001wow right yes when it's green okay should talk when it's green you're live she said i'd like to call to order please the regular meeting of the saline area schools board of education at 6 32 pm if all 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 first of all welcome to our first zoom free meeting of 2021 that feels pretty good we have a very very special night um swearing in of our 2021 trustees recognizing our student representative to the board of education and recognizing our wonderful retirees so thank you for joining us um if we could please prepare for the ceremonial swearing-in of
002our new board trustees um and i would like to thank the honorable honorable anna for sure am i pronouncing that right fresh hour thank you um 14a district court judge for joining us thank you so much um we are going to go in alphabetical order with trustee brad gerby up first if we could have brad do you have any of your family members with you here tonight if they could come up and join you i think that'd be nice very very nice job thank you trustee gerby um we have been very honored to have you at the board table with us um along with trustee miller these these last few months and they did sign the official oath within the ten days after after our elections last year but this ceremony unfortunately had to be
003put on pause because of covid so we're very happy to do it tonight um if we could welcome please trustee jones and her family to the uh to the podium area [Applause] can you raise your right hand and repeat after me i do solemnly swear or affirm i do solemnly swear or affirm that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of this state and the constitution of this state and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of this office of the member of excuse me of member of the board of education a member of the board of education of saline area schools washington county michigan of saline area schools
004washington county michigan according to the best of my ability thank you very nice thank you trustee jones for stepping up and we're happy to have you here with us if we could please welcome trustee miller to the podium area and her family that would be great can you raise your right hand and repeat after me i do solemnly swear or affirm either that i will support the constitution of the united states that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of this state and the constitution and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office and i will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of member of the board of education member of the board of education of saline area schools washington county michigan area michigan according to the
005best of my ability according to the best of my ability congratulations trustee miller and thank you also for your service in these very important months of 2021 as we start off the year moving along to item number four please like this our public comment our first opportunity for public comment a member of the public may address the board briefly for up to three minutes or request to be scheduled on the agenda of a future meeting please note that students will be given priority to speak on any topic the first public participation portion of the meeting will be limited to one half hour 30 minutes normally and limited to agenda items a second public participation portion will be offered at the end of the agenda to allow for any other comment individuals addressing the board should
006take into consideration the rules of common courtesy the public participation portion of the meeting cannot be used to make a personal attack against a board member a district employee or student if we have any students who would like to engage in public comment we would welcome them now seeing none any other stakeholders who have requested to speak during public comment seeing none will allow our trustees to get all settled back into their their chairs all right thank you very much i'd like to entertain a motion please 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 so moved michael thank you
007support second by susan thank you um and we will all note that we don't have our roll call vote tonight because we are all live so we might be shaving an extra five to ten minutes off of the meeting this evening um moving along to scheduled reports i'm very happy to introduce our 2020 oh sorry i'm not used to seeing that roll call vote off of the off of the thing um moving to verbal vote those in favor say aye those opposed nay seeing none motion carries please seven moving to scheduled reports uh our 2021 retiree recognition i will turn it over to assistant superintendent ellis thank you president stephen and it is a pleasure not to have a laptop sitting right here in your face wondering what microphones are on or not um this
008year we have 24 retirees and if you think all the way back to september we introduced to you a number of new employees traditionally speaking at the end of the year we introduced to you those individuals who are moving on to greener pastures and doing better things with their lives and we're fortunate to have six of those retirees with us here tonight each of these people has served this district with distinguished service and and really cared for our children i think you can be proud of all of them for the contributions that they've made to saline area schools through the years and the variety of roles they've played fortunate to have with us here tonight martha bianchi martha if you would stand up please martha has been with the district from september of 14 to
009july of 2020 nancy crosby right next to her nancy was with the district from 96 through 2021 to my left wendy dorsett [Applause] wendy has been with the district since 1998 and is retiring here in june to my left behind me here lynn nichols lynn joined uh saline area schools in august of 2003 and has been with us uh since since the end of the year here back in the right pam warming camp pam and i we keep we got to fix her dates the pm's been with the district for some time as well and retired here recently and then last with us here tonight is lori wells becker lori has been has been with the district for 21 years and as as again you can imagine these are a special group of individuals um
01010 years ago when we were giving retirement awards out we started giving a plaque to each of them they had their years of service on it but it also has a poem that i think speaks volumes to the work that they've done in the district and the poem is called the builder and so each of them has a plaque in the back that we'll give them tonight but the poem goes like this it says i once saw a group of men tearing a building down a group of men in my hometown with a heavy and a hoe and a mighty yell they swung a beam and the sidewall fell and i asked the foreman are these men skilled to type you'd hire if you wanted to build he laughed and said why no indeed for
