Board of Education Meeting - February 6, 2025

001e e we're going to call the meeting to order if we could please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay we're going to move on to the golden apples Dr Lans thank you very much I'm going turn this over to Mrs om and just as everyone may let me let me start over again I'll turn over to Mrs om our golden apple awardees are not able to make it tonight but they will be honored and recognized not only today but also tomorrow when we all come back to work so it's my fault that they're not here because I kind of gave them a pass

002with the snow SL ice day today so I didn't want it to feel not that it's not great to come to board meeting but perhaps they may have felt like been more punishment that they had the day often than they had to come in this evening so it's my fault so um and actually Patty hearon who is the director of the student services is the one that nominated both Tammy and Karen um so tonight's Golden Apple recipients are Kieran tulan and Tammy Hunter who are both student service secretaries they were nominated by pat patty and they are typically the first people that our parents or Guardians come into contact with as they enroll their students so they have a big job and making sure that our parents feel welcomed and also that we get all

003of the documentation that they need so beyond that they also provide Google Translate for our students that are need in need of that obviously we do have some uh students that are ELD um Karen and Tammy consistently come in early stay late and work weekends to make sure students are enrolled efficiently and accurately in fact I'm sure that they were working from home today even though it was a day off for their particular bargaining unit they work tirelessly to get as many kids into the classroom by the first day of school knowing this is important to incoming students who are new to the district Karen Tammy assists building secretaries daily to help make their jobs easier and answer their questions and concerns they are always available to train staff on either new procedures or ones

004of which they are not aware and again student counting a changes every year there's always some similar kind of nuances that they always have to learn as we have new experiences the new situations that arise in student accounting they're Forward Thinking and try to find ways to make all of our jobs more efficient by creating new forms and procedures and updating forms so parents have a better understanding of what is needed from them on top of their enrollment and registration responsibilities Karen and Tammy also play a huge role in supporting our mckin vento students including making sure they have everything they need to be successful in school even securing rides to and from school in fact I woke Tammy up this morning at 4:30 so that she could cancel some of those rides so I

005got to wish her a good morning and say perhaps you might want to go back to sleep after you do that so um their efforts to provide students with heavy duty backpacks winter clothes shoes and school supplies play a critical role in helping these students feel that despite their home life challenges they do not feel different or less than their classmates we would like to thank Tammy and Karen even though they're not here they're for being true team players as well as Patty their leader in that department and and with a heart for Wald Lake students students it is it is our honor to honor them in absence congratulations to them both we're going to move on to our textbook recommendation Dr Lans thank you very much Mrs kky yes thank you Dr Lans so

006the textbook recommendation this evening is for World Language as you know World Language touches all of our students grades 6 through 12 in a variety of ways uh in our three main World Language that languages that are taught here in the district so that uh covers Spanish French and German so uh in summary the current World Language materials are a curated list of resources that teachers have collected and organized over the years no single textbook exists across our world language classes right now the various materials that folks have been using are not aligned with current best practice or proficiency based methods in World Language instruction and they're not necessarily aligning with our AP and IB classes uh in order to prepare students for taking those tests um this has resulted in a lack of consistency

007across World Language and uh based on the results of the examination of all available products and an extensive pilot of two of our resources over the course of this fall it is the committee's recommendation the World Language team that we should adopt entree culturas for Spanish and uh entree cultur culturas for French and then Intercultural for German uh all of these are by wayside publishing 2024 these include textbooks student workbooks digital resources a host of training opportunities and ongoing training for our teachers as well as online support the cost uh here which includes a six-year digital license for the teachers and for the students uh will be at the total of 468 8553521748 in addressing us as the board this is your opportunity to address the board the board's going to listen to your statements

008questions and concerns but we're not going to have a conversation if followup is NE necessary a member of the superintendent staff or a board member will get back with you you have three minutes to address the board please keep an eye on the timer on the wall it's over there if you come close to the time Mr seagler will let you know that you're coming close for you to begin to wrap up your comments we ask that all speakers remain professional and ref refrain from any personal attacks thank you and with that we're going to start with Mr Larry gray good evening uh my name is Larry gray I'm supervisor for Commerce Township this works about as good as ours as I see um I'm just here tonight uh tonight I don't agenda number nine

