Saline Area Schools - Board of Education Meeting

001i know i'd like to call to order please the board of education meeting for january 11th 2022 at 6 30 p.m this is our organizational meeting if everyone could 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 so first off happy 2022 to everyone here and everyone watching at home our organizational meeting is something that happens annually and uh per our bylaws and board operating procedures we don't usu we don't always have a presiding officer that can open up the meeting so our bylaws state that we must appoint a temporary election chairperson um this person will kind of go through the motions of going

002through president vice president secretary and treasurer um the board secretary susan will tally the votes and then the um the chairperson will read the votes for the record per oma there are no secret ballots so i'd like to please entertain a motion to appoint a temporary election chairperson so we can have a discussion on this what no i'm looking at you okay um i appoint the current president to be the presiding chairperson for elections i nominate a point okay so first i think we have to have a motion thank you brad motion thank you whatever word i have to use so motion okay so brand motions to discuss michael you second is that what i heard um sure okay um yep so i kind of explained it already it's just the the recording and kind

003of going through the procedure and making sure that it's um audible for those at home and for the minutes um so brad you wanted to make a motion to just kind of keep having me roll and i will say i've been talking to masb about this quite a bit and so for your future knowledge it can be any trustee just so everyone knows and it can be the superintendent as well um okay thank you brad so you make a motion to appoint um uh trustee stubbon as the temporary election chairperson i have a quick question yeah um so that you don't tally it this you want the current secretary yeah i spent some time reading it and so i think um susan you'll you'll do it for all if that's okay um that the current

004secretary of the board tallies the votes so you make sure you have all seven and then kind of tally the situation and then hand it to the temporary chairperson to read for the record okay a motion made by trustee gerby a second that was just the first one without my name in it okay all right um all in favor please say aye aye opposed hearing non-motion carries 7-0 um election of our board of officers so just for those here or looking at home um each trustee has a ballot um we go in order of president vice president secretary and treasurer so the ballot for president should be on the top that's what we'll use first and i will call for nominations for president at this time you can be nominated or you can self-nominate as

005well i would like to nominate trustee steven as president okay nominate me um any other nominations for the office of president i would like to nominate michael mcvay okay and i accept the nomination all right and i accept the nomination any other self nominations or any other nominations from others okay all right so if we can take our ballot and what you're going to do is mark down either for myself or for michael and then we're going to fold them and hand them to susan or susan do you want to collect them like we do the minutes sure make sure you have your name on thumb because i need to leave yeah it's at the bottom yep oh great thanks yeah and that will be read for the record thank you and um steve knows

006this but it's the trustees only that vote okay and susan if you're missing names on anybody just let me know so we'll give susan just a minute to kind of tabulate the vote and then i will read the results i should give you a tally the first position it might take a few seconds longer but you'll get rolling here okay so so the chairperson reads the results did you did you tailor it though are you going to read each name yeah we have to read each name for the minutes the the chair reads the names yeah if you can have like the results written and tallied and then and then i'll read them all brushing up on the open meetings act before this one yeah i don't get that either we should have some sort

007of a an easier tally yeah growth mindset living and learning thanks okay i'm just going to go in order so we have four votes for trustee stubbon three votes for trustee mcvay i'm going to read them in order uh order that was received trustee valenti vote stub him trustee miller vote steben uh trustee stubbon vote stubbon trustee gerby votes stubbon uh trustee estab votes mcfay trustee jones fight votes mcveigh and trustee mcveigh votes mcfadden all right thank you um i'd now like to call for nominations please for the office of vice president i would like to start by nominating trustee mcveigh yeah all right any other self nominations or any um nominations for others i would like to nominate myself okay susan any other nominations okay um if everyone could take their ballot please for

008vice president uh your choices are trustee mcvay and trustee estab and we will do the same procedure as we did for president that's okay just getting used to it democracy in action i think that's a bad thing all right thank you um reading results for vice president we have five votes for trustee mcveigh and two votes for trustee esta i'll read these in the order that they were given to me uh trustee estab votes trustee estab trustee jones votes east up trustee mcveigh votes mcveigh trustee valenti votes uh mcveigh trustee miller votes mcveigh trustee stubbon votes mcveigh and trustee gerby votes mcvay congratulations michael thank you very much um let me write that down now we will go to the office for secretary please uh if anyone would like to self-nominate or nominate others if

009you could please do so i would like to nominate candace jones but i wanted to nominate you guys i accept okay donation candace thank you um are there any other nominations um for others or for self okay seeing none this might be an easy vote if you could please take your ballots and vote for the office of secretary and pass them down thank you no rated candidates should be easier one all right thank you we have seven votes for trustee jones for the office of secretary so let the record reflect that each trustee voted for trustee jones instead of me reading all of those next we have the office of treasurer if i could get any self nominations or any nominations from others for the office of treasure i would like to nominate trustee gerby

010as treasurer okay brian do you accept yep thank you yes okay thank you any other nomination self or for others okay seeing none if you can use your treasure ballot for the office of treasure that is true thank you um the tally is seven uh votes for trustee gerby congratulations on being our next treasurer um write that down [Music] let the record reflect that each trustee voted for trustee gerby i would like to now call for a motion to adjourn the organizational meeting of january 11 2022 at 6 43 p.m moved mcveigh [Music] second dennis we are adjourned from that from that meeting the the very brief recess thank you for your service secretary thank you to everybody for last year and the thank you in advance for the coming year um so we can

011change seats or we can just stay where we are if if that's fine with everybody for this meeting okay perfect yeah yeah i look down there we can do it either way i'd like to please call to order the regular board of education meeting for january 11 2022 at 6 44 p.m we did already read our pledge of allegiance so we will be moving along to our superintendent superintendent statement dr lodge thank you and good evening i'd like to take this moment to recognize our school board and school board recognition month and i have a statement to read on that i'd like to take the opportunity to reflect on the tireless work that this school board has been doing over this past year and thank them for all of their efforts together they've been instrumental