011common labor is all i need i can tear down in a day or two what it took the builder 10 years to do and i asked myself as i walked away which of these roles am i going to play am i the type that constantly tears down as i make my way foolishly around or am i the type that is trying to build with care with the hope that the people will be glad i was there and i can tell you retirees we are all very happy that you were here and we thank you for the service that you've given saline area schools and so i do have plaques for each of you and i'm sure somebody would like to take a picture and there's some flowers that sasa has for you as well so
012as you continue on with your meeting i may steal them for a minute out in the out in the vestibule here but thank you so much for recognizing our wonderful retirees tonight thank you all for being for being our builders and for caring about our students thank you very much very well done and appreciated um moving on to our second scheduled report of this evening our recognition of superintendent up superintendent just got a promotion now uh i this is different not doing it on zoom and live recognition of our student representative noah socha i'll turn it over to superintendent lodge yeah thank you thank you very much um noah on behalf of the board of education i'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on being awarded a 500 scholarship for serving as a
013student representative on the board of education for the 2021 school year you've really set the standard now on what it takes to be a excellent student representative and the way you've gotten involved not only with the students at the high school but really students across the district and and that is really important because we talk all the time about how we need student involvement you really backed that up in and sought that out and we're really able to showcase that so i want to thank you for all your efforts and i know that some of the board of ed trustees want to say a few words too i embarrassed you at compass night so i won't say too much but i just want to say thank you this year has been incredibly challenging for all
014of our students and our staff and for everyone sitting at this table and you have really contributed to helping us have a permanent superintendent to helping us appoint a new trustee and everything in between and i really appreciate your professionalism and your dedication to every student in this district thank you so i was just going to say since noah is a senior my daughter is a senior i remember the social triplets in kindergarten way back in kindergarten and um our paths have crossed as as the years have gone with ally in school so it was a pleasure to see you on the board this year and my favorite nights at the board table were when i got to sit by you um i i learned so much from you and hearing um your reports and
015just your your wit and your attention to detail and um i i think my father-in-law even said after the graduation on sunday he was like are these are the were the two speakers trained in public speaking like he was so impressed with your speech so um the last thing that i'll say on a more personal note is if all of that wasn't personal enough but um my own son is a freshman this year on student council and um you just have taken him he's just been taken by you your mentorship to those younger kids in in their freshman year has been incredible and they want to emulate what you have done so thank you for that you're leaving a legacy and a mark on the high school that i know will be there for years
016to come so thank you hey noah uh so ripple's in the water young man uh i have had the opportunity to talk to a lot of school board members across washington and uh they ask about the student representative we have and they say well he does this and he reports and they say oh my gosh ours don't do anywhere close to that and uh he said we're i like that we're go we want what you've got and i said well what we got is noah but you know that's pretty good um and when we i don't know if you were here for them i think you were when you asked questions of our candidates for superintendent one of them went on at least twice saying i need to have what you guys have in my
017district we don't even have a student representative at the board meeting and it's so essential he saw the best of the best so thanks noah good job well done we're so happy to have you here thanks yes yeah no i'll i'll obviously echo that i uh you have set a standard for excellence that is high and i would expect nothing less of a futures party right and so from one spartan to another okay victory for msu and your and your future is bright and i want to thank you you know as a new board member like you you gave me such comfort such you know hearing your voice and hearing your perspective from students and being able to to do those things was was was important to me and helped me to go through this
018transition for the last few months and so i am very appreciative of you and i do think your future is incredibly bright and good luck to you i didn't really prepare anything but i echo what everybody said um now i really appreciate um that you reach out to multiple students student groups and students who survey surveying students and bringing their voice to the table even if it isn't in favor of what what we think or you know i think that's super helpful to hear um everything um from students and having that encouragement to have a voice at the table is really great so yeah i look forward to seeing what you will be doing in the future so maybe you'll come back to graduation as an alum and speak thanks well same thing for me
019just you really have set the bar high and um as a fellow spartan i'm very proud that you are going going green uh i believe are you in the james madison or the honors program okay so um look forward to just keep doing what you're doing and just remember people do look up to you as you've heard over and over again and i know you have had that within your family even but you're a great role model we're very proud to have you um i'd like to say something as well just yeah even though we haven't had a chance to work together i i've just been so impressed by by all that you've done and how you use your voice and i hope you continue to do that as you move on and just continue
020to use your voice and speak out for what you believe in and and engage the student body in new ways as you move on to the next level um also i just thank you for believing in me you know as you spoke about candidates i just really appreciated all that you said and hope that i can live up to that vision yeah thank you well done noah did you want to say a few words um thank you all for those incredibly kind words um it's been an honor to represent all the students and members of the community in this position i couldn't have done it without the help of a lot of people so thank you to all the administrators who responded to my uh not last minute but not on time emails asking what's
021going on at your school so thank you for that um mr raft especially for helping me get surveys uh and groups um to hear from other students uh thank you to my parents for supporting me along the way they're sitting right there i know you probably met them but that's them and for the community for supporting me through this and i hope to continue serving those around me and advocating on their behalf not only in college but hopefully in a career of public service so thank you all all right thank you nolan you want to go ahead and introduce our new student representative so our new student representative for next year is julian downey sitting right there um ju i'll read his bio real quick julian is in the class of 2022. he has lived