009you're going to be talking about the school resource officer contract that we have with the Oak County Sheriff Office and between us and uh between you and Commerce Township um for those of you that paid attent uh paying attention to what the in increased costs were um we were hit with a 15% increase from the oen county uh shff office and oen County Board of Commissioners this year which increase our total cost of $935,000 um and the next couple years cost is going to be CPI plus 6% which is basically a 9% increase so um we're I'm here tonight if you guys have any questions um the school of resource officers that we have we have three we continue we're going to continue to have the services that we provide for you through Oak County

010um Sheriff's Office and again I'm just here uh when item 9 comes up if you guys have any questions I'll be more happy to help out okay thank you thank you Ron lipet Ron lip at Commerce Township my wife Denise and I have three daughters uh including our youngest uh who is a junior at Wall Lake Northern I was hoping to draw the Public's and board's attention to president Trump's January 29th executive order entitled ending radical indoctrination in K through2 schooling uh you can find the order in its entirety on white house.gov uh but with your permission I want to draw your attention to three specific targets of the order which should concern Wald Lake Schools uh the first is a threat to our federal funding should we quote uh should we teach quote uh

011discriminatory Equity ideology unquote uh that is a nebulous term but you'll have to research it put simply uh the concept suggests schools incorrectly support groups of people rather than individuals uh groups such as lgbtq students or those of minority status uh how our compliance to this order will be measured that is unclear but what is clear is 11% of our 2526 budget comes from federal sources roughly $18 million uh second is the ORD resurrection of the 1776 commission uh which is an advisor committee designed to promote patriotic education in the classroom uh while there is certainly nothing objectionable to patriotic content uh the commission does create restrictions to content which it deems detrimental to the American narrative subjects like slavery or Native American history will be specifically targeted while they teachers will need to carefully

012navigate these changes if our schools are to remain uh compliant under the order uh lastly the executive order mandates while they schools observe Constitution Day celebrating our founding documents and requiring constitutional education for all students regardless of their curriculum uh Public Schools risk losing their Federal funding should constitutional education not be properly properly implemented again how this is measure that remains to be seen uh I have no doubt we will be prepared for all these changes and if need be we have access to Great attorneys to help guide us uh but should we be concerned um should we be concerned that some board members might see uh prefer uh prefer seeing our federal funds directed to Charter Schools uh with minimum minimal State oversight I'm not sure I certainly hope not time will certainly tell

013uh challenging times for our public education ahead please know uh as a board you have our support uh from the community so in advance thank you very much uh on a final note tonight through Sunday is walck northern's production of Joseph and the Amazing technical Dream Coat tickets are still available so if you're the type who looks good in red and yellow yellow and green and brown and Scarlet and black and okra and Peach uh this might be the show for you thank you very much thank you Sarah Hawkins hi I'm Sarah Hawkins last month I spoke and the community was interrupting me so I please just ask that none of that happens tonight thank you regarding the questionable books Nationwide the legal age is 16 to 18 years old authors whom choose to make

014a character 16 and the other an adult and mention in the book that this is a legal relationship even though Nationwide 16 is not the age of consent everywhere in my opinion this implies that authors would want readers to know that 16-year-olds can have sex with adults separately there's a new generation of parents and we don't need teachers to be our kids allies we understand being gay as a sexual preference not a mental health concern we can be our kids allies teachers don't need to educate on how sex should be conducted past biology it's unnecessary and quite frankly weird I have many gay friends and actually they agree with me when an authority figure assigns or reads sexual content without telling the children their rights to opt out dis disrespecting the religious freedom as we

015know many religions cor correlate with marriage then children feeling forced to comply with the authority trapped even triggered than telling their parents they don't they did not consent to this this is sexual harassment by definition allegedly the same teacher that wrote and read this book has said things on social media such as gay Republicans should be taken outside and beaten with cement blocks this hate speech towards the gay community should not be tolerated this is a scary comment does he want to beat 18-year-old Republican gay voters that are in his school this teacher also did not inform children of their rights before reading sexual content this book had content in it such as he had a dozen girls lined up ready to blow him this is objectifying women reducing the value of women is the