012in supporting the restructuring of policy supporting student programs and operationalizing covid19 protocols and procedures i really can't think of a harder time to be a board member but this group has been more than up for the challenge why because they are willing to put in the hard and very time consuming work that it takes to support our students they took a vow when they were sworn in as board members to devote their time and attention to our student body and they have certainly done that and more to our trustees who are in their first year for those who have served as many as six years thank you so much for what you do for our students and community betty yankee has put together a nice press release which is in front of you i had

013made a copy for everybody there for you to take a look at and also she's coordinated some nice goodie bags to thank all of you for for all of your service and i truly mean that um you've done an outstanding job thank you steve um and to um trustee boatswain who also started with us uh last year and all of our past trustees um we know we know how hard this commitment is so thank you thank you and um appreciate that buddy and steve thank you very much moving on to public comment 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 all that students will be given priority to speak on any topic the

014first public participation portion of the meeting will be limited to one half hour 30 minute 30 minutes normally and limited to agenda items a second public participation portion will be offered at the end of the agenda to allow for any other comment individuals addressing the board should take into consideration the rules of common courtesy the public participation portion of the meeting cannot be used to make personal attacks against a board member district employee or student um betty do we have any public comment requests tonight okay seeing none from students or other stakeholders in our community we will move on to our response to public comment again happy 2022. it's been a bumpy back to school and and it might be a bumpy couple more weeks but thank you very much for doing everything um families

015and staff to keep the kids in school we really appreciate that please continue to reach out to us through the let's talk app and sas board at celineschools.org i'd like to move on to our agenda please and entertain a motion to approve the agenda as printed 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 can i entertain a motion please i'll i'll make a motion to approve the agenda okay jenny thank you second second candace thank you all those in favor please say aye aye opposed hearing none motion carry seven zero moving on to scheduled reports um continue to learn plan with dr latch okay yeah

016so tonight's continue to learn update is all focused around covet 19 guidelines changing protocols and the attempts that the district is making to operationalize this covet environment keep students and staff in person as we certainly are working through a rough patch with very high transmission in the community the state and across the country so this is the latest um capture from the cdc tracker and actually this is down a little bit but it's still very high i mean you look at the number of cases in washington county the positivity rate has dropped some but still you know close to 19 is very high and obviously we're paying a lot of attention to what's happening in our hospitals in regards to um the number of covered patients which are potentially taking away from other hospital beds

017for you know other patients for various um other illnesses and and needs so this is the latest from washington county i put a few different slides that i really want to track and and stress the importance of as we look at something called vulnerability level when you look at this slide it's comparing the largest counties in michigan and something that you can get i listed the source kovadek now which we've been tracking and that's an update from today but you look at what is washtenaw county is considered one of the lowest vulnerable areas in the state and there's a number of factors that stress vulnerability but one of the things you'll notice is a very high vaccination rate a significant amount of testing going on which actually indicates a lower positivity rate um people really

018working hard to test and identify if if they do have covet or their kids have coveted and then doing what they can to mitigate it not sending kids to school or not going to work in this case so you look at this i'm going to define a little bit more about what low vulnerability level means and this slide it talks about that these are the factors that determine vulnerability population density upon which washington is high but then you look at minorities non-english speakers high health system challenges low crowded living conditions low unemployment and low income low housing and transport challenges very low and older age and health issues very low so they're putting together all of that to determine a vulnerability level meaning washnaw even though this is a very difficult phase that we're working

019through is still considered a lower vulnerable county than many in michigan now in terms of our dashboard which has changed we are now following the the newest guidance and we are reporting daily the number of students that are testing positive and staff that are testing positive and the number of students that are in isolation this looks different anna and our director of communications has put together slides that are being updated daily to reflect this information it does provide more real-time data for parents and our community we also feel like it's fairly easy to read and understand as to what's happening so for example i grabbed this slide from the high school today which was updated four so at the high school today nine new positive students are identified 38 are in isolation which includes those

020nine now to put that in perspective on monday when we came back for break the number of positive in isolation was 90. so you know there's progress on this particular day again this is ebb and flow same thing with positive staff when we came back from break we had quite a few positive staff at the high school today identified zero still have three that are in isolation so i put a link on the slide which i had shared this slideshow with all of you it wasn't in the updated form it is now but if you do want to go back and look at it you you have access to the link so why the changes for the dashboard and i do realize that that you know there's a lot of words on these slides i

021highlighted the important talking points but i did want this to be included too on the slideshow so if you're going back to look at it you're having all the information that's out there that i have also communicated in those friday community community messages too so you look at the changes to the dashboard and we're following this this guidance largely because it was getting impossible for our nursing staff and our front office staff to keep up with reporting the um the close contacts that has now changed with the guidance stating that that is not something we need to do in on low risk situations and so the the dashboard is reflective of the positive cases in isolation and won't include those in quarantine for close contact situations in terms of that close contact and quarantining we're

022no longer requiring schools to identify close contacts and therefore those that are are in quarantine so we're largely taking the number of positive students and staff and stating how many people we have that are in quarantine based on that information not the closed contacts now we talk about high-risk situations because this is an area where we need to do close contacts and we talk about that being our early childhood programs kids aren't masking and same with certain speculation education program settings where kids are not masking there also are even though i don't have it listed there some high-risk sports like basketball and ice hockey where based on uh data from last year those were higher spreading sports than than others the indoor sports wrestling is included in that as well so some people are asking

023well why is lunch considered a low-risk situation when students have masks off that's because the washout county health department has looked at spread in cafeterias across washington county and has determined that still is a low risk setting students are next to each other but they're not there for very long they're not in some sustained period yet technically they're potentially longer than 15 minutes but they haven't been seen spread within the cafeterias commons areas so they've identified that as a low-risk area there's we're also a wider expansion of the test to stay program with that said we were already doing the test to stay program before this and it's simply expanding with more options on who can be tested so that there is better opportunity for kids to stay in school in terms of the reduction

