advisory committee thanks when you said spar made me think of that um you all have have said a lot of great things so i i won't reiterate anything i want to build off a couple um allison um dorian or ally doran she's deciding what her professional name will be i've checked in with her um she was one of our link crew leaders up at the up at the high school and it was really great to see those student leaders
088and how they welcomed the ninth graders so i was really really pleased to see that i completely agree with steve about the ice cream social people are excited to come back and people are excited to be together and i hate to use the word normal i don't want to jinx us but this this year feels really really good um and to brad's comment on the stuff the bus 2500 pounds of school supplies i came up here on saturday to see some of those distributed and i got to see kids packing their own backpacks and have smiles and that was really really great i look forward to being at saline middle tomorrow morning at 7 a.m to welcome the staff back on behalf of the board and thank you thank you for everything that you do
089you are the foundation of the school district and as our our friends from the unions had said you are taking care of our most precious assets so thank you very much moving on to our consent agenda the following are offered as part of the consent agenda the motion noted will allow for the authorization of all listed items without discussion unless a member of the board requests that anyone or all be considered individually these items will not be read aloud but will continue to be listed out individually in the minutes for this meeting i'd like to please entertain emotion and move to authorize the following listed items on the agenda as part of the consent agenda so moved mcveigh michael thank you support jones candace thank you all those in favor please say aye aye aye
090opposed hearing none motion carries five zero um items scheduled on our next agenda right we have a meet the new hires uh reported um assistant superintendent alice we'll lead that and then also a teaching and learning update led by executive director of teaching and learning cara davis all right thank you it is our second opportunity for public comment no form so acknowledging no public comment for our second period this evening our next meeting of the board of education will be held on september 13th 2022 here at 6 30 pm i'd like to now please entertain a motion to adjourn the board of education meeting of august 23 at 7 49 pm so moved jenny thank you support okay i was like you guys don't want to leave at 7 42. i know uh brad thank
091you all those in favor please say aye aye opposed hearing none motion carries 5-0 we are adjourned