016district aware when what is your plan to protect the children for the record I'm not claiming Any teacher should be financially harmed although if it was my responsibility I would fire him but this isn't I'm just a concerned parent I'm glad to be here again tonight thank you thank you Nancy van lean good evening um I'm here speaking as a retired board member and also as a retired leader of the Union the wlea um we recently in the past week had a board member under their name identified as a board member um published some data on the district's reading proficiency and math proficiency with statements like the administration must do better and holding Administration accountable for results like this um must be done and I find that that is an inappropriate Avenue for a board

017member to be communicating with Administration um the board hires our superintendent our superintendent hires with approval of the board our cabinet and these people are professionals who are dedicated to handl issues such as math proficiency and literacy proficiency and I don't think it's up to an individual board member to place on social media condemnation of our Administration for their actions relative to our reading and math scores so um I would hope that in the future if there are such posts that are necessary that they be done under private personal accounts rather than than identified accounts as a school board member thank you thank you Gabby [Applause] taga hello my name is Gabby tiaga and thank you for letting me speak tonight I attended the last meeting and had the opportunity to speak and listen to

018public comments I want to highlight a few concerns for everyone the first gentleman who spoke chastised this community on their response to a wall L Northern teacher reading an inappropriate book to students he stated that teachers are private citizens and that it is harmful to spread misinformation and we all might get sued the second gentleman got up and went on a Nazi filled defamation defamation rant he called moms for Liberty a right-wing extremist hate Group quote nazzi started with book burning and banning which led to burning people when he finished his rant the Board of Education thanked him for his comments and the community applauded him I am a mom's for Liberty and wal Lake citizens for parental rights member am I a Nazi is half this District full of Nazis are members of this

019board Nazis I dare you to say it to my face no more hiding in the shadows of your keyboards and generalizations you believe it you say it you need to own it now on to the statements from the women who spoke I am done with the narrative and fearmongering of the left when you make a statement I quote it is unbearable for many kids and I am so sad to say some of them didn't make it that is dangerous and shameful rhetoric to imply without this teacher our children will die that he is the only safe person in their life and I quote could be saving lives if he genuinely felt that way as a mandated reporter he should be filing his concerns with his boss and the police why is he not speaking out

020if their homes are that dangerous this woman spoke of having children in our district that her children were afraid of being in our schools because I quote the Nazi crap that happened to them again with the word and implications that this school district supports and condones Nazis the phenomenon called social transitioning is hi I'm a trusted adult here are some Secrets we're going to keep from your parents together and they have to do with your body and sexuality I struggle to find a better word for that than grooming that teacher runs a club at Northern called gay straight Alliance his web page States we don't keep a formal list and members who want to stay private may do so how is that not keeping secrets from parents with the encouragement of a trusted adult let's

021make this clear parents speaking out against this teacher are based on his inappropriate conduct with students not because he's gay when the fearmongering Nazi ranting leftist adults finished their statements this board of education thanked them for their comments and this community clapped for them when it came to board commentary not one of you chastise them for their Nazi or fearmongering rhetoric your silence was deafening and the community appause was telling if someone on the right who has the common sense that God gave them questions the appropriateness of a book read to children by a teacher on the subject of a college student having sex with a high school student and the character is keeping it a secret I am called a Nazi the Board of Education thanks them and this community applaus ISM to quote

022my 16-year-old do these people even know what a Nazi is shame on you for taking a word that meant so much and reducing it to something so little to treat it like its confetti that you toss in your parades thank you thank you Melissa [Applause] Paul 2025 a new year and I want to be on record again requesting a trained competent armed security guard like the officer you have here tonight for yourselves in every W Lake School I will continue to make this request for as long as it takes because in the last n years that I and countless others have been asking the majority of the board refuses to move on this important proven Common Sense action to prioritize the physical safety and well-being of our children teach teachers and staff if the majority

023of this board decides this year not to hire a competent in-house security guard for each school I would request to see an accounting of how this year's $1.4 million taxpayer funded Safety and Security Grant is spent grant money for hiring is a practice of the wlcsd no more excuses it's a new board configuration it's a new year and it's high time to do the right thing thank you thank you Randy freed hi my name is Randy freed and I am the mother of three um children that have gone through the w Lake District One a wild Lake Central grad in 2024 a wild Lake Central Junior and a Keith fifth grader I'm here tonight just to congratulate the Keith teachers staff and PTA on putting together another fabulous talent show it has been one of