024of the isolation period that has moved from ten to five days meaning um this defines that after five days of symptom onset or a positive test now that doesn't require a negative test necessarily to return although recommended the guidance is five days and then you're eligible to return now we message that to our staff as if you are feeling well enough to do so and that it just depends you know some student some students and or staff are feeling just fine after five days others aren't and so just like we would with any other illness if you are sick unable to work unable to come to work as a student that you would stay home and so we are filing that guidance as well i did make a note at the end because some people

025said well where do you stand on masking we're going to be continuing to mask all students in this phase that is known as severe high and substantial transmission phases throughout the year that's in line with our continued to learn plan at the beginning of the year however if there were a point in this school year let's just say in the spring i don't know if this will happen or not but if we were to move into the moderate or low transmission phase and be there for 14 days or longer then the washington county health department is going to take away the mask mandate we would then move to optional masking at that point if those conditions were to occur in terms of stricter masking enforcement in particular during this high transmissible phase with with this

026latest variant we are saying that we are giving an opportunity for our community to come to athletic events but everyone needs to mask that's a spectator students who are playing need to mask if they're on the bench or they're not actually in active participation during the athletic contest and based on the varsity game that i attended for basketball last week i felt the audience did a very nice job with that same with our student section and even though we had some administrators giving reminders to students it was more of hey you need to mask if not we're going to have you leave so so we are enforcing the masking policy at those events because if our community is not able to do that then we would take the next step that some other school districts

027are doing and saying okay you're limited to having two guests for each player and then if we had to go to that and that wasn't working for whatever reason we would say no spectator so we're trying to work together with the community to allow participation but it does have to be under these terms right now in terms of philosophy so the philosophy of the district um you know my philosophy and and those of our district administration is that we um we don't have plans to remove to move to remote learning we plan to stay in person you look at our overall attendance rate even during that first week coming back from winter break we were doing fairly well with attendance 88 for k-8 and we were a little under eighty percent at the high school

028level uh that's somewhat in line with some of the other high schools that we monitored with that said we're already seeing improvement in attendance rate for high school and we're staying about the same for our k through eight buildings and i made a note of that here but the feeling is in person learning is valuable enough that we felt that as long as we can operationalize it with our staff which we have been able to do so at this point we would stay in person because we didn't want to send students home for virtual instruction as the belief is that we need to develop the consistency of being in person and stay in person now what are some metrics that we would consider going remote short term this is connected to our staffing model and

029there there is a scenario where we can't operate the district and that scenario would be so many teachers and para educators out or well with bus drivers we would just um cancel routes but um the scenario for not operating school would be one in which we had deemed that there were too many teachers and peras out that we couldn't cover the gaps internally and we do not have any plans for that to be happening right now because we've already been covering this past week this current week and our staff is really collaborating well to to make it happen however we do want to prepare in case there was a scenario down the road that we did need to move the district virtual at the secondary level for a day here or there so i did

030gather some data because people are going to say well what's the what's that trigger point that might have you need to go to virtual instruction at the secondary level so if you analyze this chart this is where we were at last week and this is where we are at this week which is updated so um this is in red rover which is the um absence managed management software that assistant superintendent assistant superintendent ellis has put together and it does track all of this information so if we just start at the top on january 3rd we had if you go all the way to the right we had 72 total staff members out now i do want to point out that the the rest of those numbers don't add up to 72 because that includes literacy

031tutors transportation department i was only showing the unfilled absences for paris and teachers which i want to go over because those are some primarily key areas that may make us say okay can't operate the district for a day or two so but if you look here we had 72 total staff but um out on january 3rd now perspective is that we have over 600 staff members for paris we had on that monday coming back 13 unfilled for paras and nine unfilled teachers we had four filled paras meaning they had subs and 18 teachers that had subs we and then if you look down you're going to see that same pattern that we are filling a lot of the teacher absences less so for our paras which means with paras our special education directors they need

032to scramble to kind of move things around so that we can operate on those days and they've been doing a terrific job to make that happen with the teachers when we have unfilled spots which you'll see you know if you looked at that average there we're probably averaging around seven or eight teachers unfilled every day however billing administration has done a great job of matrixing out so that teachers are substituting for other teachers on their planning periods and they they are getting paid an agreed of 50 an hour to help with that which is good something that assistant superintendent alice helped negotiate to up that rate um for our our teachers to do that and they've been doing a great job helping with that administrators are helping during those spots as well now this is

033what we consider a we can staff the district in with this model so you look at how many people have been out you look how many teachers are out how many pairs are out we're doing fine with this but let's just say there is a day upcoming that we're recognizing that wow we're going to have 22 unfilled teacher absences we might say we don't think we can operationalize the next day therefore let's say that happens on a friday we're recognizing there's a friday we would say on that thursday we would contact families and say we are going to switch and have our secondary only students go virtual for the day allowing us to shift the additional support of our administration from the secondary level and any additional staff that may not need to be working

034with students para educators literacy tutors over to the elementary so we can continue to operate the elementary in person and that is what you would see in in that scenario again no plans for that but we want to be prepared to pivot quickly if we did need to do that which is why this friday it's a whole day off for students instead of a half day so that our staff can have a half day of preparation in the scenario that we had to pivot quickly to move secondary virtual and elementary to stay in person again no plans of doing that because we're moving through some really hard times right now and we're doing fine with that but we want to be better prepared what would be a scenario where we would go virtual longer term

035more or less if we felt that we were ever in a spot where we were going to be at 75 below 75 percent attendance rate which means you can't count the day then we would consider a longer term move if we felt like that was coming anytime soon which we don't we would re-evaluate the model that we had going for sort of that short-term virtual instruction this would have to be a different conversation again no plans for this and we don't see this happening anytime soon but we will be ready if we have to to talk about a longer term shift which would then be distribution of devices to elementary students and preparation for parents that's a big deal at the elementary level very hard to do virtual instruction without the parent support it's also

