001Okay, we're going to call the meeting to order at 7:03. Sorry that we're three minutes delayed. Um, with that, can we please stand for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of To the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We're going to move on to our golden apples. Dr. Lens. Thank you, Madam President. Unfortunately, Mr. Shiner was not able to make it today. So, we will have I believe Mr. Ste Stevenson, you're going to take his items for him. So, thank you for doing that. And I'll turn over to Mr. Scaling. No. Did I get it backwards? Yeah, there we go. Mr. Robson, hold on one second. We have to embarrass the person.
002Yes. Is this your first time here, sir? Mr. Stevenson, come on up. You would, please. Our golden apple uh recipient is uh Rob Stevenson, social studies teacher at Wald Lake Northern. Rob is nominated because he creates a learning environment where every student feels respected and valued. Rob goes beyond simply teaching. He builds meaningful relationships with his students, ensuring that they feel supported both academically and personally. Rob constantly seeks out and learns new teaching techniques to be a better teacher, always striving for professional growth and excellence. This dedication to ongoing learning not only enhances his teaching, but also inspires his students to develop a love for learning and a curiosity for the world around them. Rob's passion for the subject is contagious. He brings history, geography, and civics to life with dynamic lessons, thought-provoking discussions, and
003real world connections. He challenges students to think critically, help them see the relevance of social studies in their everyday lives. Thank you, Rob, for making your classroom a place where students are eager to participate, share their ideas, and grow academically. It's our honor to recognize you this evening. Congratulations. Thank you very Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next is the Betty Campion Support Person of the Year Award. Dr. Lans. Thank you, Madam President. The Betty Campion Distinguished Service Support Service Award was established in 1990 to recognize the many contributions support persons make to our learning community, not only here in W Lake, but in Oakland County. The award is named in honor of the former Oakland schools board member Betty Campion. Miss Campion served on the Oakland Schools Board of Education from 1978 to 1992. Before
004serving on the Oakland schools board, Mrs. Campion served 10 years on our very own board of education here in Weld Lake and is a 21-year PTA member. Nominees of the Betty Campion Award are members of our local school district support staff who go well above and beyond the call of duty in creating a supportive learning environment. It's my pleasure at this time to to welcome Mrs. Amy Patrick, the principal at Wald Lake Western, to the podium to introduce and recognize our Wald Lake Schools Betty Campion Award recipient for the 2425 school year. Yes. Everyone gets embarrassed. You you have to come all the way up too. the blue carpet, I think. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. It's It has to get used twice in meeting no matter what. Good evening. It is my honor of
005principal as principal of Wald Lake Western to recognize Dorothy Trembley tonight as she represents Wald Lake Consolidated Schools for the Oakland County Support Person of the Year. A longtime resident of our community and a proud Wald Lake Western parent, Dorothy truly embodies the warrior spirit. For 30 years, Dorothy has served Wald Lake Consolidated Schools with unwavering dedication, 18 years as the principal secretary at Western and 12 years at Wald Lake Middle School. She is the backbone of our school, expertly managing payroll, substitute coordination, registration, scheduling, and so much more. Her meticulous attention to detail led to 100% accuracy on our count day this year, ensuring vital funding for our school. She also plays a key role in organizing major events like graduation, curriculum fairs, and parent nights. Each each executed flawlessly beyond her technical expertise,
006Dorothy is the go-to person for all things Western. If you want to know anything about Wald Lake Western, Dorothy will know it. and more importantly, she will remember the people behind it. She serves as a mentor to our other support staff, offering guidance, problem solving, and a steady hand whenever needed. Her knowledge, dedication, and willingness to step up at a moment's notice make her truly irreplaceable. This is my first year as principal at Western, and I can personally say that Dorothy has been an invaluable support to me. Her unwavering commitment to excellence and her deep care for Wild Lake Western have made a difference, not just for me, but for all the entire Warrior community. I'm almost done. Dorothy does not enjoy being in the spotlight, as you can tell. But after 30 years of
007service to Wald Lake schools, I'm proud that she is receiving this well-deserved recognition. Dorothy, we are so grateful for you and congratulations. [Applause] Foundation for Excellence mini grant update. Dr. Lens, thank you very much. It's my pleasure to introduce Mrs. is Jackie Gwerman, the executive director of our foundation. Hold on. All right. Okay. All right. So, thank you for giving me a little time this evening to talk about the Foundation for Excellence because I'm immensely proud of what we've accomplished in the last couple of months. Just this week, we concluded our tuition expedition raffle where the FF received over $10,000 in proceeds and gave away $11,000 in scholarship funds to grand prize winner Judy Avola. For anybody who knows Judy, I know we all chuckle. Anybody who knows Judy knows that she is very generous
008and gives back to the community in many ways. So, she's chosen to take the funds as scholarship money and we'll be working to put together an application to give it away to one very deserving Wald Lake school uh graduating senior. So, please keep an eye out for those applications and more information coming out about that soon. It's very new, so we are just working on it. Um, but really the FF spent a very busy March visiting 70 classrooms across our district, which included at least one grant at every school to provide over $51,000 back to classrooms in the district. These funds provided things like new instruments, fizzed equipment, literacy materials, leadership training, new appliances for our cognitively impaired classroom at Wald Lake Central, science tools, and many other things. Presenting these grants is the best
009part of our year. And I'm thrilled that Jason Lewis from communications and marketing department was able to tag along with us and put together this great video to show you how we make an impact. Is there Oh, click again. Okay. Nope. What am I doing? Should I click here? There we go. You will be getting a new concert xylophone. I was very surprised. Uh to be honest, I was like, "Wow, uh there's cameras." And I wasn't sure what was going on. Complete surprise. This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to learn and grow. And it was totally unexpected. She's getting $500 to buy more library books. Oh yeah, it's amazing. Um I'm just so thankful for them giving back to us and if we didn't have them, we wouldn't be able to replace anything
010and the kids wouldn't have what we need to make our program successful. It's really great that they're providing this experience for kids to enrich their learning experience and have that um extra elevation that other schools outside of the district don't have. We are thrilled to let you know that your grant was approved and you are going to be getting your little spot of emotion book. So yeah, the foundation for affluence has always looked out for not just uh core areas but from the encore. It means so much to me to bring an experience that they can have in the high school to the middle school level. And having these tabletop wheels, at least four of them, I can give um students experiences that will excite them for high school in real life experience. I've taught
011in several different school districts and this is a wonderful opportunity that I feel supports our entire school district regardless of subject matter, age, um or genre of education. We can ask for things that normally we could never have in our classrooms and the support that we have from the foundation as well as other teachers is just phenomenal. It means a lot. I love giving towards the FF and like them giving back you know in this way it means a lot. super grateful um because you know teachers just they need so much in their classroom. So just knowing that we have that background and that um foundation to support us with whatever we need um it just makes us feel so good. All right, it's not going to cycle again, right? Okay. Okay, just checking. So,
012very quickly, I want now that you've seen how we make a difference, I want to give a quick plug to our latest fundraiser, which started just this week. Um, that's our superstar staff awards. What that is is where families can make a $10 donation to the foundation and to nominate their favorite staff member, whether it be a teacher, administrator, bus driver, lunch lady, anybody they want, um, for a chance to win one of two $500 prizes from the Wald Lake Schools Federal Credit Union. Um, if you want to learn more about it, you can go to wlcsd.orgf and we will be drawing the winner for that during staff appreciation week. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Seagler. Uh, Mrs. Gerin, you want to plug the golf outing yet? No. Be my guest. I was trying not
013to take a lot of time, but but now that it's been called out, yes, we also have a golf scramble coming out coming up on June 16th. So, we currently have about six sponsors already signed up and ready to come out golfing. If you are interested, that is also on our website. It is usually the biggest fundraiser of our year and pro helps provide a a lot of the funds that go back to our schools. Thank you. So we're going to move on to the Wild Lake pupil enrollment projection study presentation. Dr. Lens, thank you very much. It's my pleasure to welcome Mr. Paul Wills to the podium. He is our represent from plant brand Real Point and he will be providing us with a projection study related to our enrollment. This is an annual
014uh presentation that we do so we can share with the community and the board about what we are expecting in the near future related to enrollment. As everyone may recall, enrollment is the number one way that we are funded uh through the state of Michigan. Mr. Wills, when you are ready? Yes. Thank you, Dr. Lines, uh President Kaplan, and good evening board members, administrators. Uh so, as Dr. Lans mentioned, uh this is a yearly uh enrollment update that we've actually been able to present uh to the district really since 2012. So, as we go through the presentation tonight, by all means, if you have any questions, again, we're not looking for any decisions tonight. This is simply a data to really allow uh Miss OMR from a financial uh standpoint to create some modeling and
015also from the administrative team about placement of teachers, utilization, all that other stuff going forward. We're talk a little bit about demographics, what's happening around the country, what's happening around the state of Michigan, more specifically, what's happening in Oakland County, and of course, Wall Lake. and then we're going to get into district-wide enrollment uh relative to both grade bands as well as overall enrollment going forward. So, a couple things right in the beginning and right in the middle of that chart. Um I'm not going to ask if anyone was born in 1957, but congratulations. You're at the very top of the uh the um baby boom, if you will. We just got the uh audited birth for the state of Michigan from the Department of Community Health for 2023. and it's actually 99,000 just over
01699,000 which is the first time it's been that low since 1940 just to give you perspective. So you hear a lot about birth rates going forward. Um we're actually five years past COVID. A lot of people thought there'd be a baby boom out of COVID. It's actually the opposite. So there's an inverse number of total births across the country and across the state. And the first time birth mom bomb is actually over the age of 31 for the first time since 1920. Some other things, if you've uh read Crane's business a couple weeks ago, you saw on the front page talking about some of the challenges of the birth rate. Uh back in 2000, there was over 2 million kids in Michigan K through 12. We're just under 1.4 million. Also, put that in perspective.