022in celine his whole life and is excited to go into his senior year he has served as class treasurer during his freshman and sophomore year but decided to start his own club the celine high school democrats his sophomore year he served as a student representative on the dei committee with mr graydon and was able to sit in and he see how policy is made he's excited for this new opportunity and is looking forward to seeing learning and participating as a student on the school board of education [Applause] julian do you just want to say a few words of welcome and then we'll welcome to being put on the spot by the board of education uh hi as you all just heard i'm julian downey i'm in the class of 2022 and i mean this whole
023thing kind of came just i got an email from noah just asking people to apply for this position and i was on the dei committee for a little bit and i had quite a i had a lot of fun with that and i was able to learn a lot too and i was just oh this looks like a great great position to have and a lot a lot of learning opportunity and relationships to build so i filled out the form and then i got called in and now i'm here and i'm super excited to work with everyone i'm super excited to represent the students and uh you know i'm ready to get started go hornets excellent and welcome julian it was a pleasure interviewing you with dr lott and thank you to noah for assisting
024with those interviews really appreciate it um moving on to our third scheduled report continue to learn and summer programming superintendent lodge okay thank you very much so this is a short one it's kind of our moving into summer continue to learn update and then as we look ahead uh we're excited about uh the opportunities so as everybody knows our last day of school is coming very soon thursday and so that'll be a half day for our students and then we move right into summer programming in june july and august our summer programs are now established sign up continues which is going well and we're ready to implement as we move into summer planning and preparation there's a lot going on behind the scenes uh a lot being led by uh superintendent assistant superintendent ellis and
025assistant superintendent owsley in terms of hiring process bond work building preparation and then professional development being led by our instructional design team and our administrators and so there is going to be a lot of work happening oh and i i don't want to forget building prop from our buildings and grounds rex clara and his team are going to be hard at work so that's all uh beginning to take shape in terms of fall we're ready to go with five day week a full in-person instruction when we begin next school year we're working through through a few things as it relates to some of our virtual families as they closed out the year in all virtual mode we continue to have discussions about what that will look like to support them and their students as we
026come back in the fall and just to note first day of school on monday august 30th in terms of the strategic framework prep we have our four goal committees that are starting to meet um goal one that was the group that i'm heading up we met last night making progress with the revisions that started you know while we were going through the initial phase of the pandemic and so the goal is to get to september do a peer review on all four of the goal areas and then finalize that update and the importance of this is that the strategic framework these four goals sets the tone and the direction for the district moving forward for our district improvement plan our overall direction and uh how we measure achievement and so it is really important that
027we get this update right and and get it set to our vision and so we're working hard on that in terms of summer programming to go into a little bit more detail we have all these different programs that are set up communications director brittnell has done a nice job in helping to organize and get a lot of these programs off the ground our super summer scholars program is invitation to make sure that our students that need greater support at the younger levels especially in literacy and math have a really good experience that's called the super summer scholars our english learners summer camp is in place we've been running that for years and katie o'keefe who's our lead teacher does a nice job of organizing all that community ed summer camp under brian puffer is underway
028in terms of getting signed up and organized then we have laura washington alex shuko coordinating two different middle school programs one's an academic review camp and one's an academic enrichment one's an invite to make sure that students that were not as engaged or needing additional supports will be able to participate and another is just for those students who feel like they need additional supports and there's an opportunity for them as well then we move into our credit based summer school where students can actually earn credit for courses if they're wanting to get ahead or maybe they fell behind in an area that they want to reorganize that carol melcher does a nice job of always coordinating a summer program and then we have some additional options for students as well and then under director garcia
029and assistant director ellis we have special education options spanning from young fives to age 26 three different options that are written into students ieps as to the supports they need over the summer so we're excited for those opportunities for students and feel like we have a really good program in place for that in terms of professional development we talk about some of the hard work and the planning that's taking place and really it's really based on these and i've said that this is three meetings in a row but i feel like this is important so i want to reiterate this that it is really geared around four of these compass points pedagogy when we talk about curriculum instruction intervention and assessment community and we say community establishing the community within our classrooms our schools and
030now we define classrooms as is not only in the school but it's out of school as well and that is where we have a lot of our diversity equity include inclusion or culturally responsive instruction uh wellness or social emotional wellness in there and how we're getting the community involved within our classrooms and buildings then we talk about technology integration we've learned a lot from the pandemic we want to continue to leverage that and use that effectively even as most of our students are coming back to in-person instruction and then finally learning to space learning spaces we talk about design new furniture ordered at the middle school that is finally coming in that was ordered before the pandemic but now we're ready to move back to make sure that we have those new supports in place