036why we think it's much easier to shift and better to just secondary going virtual and elementary staying in person i already talked about this prep day but that's that's the purpose of it we already had an early release day where the teachers are going to do professional development in the morning and that professional development is around culturally responsive instruction for our entire staff our entire teaching staff and then the second part of the day is planning for our teachers in the event of well preparing for the possibility of ever having to go for a virtual day which again we don't anticipate happening and i think that is the end of the presentation so what kinds of questions do people have brad yeah i have a couple uh so this might be a question more for

037super assistant superintendent ellis can you give me some idea you showed us that slide can you sli go over to the teacher like slash para absent slide oh sorry can you give me some idea of how above or below average those numbers are kurt maybe probably can do better about has to do with that we use the system we've got some para positions that we've not been able to fill on a permanent basis and so we enter what's called a supplemental position in which means that it's really not a person we're replacing it's a vacancy that we have those positions largely go unfilled right now and so our numbers for the paras are a little bit inflated because of that but in terms of what we're seeing you know for peer districts around the county

038and whatnot these numbers are very similar everybody's dealing with the same challenges in the same problem i'm sure generally coming back from a break our attendance is exemplary because we have some incentives in our contracts that make the attendance certainly in this case but i'll give you another a comparison point thank you kurt for that a comparison point would be that at the high school we've been tracking attendance and we've sort of this week we've been averaging 300 students out with about 1700 in the high school a normal day is about 180. so we're not so far inflated so i i guess what i would say is that's probably in line with our teachers as well you know you look at sort of there still are subs out of here and throughout this whole year

039we have still been dealing with unfilled positions and operating where other teachers are covering for teachers and paras and all that so that's not different after winter break there's just more of it and and that's why we talk about you know is there a scenario down the road where there's another variant and it's it's increasing absences even more than we're expecting we just want to be ready for that that situation but again we're expecting this to improve over the next few weeks and months will we see another spike after spring break maybe i mean that's where some of this is occurring right we're off people are out in the community not masking getting together um that that's you know well i don't want to say clearly but it appears that's what happened after this winter

040break will that same thing happen after spring break there was some of that last year now there's more people vaccinated the weather is warmer uh we just we just don't know for sure and so we're trying to get prepared for a number of different scenarios other questions that people have i just had a very quick question you had mentioned that uh some of the special needs students were unmasked that's the students who are going on math not their teachers correct correct yeah awesome thank you the the students themselves because in their iep they they can't tolerate a mask and that's right and for the younger ones they're they're they're so young that it um that along with not being able to tolerate a mask is the early childhood piece so not all are unmasked i

041guess is what i'm saying even in that environment thank you sure steve i had a question about the reduction to five days quarantine um do you think you talk to the health department all the time and karen all the time do you think it's something that we would go back to ten um and and the reduction in quarantine days is just related to this particular variant or are they kind of talking now about this will become the norm five days and i appreciate what you said about being flexible with individuals that some are definitely ready to go back after five days and some some aren't with regards to staff and students and we respect that i do think it's more of a reflection of the operationalizing the pandemic that um not only for school but

042the notion that you know businesses are struggling to keep up if their employees are out for 10 days and um you know hopefully the data is there that shows that after five days it's not you're not going back in and spreading it now they're they're saying that you know when you come back you got to be wearing masks which we're doing anyway so um yeah i really do think it's i guess i'd say here to stay that it's five days but then again guidance keeps changing on a regular basis so if it moves to some other number we'll have to be ready for that okay jenny um i heard i heard in your presentation and had read about um the incentive for teachers as they're covering during their planning times and i appreciate that that

043that's being recognized as something that should um be i guess that teachers should be paid for that and i also have seen you know where principals are are serving food in the cafeteria and all of these things so i just wonder what impact that's having on the daily experience learning experiences of students when a teacher is out five days are we making an effort to instead of having five different teachers in there during the day are we making an effort to maybe not have that class be the piecemeal class every every day and how are we supporting our teachers and administrators as they are spreading themselves more thin thinly i guess um because i know missing your planning period although it's nice to be compensated for that it also can impact um you know your

044daily work and and the the energy and ability that you have with students yeah well the first thing is so assistant superintendent ellis as as we've gone through that it's certainly an ask in other words um we're not for forcing any teachers to do the coverage and that what has happened um and this is an analysis that that kurt has done is you know out of our teachers it usually is around like 30 percent of the teaching staff that's that's doing the subbing a lot of those teachers have kind of worked it in maybe this is you know some of our newer teachers that are saying well you know that's some extra income for me they're okay with doing that so it's not some sort of rotation system where we're forcing teachers that absolutely don't

045want to do that because they feel like they can't give up their planning time so i do think it's that voluntary piece that is helping it work and in terms of supporting our administrators we do the best to get in the buildings and help we we do that we do the best we can to help identify where the needs are um kurtz moved our premier subs that they sub every day in the district or whatever whatever position to have priority at the elementary grades first because it is harder to work the elementary schedule when teachers are subbing for each other it is easier to do a clean break at the high school for example first period at the high school there may be 15 or 16 teachers that are on a planning period at that

046time at the elementary level the schedule's all choppy very it's a lot harder to figure out how to get um sub coverage internally so we do feel like we're doing as much as we can to support it and then in terms of the student experience is there is there a situation where like for example i'm just going to say like in third grade a third grade teacher has to be out for five days because of a positive covid test is there an effort to get a consistent person in that position rather than having a rotating um you know four or five people in that classroom for five days yeah i mean there there is an effort but but there is no question that you know it's volatile when there's um you know there's there's patterns

047and then there's a lot of the okay the night before a bunch of absences are coming sometimes the morning of so it's it's not as easy to plan for that as if we knew specifically like hey i know we got 18 teachers that are going to be out for the next five days and 10 are covered and we know we got to you know cover for these eight planning for that kind of scenario is much easier than the you know the the the the live we're calling in sick and now we're trying to cover so we're doing the best we can to maintain some consistency but there is no question i mean i did hear from a few high school parents who said you know my child had three different teachers on a particular day