024my favorite um events at Keith since my fifth grader was in kindergarten and it's just a great night where the school Community comes together and cheers each other on and celebrates each other's diverse skills and supports each other it's more of what we need in these divided times people coming together to lift each other up to clap when our friends succeed or simply try and to let people know we believe in them with all their skills diverse talents and diversity thank you I think it says counter Bond but it's rather light good evening my name is Connor Bond I'm a lifelong resident of Commerce Township and a proud Alum of Wald Lake Northern class of 2020 I've been reflecting a lot on my time in the Walt Lake Schools since I graduated college a few

025month about a year ago I work in the special collections Library world I learned to engage with and communicate the complicated parts of our shared tangible cultural history I learned these skills during my time in Wald Lake Schools I learned to engage with the world around me to understand its nuts and bolts and to learn how to express myself how to communicate and collaborate with others and these were essential skills I remember specifically many of the lessons in high school which I'm going to proceed with the phrase uh well I think it's from Shakespeare what's passed as prologue I remember during my time in high school making friends learning to speak speak publicly learning to understand how our country and our world have come together while experiencing great fear the fear that the histories and

026things we were reading could be stripped down Stripped Away and removed of their substance concern as I tried to understand the history that brought us here collectively together while still having large gaps in my education I particularly remember one world history teacher having us teach ourselves the 20th century he took the last month of Class off and I've been playing catchup ever since but I remember amidst all of this the best thing I learned in high school was an AP environmental science we were told that biodiversity is the key to survival in any good ecosystem it's everyone coming together supporting each other across species across place that's how a good Community works and like then I am now afraid for students for staff for everyone with President Donald Trump's recent flurry of executive orders targeting

027diversity practices of any sort targeting trans athletes in schools there have been more laws passed in states banning trans athletes than there are athletes trans athletes competing in schools in our country I'm afraid of monsters being made out of mole Hills people being targeted into silence once again and self-censorship taking control so what I urge you is to remember who we're doing this for we're doing this for our community and for our students have compassion for them support them teach them about the world that they're going into because I'm lucky enough to been able to expand my education beyond your walls many people won't have that opportunity and if you censor their world for them if you strip it down and if you give into the quer phobic clap trap that you're sure to hear

028more of in the near future well you'll just be failing them thank you for your time thank you Kathy cubic hello I come here um I've been here before I gave it up after the election I thought there's nothing we can do um wle schools I worked for them I came here in '87 uh and they were great schools really good schools we were high up in the ratings we are no longer high up in the ratings we are under 50 in the niche uh results um I can't believe it that they've gone down that far we owe over half a billion dollars for those beautiful schools um state-of-the-art buildings um what has happened is it wokeism common core math uh hasn't helped um you take uh you took cursif out creative now we have

029and then we had creative spelling um um we lost the election because the mea had it uh they won it before we went to the N9 days of early voting we had lost it because of absentee voting from because mea can really push hard we're not strong enough I guess the people I come here just to say what happened when are you going to go back to teaching math reading a science you you don't and then you have a board member that's been on for 30 years I would if if I were this person I would have left because of embarrassment that we're now under 50 uh 50th you have uh person in the I know I worked in the schools as a paraeducator because someone uh a previous board member pointed that out that

030she was a parah not a teacher they did that at the voting so I just want to say when are we going to wake up for the kids when are you going to help the school become number one I mean Novi right down the street is number one they have one School uh one high school they don't have three we have three oh I wonder how many students they have maybe it's a lot less something's got to be done and it's not wokeism thank you for letting me speak and I I don't know that I can come anymore because you don't change the new board members wake up change it make it better thank you thank you Christy Russ okay um here I am again um I didn't prepare a lot tonight because I feel

031like I've said it all for years about our literacy the national report card has come out about how poor our education system is in America we just have had people speaking about Michigan in general and where we stand and I get you can nitpick how they put their reports together but the bottom line is we're not doing well you know that many of you have seen emails from me for years you've seen me talk up here for years about our literacy in the district add math to it look at our scores it's not okay to continue to do the same thing over and over and not getting those results I've said it before also that you don't have teachers that are in the district coming up here and speaking about the curriculum because they know