031and that our overall design is being thought out and that we look beyond the walls we know that learning spaces are not only in the school but they're out of the school as well and we want to continue to work through that as it relates to our professional development model in terms of the hard work being done by our instructional design team this is their latest email visual that they sent out to staff and i wanted to go over it because i think it really speaks to what they're trying to do here and that is to give a variety of options for professional development based on where our teachers are and what they need so if you are getting this email each of those are clickable links where you could say okay we want to
032learn about these podcasts and they could click and go to access a series of those there's equity check how can you find ways to incorporate diverse perspectives in your classroom if you need to learn more than that there's more from that you can you can go to that option how we're rethinking assessment in assessment marketplace you go down to tools of the trade how we're maximizing technology you look at supporting students that's the well-being the social emotional wellness and then finally a variety of educational books to read this summer and so they they sent that out and will continue to provide those opportunities they know that teachers need a break and and our support staff needs a break but they're already preparing to provide the professional development that our teachers need at various points along
033the way and then the last slide we've been talking a lot about this lately in the district it's really important for self-care to happen for our teaching staff our support staff our administrators we talked about that today that we do need to get re-energized because working in a school district is stressful and especially this year you look at all the hard work that everybody has been doing and really coming together in a really difficult year difficult circumstances and have just done such an incredible job that we want to make sure that our staff gets some time off and is able to recharge that we can come back as we're prepping in august for example as the admin team and really hit the ground running and then i'll also say this we we have a number
034of positions in the district that need to be working constantly in the summer rex clarion of buildings and grounds team so we need rex to be able to have self-care and also take some time off during the school year so it just depends what what your role is in the district but this is really important and we want to stress that we want all of our staff to take that seriously rest and recharge so that's it for a short update thank you very much i really appreciate all of those summer options for the kids and totally agree with the staff and a well deserved rest and recharge for everyone thank you susan did you have some comments um could you send or have the staff send the professional development to the board as well sure
035i was going to ask the same because i know who designed that and i know that it is top notch and i think we could all benefit from from enjoying some of that too bravo team back in january the technology one i'd love that i love the choice board concept it's great so yeah were muted so i'm just going to say kara davis jen nelson and kelly whidman and their team thank you any other comments or questions brad did you no all right thank you very much um moving on to our action items on the agenda i'd like to entertain a motion please to approve the submitted contract and compensation package for superintendent lodge as recommended by the evaluation and compensation committee so moved that you can't yes candace your first your first motion that's
036very exciting for jenny second thank you very much um discussion i'm going to turn this over to um trustee gerby all right so in your packets the proposed contract uh we talked previously about we benchmarked compensation based upon our peer districts and that was shared with you uh by mr ellis and uh i will tell you that you know i believe that this contract is a good job of providing a number of things number one it obviously takes into consideration the the the totality of this position right it's a it's a big job it's an important job and it recognizes dr lodge for his commitment to this district it recognizes his phd it recognizes you know the leader that he is and the commitment that we want to make to him so that he can
037you know this district will thrive under him and uh in long story short i think it was a fair collective bargaining process that we went through and i guess it was vetted by legal so we we put it through uh illegal vetting through masb and that and that checked out so i i believe we're i believe we're that we there any questions or thoughts yep any questions or comments susan can you hear me so i have a question about the education statement which was 10 percent of face pay for each year in recognition of a doctoral degree so i'm just interested in where you all came about with that and not choose to add it to the salary base well that was just part of the collective bargaining conversations we engaged with dr lotch at
038the table and we knew that we had to do something from uh from a compensation standpoint in order to be competitive in order to be able to you know make our our district be on level if they're on par with our peers and so we thought that that was a way of being fiscally responsible with any future you know superintendencies any future things and at the same time recognize dr lotch for his tremendous education and why is it a percentage pay versus a stipend like a set amount okay you guys want as i recall i believe that was modeled after another school district is that correct yeah go ahead um so right there's there's other districts that do the same thing so we'll look at a contract from dexter for example and and they'll they'll
039say that there's a certain percentage that is supported by a phd and in this case so so it is technically the set amount it's 10 of the base salary so i mean that could have been written in as the exact number but in this case it's a certain percentage of the base and that's on par with other districts that choose to do an education stipend like that too and why couldn't we just add it to the salary total it ends up as part of his total compensation for the for the position so i guess it's to me if we wanted to recognize the fact that dr watch has a phd and it's a you know that he worked hard for that and that was how we wanted and that's how we collectively decided we wanted
040it to to do it so that stipend increases every year correct theoretically yes it would but i think we would argue that there would be an increase anyway relative if we put it on his salary or if we put it in as a phd stipend he would still we would have still written that in along with the the uh what's the name of it that we did do for the first two years and then the percentage nsi so it would have been there regardless is what i'm saying any other questions or comments yeah just to i think to to i i had a concern at first about the stipend not not to uh to take away from from the accomplishment but i think now in hindsight that it's it's very helpful and someday dr lutch