048when we came back for winter break again that you know we're doing the best we can to operationalize it yeah no that that happened at our house i do i do appreciate the fact that the premier subs are being focused when possible to the elementary level because i think the consistency and familiarity and all of those pieces play a greater role there so i appreciate that that's happening there at the high school like you said last last week drew had three subs one day but two were regular and the subs were people who were familiar to him and so he could roll with it his teachers had video lessons like i think everyone's doing the best they can and so i appreciate the work that our teachers are doing and the people who are stepping

049up to sub and that we're expediting some of those systems so that people who have the ability to sub can can be available to us so i don't want it to appear that i'm not grateful for that i am thankful for all that that's being done by our entire staff and to those teachers who are stepping up and filling those voids when they can we thank you and for those who can't do that that's that's recognized too that teaching is teaching is more difficult than it has ever been in the 20 years that i've been in education so thank you yeah sure have we reached out to any retired teachers is that even a resource well kurt has been working on some of the different strategies to get some substitutes in do you want to

050comment on any we're certainly trying um susan i'm on canvas um so um can you kind of explain with like the prep prep hour and what a day would look like with an unfilled um substitute for a classroom like the third grade classroom and what that would look like how many teachers are coming in and out of there um sure at a third grade um i guess i would say that could be up to four or five different breaks the elementary schedule goes where you know there might be a block of time in the morning start around nine o'clock and then let's say you go till 10 15 to then you go to your specials class that first block could potentially have two different teachers and or administrator in there then they'll go to specials

051and potentially get their normal teacher that's in that day they have lunch worked in there then there are gaps of time where you're trying to fit in whether it's an administrator covering or another teacher so there's no question that on a given day for an elementary student there could be four or five different people in there i think it's what jenny was talking about that it is choppy on a day like that at the same time we want we want them to have an instructor and so we are and when we're doing that for the most part it's um now there's new substitute language on you know highly qualified and and being able to teach in that regard but for the most part we have those highly qualified people in there that they're helping out

052especially whether it's teachers the administrators that i know that are in there have kept up with their teaching certificate certification so that they're able to help administer lesson plans and so from my experience of being in there and seeing that yep it is a little bit of a a lot of different teachers potentially in there but because of the way the teachers that are out have set up their classroom routines generally the kids know how to follow those regardless of who's instructing it i mean they're having reading at the same time or math at the same time and so as students throughout the year have gotten used to those routines even though somebody else is delivering the instruction they know what to do i'll give you an example at the high school i stubbed in

053a chemistry class the students knew what to do and we did an experiment with bunsen burners and everything and the students knew all of the procedure so i feel like that's the case even at the elementary even though it could involve multiple instructors well and if i could add susan that model for covering for for an absence is not new but the compensation is new so i do appreciate that because there probably is more coverage happening now and because it is ongoing this the situation is ongoing but i think the compensation i think shows some appreciation to our staff who is doing that but the the um coverage during our planning time was something that was happening when i was here pre-pandemic so i had another question about staffing and recently maybe kurt can can

054ask this with the legislation and the governor signing a bill that allows staff to fill in without so many requirements so i don't know if there's been any movement on that the yeah is done long after school has started by the time and the same thing happens at the end of the day and that that same dynamic occurs with just about every one of those employee groups and so what you end up with are people who can fill in for chunks of time but they're really not in positions to provide the kind of instructions that dr lotch was talking about they can be supportive and we're happy to use them in those roles but as far as actually being able to sell them in the classroom it's a okay and i had i think one

055more question um so i seen on a read an article where you had mentioned that um you're working with the unions and so um i just wanted to i guess ask you about that um as far as the support and everything i think that was referring to the january 14th professional development day that we had talked about agreement in that allowing a little bit of additional prep time for that potential of ever having to do a virtual day and that work we worked with the union to um more or less i mean to agree that that's the model we would move to if we ever got in a spot that we wouldn't be able to operationalize the district for any specific day that that's what that i believe was yeah i didn't know if like

056numbers in the class was you know yeah it wasn't really about numbers in the class it was more that we needed to make sure that they were on the same page with if we had to go virtual we have agreed upon the model and that was that secondary would go virtual and that elementary would stay in person and that also includes in-person cte programs and a young adult program on any of those specific days again no plans for that to happen this is a contingency plan if it ever develops in the future so in situations that for example a teacher having 70 kids for multiple days um i mean i don't know if that's okay with the union do you all communicate like one-on-one with that or well we would even you're talking about if

057we went to one of these virtual days right no in person um i we don't know a scenario that we've been doing that summit learning oh and summit oh okay or yeah we have done some double classrooms that's true um yes they they do know that that could take place and then that then that teacher is still being compensated for for that but that's that that's not happening on a regular basis but i do know what you mean by that by the way it's happening on a regular basis with my son uh candace do you have questions yes i do so i know you're very optimistic and would like to keep us in person which is great um but if we do need to go virtual for any reason if we start to get below

058that 75 attendance or for any reason are there any new strategies that you're considering for engagement of students and virtual learning i know there's there's some concern in the community about the challenge of virtual learning and last time around so i know it may be a day here here or there but but if there is a scenario where it has to be a week or longer you know are there any new approaches that you all are thinking about well i think one thing we do have in our in our back pocket is that we've learned from a year of virtual and hybrid instruction what strategies work better than others therefore our teaching and learning team is on hand to help with if we had to make that transition if we had to help teachers with

059more of a a template of a lesson plan to to generate more engagement we feel more confident this year in doing that with that said if we have to make that quick pivot move we want to make sure that the expectations are already laid out for our secondary students in particular because we if we had to make that move we would not want the kids to be finding out about it that morning and saying i don't know how to access the zoom link um what where is my google classroom material where um you know how do i do this lesson that that conversation is something that will take place on friday with our teaching staff when they have some prep time to say make sure your class understands how we would operationalize it for even