017Back in 1990, uh to 2000, there was over 240,000 kids in Oakland County. Uh now we're just above 186,000. So, a significant decrease in the last 20 years. I also believe last week um Mr. Dr. Kurt Mezer with data division Detroit showed just Oakland County specifically 24 out of the 28 school districts have actually shown um significant decreases of enrollment primarily due to the birth rate going forward. Um so we just wanted to kind of give the board some updates what's happening across the state. So what's happening in Oakland County? So we went back to 1990. Uh so at that time frame on the far left you'll see there's over 17,000 live births um from that perspective. Um the last time Oakland County actually had an increase was actually in the year 2000. Uh those
018children are now turning 25 because my son is one of them. Um going forward, but ever since that time, you know, you look at what happened with um you know, the Persian Gulf War in the 90s. You got the dot Y2K in 20201. Uh everyone remembers the great recession. Um coming out of that, you know, a lot of people thought the birth rate was going to take off. It actually flatlined. And you can see in 2019 2020 the dip um from that perspective. So, one of the things we're able to point out is that that cohort in red, that's kind of your K5 68 912 cohorts going forward. So, you're going from 17,000 live births in 1990 down to 16,000 and more recently we're just under 13,000 here in the next five years. Um, so
019I actually went back the last time um Wall Lake actually graduated over um or actually had an incoming class over a thousand kids was actually in 20 uh 20 uh 2009 2010. So you're going to see some numbers that you know what happens in the last 10 years going forward. So what's happening demographically? So again we took the geographic boundary of the school district's map and we looked at the total population. This is everyone from zero all the way you know we call it cradle to gray um included um total number of families. How many what's the average median um size of the household? How many kids are in each of the households? We start looking at you know who's actually a 5-year-old, foury old, three-year-old. And so you can see from 11:15 and 5
020year olds all the way down to just over a thousand. So you're seeing this steady decrease, but it's not as gra uh in significant as it was let's say 5 years ago. So we're starting to see that live birth start to level off right around 12,800. We also take a look at the total number of school age children and who's attending public versus private. So on the lower left hand side in blue uh you'll see that um about uh 83 uh 84% are choosing public with about 14 15 16% choosing private depending on the grade structure. One of the opportunities we do think the district has is actually at the prek level. So again you start talking about pre-K for four-year-olds. How can you potentially capture some of that share that you see in the
021gold of that 59 to 41. So just something to keep your eye on going forward. So again, this is uh kind of the dri district trends looking back to 2020 uh through most recently 24 and then ultimately out to 25. So the overall population in the demographic boundaries actually increasing as a totality. One of the things you're going to see though is because of that decreased birth rate, the 0 to 5 year olds and ultimately as it metriculates through the system, you're going to see that slight decrease. We actually have a couple charts that really take this and show you think a little more clearly. Uh so again going back to 2020 uh looking at the number of um zero to 5y olds and then ultimately what's happened in 2024 and again one of the
022things that we're seeing in 2029 again is just that steady decrease. Um we do know people are moving into Wall Lake. So again you're not looking at some of the dramatic decreases that you see in some other communities that are fully built out. Um so you have some of that inbound migration both at upper elementary, middle school and high school going forward. This chart uh really takes a look at the prek. Um so as I mentioned kind of going back to 2000 through 20 uh 2029 that's the first three bars. Uh you kind of see the the public in green and then the capture rate in private in blue. So again we think that's where there may be an opportunity for Wall Lake to kind of focus on potential growth opportunities. Kindergarten level um as
023I mentioned that birth rate is starting to level off right around 12,800. We'll show that slide here shortly. But when you start getting to grades 1 through 4, 58, and 912, you can see from 2020 to 2024 and ultimately to 2029, a steady decrease across those three grade bands going forward. So how does plant man uh real point do our projection enrollments? So again, we are recognized by the department of treasury uh to provide enrollment projections for school districts. We have about 100 clients across the state uh that we provide services similar to this. So again, we're looking at that community demographics. What's happening within the boundary? How many households? How many of the households have children? What's the average age of the householder? Um so again, when you have an average age of 55
024in the district, not a lot of zero to fives come out of that uh that cohort going forward. We take a look at your historical uh enrollment. So again, that does get audited um by the Department of Education. That's your fall count and spring count. And as I mentioned earlier, the live births, which just came out for the 2023 year um from the Department of Human Health Services. So districtwide again taking a look at the um boundary itself. So as I mentioned everything that's happening in kind of that blue polygons. Hey great fantastic. There we go. Sorry about that. Big finger small keyboards. Um so as I mentioned this is actually going back to 2013. So, we actually went back to 2000. Went back to 1990. As I mentioned, 1990, uh, there were 17,000 live
025births. In 2000, there were 16,200. And as you can see from the slide here, uh, back in 2013, you had about 13,445. Again, coming out of the Great Recession, you see the dip in uh, 2019 2020 down to two um, 12,298. It did bounce back up shortly thereafter, but it's kind of flatlined right around 12,600. The good news is that orange line. That's really what you want to focus on because you've been very successful at capturing roughly six to six and a half% of those live births. The only challenge is when the birth rate goes from 17,000 to 13,000. That's why you're signing the decline. You also may look at the chart and say how can we dip from 2013 14 to 7% down to you know five six and a half. That's actually when
026they instituted full-time kindergarten. So you saw some of that adjustment. Um they also shifted the age for young fives going forward. So again, from a capture rate standpoint, feel very good about the district capturing that six to six and a half% consistently over the last several years. I don't expect you to read the side chart, but um everything on the lower uh um sorry on the far left side, if you have it up on your screens, um everything in gray is your audited information. So basically from 2024 column to the far left is your audited uh information. So you can see the incoming kindergarten class. If you look at 2018 column, first row, that's your kindergarten class of 946. As you can see, this is the birth rate declines. So if you follow that row
027across, you just had over 700 students enroll in 2024. So again, that's at 6.5% of a less birth rate going forward. When you take a look at the senior class, so if you go to 12th grade, the last time you graduated over a thousand kids was actually in 2020. Most recently graduating class was 804. So again, you're kind of seeing this downsize of the district. Um, and again, it's nothing the district's doing wrong. It's just less kids in Oakland County and more importantly the district itself. So taking the same information here, uh, we actually start breaking out by those grade bands. So again, you had your K5s back in 2018 of about 5,700 students. Uh, most recently 2024 just over 4,900 and projected to go down about 40 uh 4,500 or basically 4451. Middle school
028level yet over 3,000 kids. most recently uh 2600. On the far right, you'll see in 2029 projected about 2549. Then ultimately at the high school again about 4,300 students in 2018. Most recently 3,331 and then about 3,224 is kind of the enrollment projections for the next five years. Same information looked a different way. Uh again, what you have is the K5, uh which again is your blue, um kind of in the middle. So again on the far left you had 4327 most recently 3332 then ultimately you see that kind of leveling off. So that birth rate is starting to level off over the last over the next 5 years. 68 which is actually the bottom uh which is your squares. Uh again you have uh just over 3,000 uh back in 2018 just over 2600
029recently and again kind of leveling off about 200 students. And then ultimately you have your high school and the turquoise again 4,300 down to about 3200 going forward. So with that um I would like to turn it back to the um president Kaplan Dr. L the board for any specific questions. Thank you. Any questions? N okay. Thank you. Thank you. Oh Mrs. Fernandez. It's not a question. And I just thought it it um bears mentioning for folks who might not know that we have had a fair amount of questions back and forth um amongst us. So um we've had a chance and thank you for answering many of those. Fantastic. Mr. Wils, I do have one question for you. There from time to time I'm stopped by community members saying that one of the reasons
030why our enrollment is dropping is because of private schools gathering more of our students as a percentage. has that percentage stage relatively the same or has there been a significant increase in the last couple years? That's a great question. So, um actually we looked um before COVID uh it was about 13 14%. That did bump up two points roughly. We also think a lot of the homeschools have also chosen to stay home. So, that's where you think that percentage but the fact is there's just less less students across the board. Um when you have a very um um socioeconomically advantaged district like a wall lake, they do have some options for tuition based. But while you may hear like the public or the private schools are full, it's not like they're accommodating thousands of kids.
031Um there's just less kids in the district as a total. Um and that's why I feel very good about that capture rate of roughly 6 and a half% because if you start to look at the detail, those percentages are pretty much 100% retriculation through K12. It's just again you go from 17,000 births to 16 down to 13 now to 12,600. So thank you Mr. Seagler. years ago when I was look when we were talking about closing Oak Creek Park in Maple, we were looking at the demographics of how long residents have been staying in their house within the district and I was shocked by at that time a five-year uh trend of with a dramatic increase and I think it has not changed since then if I am correct. Yeah, actually that's one of the
032things that you know people like being Walt Lake so their kids graduate and they stay. It also helps they may have a two and a half to 3% mortgage rate. So again, you've got low um plus the value of your homes also is another issue, you know. So at the end of the day, I think a lot of people decide to kind of just stay put. Um we're seeing a lot less outbound migration um that 65 and older group. Um and at the end of the day, um just some other statistics, you know, actually the state of Michigan's right around 10 million. So we're up about three or 400,000 um from 5 years ago. But also next year in 2026, there will be more 65 year olders than there are 0 to 18 from that
033perspective. So thank you again. Thank you very much. So, we're going to move on to Lakes Area Youth Assistance Annual Report. Dr. Lans. Thank you very much. And I'll turn it over to Mr. Scaling. Thank you, Dr. Lans. Uh Lakes Area Youth Assistance or LEIA is a prevention program within the Oakland County Circuit Court. Youth assistance has been in Wald since 1960. Their mission statement is to strengthen youth and families and to prevent and reduce in incidences of juvenile delinquency, neglect, and abuse through volunteer involvement. This evening, Miss Nancy Vanluan, our Lakes Series youth assistant vice chairperson, and Miss Stacy Bassini, our Lakes SAR youth assistant case worker, will present an update on their programs and services. Thank you. He's already covered part of what I was going to say, the length of time we've
034been around, 60 years. And youth assistance for those most of you have heard this presentation before so I will keep it short but youth assistance was formed by the circuit court of Oakland County because their feeling that we had too many at risk or in the day juvenile delinquents who were ending up in the court system when if there was an intervention before that these children might not have been uh getting a record through having to go through the court system. So youth assistance was formed. One of the formers for founders of that was a Wald Lake school judge, Judge Schnell's. He was very instrumental in uh creating the whole organization. So youth assistance was formed. We have uh community sponsors and I think you all have a report or were given one at one
035point. Um, the town, Commerce Township, the city of Wald Lake, Wald Lake School District, Wixom, Wolverine Lake, and Oakland County are all participants in supporting this program. The school district provides us with office space, um, computer work, uh, the space for our case worker to be present and and operating. The others provide us with money which of course helps us pay for our administrative assistant and some of our operating uh expenses. We have a group of volunteers on the other hand who fundra and many of you are familiar with our taste of the lakes activity. Please put October 7th on your calendars for this year. Um and that is our biggest fundraiser. This year we happen to have raised about $28,000 from that event and we take that money and turn it around and try
036to infuse it into the district in a variety of ways. One of the things that we do is called um our shop with a hero though we don't spend a great deal of money on that. That is the program where where um uh the officers from our police departments, our various police departments, the fire departments um help us take at risk or needy children to meer generally and it's the commerce meer and the Wixom Meyer. And this year we were able to help over 50 students um shop and mostly clothing and once in a while they get something real special. And one year some some young man said, "Can I please buy something for my grandmother?" Absolutely you can. Um we also participate in skill building and that activity is where we grant students funds.
037Some it's paytoplay, some it's to participate in softball, some it's to go to camp. Um and this year we've helped 25 students with that. We also have adopt a child where especially here on Valley Hospital helps us shop for some needy and uh students and we bring all of that stuff to this building and then the families come and pick it up and it's a very rewarding day to do that. We also have one of our activities is we used to be able to help a lot of students go to summer camps, but with COVID a lot of that dwindled and some of those programs haven't been reinstated. But last year, we were able to help several students go to a variety of different camps throughout um the Oakland County area for that matter. Uh,
038another program that is within our buildings is our um, family support program. And one of the two of the things that we do in that program is art therapy where an art therapist comes in and works with students identified by the principal or the social worker of the building or the teachers of the building that may need just some extra boost, some extra help. And these students give their time. Usually it's a recess time or a a break time. And last year we were able to help 40 students with our art therapy program. And those little those little classes are small. There are maybe six to eight students who are participating in that. So to help 40 um that teacher was pretty busy. And the other program that um we are participating in is yoga.