041you will retire and when we look back at your contract we'll have well what was the base yes you received 186 plus whatever over over the years but we're this is this is the base and anyone coming up needs to consider that and it's just an opportunity for them to say well hey i'm gonna or maybe i'll finish my doctorate perhaps i'll be inspired to to to do this or it also recognizes the level which we expect our superintendents to the educational level that we expect our superintendents to have here in um in saline so i'm i'm all in favor of it i don't have any problem with it and by keeping it at the base salary it's it's a message to uh future successors i mean this is what you have to work with
042and uh and of course the base salary will change with every year what is the percentage increase is it is it based on the co cola or no not the educational stipend okay so okay am i speaking canadian so we did an nsi increase okay so an nsi increase and we did we tied the nsi increase to evaluation and and and and again that was part of a collective bargaining conversation with with dr lawson and it's pretty standard too across a lot of districts yeah right that's what we learned through the process yes i'd like to clarify one point though it's in it it's 10 of the base every year it's not it's not 10 of the base this year and then you establish the base and then increase it by 10 percent the next
043year established base then increase it again by 10 that's not how it's working it's just it's a set total number just to clarify yep it's my job to ask questions so i was curious yeah jenny did you have anything uh i wondered um i did when i got this i did look back at um the peer districts that um superintend assistant superintendent uh ellis had shared with us and i did wonder a little bit about the base and the competitiveness of that i think right now the entire package is is competitive but when i looked at the base salaries of other districts we're still on the low side which i know helps us with our with our budget but i just wondered um that was that was a piece of the feedback that we got
044from uh mr phillips so i wondered if somebody could maybe speak a little bit to that well i could speak down a little bit we when we when we decided how we wanted to work with increasing of compensation on an annual basis when the nsi is factored in and we expect that dr loft is gonna be an incredibly highly effective superintendent we actually see that that increase will be uh will put him on par with or be working towards being more in line with um with our peer districts it really will level out with with his incredible performance okay it was just a little for me anyways just seeing that number was a little concerning because several of those districts are much smaller than ours and so i just want to make sure that we're
045being fair um and and i know that that was a concern so and i can i can clarify by one point to trustee e steps point not all districts put in that education stipend as part of their base so so they're working their base differently yes so in theory you could say the base is the 164 number plus the education stipend and that establishes a higher more competitive base so i think you do got to look at all the um the factors within the contract and i will say this too uh assistant superintendent alice did a great job of benchmarking and figuring out what is what does this look like across all these districts and spend a lot of time doing so so i really appreciated that i just wanted to be sure because the
046feedback we got from from mr phillips was a little it kind of surprised me a little bit um and so looking at the peer districts i just want to be sure that we're being fair but i also want to be make sure that we're being physically responsible too so um i appreciate that clarification thanks yeah that's great we're looking at total compensation package so when we add all these things up we're getting into exactly where we want to go i appreciate what you're saying we were clearly under and that was mentioned a few times more than a few times to us that we are under this gets us closer to that so that brings me back to what i was asking why not or would there be interest in just adding that to the salary
047versus putting it under the um education statement if it's just i think our thought there was we want to make it well it's all part of its total compensation package we want to make that uh clear that we want to reward the the doctoral degree as this and this is expectation that if you want to get to that we we will pay more for that and so by setting it aside as a separate educational stipend we are sort of highlighting that that if you want more pay this is what we expect and we're willing to pay for it that's what i hear and that's what i agree with yeah i was just going to say this really sets the the precedent right for going forward so when we move forward we we expect and hope
048that dr lodge will stay stay with us for a while but but eventually he will retire and and move on and so we'll have to think about what what is the precedent that has been established so if it's in the base then we're kind of locked in there even if the candidate maybe doesn't have the doctoral degree or any of that so it kind of gives us a piece that we can leverage later so i like that i'm i'm also just thinking about um long term i hope that dr lach is here longer than many of us and so looking back historically um so looking yeah so looking back historically um future boards will be able to see that that's how that number was was um settled on all right great um i just wanted
049to thank both sides of the table on this for the collaborative and very professional process and diligence in homework thank you very much um moving to vote all those um in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed nay motion carries 7-0 um moving forward i'd like to entertain a motion please to approve the purchase of a security badge access system for building security and automation llc in the amount of seventy one thousand eight hundred forty dollars as recommended by troy wisnick director of technology i'll move brad thank you support dennis thank you um i don't think troy is here would you like to speak to that one yeah it's pretty brief and it's and it's somewhat self-explanatory in that it is to upgrade our badge system needing to provide that level of security and
050you know keep up with more modern technology and so that's that's what this is about any questions or comments yes one of the features that i saw when i was doing a deep dive into it was that you or anyone with the access could uh change door lock times and openings and so forth remotely off your cell phone if needed and in an emergency situation sometimes that's important so yeah i thought it was a it was a pretty good system it was well recommended in the in the industry in the field great thank you moving to vote um all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed nay motion carry 7-0 uh moving on to our next recommended motion i'd like to please move to approve the 2021-2022 mhsaa membership is submitted by