060things like taking attendance the kids need to be live on zoom for that to happen so if we have a situation where that can't happen for a student we need to know how to how to approach that and i'm confident that our staff can can work through that thank you sure other questions one last question um we've heard of districts around the country who have utilized this move to virtual for non-pandemic school cancellations is there any talk of utilizing this shift for snow days or other reasons why school would be canceled um not snow days at this point i do know other states are doing that indiana's now operationalized that where they say that if there's a snow day they need to have that plan ready to go so that they can count that day

061michigan at this point is still treating snow days as or inclement weather days it as you know a break for the for the students so at this point that that's still in great my two high school kids will be glad to hear that thank you sure i i think i just heard students cheering watching them i'm sure that yeah and now it's on video so we haven't they'd be happy about that right right all right uh any other questions or comments for steve right and thank you also i know that you are still certified and i know that you've been teaching as well i appreciate you and all of the staff who are really pitching in both in the classroom on buses and in all sorts of capacities food service you showed a picture of

062laura there in in the middle school cafeteria the other day thank you very much um moving on we have a couple of action items um the first is a recommended motion please to approve the minutes from the december 14 2021 closed session for the purpose of collective bargaining um can i have someone make a motion i'll make it i make the motion okay brian thank you second all right supported by michael thank you very much um just so everyone although we have had some close sessions lately just so everyone knows our procedure um susan has graciously offered to arrange our closed session minutes she'll be passing those out to all seven trustees we'll take a moment to just read and reflect on those she will collect them tabulate all seven and make sure that they

063are returned to her we will vote on them and then one copy goes in a sealed envelope with betty yankee to be kept on file um thank you susan if you can pass that out president i do have a question about that because i was ill and not at the meeting if i was not in the closed session i would not be able to reflect on the minutes that i would abstain today thank you thank you jenny and um thank you for reminding me that you were absent that day um sounds good thank you i'm confused about that um because we approve minutes anytime um with consent agenda and stuff so if you're not with that i don't understand yeah i think and jenny i want to speak for you but one difference is we

064record the meeting so um i know for example i missed one meeting last year so i was able to go back and watch that and be prepared to approve the minutes in the next meeting with closed session she was not able to participate in that um so i think that that's probably the reason but that's exactly it i wouldn't be able to read the minutes and and verify that it was an accurate um recount you know record of the day so i wouldn't feel comfortable voting that way okay then i'm shredding an extra copy okay thank you i think it goes back to jenny to something we previously said that sometimes absentee sometimes absences do have to occur and we carry on with the business of the district so thank you okay when everyone's read

065them um just turn them back into susan i'm not looking it's the same thing yep so susan i'll just verify she has six back i have six here um an extra copy that will be shredded with those and um envelope for the office okay sounds good um brad made the motion michael did second all those in favor please say aye hi opposed abstain hi all right uh so we have six four zero against one abstain motion passes um i'd like to now please entertain a motion to appoint the board's recording secretary betty yankee candace jones our board secretary and our superintendent dr steve lodge to serve as the board's designees for posting legal notices michael moved support go ahead dennis dennis support um i don't think we need any discussion but does anybody have any

066questions on that okay perfect um all those in favor please say aye aye opposed hearing none motion carry seven zero we have no discussion items on our agenda for this evening so we will move on to administration and board updates dr latch okay i have three of them um i'd like to invite everybody to the safety and security community forum and our agenda and this takes place on january 20th here in the liberty board of ed room from 6 30 to 8 p.m it'll be led by carol melcher kurt ellis and myself and our agenda is such that we're going to be working with celine pd and pittsfield township representatives who are going to talk about our school resource officer and the jurisdiction arrangement of trying to make the flow between pittsfield and celine be

067better and more cohesive as we do have schools that are in both jurisdictions and there'll be conversation around that it will include the school safety and security presentation that we did for the board of education the other day and it will include some small group discussion spaced appropriately with a series of three questions to engage the public in uh some of the things we're wondering about social emotional health of our students and so forth and um you know plans for doing a security drill so we do encourage attendance there 6 30 to 8 p.m on january 20th i also do want to reiterate that we do have no school on january 14th i know that was sort of a long-winded message or no school for students on the long-winded message that came out from me

068because there was a lot of different layers of coveted protocols in there so anna and the district principals are pushing out on social media to make sure that families know that you know this moves from an early release day to no school on that day and then that will continue not having school on january 17th that's mlk junior day which gives us all a chance to observe and remember the work that martin luther king jr did to help better support diversity equity and inclusion in the various buildings and teachers classrooms we do have some activities planned in anticipation of this day i also want to make sure that the public and we're also promoting this on social media if you haven't been to the remembrance day that takes place every martin luther king jr day

069at u of m's campus at hill auditorium it's really an excellent event this year it's this is america 10 a.m on january 17th at hill auditorium on u of m's campus we will be advertising that broadly as it's really it's always a well-attended event and also very well done and then finally just thank you again for the flexibility and support that everyone is demonstrating with this latest variant it's another example of being really impressed with with everybody our students staff and community let's just keep moving forward together thanks steve moving on to board updates um julian is not with us tonight he has a game so we wish him and his teammates uh the the best of luck go hornets any trustees who would like to do a board update okay michael thanks i have

070a few things uh the national school boards association was or is still having their advocacy week in dc january 23rd 23rd 4th 5th but with the rise of omicron i decided to give it a pass so i've cancelled my ticket and we'll be doing it virtually we're still planning a virtual meeting with senator stabenow and peters but i'm going to miss being in the really cool room in the senate offices for that january 24th is our legislative coffee just a reminder to my fellow board members we have state and senators and representatives in attendance and often a congress person often from a congressman dingle's office pops in and sometimes the congress person herself and i'm sure we're going to be discussing this friday's consensus revenue estimating conference which is going to be well is it