032that they'll it'll have detrimental effects in their career if they come and speak um trust me I know that I was looking out for kids and I left one District because I spoke up too much and instead of promoting me and putting in a position where I can really make those changes they didn't want anything to do with it because those higher-ups didn't want to be told they were doing anything wrong really and all they were doing was hurting kids so like Kathy said noi number one in the state however they do the rankings whatever people look at that they're right next door to us Northville I think was number two Rochester's up there Birmingham is up there a lot of Oakland County schools are in the top 50 why are we not in the

033top 50 what changes are you going to make so that we can move up in the rankings it needs to be done um on a positive note I've set up here because of my wonderful new job that I have where I am teaching it's amazing the phonics that I teach these kids and the books that I put in their hands go right along with the lessons I'm teaching them and they can stretch out those words and they don't have to guess or do anything because I've taught them all the skills they need to read the stories that we're reading um so I only do that a couple days a week and so I've been subbing and again always last to go are the wal Lake jobs because of the pay which I don't do it

034for the pay I get bored at home so I again ask you to look at the pay because there jobs that sit up there that go unfilled um but the secretaries that I have at the schools I've been to have been fabulous they're it's a great face to walk into and they're so happy to see you and I love that and then also so thank you for waiting until this morning to call schools because even at midnight there is nothing happening and I know cuz I was walking home so I like that we waited and it was the right decision to make but thank you for waiting and not doing the um pulling the trigger too soon thank you thank you Mike wise Mike wise 24e resident of Commerce Township there are no laws on

035the books that allow the State Attorney General to prosecute a teacher for radical indoctrination whatever that is the state attorney general Dana nessle has been deeply involved in what is going on with some of these recent presidential executive orders there's been a lot of confusion about the executive orders published by the White House it's hard to know what they mean and what their impact is there is just one order about ending radical indoctrination indoctrination in K12 schooling there are a lot of people out there with many questions students teachers parents here's an excerpt from this executive order the Attorney General shall coordinate with the local state attorneys and local district attorneys in their efforts to enforce the law and file appropriate actions against K12 teachers and school officials who violate the law okay so what

036does this mean let's be clear the Attorney General will only enforce the laws that are actually on the books now how did those laws get there how about a basic refresher if it's a federal law it takes an act of Congress and Congress has to pass a law in both Chambers the house and the Senate then it goes to the president and the president signs it then you have a law if it's a state law both chambers of the state legislature must approve it and then the governor must sign off on it and it becomes a law that's how we create criminal statutes and it is those criminal St statutes that the state attorney general and the assistant attorney's General prosecute and then the County Prosecutors enforce the statutes there are no laws on the

037books that allow prosecution for radical indoctrination again whatever they is so teachers shouldn't be looking over their shoulders for the police to go storming into their classrooms to be coming into their schools for teaching in accordance with whatever the curriculum is in that particular School District the State Attorney General's office has respect for the teachers they support teachers they want teachers to continue doing their jobs serving kids and families all across the state of Michigan and making sure that our children have a brighter future thank you thank [Applause] you Teresa Renard I had a chance to be a part of the consultant's uh interviewing select uh experience a couple of weeks ago and I want to say I was pretty impressed with the fact that he did come in town for a whole week and

038gave it a good shot to try and get to as many constituents as possible I'm looking forward to his update and how the board responds to that um in line of that right afterwards we started seeing in the news how academically We are failing as a district uh so that's public and I guess I want to encourage people to follow the leadership of one of the board members that may have expressed her uh concern over being a part of this community that is either a atically sitting by and letting it continue or encouraging people to get involved and do something else so some of you know I graduated from this community my husband graduated from this community and my daughter graduated from this community we're invested and it was never like this this was the

039community where you wanted to go because it did develop kids and communities that were educated you know if we look back at the foundation of education and our Founders and when they came over here they implemented education as a number one priority understanding and at one point I forget which founding father it was that quoted we were the most educated Society on the planet I'm not sure how he knew that exactly that may me an overstretch but it was a top priority this has clearly not become a priority we have an awful lot of money I personally and I'm sure this must be true for others I don't go around asking people what their prop property tax percentages is between 50 and 59% for schools I got nobody in here anymore but I care about