051superintendent lodge jenny thank you second susan thank you um steve would you like to say anything about that it's pretty this one's this one's pretty brief too that uh you know michigan high school athletic association has been a good partner for us and many districts and so we want to continue with that relationship absolutely moving to vote all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed nay motion carries 7-0 i'd like to next entertain a motion please and move to approve the 2021-2022 masb membership renewal as submitted by superintendent lodge moved mcveigh ah i knew you'd jump on that one uh thank you michael second support support candace thank you um would you like to say anything about that one same kind of thing obviously we we get a lot as a school board
052with this membership and use them often for advice and professional development so so i would say that you know it's it's money well spent to support all of us on the board and administration too agreed moving to vote all those in favor uh say aye aye aye all those opposed nay all right motion carries 7-0 moving on to our discussion item section of the agenda first up finance committee updates from um chair trustee valenti all right thank you the finance committee met just prior to this meeting this afternoon we reviewed our year end 21 2021 amended budget as we will approve it in two weeks we'll have the final one that is is looking like we will probably be right about break even for the year excluding our one-time covered revenue dollars so that's good
053news much better than what we've had in many years past but we seem to be right about at that break even excluding the one-time items that we get from the covert revenue with that covid revenue we hope to be able to bolster our fund balance to a level that all of our our auditors the state of michigan has said for years where they want us to see us at that level so we hope to be able to sustain that in the years to come but we are heading into very unusual period in terms of budgeting budgeting is always a art not so much as science but that you're dealing with so many variables on a normal basis but right now we've got so much so many changes here student count changes much more than we've
054ever seen in years past expense changes so we also looked at our upcoming 2022 budget which will be uh coming in as well in the next two weeks we'll be asked to approve that soon um that's going to be a tougher one but we hope to get it closer to a break even but we have some work to do there so we're looking at that so anything else on the budget information that we looked at good news and uncertainty as normal we are looking at as we normally do every year we borrow from the state for cash flow purposes last year we were conservative and we borrowed more than what we needed the cost of borrowing is so low from the state but it helps us get through on a cash flow basis so we're
055not running out of money in our checking account to effectively pay our bills so we're going to be accessing that again this year anything else we'll have more again in a couple weeks we'll have a lot more information any comments or questions for donna yes a lot more next time thank you and advance miranda for all the hard work on them um moving on to our next discussion item b policy committee updates um secretary estab chair yes so um i'm gonna try do you want to take this i'll go into it and then i'll let you explain so um in the packet there are two attachments um which is policy 5340 student accidents that's our current policy and then there's policy 5341 emergency medical authorization that's a policy that we didn't have but came in
056through the february 2021 neola updates we found steve talked to the admin and he can tell you more about why we're deciding not to adopt it and we're including language in our student accidents policy instead sounds good um thank you so in short we're strengthening 5340 student accidents to provide easier access to digital student emergency records if we were to adopt 5341 it basically says more or less you got a cart around a physical copy of a form emergency forms everywhere you go and that doesn't really seem like a good course of action when we can authorize digital access at any time so that if miss sickler is on a field trip with a class of students and a teacher and they need a quick access technically 5341 speaks to well where are all the
057emergency forms well what if you forget one and so it really strengthens 53.40 and therefore means we don't need to adopt 53.41 and that's the gist of it anything else is it oh yes i have is there any so that's um one of them so if you have questions about that and then i have a general update yeah any any questions on those two policies could you clarify do we need to make a motion to remove 5341 i can't recall because if we're excluding it or not it's it's a recommended update that we haven't adopted yet but okay so we'll just keep 5341 as is and only add 53.40 okay we already have 53.40. so the room that what we're looking at is the revisions in that student accidents policy right because those revisions are
058so that we don't even need to adopt the five three four one just for consistency and we put that in for reference so thanks okay want to do the general update yes um so so with with that um policy um we will um unless you all have comments before the next meeting um it can go on um the action right yeah technically the second reading and then it's confirmed at the next meeting it was written as a first reading yeah so our next one will be a second reading with the vote with the for the revisions right it's a clean tapping so if we can gain consensus that's right yep unless something comes up so the next update is what we've been working on and i've mentioned at several meetings we are working on so
059cilinary schools is working on the development of a transgender student policies to better support our students we had a professional development session on friday may 28th for our admin team to learn more about the need for a transgender policy in salinaria schools a transgender student policy would strengthen the support that is already in place for transgender students through the state and federal laws this aligns with our district's focus on creating a more inclusive and equitable environment for our students so we will be having it continues to be on our policy agenda so people of who want to have public comment can come at those meetings there's opportunity at the beginning and the end and also whenever we bring it to the board table there will be opportunities for public comment then as well our next
060policy meeting is on tuesday june 15th at 6 pm where we'll continue discussions around a timeline and next steps for a proposed transgender student policy and again there's state and federal laws that already support and our amazing district do have supports and systems for students who are uh transgender so um yeah um what was my other thing there was one more thing oh and i believe candace will be joining us on the policy committee which i'm super excited about i'm excited as well thank you all right great thanks susan any comments or questions for susan in the policy committee okay sounds good moving on to item number 10 response to public comment um as always the board would really like to thank you for your comments um we received quite a few emails at sassport