039and again helping certain small groups of students at our buildings. Over 200 students were provided with yoga opportunities this year. Um and most of them find that if you know the principles of yoga it's part of it is to relax to find yourself to settle down and so for many of these students it's pretty beneficial. Another part of our program of course and probably the key component of the program is our casework services. Oakland County Circuit Court provides us with a caseworker and she comes into the district and but Mrs. Stacy Passini is our Lakes Area Youth Assistance case worker and she will talk to you about that. Hi guys. Um thank you for having me. Um, and as I'm lucky enough to sit on that side of the table in another community, I know
040you guys will be happy to know this is my presentation piece, so you know it'll go quick. Um, I am Stacy Passini. For those of you guys who don't know me, um, I am the case worker here. I've been with youth assistance for 25 years. Um, been placed in Malt Lake for I think it's a little under five. Um, and that just happens traditionally. We we transfer to different districts based on need. Um, for those of you who don't know what youth assistant does, what I do is I'm handling all the what we call casework services for the students in the district. So that's handling anything from school and abilities to truencies to um alcohol or drugrelated offenses. Um, and then what we call prevention, which is just little kiddos or big kiddos who need
041some additional support. They might be going through a family crisis, some type of need that we need to see. um it's another human adult that can get eyes on them and make sure that we meet whatever needs they have. Um right now what's really important for you guys um is I am very um involved in the suspension long-term suspension and expulsion here with the district. So when Mr. scaling sets his parameters. Um the kids come through me and I'm able to make sure we're we're monitoring them so that they're just not sitting during that time period that they're out of school um doing nothing. They're getting um eyes on them every week. they're getting making sure they're getting therapy services and whatever services else are needed on top of the the district's um needs, but
042I'm also assessing them for needs like um if they need to be medications, if they're drug testing, if we need um parenting support, anything that that family needs in the time that they're away from the school, we want to get them in the best place. Most of the kids hear me say this all the time. It's like we're building a resume so that when they go back in front of Mr. scaling, they have the best foot forward on why they should be able to return for the safety of their community. Um, and lastly, we did get blessed to get the um, opioid settlement monies from one of the communities, which and how we're use utilizing that is we're attempting to put into programs when schools, individual schools request money from us um, for different programs,
043we're able to um, divide that out and give that to whichever schools ask. So, I know we've been doing some um we did like the Pistons anti-bullying. We've done a diversity circus presentation. We've done um anything related to like drugs, alcohol, mental health, things that are supports to the kids who really need that additional thing. So, um I don't know if any of you guys have any questions. I'm trying to keep it as quick as I can. Um but I'm always here. My office is right down the hall. welcome to stop in, visit, happy to have coffee, um, and explain anything else you want to know. Okay, thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Middle school program of study. Dr. Lens, thank you very much. And I'm happy to turn it over to Mrs. Kensky. And a
044portion of her committee, I believe, is here. Portion of the committee. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. So, um just a a quick kind of historical piece uh as we lead into talking about some changes to the middle school program of study. So, as uh members of the board and and our cabinet as well as members of the community are aware, uh the largescale facilities study uh that's been taking place here in the district over the last few years uh resulted in the work uh looking at the repurposing of one of our middle schools and moving from that four middle school model down to a three middle school model. Uh, one of the requests that came to uh, me as well as members of my staff and learning services uh, really came from administration at
045the middle school level along with staff saying, you know, if we're looking at moving from four to three, we're looking at combining staff, we're looking at combining students. What can we do to kind of reinvision middle school in some ways? What are some things that we can do that would be uh, beneficial? especially when we think about the encore programs at middle school. Those are those elective programs that students participate in. And uh those of us I I haven't been in the district uh this many years, but for those that have, I believe our middle school encore program really hasn't changed much in almost 20 years. Um and so given that we actually have administrators in the district who have uh gone through Wald Lake schools and have reported that our encore program as it
046stands right now is the exact same encore program that was in place when they were here as middle school students and they're now administrators in the district. So it it gave us some some uh you know kind of a a rationale as to why um why now? Well, we have four middle schools moving to three. It's a great opportunity to say, you know what, we know that there are some changes, but there can also be some positive change that we can envision for middle school, especially when it comes to electives. So, I wanted to let those people that um that work uh in middle school and have that area of expertise really help talk about this idea and craft this idea about reinvisioning our middle school program of study. So, with me behind me, and
047I'm going to invite them to come a little closer. Don't get don't hang out in the background. Uh Jennifer Lacrosse, many of you know, is our uh science um and math coach at the learning services department team here, works with us and works across K12. So um Jennifer, former middle school science teacher, and I know you'll probably talk a little bit about that as we go through our presentation today. Um behind me, standing way over top of me, is uh Mr. Mike Weaver, who is our career readiness coach, works in the learning services department, and he oversees career readiness work. uh and our CTE programming um and really all the compliance stuff that goes along with that. But uh both valuable parts of the team and really um with Mike and Jen and Randy McCullof
048who's also our data hub coordinator in the district uh former middle school teacher as well. They really worked at at leading this team. Um and I'm going to have them talk a little bit about that process. But we're happy to share this pilot um which we are looking to implement over the course of the next few years as we kind of make that transition for our middle schoolers. Let them settle, our staff settling, you know. So there's a lot of settling that we know needs to go on. But we're going to talk a lot uh through this presentation about how we're going to gauge the implementation, the success of that and the feedback loop and and such that that we want to engage with our stakeholders. So, with that, I don't know. Am I turning
049it over to you first, John? All right. And, uh, here's your clicker. Okay. Thanks. Um, so before we start to talk about the changes in our Encore courses, I do want to point out that we surveyed the staff at all of the middle schools and what the needs that they felt that our students needed and the changes that were needed in our Encore courses. So, just so you all have um an idea of how the day is set up in middle school. I taught middle school for 25 years here in Walt Lake. Our students have six classes a day and four of those classes are math, science, social studies, and English. And they have two encore courses. When I started 25 years ago, our encore courses were 10-week courses and students had opportunities to take
050several courses. When we changed from a middle school model to a junior high model, the encore courses went to 20 weeks and students didn't have the same opportunities to take the variety of courses that were offered prior to that time. So, with that being said, um our committee met three three or four times, three or four times this year, and we did quite a lot of research in surrounding districts in Oakland, Wayne, and Livingston County and looking at the courses that were offered in their middle school programs. And that was during that time, we surveyed our staff and um we decided that sixth graders would be given the opportunity to take the encore courses for 10 weeks. We in order to do that we have added two new courses to that which Mike will speak
051to those. So the all the courses are 10 weeks long except for band and orchestra. Those are uh year-long courses. Seventh and eighth grade will stay at 20week courses except for band and orchestra. And if eighth grade students decide to take a full year of a language course that is a high school credit. Okay. So to talk a little bit about some of the courses that we are recommending be piloted. The first one is the middle school success strategies. Again, it's a 10-week course and it really is designed to help to prepare them for the challenges that they're going to see for the first time in the middle school um environment. Um executive functioning, overcoming obstacles, health and wellness, financial literacy basics, and career exploration are the five key units that will be in this
052class. Um, and it also is kind of an overview is organizational skills, study skills, and uh really making sure they understand the Google suite and how it's used in in our middle school. It's very different than at the elementary school, especially when you have you're going from having one teacher to having six throughout your day. Um, so that's middle school success strategies. This was when we surveyed the middle school teachers. 88% of the teachers surveyed felt that this was the most important class to be added out of all of the courses that um were thought about being offered at the time. It was the highest one and um this was something that uh administrators and uh teachers were all very excited about uh offering to students in the future. Uh the next one is digital
053literacy. Again, we're still in the sixth grade. It's still a se 10-week course. This one is really focusing on stuff like Google Suite, email etiquette, proper use of digital resources and sources, and an introduction to AI or artificial intelligence. And these digital tools that we're going to make sure that they know how to use, they're going to be using for collaboration, communication, research, and creativity throughout their middle school experience. Leadership in the seventh grade, again, it's an exploratory course. It helps get them in a leadership mindset. Helps build the skills that they need to be an effective leader. There's hands-on activities, collaborative projects, a lot of self-reflection, and they're just beginning to learn what it what it's like to be a leader in their community. Uh, newspaper and news media. Uh, again, they're going to
054be focusing on writing techniques, news coverage, interviewing skills, photography, and ethics. Um this is uh something that a student would need to place an application and get a teacher recommendation for. There is going to be um a little bit more uh freedom in this course and students are going to be expected to have a little bit more responsibility as well. Leadership in the eighth grade. This um this does not build on the seventh grade and is required for you're not required to take the seventh grade leadership course to take the eighth grade leadership course. It's another exploratory course. The students um are going to be a little bit more mature. It will dive in a little bit deeper and they're going to be doing similar but more indepth and uh higher level activities that you
055would see at the seventh grade level. uh yearbook in journalism. Currently in our middle schools, yearbook is just a club and those clubs wrap up um in March, they should have submitted all of their final events, which is why we also attach the journalism to that so that if they ran out of um yearbook activities, they had uh more journalism that they could uh tie to that course. But we're also looking at the potential of using a different vendor or using the same vendor with different um deadlines so that this could be something that could be stretched throughout the whole semester as well. This one they're going to be focusing on taking photographs, creating layouts, interviewing staff and students, attending school school events, writing articles, assembling pages and layouts and editing as well. and world
056language. Uh world language um after some careful consideration we currently the way it is is you can explore in the sixth and the seventh grades um and in the eighth grade if you want to take a foreign language your only option is to take the high school equivalency. So you'd be taking Spanish one and that Spanish one class would look almost exactly like the Spanish one class you would take as a freshman in the high school arena. This world language course is a lastditch effort to give students who maybe haven't decided. I really love Spanish one. That's what I want to take to be able to take French, German, and Spanish, a little bit of each, explore to see which one they're going to want to take when they're required to take a language in
057high school. That are those are all of the new courses. Any questions? I have one question for you. Um the uh leadership classes, do the leadership classes, do they tie in either in seventh or eighth grade with student council and running for student council or is that a separate totally separate, you know, type of entity? Like they can take the leadership class and not be on student council or vice versa. They can be on student council and not take the leadership course. Your last statement is accurate. Correct. They can they can be in student council and not be in leadership and they can also be in leadership and not in student council. But we do see the tie-ins and we would imagine a student that was interested in student council would also be interested in
058taking the leadership course, but it would not be a requirement of the course. In our in our eighth grade leadership course, we are tying in some work with those incoming sixth graders. So, they will be doing some work over the summer and mentoring those sixth graders as they're making their transition into middle school. Thank you, Mrs. Kaplan. Mrs. Craftton, similar question for newspaper and yearbook. the club participation versus the courses. So again, similar answer. Um, if there was a student that wanted to be involved in the yearbook club and take uh maybe help take pictures after school or help write articles after school, that would be still you'd still be allowed to do that. Um, and uh, if you just wanted to take the yearbook course, I'm sure there's still going to be a few
059afterchool activities that might be a requirement, but um, to be in the class, you do not have to be in the club, but you will be doing a lot of the things that the club members would be doing. You're welcome, Miss Mrs. Fernandez. Thank you. Um, I'm curious and I didn't think to pose this question ahead of time, but a lot of emphasis on Google and the Google suite and tools and yet when kids get into the workforce, it's more often MS Office and different office tools. So, I feel like in my own kids, raising my own kids, I've recognized the challenges of having them, you know, get familiar and comfortable with tools that are really not the majority tool in the workforce. So was there any discussion about that or or maybe it's more
060about licensing and subscription and cost or like how does that come about and why is it Google Suite tools which businesses don't use at all? So a couple different reasons. Number one, Google Suite is used extensively in um educational communities and um so that's why it was taught there. You are correct that the licenses are much more expensive for the office suite and we do have areas in the high school where students that are interested in learning those tools can get certified in those tools through our CTE courses and students that are interested in that would feed very nicely into those programs at the high school. Thank you. And maybe just a a quick followup. Um I I don't know how any of the things that we discussed make their way back or don't make
061their way back. um to you folks. But I know one of my observations or um recommendations requests was um to see a lot more kind of STEM things coming uh up in um in some of the new courseares and offers. We're great with arts and musics and languages and then the journalism. It's all language language related and there are kids that are more tactile and and uh we know we need STEM and I'm sure it's even just a shortage amongst teacher skills as well. So um Thank thank you for that um comment. I also uh would like to make sure the board's aware that we do have a lot of STEM related um education in our design tech classes currently. Those are engineering and design courses where they're projectbased learning. They're building with their hands.