040the community and I understand it's a it's a privilege and a civic responsibility to make sure that our next generation is properly educated you are the responsible group and I have no problem with somebody taking a step of leadership and saying hey if you missed it on the news these are the facts these are the facts and we all need to be aware of them so thank you for whoever did that I don't follow everybody's pages in fact I can't even research the district's communication page to find out what's going on I am dropped off all the communication there's no place on your website that says sign up to get our emails or our newsletters I don't know how you get newsletters you know how I got invited to go to that um that interview

041with that guy I was in my mailbox and there was this card on the floor it wasn't addressed to me but I was like seems like it something I should do so that's how I signed up for it I would like to be on your newsletters I would like to be more informed about what's going on in the schools not just the plays although that's really good socialization is awesome your main priority is academics let's not get that confused with anything else thank you Kelly Shuba and Cy I appreciate you writing out your name thank you thank you everyone um I'm not very good at this um I have many concerns it's been a tumultuous couple of weeks um trying to think about what perspective is for what's appropriate to speak here versus what's appropriate

042for other things like calling our Senators um I come from a family that always supported love and connection and Community not knowing if someone's Democratic Republican or other um and yet in my old school grandmother was always welcoming towards lgbtq you know she loved Liberace but she knew he wasn't wiing at her you know I I just want to say I have a lot of fear for the lgbtq community our children um the acceptance it's not just like oh do we have this program do we have that but these are people these are individuals and they are at risk and when we put one group at risk what's the what's the saying first they came for XYZ or the leopard eating face party right and I didn't know the leopard would eat my face right

043all of this there are reasons there are jokes there are metaphors because when it happens to one it happens to all of us we're a community and we are connected by love I love that we have black history monst still recognized by our district um there so many things to say I I think that has also been addressed as we're talking about executive orders and the hate and whether it's legal or not legal and bringing people together putting them apart um everyone has their own thoughts but I also separate of that I'm a special educational educator with a child with needs at home who has now evolved and become amazing and I've talked about my pride for her before my both my kids are pretty awesome go band as well um but I have a

044concern as an OT in another District um the concerns from one of my friends who couldn't come tonight because she works 10hour days and she asked if I would speak for her she has a child within the district um at elementary Oakley Park who has OT services and I was going to offer to service him because for since mid November until the end of January that he did not have an OT a lot of people are saying here what's an OT right but we know what what we do OTS and people who receive Services know what it means we help with Independence and the ability to participate at their best level in a school um when you are declined services that you have by your rights until the Department of Education gets chopped and we

045don't have that anymore which is of people can laugh but you have to see what kids can do when they're given supports that are appropriate to their individual needs um this child happens to have language skills and we it's able to tell his mom hey I don't see my OT anymore no notice from the district and she has a person who also works with students works with children and this is her own baby and she's working hard long hours to take care of other people's children finish comments she um was concerned that there was no notification that the resource room teacher may be out because of other personal needs there needs to be communication when you're IEP services are not being met what kind of substitutes what kind of Alternatives and I know we struggle

046as people who bring this um service to children and I'm just relaying that as another thing because I fear when I can't meet the needs of my students much less when my own children or my friend's children can't get their needs met two different things but it all comes together and each child deserves what they deserve thank you thank you Tim St Miller good evening Tim saw Miller Commerce Township I'm assist Ginder male using pronouns he him and his The Following comes from the National Education Association since 2011 the Department of Homeland Security has listed schools as sensitive locations where Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests interviews or searches should not take place absent unusual circumstances given the uncertainty about whether schools might be targeted it is important to put Protections in place at the local

047level that limit immigration enforcement at schools countless school districts around the country have already passed safe zones resolutions to do so old Lake schools have not yet adopted a safe Zone resolution until that happens the following information describes what Educators should do if immigration officers attempt to enter a school's campus Educators should direct those agents to the school district superintendent the superintendent should request to see written legal authorization and verify the identity of the agents it is important for the superintendent to review with legal counsel what the immigration officer provides as such legal authorization there is a distinction between an ice administrative warrant and a traditional Federal Court warrant school districts May respond differently depending on the type of Warrant an ice administrative warrant authoriz authorizes an immigration officer to arrest a person suspected of