061salineschools.org we appreciate that appreciate any communications to our staff on let's talk so please keep that up that's how we know what's on your minds and we also know that people to consistently post on social media as well um just a reminder to always try to keep it respectful and remember that there is a person at the other end of emails let's talk social media etc and we are all in support of the children of this district moving on to administration updates okay a couple uh teacher awards that i wanted to make sure people know about gina panzika from saline high school has been awarded the family and consumer science educator of michigan rising star teacher award so congratulations to gina and then to follow that up natalie freeburn has been awarded the 20 20
06221 family and consumer science educator of michigan teacher of the year award so really a strength in in that department up at the high school so congratulations to both of them and then my my final comment is just putting together what a great senior class we had and i wanted to read read some things and actually this is something that i posted to a community letter last friday but i wanted to add on to the importance of it so in our senior class 52 students received local scholarships and awards totaling over 306 thousand dollars these scholarships come from service organizations memorial funds businesses individual donations and educational institutions that's followed by 11 national merit finalists nine national merit commended students 189 students are graduating with a grade point average of 3.666 or higher eighty-one percent
063of these graduates will attend four-year universities and colleges eleven percent will attend two-year educational programs others will attend skilled trade schools enter the workforce or join the military and a special thank you to our slain students who will be serving our country so i look at that from the standpoint of that's excellent our senior class how does that all happen and as i reflect on this really challenging year i just want to thank our entire community students parents teachers administrators support staff the board of education and endless other groups of people to support the journey i've said this before and i'm going to continue to say this over and over again this senior class is a product of the hard work and determination of so many people starting with our early childhood programming all the
064way up to our high school and alternative high school and it just speaks to the collaboration of the community to work together to create the conditions to set our students up for success and i'm very proud of the way we do that here in saline thanks very very well said very well said thank you so much um would any of the board of education like to make an update michael sure um last night i was honored to cast our vote for teresa saunders dr teresa saunders for a six-year position on a five-person board of the wisd the washington intermediate school district so um yeah she was the only candidate so yeah well done so i'm sure um susan secretary estep will speak to this but we did it was very exciting to have our first
065dei advisory council meeting last night i had three meetings scheduled all for the same time so uh susan susan held down uh held held our board presence at that meeting for us um and i'm looking forward to having candace join us soon too um so that was very exciting um also very exciting i know that sometimes maybe maybe i make some things maybe too personal but um looking at the new hires i know that um superintendent assistant superintendent um ellis is busy at work hiring um new staff uh to fill the vacancies that we're finding with um with our amazing uh retirees and um proud teacher moment one of my former students was hired i'm so excited so congratulations to all of the new hires um and i just wanted to echo i know we
066had our recognition of our retirees who were here i know that there are a number who couldn't be with us tonight my children have been personally impacted by by so many of them probably i should say each and every one of them some in particular more because of their course assignments as they as they went through school i was looking at lynn nicholls and reminding uh was reminded of the um the star program and the connections that she that ally made with her there and how that influenced um many of her friendships and and um and i think of a special friendship in particular of two that graduated this year and then i also think about jenny turner who really took my son drew under her wing when they were just starting the student council
067program at heritage and um he was just elected again his class president again for the sophomore class so she really started that and really um really poured into him and developed his leadership so i know i'm probably missing someone i'm wondering if maybe we can get i know we see them as they come in but it's kind of a rolling process when we see their names coming in so if the slides that were shared earlier with each of the retirees and a little bit about them could be shared maybe publicly i don't know if that's possible anna if we can share that i just want our teachers and our staff that are retiring to know how much we appreciate them and i want them to continue to be celebrated beyond this meeting because they couldn't
068all be here and our crowd is small tonight um so if that would be possible uh i would love to see that happen so that we can make sure that they get the recognition and appreciation that they so deserve after a dedication to our our community and our kids all right i'm gonna uh so we are to the week of the year that all all teachers and students look forward to the most right the last one um you know and i just want to take a second i i say this often but i think in the last week of the school year and at the end of this particular school year in general i i want the staff of our schools to know how appreciated they are and that they are extraordinary and that they
069saw us through a really difficult time and i know that my children have flourished and done well under their stewardship and care and i i am and i continue to be appreciative i i echo what dr lotz talked about self-care and about just getting that rest time getting that you know that recharge the battery and i know that so many of them are are engaged and gonna you know engage with you know professional development because they're incredible educators but long story short like i want you to hear me say thank you very much and and also like i'd like to send a shout out to to our retirees as well like you give years and years of dedicated service to our children and uh that is appreciated by by me and by us and so