062There's 3D printers. Uh they're taking um software and creating physical hardware with the software all in those classes. Steam is um being discussed in that design tech um those design tech classrooms to expand the STEM inside of that curriculum. Um but we do agree that we would like to see more STEM, but it is pretty prevalent in the design tech classrooms. Are those in the high school level and not the middle school level? Those are the middle school middle design tech or high are I'm sorry, let me slow down and start over. Design tech classes are only at the middle school level. CTE is the high school level. Great. And advanced math. I just can't help but say advanced math. And Mr. Fern, you are correct that one of the challenges we have to expand
063that program is staffing and finding the appropriate staff along with the capital commitment to do that. Thank you. And I was only correct because you kind of told me. Yep. I mean, there's that, but I was going to give it to you. So, thank you. Let's give it to you, Mr. Seagler. You know, one of the thing, this is not a question, but it's just a comment. One of the things that I like to see with this is the expansion of expression, the expansion of the ability to in journalism and to write essays. As we all know, testing and testing formats have changed and a lot of times even though we think our children are prepared, they really have a very large void and whether it be oral arguments or written arguments, it it's expanding
064on the platform that we have in place. So, thank you. Thank you for the comment, Mr. Smith. Um to to that end with the design tech, my I had the luxury last fall of um visiting my daughter's design tech class at CHS and I and I asked the students, you know, some of the things that they were uh would love to see in their classes. So, some of these things, interestingly enough, some of the students actually requested that baking come back, uh which was a big thing because when I went through CHS, I had baking. It was home home economic. We all did. Yeah, we all did. And the other thing that came up was actually typing skills. So I I don't know if that was part of is that going to be part of
065the It definitely would be in the digital literacy course that's in there. Uh and and that was definitely discussed in the committee that typing skills um are something that all of our students could could do a lot better at. When I was in the high school level, it was the same thing. Um it was right there. He's doing it. It was a lot of this. And I very honestly tell the kids that were pushing back on the typing. I said, "How many times have you seen a hacker hack like this, right?" And uh they kind of got it after that. They're like, "Oh, yeah. I guess I would need to be typing a lot of stuff in, so it might be better if I could do it quickly and accurately." Okay. And then so coding
066might be a part of that as well in design tech. It's more I think a lot of things similar to my interest was in STEM. And in speaking to the teacher as well, the concern was to all the points is you know that she had a very large class and she would love to have done a lot of other things but because of safety issues and having your visual on 30 plus children uh students it's quite hard when you want to do certain things and you know I even talked about because I have a background in woodworking that that would be again it goes back to my old time I had wood shop too and kind of bringing back some of those ideas and so hopefully those discussions are continuing and that is what We'll
067have discussions on here as well. Just one final question. Um along with the STEM and you know the different courses, have you guys thought about um going back to because we used to um having some of performing arts classes um in the middle school? I know we have you know avenues in the high school. Um but have we talked about possibly going back to some of that kind of educational experience? So we we currently offer communication arts in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. And we have committees meeting throughout the spring to kind of revamp that and revise that. That is the hope. Again, that's staffing and hopefully with more kids in the three schools, right? The interest will be there. Fingers crossed. As a follow-up to that, as as part of our commitment in the
068next year is to make sure that we have a viable vocal music program along with our orchestra and our band programs. Thank you. Any other It was an easy crowd. I knew I was going to get out of there. Any other questions? Thank you guys very much. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to public commentary. Oh, Mrs. Kaplan, I jump into that. No, it's okay. I just wanted to go back uh and it is in your slides. I know that there was the question about design tech. You can see it's in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Just so that you guys can see that it's there. Um and that is the STEM focus Mr. Ruber was talking about. I also wanted to let you know because the feedback piece that was what I
069said I would come back to. So really quickly, um we will be uh doing a mid-year survey for staff, students, um families so that we can get feedback on how that first, you know, uh 20 weeks. So we'll have 10 weeks and 10 weeks we'll get through two cycles of sixth grade encore plus these new seventh and eighth grade. We'll get through a semester of those. We'll get some feedback. We'll do it again at the end of the year. And then moving into year two, we'll do the same thing. We'll be looking at mid-year surveys, end of year surveys, and taking that data, reporting on it. Um, obviously, we'll be sharing all of that with you so that you can see the feedback from from everyone. And if there are adjustments, tweaks, and things, we'll
070be taking those things into account with the with the feedback uh that we're getting from everybody. And as Mr. Weaver said, continuing to move down that uh how do we expand some additional STEM opportunities for our students. So, thank you. I just wanted to make sure I wrapped it up. No, we appreciate it. Thank you. Now, we're going to move on to public commentary. Um, well, thank you. Thank you for wanting to come and speak with us tonight. Um, this is your opportunity to address the board. Um, you have three minutes to address the board. Mr. Seagler will give you a wrap-up at about 30 seconds. Um, so as you're getting close, just wrap up your your comments. Um, and please keep it civil, please. is no personal attacks. And with that being said that
071we are going to start with Connor Bond. Good evening everyone. My name is Connor Bond. I am a graduate of Wald Lake Northern class of 2020 and it's a pleasure to be speaking with you all tonight. It's been a very strange few months as a graduate of the Wald Lake School District, as someone who learned to love history through your social studies programs, to learn to love to read through English and literature classes, and to now be going into the library world myself, particularly. It's a strange time as we contemplate the series of rapidfire executive orders that have been fired off on the federal level that under the guise of dismantling ideological infiltration into our national historical education are actively working to impede and censor attempts to expand our historical education and what that can
072be. I realize that you are not the federal government, at least the last time I checked the address here, but given the increased pressure on academic institutions across this country and the already it there have been baby steps to expand history and to go deeper into the more complicated roots of our national and global heritage and classes. I don't mean to repeat myself, but as much as I loved my AP US and AP World History courses in high school, I still remember having to teach myself the 20th century when the time came around and still not really knowing much after Nixon in the American history department. My point is, as funding gets shaky, you got to stand up for your kids' ability to learn about the world that they're going to inherit. You also got
073to stand up for your kids as diversity initiatives get attacked and history and the present merge together into one big mess that can be redacted and blotted away at will. I guess what I'm saying here is be compassionate with your students. Do what you can to encourage new and exciting educational opportunities into the stranger and just less explored corners of history. It's what we're all standing to inherit. And if we just move in the direction of reinforcing a heavily whitewashed narrative, we're never going to really get anywhere communally, educationally, culturally, and ignorance will take hold. Thank you very much for your time and have a nice evening. Thank you, Ron Lipet. Thank you, Madam President. Ron Lipid, Commerce Township. My wife, Denise, and I have three daughters, including our youngest, who is a junior at
074Wildlake Northern. I have spent more than 30 years in the workforce solutions and staffing space and have had the privilege to engage Fortune 500 organizations all the way down to mom and pop shops. And during this time, one universal truth has shined through again and again. And that is this. Organizations who embrace diversity perform better than those who do not. It's not a woke leftist political conclusion. Rather, it's a data reinforced fact which top organizations have recognized as a competitive advantage. And so I watched with sadness as my alma mater, the University of Michigan, announced the shuttering of its DEI offices this past week. And while I understand the immense pressure public university universities are under to protect their federal funding, I am sad for the talent loss this decision will no doubt create for
075the community. It will have real impact uh on my university. Similarly, superintendent and school boards all over Michigan are tasked with staffing critical public school roles with superior candidates. Uh just like in corporate America, choosing among diverse slates of talent remain the best practice. And to that end, uh McKenzie released a recent study indicating organizations with a high ethnic diversity were 39% more likely to outperform those without. So, as we seek to strengthen our performance against state benchmarks, diverse slates of talent give our schools extraordinary advantages. Yes, it's true that no system is perfect. Uh there are challenges occasionally and bad hires do happen. Uh but overall, if we expect to move the needle on math and reading, we will need to access talent through the advantages of inclusive policies. I urge our board to
076continue to follow such policies. The data doesn't lie. Secondly, kudos uh to all the amazing students uh recognized at this week's PTA reflections celebration. It is impossible to attend this event without coming away inspired uh and hopeful for our future. It goes without saying uh we have some incredible talent in our community. Uh and lastly, Mrs. Craftton, I'm sorry if I'm stealing any of your thunder here. Uh, I hope to see you all this weekend as Wall Lake Western presents Clue tomorrow through Sunday. Tickets are still available. Uh, and at Wald Lake Central, April 11th through the 13th for She Loves Me. Uh, as I hope all of you already know, if you haven't seen a Wald Lake Schools production, you are missing out. Thank you. Thank you, Tim Smiller. Good evening. Tim Saw Miller,
077Commerce Township, using pronouns he, him, and his. The following is adapted from journalist Jonathan V. Last. I don't know about you, but I'm angry about the bullying of trans people. I don't know about you, but would you like to make the case that trans women should be excluded from women's sports at elite levels under certain circumstances? Fine, we can talk about that. We can go through it case by case and make prudent judgments so long as we all understand upfront that every single one of these examples is an edge case. Is it okay for a 12-year-old sis girl to play in a little league baseball team that's otherwise all boys? Sure. Happens all the time. No one cares. Is it a good idea for a transw woman to fight MMA? Probably not. That crosses the
078boundary of an acceptable level of danger. Literally, every other transerson in sports question falls somewhere between these two polls. These cases are rare enough that we can figure these things out and make reasonable accommodations that everybody that keeps everyone happy and preserves everyone's dignity. It's just sports. This isn't life and death. Sports don't count for anything unless you reach the level where money's on the line. Until then, the only thing going on in sports is character development. In the unlikely event that a transperson is trying to play in your recreational sport, that's an opportunity for character building for everyone. It's a chance to learn wisdom, courage, compassion, honor, empathy, and charity. Is it a problem if trans women started taking over division one college scholarships? Yes, probably so. Well, guess what? That hasn't happened. Turns
079out the edge cases we saw many years ago are the same edge cases we see today. There has been no trans takeover. So, unless and until that happens or it starts happening on professional teams, can we stop obsessing about the transports problem? Here's what is happening. About 15,000 trans people who volunteered to serve their country and are doing so honorably are in the process of being kicked out of the military. Suicide rates and suicidal thoughts amongst both trans children and adults is heartbreakingly high. Cases of transports conflicts are so rare rare that you can probably name all three of them. Whereas cases of trans folks, especially kids, being bullied are so common they don't even register. Finding your place in the world is hard. 30 seconds. even under the best circumstances. If you're different in
080any way, if you're black or autistic or your parents split up, if you're dyslexic or you have a sibling with special needs, or you're just kind of quirky, growing up is even harder. The universe is indifferent. No one cares about your struggles. Everyone has problems of their own. So, why are some people determined to make the lives of trans kids even harder? Thank you. Thank you, Christine Titus. Good evening. I'm Christine Titus. I'm proud instructional specialist at Hickory Woods Elementary. Um, we've already heard about how Mrs. Evola um gave back her donation from FFE or her winnings from FFE back to the community. I also wanted to give a quick shout out to Mrs. Vanluen who donated a book for every student at Wixom Elementary as part of their book fair which touches my reader's