071this friday it's this friday thank you uh also i just wanted to say that this morning uh uh uh trustee step and i attended the culturally responsive instruction session with uh shannon washington and just a reminder they're gonna be two more of those and i hope to see members of the community there and perhaps other board members and finally i will be attending the ribbon cutting at high point school on thursday i hope to see some of my colleagues there as well it's uh they've put a lot of effort and energy into upgrading that school and the pictures i've seen it looks fantastic and i'm looking forward to the tour and um and the ribbon cutting itself on on thursday you there's an invitation in front of you not a wedding uh treasurer gerby sorry

072i know you were so excited for a moment there maybe not right now thank you that's that's it for me all right thanks michael uh any other trustee comments susan yeah michael shared all of mine but i'm kidding i retract everything i said go oh i'm going to share one for you so yes i did attend the culturally responsive instruction parent series part two and shannon washington was able to well didn't get through all of it because there were so many questions from part one that she answered and so um it was really great and informative um and she pulled out a lot of match it up to board policy and you know some state and government law um and and our goals and strategic plans that um align with with the things that we

073are doing through that um let's see um december uh 20th um trustee vice president mcveigh and i attended the city of saline council meeting and voiced our support for establishing a new school zone on woodland drive and specifically the location um being um oh my gosh you can't think of the name trail yeah the the um i can't think of the the name of the entrance yes thank you um so um and so um you know hopefully with uh reducing a speed limit and um and encouraging the installation of flashing lights and the city past that so i'm super excited about that for the families who have you know reached out to the board and the city council and especially the city staff who have come in and have been researching that and will be

074working on this soon so i'm super excited about that um i think i had oh i also will be attending the ribbon cutting and i'm hoping there's massive scissors because i want to hold them stay tuned that sounds a little dangerous could i please uh um uh trust you if i can add on to that about the crosswalk uh a shout out to our local parent justin teams for really spearheading that i i absolutely appreciate that and i i heard the phrase squeaky wheel and it really got under my skin this is these are parents who are seeing a serious issue brought it to the attention of the people who are in position to make a difference and i absolutely appreciate everything that everyone in that community has done and thank you to you thank

075you to dr lotch thank you to the to the um city council and colleen um whose last name escapes me oh tool thank you colleen o'toole and everybody else and the police department they've all been fantastic so thank you thanks for coming to that yeah great i appreciate that i i personally felt that was needed as well so i appreciate both of you going uh yeah dennis yes i guess this probably be the appropriate time in the meeting to uh for i'd like to just read a statement in in 2015 some community members asked if i would be interested in filling a vacancy on this board at that time i just served 10 years as a trustee of the foundation for saline area schools so that together with my law and finance background i thought

076i could contribute it has been my honor to serve this community for the last six and a half years as trustee of the board of education however as the saying goes there's a time for all seasons and i believe it is time now for me to step down as trustee to allow someone else the opportunity to serve my first experience with saline schools goes all the way back to the middle of my high school years when i was transported from the suburbs of oakland county to saline as you can imagine that was a bit of an adjustment for me but it was one that was made much easier to thanks of two teachers in particular one coach crabtree the other teacher miss cheryl heft it was their kindness that made me feel that someone cared

077about me personally and i only i mentioned them because i want to remind all of us and applaud all the educators here of just how important that teacher-student relationship is and how it's long-lasting but effective at the close of this meeting i will be submitting my resignation as trustee of the board of education for saline area schools i sincerely wish to thank the community for allowing me to serve for these past six and a half years i wish the best to all of you and to my alma mater but as i said earlier there's a time for all seasons and i believe it's now time for me to find some other less time intensive avenue for me to contribute to my community thank you dennis i need just a minute but um so i'm sad

078but it's been my absolute pleasure to serve with you the past three years and served with you on finance for three years um you are a critical thinker you are fair um but most of all you're a really good person and so i appreciate i appreciate you thank you thank you i'm sure other trustees might like to say something go ahead i'm tearing up over here um yeah i haven't had a chance to work with you very long but i just appreciate the the knowledge that you bring the measured approach that you have to this work and i was really looking forward to you know one more year of working with you so i'm sad um sad to see you go but stay in touch neighbor okay thank you uh coming you know finishing up

079my first year and now entering into my second year um your your presence on the board has been a steady anchor for for me in this first year and i have appreciated the wisdom and knowledge that you have shared with us and even when we didn't see eye to eye the conversations that we had after um just allowed me to know that we were all on the same team and a collaborative effort with students at the forefront of our mind every day and and i know that you've you have additional family members now in the last year and i'm sure that that's a piece of that and i just want to acknowledge that the time that we have spent um on the board the intensive time that we've spent on the board over the last

080year i completely understand why why this might be a time that you're seeking out something that is a little less taking a little less time and maybe adding a little more time to that little granddaughter so thank you for your service i appreciate it i i obviously want to give say my thanks i dennis i've learned so much from you right you've taken the time to teach me you've taken the time to mentor you've taken the time to to just spend with me and i i will tell you i'm a better board member today than i was a year ago because of your tutelage and because of the time that you invested in me and uh yeah i'll miss you man i uh i uh thank you thank you very much appreciate it um that

081was a surprise to me and just want to say congratulations and thank you for all always being respectful professional towards me and i i wish you the best and yeah thanks again for serving well i i don't know how to follow that um but but dennis i i hope that um i hope you hear the love in our voices and uh the respect and the admiration that not just us but many many in this community have for you so my day just changed tomorrow so i'll be i'll be doing a few things tomorrow and be in touch with you guys but i'm sure i'll have more eloquent things to say once i once i think on this a little bit and i'll probably call you tomorrow but um but thank you from from the bottom

082of of of mine a lot of other people's hearts you've been you've been really instrumental in the community for a very long time and i'm sure the foundation would say the same thing um thank you um i'll just keep running with my my comments um speaking of the foundation um and i'm sure you'll hear from anne hurst tomorrow we had our foundation for cilian area schools committee meeting today so i wanted to provide four updates from that we are getting ready for our saline alumni basketball game against tecumseh they would very much like people to play um it is february 26th at 5 p.m at celine middle we are hosting so if you know anyone or and dennis you just said you were an alum and reminded me so guess what your first thing is