070thank you for for everything i appreciate um i i did forget to mention something earlier and that is that um we lost a special former teacher in natalie cameron she lost her battle with cancer at a very young age natalie was a former celine teacher and then most recently taught in the ann arbor public schools and you know we're talking a lot tonight about you know our teachers moving forward and we're excited for them and but we also want to remember some of those that that have lost their battle and remember how important they were to the school district and really impressed with you know the heritage staff for example is already reaching out to support her husband knox and young son drew and that just it's important that we remember to take care and
071support those that um are no longer with us and i meant to say that earlier oh okay so jenny had spoken about the dei advisory committee with our first meeting and i thought it went really well we have people who served on the very first iteration in 2019 and then our leadership coalition and have some added some new voices and so i'm super excited about that and it seemed to be a really great meeting um and then also i want to thank the city of saline and their dei task force they held an event in honor of lgbtq pride month in june and did a flag raising and in the flag raising the rainbow flag many of our students lgbtq students and students who are part of the gsa at the middle school and uproar
072were able to help raise raise that flag and um really centering them you know while we stood up there for the event and so i really appreciated that um and then yeah thank you for all of our teachers and admin and staff for this year and supporting all of our students um including our virtual and hybrid and i mean i don't know i i was uh doing the my son was doing the virtual and um hybrid at some point and um just the you know um partnering amongst the the educators um bringing high quality um programming i mean you know it's just like super exciting and engaging from each teacher across um you know fifth grade and so thank you all for for getting creative and continuing supporting all of our students whether virtual or
073not thank you everybody um just a really quick thank you to this team central administration and trustees for quickly mobilizing to onboard candace last night onboarding trustees is an incredibly important topic to me and building that strong foundation and beginning that trust i think is is important and we welcome you um i want to say just a couple words about graduation it was an incredible day so thank you to the staff that pulled that off that was a lot of work and i continue to be impressed every year by the celebration that is put on for our students and i'd like to encourage everyone sitting at this table to remember our why and and it's them and just really really impressed with our graduating class and look forward to seeing what they do in the
074coming years moving on to our consent agenda the following are offered as part of the consent agenda um oh no oh my gosh i forgot you on your last day okay for we're gonna we're gonna table this consent agenda no go ahead i'm sorry i usually let you go first and then i i saved the best for last is can we can we say that instead okay um so i'll start with my usual order uh many impressive finishes from our sports teams track one regionals and then last weekend they had a few placing relays second in the four by one hundred fourth in the four by eight hundred seventh in shotput and the girls had fifth in the four by eight hundred the guys are sending a few relays to nationals in oregon in a
075few weeks so congrats to them lacrosse are our regional champions softball won districts and water polo plays sixth in the state boys golf is runner-up at regionals and will be participating in states this weekend in terms of students the scholarship recognition night went well with senior awards congrats to all the students who received those final concerts in orchestra choir and band went well clubs are winding down the lit mag released their magazine appropriately titled distance the jazz band received the highest rating and festival they haven't gone in a few years years so they were excited to receive that with christian manager named an outstanding performer from the st jazz festival thank you to everyone involved in planning our graduation the senior class it was a great and very special day amazing job to all the
076students who finished this year it was a hectic year but we got through it and a huge thank you to teachers administration support staff and all others who have helped make school one actually happen this year to a safe and engaging place for students whether it was through zoom or in person your efforts did not go unappreciated i wish everyone in the community a safe happy and healthy summer and for the last time that is my update thank you [Applause] no we saved the bus for last that was totally on purpose um thank you so much now moving into the 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
077or all be considered individually i'd like to entertain a motion please to authorize the following items as part of the consent agenda item a approval of the board of education study session minutes of may 25th 2021 b approval of the board of education special meeting minutes of may 2021 c approval of the board of education truth and taxation hearing minutes of may 25 2021 d approval of payment of the general fund accounts payable of june 8 2021 in the amount of 2 million one hundred and twenty three thousand one hundred and two dollars and seventy four cents e approval of payment of bond series account bond series three accounts payable of june 8 2021 in the amount of four thousand five hundred and thirty three dollars half receive and file curriculum finance and human resources
078reports and g reaffirm our commitment to our extended covet 19 learning plan as approved on september 22nd 2020 and amended on january 21st 20 january 21st 2021 do i have a motion thank you brad support by jenny thank you moving to vote all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed say name motion carries seven zero in closing items scheduled on our next agenda right so we have uh equity engagement sessions recap that um instructional designer cara davis and myself will provide there will be a music department year in review matt breyer will be here to help us learn about that and then policy committee updates those are the three areas that are scheduled right now and budget yeah the six o'clock budget and betty thank you for posting the special notice appreciate
079that god got it 6 p.m budget 6 30 um board of education um this is our next opportunity for 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 agenda of a future meeting do i have any students for public comment seeing no forms moving on to any other public stakeholders for public comment seeing no forms our next meeting the next board of education meeting will be held on june 22 2021 at 6 30 pm that comes after our budget meeting at 6 00 pm i would like to thank everyone for the school year and diligence and hard work parents students staff everyone and move to adjourn the meeting of the board of education studies session of june 8 2021
080at 7 44 pm uh i was looking for a first okay sorry jenny um and support yes support susan thank you um we are adjourned oh we didn't we didn't vote this roll call vote this roll call all those in favor say aye aye aye all this opposed nay motion carries 7-0 it's going to be a challenge you