081heart. So I just wanted to make that aware. But now that me March is reading month has concluded I wanted to share something really cool that our building did at Hickory Woods and that we undertook this year. I know our building is not the only one to create meaningful literacy and literature opportunities during March's reading month, but we at Hickory Woods undertook a one book, one school initiative. Back in the fall, we chose to read The Wild Robot as an entire building by Peter Brown. We offered an opportunity to families to purchase the book and read along with our students. In addition, most of our staff members also recorded chapters of the book for an audio experience and made these recordings available to families for shared reading or in case their students missed some in-class
082reading that was going on. Our culminating celebration of this initiative was an all school field trip the Friday before break. And I do mean all school, including our ASD and SXI classrooms to Imagine theaters to watch the movie together. Imagine also provided us with a sensory theater for students that might be overwhelmed for whatever reason. This event was students, staff, and parent volunteers. I will tell you that you would have been proud of our students that day. There was laughter, tears, and all the emotions that this story encompasses. If you haven't read it, I strongly encourage you um to read this story of creativity, environments, and habitats, and above all kindness. all lessons we can learn and lead from no matter our stage of life. Um, and then I just and as as an aside,
083I'd like to like to offer my support for an item that's on the agenda tonight. Sorry, Mrs. Cohensky, I'm stomping on your toes again. Um, uh, for the phonics materials decodable support purchase that's on the agenda. We've been using these in our buildings at the elementary level for about a year and a half to two years now. They've been pivotal and transformational in our foundational literacy skills and supported also by the new I think I'm getting this right PA 146 dyslexia law formerly known as the read bygrade three law and I've been been doing some um professional learning on that um the past couple weeks that's been provided by the Michigan Department of Education uh with their dyslexia webinars. I know that this is coming from grant funds, but I want you to know the
084importance of this purchase for our elementary buildings. So, I hope that you'll support that initiative. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to move into administrative con commentary. Dr. Lans. Thank you, Madam President. We'll start with Mr. Hamco. Thank you, Dr. Lans. Uh last month I had the opportunity to attend unified sports basketball game Wald Lake Western vers. It was nice to go back to Western and spend time with some students and staff and see the the amazing talent and contributions that our students bring to the table um every day. So it was great times. Thank you. Thank you, sir. We'll jump across the table. Mr. Scaling. Thank you, Dr. L. Just like to highlight a few of our uh winter athletic team accomplishments from this past season. As Mr. Mr. Hampton mentioned our unified basketball
085teams uh did fantastic and culminating in some activities where they were playing at the um Little Caesars Arena and the and each game at the uh the high schools over the the past couple weeks. Uh our Wald Lake Western cheer made another successful trip to states finishing fourth that after being uh crowned district champions and finishing third at regionals. Wald Lake Northern boys bowling were regional champs. WL Lake Northern girls were runners up at regionals and both teams qualified for the state meet. Um, and our WL Lake Central boys basketball uh won the LBC championship for the second year in a row. Our Wald Lake United Wrestling was Lakes Valley Conference Champion and Wald Lake Western Cheer was also Lake Lakes Valley Conference Champions. Congratulations to them and good luck to our spring coaches and
086athletes. Thank you, sir. Jumping back over, Mrs. OM. Thank you, Dr. Lans. Um, in regards to the happenings in the pupil accounting area, you'd think you'd be done after the February account, but of course not. They can't even take a breath and now they're on to the auditing of the pupil count. So, God bless those ladies in the buildings as well as the individuals in the in the student pupil accounting area. We'll have four of our buildings audited, which again is a very typical type of thing. So, Oakley Park, Gesler, Walnut Creek, and the ESC ECC will be part of that audit process. And then budget season is upon us wrapping up the 24 25 year 25 26 year to come and still trying to work on some details from the state which are a
087little bit light now but we're hopeful that that will continue on and we'll have some additional information to base our 2526 budget on and then thank to the board in terms of approving the bond issuance that we're working forward on that. Our most recent activities are gathering, reviewing the information that's in the preliminary official statement that goes out to the investors. And in addition to that, we had our Moody's rating call which they'll look at our information and they provide our rating for the bonds next week. So that's all that. Thank you, Mrs. O. We'll keep it on the same side. Miss Mir, thank you Dr. Lines. Just want to highlight in special services, this is a busy time of the year because it's our change of level process time. And so we have all
088of our students that are moving those developmental educational milestones through the system. And our staff are working diligently with partnering with parents to ensure that as students as they metriculate through the system, whether it's moving from early on to preschool to kindergarten transition to middle school, high school, and also ATP, that we're partnering and meeting with families about those transitional activities and planning what the next step is at the next level. And so lots of meetings, lots of excitement, lots of conversations about doing what's best and giving students what they need at the next level of their educational trajectory. And then also I want to highlight we're back to unified sports again. Um this Saturday at Gistler Middle School will be our second session of the middle school unified basketball camp. Um the first session
089we had on March 15th, we had a wonderful time with about 45 student athletes and peers coming out to join in middle school um unified basketball. We're doing it again this Saturday um from 9 to 10:30 a.m. So we're looking forward to that time where we have our athletes and peers um enjoying basketball drills and skills. Thanks. Thank you very much, Mrs. Kwinsky. Thank you. I want to start out by thanking Dr. lens for not surprising me uh with being the first to go this time. So, um I appreciate being last on the list. Thank you. Uh uh two things that I wanted to share tonight. Um as always, I'm super busy. Lots of things going on, but I loved March's reading month activities. Uh as many of you know, my former life, 25 years
090spent at the elementary level, so it's always great to get invitations to come back. Uh I want to thank Mrs. Raymond's junior kindergarten class, uh Mrs. Labot's first grade class at Wald Lake L and then Mrs. Hankkey's fourth grade class over at Lon Lake. All of which invited me to come and be a me mystery reader. And I think the most heartbreaking part of it for me was that none of them know who I am, right? I'm for 25 years I was somebody, you know, and what I mean by that is, you know, families and kids were like, "Oh, it's Mrs. Gohansky." And so, you know, you do the little guest reader knock and you walk in and all these kids are like, "Who is that?" So, little little deflating, but you know, me with
091my uh with my my mad reading aloud skills, I was able to uh enthral them with the story of Buzzy the Bumblebee, who, you know, just didn't think he was able to fly after finding out that physics said that he just, you know, doesn't work for bumblebees. Their wings are too small. So, you know, finding courage to to stick with it and and um you know, be all be all he can be. So, uh, loved the opportunity and it really gave me a nice warm heart and by the end the kids I got hugs. So, that was good. That was good. I felt like somebody. Uh, one of the other things I want to do is just to um thank all of our administrators, all of our test coordinators out in the buildings, all of
092our um uh really just staff who are our IT department staff that are just really dedicated to getting ready for spring assessment season. So, we know that that's right around the corner. Uh we've got uh the MSTEP tests uh the my access tests for certain students for which MSTEP is not appropriate. But students in grades 3 through 11 are going to be entering into that uh that that wonderful season of state assessment uh which we're guided and uh obligated to do based on state and federal law. So uh there's a part of me that wishes that we could say we didn't have to do these things. We do have to do these things and it's really important I think too. It's a piece of the overall information about how we are doing when it comes
093to meeting standards. Uh and it's a piece of the puzzle and I think without that vital piece of the puzzle, it's just an incomplete picture for us. So I do want to thank our administrators, our test coordinators, staff, IT for everybody really rallying and getting our our schedules put together. And I know it's going to be a busy season, but we're really compassionate when it comes to um making sure that students are safe and comfortable and not pressured and um uh you know, not not feeling anxious about this. We we really do a a great job with that and and helping our students to feel feel like they're doing their best. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Khansky. I have a few items for tonight. Uh first for what I'd like to acknowledge is from the
094Michigan Association School Boards is pleased to acknowledge the accomplishment of board members for their achievement in 2024. We have three board members being acknowledged. Our very own Mrs. Stephanie Kaplan, level three award, award of distinction. Also Mark Seagler, level three award of distinction. And Mrs. Leven couldn't be here tonight, but she's also being acknowledged for level two award of merit. So congratulations on the hard work and efforts you put in for that. I I often receive emails from the community asking what is happening at the federal level. Is that really affecting us at the local level and I I spoke to that last month to to some extent. I would like to share though and this isn't a positive outcome. So it I'm just praising you for that is that one of the grants that
095was canceled at the federal level that was then canceled at the state level provided us with 10 cents a meal per meal to buy locally produced and grown pro produce fruit whatever whatever would fit into the lunch for that day. So although it may not actually be a cost increase to us because we can just buy at a greater bulk outside of the state of Michigan, certainly it it's a sad day that we couldn't help support our local farmers and the families that depend on us. And it it I had the opportunity to serve breakfast at Keith a few weeks ago and one of the cool things they were doing is they had a picture of the state of Michigan and on there they noted where the apples were coming from and it was I
096believe just outside of Moskegan is where the apples were coming from. So now that that might not be a possibility. So that's just uh me letting the community know that there are impacts locally from what is happening federally. On a extremely positive note and something that's very dear to my heart as a former marketing teacher and DECA adviser, we have six students representing all three of our Wald Lake high schools heading to Orlando, Florida to compete at the DECA International Career Development Conference later this month in April. I had the opportunity, I think I went a total of eight times with students that I was in charge of. And it's an experience that the students will never be able to replicate anywhere else. And for every anyone that volunteered to be a judge locally or
097a judge at the state level, thank you for giving you your time because without judges, our students can't participate in this. And I I actually I had a student from let's see, this would be 28 years ago, contacted me when they saw that I became superintendent and referenced something that they did at DECA and how that has helped them in the job that they have now. So this is how we go to career and technical education and how it impacts you today and helps prepare you for the future for tomorrow. So thank you to our staff, thank you to our parents, and thank you to the students for taking the risk and I hope that they win nationals. That would be fantastic. Maplin, thank you. We're going to move into board commentary. We're going to
098start with Mrs. West. Thank you, Mrs. Kaplan. um wanted to also kind of go on Mrs. Quanzy's back there as far as March reading month. I had an opportunity to go to a couple schools and read to some classrooms and it was just phenomenal. The kids um they just welcome you with open arms and I did get hugs at the beginning but I was in the ECC so you know that was easy. Um, but that was it was I actually had a tour of the ECC while I was there and it's just an amazing building and I love their little library they have in fact they can um Skype in scientists and um to the classrooms and I thought that was really cool. So that was my little take on that. I um the educator
099of me really uh enjoyed that part. And then um I just want to uh show my appreciation to FF Mrs. um Gerwin for her just showing the um video of all the grants they provided for the teachers in the district and um just the opportunities they provide for them because honestly a lot of teachers just go out of their own pockets and it doesn't go very far. So by providing these grants, it really helps out. It helps our students um that much more and for Leia as well um giving kids these at risk kids opportunities that they might not otherwise have. So thank you to them. Thank you, Mrs. Fernandez. Nothing new for tonight. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Seagler. Well, let's see. FF check. Reflection reflections check. Uh the plays check. So last