083going to be i'm you're tall i mean um i i didn't think about that when i wrote this these comments but um but you could play basketball so please talk to ann hirsch he'll do just fine play play basketball um also in late march um dr lodge and ann hurst are organizing our superintendent's circle dinner that's for families in our community that have given one thousand or more to the foundation for saline area schools and if ann hurst was here she would say there is still time to contribute if you would like to participate in the superintendent's circle dinner um we are also preparing for our uh spring event at imagine theater that will be april 28th it will also include a live auction i hear good things about a lake michigan stay and matching

084his her shinola watches so lots of good things going on there this will be the big spring event we will not be having snow blast this year out of the abundance of caution due to covid usually that is held in february and has about 400 people at it so the decision was made by their trustees to focus on the spring event on april 28th i also wanted to mention that 53 000 was approved today in grants to our buildings and our staff so thank you that puts our grant spend at 102 000 so far this year and we have about three thousand dollars left if staff would like to send those into the foundation um the only other update that i personally had is i'll be competing in the senior center soup fundraiser so if

085anyone is feeling cookie and wants to join me and create soup to raise money for our senior center it will be on february 8th from 11 to 1. and if you don't want to cook you can still come out and support our seniors and i i'm told that chief heft always brings the chili to this so i'm feeling a little nervous um and would appreciate your support or if you want to compete against me too um so that's all for me any other any other trusty updates okay that was a lot um moving on to our consent agenda uh 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 any one or all

086be considered individually i'd like to please entertain a motion to authorize the following items as part of our cassette agenda a approval of the regular board of education meeting minutes for december 14 2021 b approval of the board finance committee meeting minutes of december 14 c approval of payment of the general fund accounts payable of january 11 2022 and the amount of three million seven hundred and sixty thousand nine hundred ninety three dollars and fifty nine cents d approval of payment of bonds bond fund series three accounts payable january 11 2022 in the amount of 94 278 dollars and 54 cents e receive and file curriculum finance and human resources reports f approval of the early graduation requests as submitted by superintendent lodge g approval of overnight and or out of state field trips as

087submitted by superintendent lodge item number one field trip 2021 number 64 fccla valley plaza resort midland michigan may i please entertain that motion michael thank you jenny second that was my voice oh that was susan okay we're sitting a little different uh i'm not used to dennis being over there and candace being over there uh and susan being further away um susan thank you um all those in favor please say aye aye opposed hearing none motion carries seven zero let's see we're going this way uh items scheduled on our next agenda dr lodge continue to learn plan favorite um thank you a member this is an opportunity for our second public comment a member of the public may address the board briefly for up to three minutes or a request to be scheduled on the

088agenda of our future meeting betty anticipated me thank you so much um i am seeing no yellow forms um so we have no student public comments so we'll call megan gunderson to the podium um megan if you could please toggle the mic on before you speak that would be great and because you're our first public commenter tonight our regular procedure is candace do you have them or just who's okay uh secretary jones will show a yellow card when you have 30 seconds left of the three minutes and then a red card at the completion of the three minutes so you can complete your thought okay all right thank you um thanks for the opportunity first of all mr valenti i'm so sad to see you go um but i wish you well in in whatever

089brings you happiness in the future i had emailed some of you this week because i still came to you seven months ago with some concerns about return to learn and i still have some reservations probably because i have twice the average of the u.s family size and so i have my own control group for virtual learning and in person and hybrid i am thankful for your dashboard that gets updated um daily i would give feedback that it would be really helpful um as a numbers girl to know how many people are actually in the district like how many students you have the only information posted online comes from a national center and i don't think that it's accurate because it shows you have no pre-k teachers and that you only have 300 people as staff

090i had asked for that information actually in august and was told to foia it i find foyering actually quite adversarial i know that it has made a ton of headlines in the last couple months i would respectfully ask you again either provide it publicly or update your own website so people know um it's also helpful to know how many staff you have when you see 72 people are out you're like oh my gosh but then when you know that there's over 600 it's 12 that's a lot but that doesn't look as ugly as you have seven three absences today um so once again i just i'm not gonna foil you something i think that that's ridiculous this is public knowledge and it should be something that your parents and your students should have access to

091um that being said i have children at different levels all of mine are in the secondary and so i appreciate that all these little people need to learn and they never need to learn to read and that as a working mom it's a lot more cumbersome for me to figure it out if i had a third grader versus a sixth grader but my sixth grader being in the classroom is just as important as when she was in the third grade so i would just ask you as you're moving to this virtual model to please remember that this six to twelve group is they have high stakes too and i just would like for them not to keep being that well they can do it they can do it themselves some of them can't and some

092of us aren't home and i want to thank you for not grabbing onto the panic and sending the kids home they need to be in school i'm so thankful i can't believe i'm crying i'm so thankful that you guys recognized that and kept them there at least this week and i want to say thank you and then the last thing is could you please lighten up about the sports like just ask the kids who aren't participating to leave don't shut it back down these kids haven't had a normal year i have a senior this year she hasn't had a normal year since her freshman year she's not even going to the game i don't have a kid playing i'm just saying take a breath understand that this is one of the minor things that they

093can do together and just let them go to the games with their parents and if you have to ask them to leave ask the offenders to leave don't kick them all out it's not fair thank you for your comments our next meeting the next board of education meeting will be held on january 25th 2022 at 6 30 pm i'd like to please entertain a motion to adjourn the regular board of education meeting for january 11 2022 at 8 o'clock p.m on the nose so moved dennis thank you second support susan i don't know why i'm i sorry about that i i'm like i hope my ears aren't clogged i'm double masked oh okay that could be it thank you susan um all those in favor please say aye aye opposed hearing none motion carries 7-0

094we are adjourned