100night I had the pleasure of uh going to Oakland Schools Tech Center out in Clarkston. Uh and we are very blessed to have a tech center right here in Walt Lake and people don't really appreciate or don't really understand how much is involved or how much is offered to the students that are involved. You know, you look at the southeast center here. We've got auto tech, collision repair, computer programming, construction, criminal justice, culinary, cyber security, electronic tech, robotics, megatronics or mechatronics, marketing, graphic design and design communication, health sciences, and welding. And it offers the students an opportunity to look at developing themselves for a profession for for learning something above and beyond what we can uh offer them in our in our classrooms. And I was taken back by a young man that came back
101to talk to us who had graduated uh approximately two years ago. and he is working as a linesman for DTE. Now, in order to get this position, he had to test out and end up in the top 10 throughout the state. Then he had to test out and go to the top five in the state. And then he had to do all the uh skills testing and you know, some might sound crazy, but the pole climbing and everything else. and he broke a record that had been in existence for over 20 years. And we were just, you know, it was just a friendly discussion and he said, "Yeah, it wasn't a bad it wasn't a bad first year because I made between 180 and $200,000." And we sat there and we looked at him and
102he I you know, we said, "Where are you going from here?" He says, "Well, I'm heading up north after I this meeting tonight where I probably will work for the next 30 to 45 days straight, 12 to 14 hours a day. And I'll he said, "If things grow good this year and the storms keep on going, I'll be somewhere between 275 and $300,000." And I looked at him and I said, "Glad I'm not young anymore because I don't know that I could do it." But he he did. And then you know you see the students that were in the co culinary skills in the kitchen and they're talking to you while they're taking all the vegetables and fruit and everything else and cutting it up never looking at their knife because literally their skill level
103is at that point and these are 17 18 19 year old uh children. So, we were talking and one of them said, "Yes, you know, I'm I'm very fortunate. I started this in my junior year and my 13th year is going to be free because I'll be at OC and I will be able to graduate with my associates at no cost to me." Again, amazing opportunities. Uh, and one of the things I looked at as I handed all of my colleagues the book from last night from the Career Tech Education by numbers, 80% of high school students taking both CTE and college prep courses meet college and career readiness goals versus 63% who are college and career ready through college prep courses alone. 54 54% of jobs in Michigan require skills training, more education than
104high school, but less than a four-year degree. The average high school graduation rate for students concentrating in CTE CTE programs is 95.8% compared to the overall gradu graduation rate in the mid 80s. uh almost one-third of the CTE students have the opportunity to earn college credit as we discussed and or industry certifications and and and this goes on and on you know it deals with STEM it deals with everything that we are trying to advocate within our classrooms you know when you when Mr. Smith talked about cooking classes and I remember shop classes and un you know unfortunately some of the things that we have eliminated or the auto shop that we used to have over at Western. It's really a value to our students. It's a value to our community and it's something that
105I you know I know we talk to you know we talk to students about it. They actually send out this brochure to the students when they're in eighth grade to h to get a little bit of uh thoughtprovoking going and it's something that I really wish more students would have the ability to take advantage of because it is limited in class sizes. But, uh, you know, it's a great opportunity and I know that if you if you've never had a lunch or a meal over at, uh, the center here down the street, it's well worth the trip. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Craftton. I'll be very brief. Um, just a reminder to families that next week at the high school is a very strange schedule because of SAT testing. So, pay attention to your emails
106from your principal about what day and time your kids have to be on time for school and what days you have your delayed starts. Also, be gentle with your kids. It's a high pressure week. And um be patient and supportive. Maybe give them a a healthy breakfast the day of their test. That's it for now. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Thank you. Uh, I want to thank uh Dublin principal Patty Carbon for teaching our students uh how to Irish dance on St. Patrick's Day. Uh, it was wonderful to see all the students trying to learn to Irish dance out there in the front of the school. And I I do believe uh that we we selected a wonderful uh principal to lead us forward and she is really in uh engrossing herself into the district and
107bringing her Irish roots to to the school which is apppropo. Uh, additionally she did bring some uh four Dublin alumni from Northern Orchestra to play Irish music. So, it was a wonderful time. Uh, thank you to everyone who participated in March reading month throughout the district. Uh, remember to continue nurturing that love of reading even after March ends. Uh, read for pleasure, intrigue, understanding, knowledge, growth, and acceptance. Uh, I also want to thank the district for a fantastic inclusion week in March. Uh, it was inspiring to see everyone come together in support of diversity and inclusion across our schools. I hope everyone enjoyed a restful spring break and is ready to tackle the opportunities and challenges over the next few months as we know with testing and all the other things that come with the
108next few months. Uh congratulations to the archery club for a successful season. Uh I got the privilege to attend the banquet uh with my son and it was amazing to see the turnout of students uh parents, teachers and coaches. Uh it's truly encouraging to witness the growth of this program that's going on from elementary to middle school to high school. Uh lastly, I want to give a shout out to the incredible incredible work displayed by students during the reflection celebration uh event this week. Uh to me, it truly highlighted the talent among our students and their ability to accept imperfections, which is what the theme was, reminding us, the adults, uh that we can learn from them and that we can we need to listen to them more attentively. I am so proud that we
109provide these opportunities for our talented students and thank you to the PTSA and the volunteers, many many volunteers who made uh this event possible. Uh now bear with me probably for quite a few minutes. Uh my uh my English teachers probably will be happy about this. Mrs. Line, Mr. Dart, everyone out there uh for my essay. This is my my essay time. So I appreciate the the time. Uh, I took the first few months to understand the lay of the land here on the board before putting myself out there. Uh, but now I feel I need to speak up. I will always promise to be who I am. Uh, humble, honest, open, transparent, loyal, and driven by morals of high integrity. If you have questions, feel free to ask me. I am a human being
110and I have faced signific significant challenges in my government career outside of this position. The vitriolic things that have been said to me both online and in person in my roles as city manager and city clerk, you can only imagine and even worrying about the safety and welfare of my myself and my family are things that no one should ever have to endure. I can handle criticism and misinformation spread about me. However, what I cannot accept is the false narrative suggesting that I do not care. Please remember our children are watching and listening. We must be mindful of this in all that we do. I know I am and potentially my kids are listening right now, too. Um, since the last board meeting in March, I've read numerous follow-ups on social media, and I would
111like to take a few minutes to share my observations and insights. Uh, first I want to begin my official commentary this evening with a quote by, uh, Shakespeare from a play, As You Like It. Uh, the fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. This quote highlights the importance of humility and self-awareness as essential components of wisdom. A wise person does not hesitate to admit ignorance and continually seeks knowledge and understanding throughout life. Recognizing that there is always more to learn and that no one knows nearly everything is a true hallmark of wisdom. So, let me break this down further into my interpretation and implementation. You know, I strive to grow and evolve consistently, aiming to find that sweet spot in life where I can reflect on
112my purpose, enhance my self-awareness, and gain knowledge. I can personally attest to this. I spent a total of 12 years in college. And while I did not end up becoming a doctor like I think maybe I thought I was going to be someday, I have several degrees to show for it and maybe even more ahead. Who knows what? Life is short. Nonetheless, I acknowledge that finding purpose can sometimes feel very overwhelming. But I have found that these three questions drawn from therapeutic notes help to clarify things in a meaningful way to me and maybe to many others. There are who? Who am I? What do I stand for? and what do I want to make better in the world? So the sweet spot refers to the area where our various questions overlap in a ven
113diagram. For those of us who are fans of this concept, I am very much I love ven diagrams. It's the intersection of who you are, what you value, and the impact you want to make. It isn't about having all the answers right away. Rather, it's about starting a conversation with yourself and then engaging others to build a network of interconnectedness. All of us here and others that have run at some point, I'm sure, found reasons to run for a school board position or anything else. We continue to advocate for our district and for the incredible students and staff who define it. Growth can be challenging and filled with uncertainty, and learning new systems and processes can be difficult, even for seasoned board members or someone who's stepping back in the role like I am. Each
114month we come together for these meetings after navigating our busy lives and engaging with our diverse backgrounds that aid in our decision-making. And then we confer converge here to champion public education. We model our behaviors and decisions based on what we believe is best. Fully aware that we might not agree on many issues that come before us. Each of us has a unique perspective shaped by our experiences. We may have particular interests in areas such as performing arts, athletics, academics, special needs, food security, transportation, class sizes, underserved communities, test scores, social emotional needs, and student safety. These interests often drive our decisions and the topics we want to address to make a positive impact. At times, I find myself contemplating how one decision can lead to cascading effects in other areas, which can be quite
115stressful. So, how should we address this interconnected is issues? Everything is linked and we must remember that pulling on one string can unravel the entire system. Much like tugging on that thread of sweater of your sweater that can result in a tangled ball of yarn. The reality is that most of us lack clear instructions for fixing what we must might unravel. Yet, we still strive to do our best with the resources we have and might even try to just rewrite the instructions. At times we might struggle to see the bigger picture. A question or concern raised during our discussions whether from board agendas, public comments or community emails canite ignite a more extensive discussion. However, sometimes we fixate on a specific question that contradicts our beliefs leading to an us versus them mentality instead of
116fostering curiosity and a desire for understanding. This can create tension within the community and among board members. While we might approach issues from different angles, it is essential that we collaborate effectively, especially considering the responsibilities we have in the two years that lie ahead. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard. While it's okay to disagree, we don't need to be disagreeable. When addressing specific issues, I believe we can find common ground, decency, and areas of compromise. If we struggle to do this in today's world, we face a larger problem that we need to address. Without this effort, we cannot fulfill our responsibilities to every child every day. As some of you know, some of you might not, but the role of the board of education is not to run the schools, but to see
117that they are run well. The MASB states that our three main roles as a board member are as follows. The board governs the district's work at the highest level by establishing policies and overseeing the superintendent's performance. Two, the board adopts and enforces all necessary rules for the district's management and governance. However, we can delegate those rules uh through the superintendent through board policies. And three, the board approves the district's budget. What the board does not do is manage day-to-day operations. The board does not oversee district communications to parents or students. And finally, no single board member has any power outside of a legally called schoolboard meeting. During such meetings such as this, the school board sits in trust for the entire community. So, what does this all mean in the context of my board commentary
118today? in this elaborate essay to give the public the behind the curtains view if so to speak on a board bulletin which is compiled to us each week by the superintendent there were questions asked after the last meeting in March and each week they're asked regarding various topics the ones in particular in that one were about Wixom survey athletics staff member baseball fields board meeting community follow-up and energy audit solar panels and Wixom update uh full transparency to all of you out there watching and in person. Uh I was the one who asked about the energy audit solar panels. Uh that was my specific question subject and here is my exact question which was not publicly shared in the entire context. Dr. Lans I was wondering if during our bond discussions and other energy audits
119if we did one we had discussions about solar panels at our buildings and if a costbenefit analysis was completed if we were to add them to our buildings or land. I know we are moving to LED lighting, but are we retrofitting to motion sensor lights and other energy savings measures? I've read about other districts throughout the nation looking at measures and installing them showing a true energy savings or is this a non-starter? Just curious. I tried to review the bond scope of work and didn't see it explicitly stated. So, in my tenure since I've been back on the board, I've asked Dr. Lans and V about various topics including count day, our criteria for deciding on snow days. Uh, I've inquired about forms and structures, STEM and STEAM opportunities, social worker and mental health matters,
120the IB program, sports surveys, special services, 504s, IEPs, executive orders, district culture, reach, magnet, budgeting, all kinds of things. School of choice, GIS for closure, everything that you can think of that has come up in my head. So, now let's turn the focus on transparency and accountability from the perspective of a school board member. I am disappointed that a public statement was made claiming transparency while omitting crucial facts. The mention of solar panels was only part of my ongoing research for potential cost savings as it was just the tip of the iceberg of ideas. It's a call out to my daughter. She said I should say that in my day job and with two decades of experience in local government, I've been responsible for assessing processes, evaluating best practices, writing policies and procedures, and considering
121sustainability in various scenarios. I manage multi-million dollar budgets and conduct needs assessments for issues that could impact finances, knowing that one decision can influence another budget item. Currently I work for the road commission and so there's very many a lot of decisions that go on with that as you know as you're driving on the roads. I've often heard others suggest that Dr. Lans should better utilize our professional experiences. And given the diverse experience on this board encompassing HR, education, performing arts, band, sports, social work, advocacy, project management, and many more. I find it perplexing that one member would be publicly criticized for simply asking a question by using their experience as a catalyst for understanding. Last I knew in inquiries are allowed from elected board members. I have no issue explaining to the community why
122I oppose this question. It stem from my evaluation of the district following the brief bond committee update during the last meeting after which I didn't hear much about it. This does not mean I am indifferent to other issues. One can hold multiple concerns simultaneously. We passed a substantial bond proposal and we should investigate all possible options to help reduce expenses for funding and other initiatives. This was the initial motivation behind my question, especially after hearing board members in the community express interest increasing pay for paras and teachers, supporting special services, or boosting our budgets for areas like performing arts, security, or even ban new uniforms. I view these all as future opportunities and that's this is my perspective. Additionally, we could consider using solar panels as a technology learning tool for students, allowing them to
123learn about renewable energy while in our buildings through our STEM and science courses. On a personal note, I would like to address the public situation involving a fellow board member who I believe uses divisive language on her school board Facebook account. While Mrs. Leven explicitly states that these views are her own on her own account, I do question the decorum and higher standards expected for a board member in such statements. Though she did not specifically mention me or anyone else, she did direct instigative language towards one lone board member for stating the board bulletin had only one topic of questions. Further claiming to be the only one concerned about Wixom or any other topics, she inadvertently cast a negative light on all of us, all the other six board members. As an elected official, I'm
124aware that my image is often distorted on political rhetoric pages and in discussions that can honestly walk the edge of liable sometimes. That's part of the job. I understand that some of you may or may not know, but it's worth noting that Mrs. Leven actively campaigned against sitting board members, showing up at early voting centers to advocate to unseat them, fundraising against them, and even filing an unfounded campaign finance violation with Oakland County and the state of Michigan, likely aimed at causing chaos against myself and my fellow Slate members. I have chosen to remain cordial and professional. I don't know her rationale for doing such things, and that's her prerogative. It is a free country, but it is enlightening. So my call to action is to encourage everyone to share the truth and avoid spreading
125misinformation or halftruths that only serve to create specific echo chamber. Our role as elected members is to ask questions and seek understanding no matter how innocuous or relevant they may seem. I welcome all discussions and do not judge any questions posed. Since the election, I've had numerous phone conversations with Dr. Lans, my assigned mentor, Mr. Seagler, and other board members. I've engaged in discussions following board meetings and exchanged emails that various questions have arisen. I will continue to ask a wide range of questions. Just because my inquiries don't focus on a single issue doesn't mean I don't care to the community at large. My decisions are not made lightly. I've been entrusted to do what is right for the entire district and its future. I rely on subject matter experts and recognize that certain time
126timelines and processes must be adhered to, even if we may not always like them. Yes, I have concerns about moving forward and I will ensure that actions are followed up on. I am also committed to evolving and growing as more information is given to me. I think deeply about the future of education in our country, reflecting how the decisions we make impact our students and staff here and around the nation. I care about the well-being and mental health of my children and all the children in this community. I consider whether they are getting enough food, experiencing bullying, feeling lost or unchallenged, and whether they feel supported and seen for who they are. I also contemplate the effects of technology and social media, and I strive to understand diversity, equity, and inclusion in their true forms,
127where everyone belongs and matters. So, to reintroduce myself to the public once again, I am a proud graduate of the Wald School District. I would say from head start all the way through high school. My journey began at Decker Elementary which is now Mary Ellen Guest followed by Dublin Elementary then Clifford Smart and finally Waldike Central. You know growing up in the district during the 80s and 90s uh really shaped who I am today. I had the privilege of learning from engaging, challenging and caring teachers who encouraged me to overcome the personal barriers I faced especially after losing my father just before starting middle school. They prepared me for my future, whether they or even I realized it at the time. I took classes, created artwork, and participated in plays and talent shows that were
128both eye-opening and impactful, taught and led by some of the best educators in the state. I never would have imagined that a quiet, introspective musician, artist, creative writer, PPI member, and former president of the German club would one day be here advocating for a district. I care deeply about this community, which is why I chose to stay here to raise my family and my children. I could have moved away anywhere in Oakland County through many of my jobs, but I decided to remain in this district. Every day, I'm grateful to see my kids progress through the schools they attend in Dublin CHS and soon to be Wald Lake Northern in a few years. And when I hear students, parents, and educators express their concerns, no matter the issue, I listen closely and value their input,
129which often leads to very meaningful conversations. You know, many of you may not agree with my votes, opinions, or questions, but I believe everyone is entitled to express their views, including myself. I am committed to thorough research before making any decision, and I strive to contribute positively to our district's future rather than be a distraction. We will face many challenges and changes ahead, and collaboration will be essential. However, it becomes nearly impossible to work together when individuals publicly create divisions for social media attention. So to bring it all back thesis statement now returning to my earlier quote from Shakespeare. I hope we can engage in challenging conversations moving forward and approach our discussions with wisdom. I acknowledge that I do not have all the answers but is our charge to evaluate our processes and options
130for cost savings while being responsible stewards of taxpayer money. Our focus should always remain aligned with our mission to develop the best educational system in America, ensuring that all students become caring, responsible, and knowledgeable citizens. At the same time, we need to trust our administration is providing the necessary information to support our goals. It is crucial to move away from a divisive culture. So, the next time you see a statement claiming to be the truth from a board member or any other community member on an official page or unofficial page out there, just consider for once that maybe they're not sharing the full story. Remember, facts still matter. Finally, every opportunity for communication can either create clarity or confusion. I prefer to focus on clarity and approach life with curiosity, thoughtfulness, and inquisitiveness. always remembering
131the wisdom and the saying that the wise person knows themselves to be a fool. So, thank you for allowing me this time to express my essay here. And also, I can't wait to see Clue this weekend, too. Thank you. Okay. Well, I don't know how to follow that other than um I was just going to talk about the um reflections and we've already heard about that. It was an amazing event. Our kids are fantastic and talented and I'm honored to be able to be part of witnessing what our kids can do. And then the plays, we all know um spring sports, we're all getting going. And that's all I'm going to add for tonight's uh commentary. So, we're going to move on to the consent agenda. We have the approval of the minutes proposed March
1326th regular meeting personnel recommendations hires and resignations financial reports um February 2025 dispersements in amount of 18,575,32 balance sheet and statement of revenues and expend expenditures unudited and investment schedule and we have the head start director's report. Mr. Mr. Seagler. I move that the board of education approve the consent agenda as presented. Support. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. 6. We're going to move on to purchases over 50,000. Dr. Lans. Thank you very much. And Mrs. Gry, I'll turn you over turn it over to you for letter A. All right. Letter A is our everyday mathematics uh consumable workbooks that are used in our K5 classrooms. So, currently our kindergarten through fifth graders use the board approved 2020 everyday mathematics curriculum resources. The three-year renewal for the consumable materials expires this year and
133requires us to renew it. The costs outlined do include the consumable resources for students over the next three years and online access to those resources for teachers and for students. The cost of these elementary curricular re uh materials total $369,249.50 and includes all the teacher and student materials, online access, and the shipping. The cost works out to roughly $22 per student over the course of three years and is paid through the general fund. Mrs. Kaplan. I move that the board of education approve the renewal and purchase of everyday mathematics consumable resources totaling $369,249.50 from the general fund discussion. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries 42. Miss Gray on to letter B please. Thank you. Under letter B, we have our phonics reading materials uh from the 35J literacy grant from the state. So,
134this proposed book purchase will support our structured phonics literacy instruction as outlined in the Michigan Department of Ed 35J literacy grant. The books will be utilized by classroom teachers to provide texts for both large and small groupoup instruction uh purposes and the selected resources are designed to support phonics and decoding instruction, align with grade level content standards and enhance overall reading instruction. Teachers have requested additional copies of these resources to ensure direct access within their classrooms. Right now they are sharing sets of these uh across our buildings and that's become a bit of a burden with trying to access them and and needing certain ones. The materials will be used with all students but most specifically we will be using them with students who have reading plans as outlined by the state in our third
135grade reading legislation. This purchase totals $162,36163 and will be made with grant dollars, like I said, from the 35J literacy grant through the general fund. I would like to add that the 35J literacy grant is a timebound grant with a number of restrictions around it. Uh can only be used for by purchasing materials and things like that and certain trainings um not for salaries or other offsets. Uh, and this one-time grant funding must be spent by September of 2025. And I do recognize that there's some questions that may come up about the timeline with regard to the new dyslexia laws. So, just wanted to state that, but uh, but this purchase will be going through the 35J literacy grant through the general fund. Mr. Smith, Mr. happen. I move that the board of education approve
136the purchase of phonx reading materials totaling $162,36163 and funded by the 35J literacy grant as presented. Support discussion. Mrs. West, I have a few questions. Um, so being that we do have the changes coming um in June, do we know if this aligns with those curriculums that they have suggested? And if not, um, are is there a way we can wait for this and maybe vote on something else if does not in August or September so that way we have a chance to serve all of our learners? Yeah, thanks. Great question. So, I know with the dyslexia legislation that's recently passed, the Michigan Department of Education is reviewing, they're currently under review of a number of resources. um if after attending webinars and things like that with the Michigan Department of Ed, uh those resources
137are really core curricular resources, core, you know, whole group resources that you're using as your basic your base resource. Uh it those they're also examining assessment tools that we can use to um uh to I don't want to say diagnose, but to but to note students who may be at risk for dyslexia early on so that we can provide early intervention. and they're also taking the time to review um tools that uh can be used for um teacher training. So, it's really those three main areas, not supplemental resources. So, this would be considered a supplemental resource. So, the MDE is taking time to review it. They're not going to be ready to share recommendations until January of 2026. So, from a timeline perspective, this 35J grant money, you either use it or you lose it
138kind of thing. And so one of the things that we felt uh given that uh the Michigan Department of Ed, yes, they're reviewing approved resources, but those won't fall under supplementary categories, uh decodable phonics, little readers for K2, K3, um are really valuable. I know that our teachers have requested these. They're they're using them widely. And as we diagnose students who may be at risk for dyslexia with our I Ready uh assessments that we give, there's a dyslexia screener. We we pull that data and we make sure that we're identifying students at risk very early. And so these are really prescriptive and very specific structured phonics program uh like the developmental range for kids and we can intervene early. So our teachers are are needing them. Uh if we pause on the purchase, we'll lose
139the 35J grant money. um we would have to look for another funding source after January if we wanted to delay the purchase and then delaying the purchase would also I mean we're in March right now by the time it got on uh by the time we heard from the state if they're you know to be believed and they're going to be on time with recommendations. I know the state oftentimes will pause or oh they're not quite ready yet. We've seen that in a number of initiatives. It we could be looking at another year out before we would would be able to get materials in teachers hands. And these are materials that our teachers have been using, our interventionists have been using, and they're really beneficial. Okay. So, thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Ziggler. Well, you
140answered the first part, but basically when it comes to uh this these texts, they basically support the goals outlined in all the new laws that have been issued. Correct. Yeah, thank thank you for asking that, Mr. Seagler. So, um uh any one of the board members, if if you're interested, I'm happy to share the the actual language around the dyslexia legislation. One of the things um and there's a there's a host of items under the under this this new law in terms of making sure that districts are are preparing to be compliant. So, right now the the legislation is passed, but there's still some timelines that we have to get through like the review of of approved resources and so forth. But outlined in all of that is some compliance work around making sure that
141we're um responding to students who are at risk for dyslexia, that we're using appropriate resources and materials for responding to students that are at risk for dyslexia, and that we're training our teachers in how to use those. So, I think given the fact that in looking over the the way the legislation reads and how those items are written, I think that these materials supplementary are really appropriate and and are in line with what the law says. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions, Mrs. West? Um, so this is fully funded funded underneath the grants and not coming out of the budget. Yes, correct. It doesn't impact our general fund. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. All those in favor I opposed. Motion carries. 51. Bid awards. Dr. Lans. Thank you, Madam President. This is related
142to playground soft surface material. We are requesting a three-year contract for $150,750 out of general fund. The administration has obtained bids for a three-year contract with the option to extend for two additional years for the purchase and the installation of playground soft surface material engineered wood fiber. What most of us would would call is what we put around our our own home is mulch throughout the district. The recommendation is to award the bid to lowest bidder, which is Superior Ground Cover Inc. with a total bid range from $33 per cubic yard to $34 per cubic yard over three years with approximate total of $150,750 for the duration of the contract. This purchase will be funded through general fund beginning of the summer of 2025 services. A couple additional points. This material is ADA compliant and
143when it is installed, they do the very best that they can to accommodate all of our students and the range of needs of our students. And it's also a requirement to have soft surface around playgrounds. So we need a soft surface entering into a three-year contract. As we see escalating costs, this locks in our costs and helps Mrs. Omar budget effectively on at least one area of a very comprehensive budget. Map Mr. Seagler, I move that the board of education approve the bid award for Superior Ground Cover Inc. to provide playground soft surface material for an approximate total amount of $150,750 for the duration of a three-year contract period funded from the general fund. Discussion, Mr. Smith, sorry, I apologize. You don't have to answer me tonight. These just popped into my head right at
144this very moment. um with this material. Uh I know specifically cuz been on many park playgrounds with my own kids. How often would they come out to relay down more? Because as you know when kids are on swings I see their feet and they're kicking constantly up. Yeah. So the service itself provide my knowledge provides a one-time service and then it's up to our building staff to reallocate the service. Okay. And then do we again uh do we have someone on staff that is a an inspector or do we contract that out to actually look at all of our playgrounds? That'd be part of our operations department and also what building principles would be doing. They're happy to let us know when they don't have enough of something. Any other questions? Okay. All those in
145favor? I opposed. Motion carries. 6. Equipment usage request. Dr. Lans. Thank you, Madam President. This is an annual request for us to provide buses to Memorial Day parade and Viewfest. The Wald Lake schools transportation department has participated in the city of Wald Lakes's annual Memorial Day parade for many years and it will be the second year the department has participated in Vuefest. as Wald Lake Dean transportation bus drivers will drive the bus in the parade procession which provides good public relations for an opportunity for a highly anticipated community event. This year's Memorial Day parade is on Memorial Day, May 26th. Viewfest is at the zoo for the second year in a row on July 13th. Viewfest is a mental health celebration walk where Wald Lake and D transportation convert the bus into a zen den.
146Wald Lake and need transportation will also have designated tables encouraging potential employees and generate job interest within these opportunities. Administration supports the participation of the Wald Lake Transportation Department in both the Memorial Day parade and the viewfest by allowing them to use a bus for each event. Wald Lake and D transportation employees donate their time to drive the bus and attend the event and clean them afterwards. I had the opportunity to go to Vuefest last year. If you didn't have the opportunity, I strongly recommend you you take that opportunity. And I'd personally like to thank the the drivers. We had a great conversation and the buses were well used there. Mrs. Kaplan, Mrs. Craftton, I move that the board of education approve the request for the transportation department to use one bus each for both
147the Memorial Day parade in Wald Lake on Monday, May 26, 2025, as well as Viewfest at the Detroit Zoo on Sunday, July 13, 2025. Discussion. Okay. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries 6. Moving on to waiver request. Dr. Lens, thank you. I'm very excited to continue on. A request that we receive often from our our local football teams that are not associated directly with Wald Lake schools is to ask for a reduction in fees. This is happened over the last three or four years with two teams. This is a new request from a new team. Uh, White Lake Wolves are a nonprofit community-based youth football and cheer program that has a strong relationship with Walt Lake Northern High School's football program and cheer. With the elimination of middle school football and cheer programs
148in Walt Lake schools, the White Lake Wolves play an important role in providing a valuable outlet for young athletes to learn teamwork, perseverance, leadership while smoothing the transition for athletes as they progress in high school. As a new organization, the Wald Lake Wolves requests that all fees relating to the use of school facilities and games and practices be waved for the 2526 school year. You'll note in the motion that I'm recommending that we reduce it to 50% as that is consistent with what we've done with all the other teams that have requested this. President, Mr. Seagler. I move that the board of education approve a 50% reduction in the athletic field rentals for the 2025 2026 school year for the White Lake Wolves football and cheer program in accordance with board policy 7002 AR V
149schedule school facilities support. Any discussion Kappa? Mr. Smith. uh to the public and to the rest of the board, I have to abstain from this vote as I do have a conflict and my son is a member of the White Lake Wolves. Just to advise everyone. Thank you. Any other discussion? I would just like to say um they're asking for 100%. This is the first time that this team has been formed and other teams that have come to us with the 100% we've given we've settled and approved the 50%. That is accurate. Anybody else have any other questions? Okay. All those in favor? I I opposed. Motion carries. Oh, and an abstension. I Okay, we So, it's five yays and one abstension. Motion carries. Moving on to proclamation volunteer week. Dr. Lens. Oh, you want
150me to read it? Okay. Y while we honor individual volunteers as well as outstanding staff members through our Golden Apple Award program, we do not feel it appropriate to honor the legions of volunteers we have working throughout the school each day of the school year. The week of April 12th through April 25th has been designated as Wald Lake School's volunteer recognition week. Recognition week, excuse me. And now I'm gonna 21st through 25th. Oh, what did I say? 12th. Oh, I do. You can give it You can give it the whole month. That's fine. We really just so we are all clear. I do have dyslexia. So that is a diagnosed situation over here. So I apologize. Now I'm going to read. We can overlook. So we do not feel it's appropriate. Bear with me. Give
151me grace and patience. I appreciate that. Okay, now I'm going to read the recognition if I can appropriately. Wildlake School's volunteer recognition week, April 21st through the 25th, 2025. Whereas the week of April 21st through April 25th, 2025 has been designated Wald Lake Schools Volunteer Recognition Week to recognize the excellent contributions of all volunteers throughout the district. And whereas the volunteers of Wald Lake schools are an outstanding group of volunteers, each and every one of them essential to maintaining the quality education we offer our students. And whereas although the board of education has honored volunteers on an individual basis during the year, the other devoted and dedicated volunteers in the district have received little formal recognition for the distinguished service. And whereas our volunteers are highly valued members of the Wald Lake Schools family. Now
152therefore, we the members of the Wald Lake School Boards of Education and Administration hereby proclaim April 21st through April 25th, 2025 Wald Lake Schools volunteer recognition week and thank and congratulate all of our school district volunteers for their excellent contributions to the education of the students of the Wald Lake Consolidated School District. I would also just want to add thank you to every single one of our volunteers. Thank you to every one of our volunteer board members. Um, every volunteer in Wald Lake is treasured and cherished and I appreciate and we all appreciate every one of you. So, thank you. Okay, moving on to board policy adoption. Thank you, Madam President. The updated board policies were provided for the board's review at the regular board meeting on March 6, 2025. The updated board policies are
153in alignment with current law and administration recommends the adoption of these updated board policies. Mrs. West, I move that the board of education adopt the updated board policies as presented. Discussion. Miss Fernandez. Um, I don't have any objection to the board policies that we're about to vote on, but I do want to say that one of them has to do with the therapy dog program, and I have a number of requests outstanding for us to look at that and its objectives, and we hear a lot of public commentary about it. Um, and uh, and it's something that I still would like us to take up as a board, specifically in the policy committee. Um, and I know we have one of these policies that makes reference to some of that program. Um, but it is
154my heart's desire that we actually prioritize that at some point in time for further discussion. Thank you. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. 6. I'm going off script here, so bear with me. Say, I'm going to make a motion. I move that the board return to close session to continue discussing negotiations at the conclusion of this meeting. Supports. All those in favor? I oppose. Okay. So that that's a 6 vote. So I'm going to adjourn this meeting and we as a board are going to move back into close session. Five minutes. 10 minutes. Okay. Five minutes. You can all use the restroom. 909.