048violating immigration laws it is however not a warrant within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution because an ice warrant is not supported by a showing of probable cause of a criminal offense and is not issued by a court judge or magistrate an ice warrant does not Grant an immigration officer any special power to compel school officials to cooperate and is not a court order that would under the family educational rights and Privacy Act allow a school to disclose educational records without parent or Guardian consent a federal or state Court warrant is issued by a federal judge or state court judge a school official should act in accordance with District policy when presented with a federal or state Court warrant an administrative subpoena is a request for the production of documents or other

049evidence and is issued by an immigration officer school districts do not need to immediately comply with an ice administrative subpoena if an immigration officer arrives with such a subpoena the school district May decline to produce the information sought and may choose to challenge the administrative subpoena before a judge the scotus case plier versus doe Remains the law of the land and public schools cannot deny undocumented students access to public education to protect Wall Lake School students I urge this board to adopt a safe Zone resolution ASAP thank you thank you so we're going to move on to administrative commentary Dr Lon Mrs om we'll start with you thank you Dr Lans I'm just trying to wrap up a couple of different things in terms of highlighting that the payroll department obviously as you know our

050fiscal year end is June 30th but we still have a calendar end to deal with and trying to get out W2 used for all of our employees so they've gotten those obviously on a timely basis as required but they we're 1,800 W2s for all of our wonderful employees here at Wald Lake um in terms of people accounting obviously we honor two of our team members tonight which we appreciate but they're also working hard on kindergarten JK registration which we moved up a little bit to accommodate families in schools of choice and then they're also heading into the supplemental count which will take place on February 12th uh we're working on our enrollment projections we have some information to plant Moran to provide us some additional information to help us as we move forward um and

051then also obviously the governor released their initial um thoughts on the budget for the coming 25 26 school year certainly there's a lot of moving Parts on that and there's a long way to go since we'll need to hear from the other parts of the legislature and what their thoughts are as well but we'll certainly keep an eye on that and try to monitor the impact that that has on our operational budgets since that's where the majority of our funding comes for our educational and components so thank you very much thank you Miss Mir thank you Dr Lans um special services leadership in conjunction with our Middle School principles are working to develop a middle school offering um this year for our Unified sports program so we're hoping to launch an offering for Middle School

052unified basketball and a clinic model um for this late winter and spring and so there will be more information forthcoming and opportunities for parents to sign students up so we're excited about that expansion um from the 2-year Unified sports program that's been happening at high school thank you very much Mrs quiny yes thank you Dr Lans um kind of alongside with what Mrs ommer shared um we had our kindergarten information night which was really well attended uh I know there was a little bit of confusion uh based on the fact that there was a a snow day that day uh but we wanted to keep that date as advertised and our families thank goodness the road's cleared by by the time the afternoon rolled around and evening rolled around and our our principls and thanks

053to our kindergarten and and Junior kindergarten staff who showed up that evening uh to really help uh facilitate those information nights so yes it's been it's been really successful I'm I'm excited and thankful to Mrs ommer and her team and the student services team for really working hard to uh combine not just one enrollment opportunity with kindergarten but to combine that with JK as well as combine that with our School of Choice windows so um we're monitoring those numbers closely for families that are out there wondering about uh uh when they'll be able to find out if their summer birthday student who's currently on a wait list for JK can get a spot um we're anticipating that after we get through some of those School of Choice uh um oportunities for families to sign on

054with us that we can start to see how those numbers shake out so we anticipate by Springtime we should by early Springtime we should be able to let families know about that but um really really great opportunities um we're also monitoring the growth over the last couple of years of our Junior kindergarten students who had that initial opportunity when we launched um just were on the street without numbers in front of me that those students are really thriving with that extra year so we're glad to be able to offer that to our families and to our students thanks thank you Mr Durkin uh thank you Dr Lon and we already heard some of it earlier but I wanted to take this opportunity to uh say break all of the legs to the cast and crew

055of Joseph this weekend uh there are great seats available for the next three shows I know they're off off and running right now they might even be at intermission at this point but uh Ashley Ward uh Jared Schneider our own Matt Weber um amazing adults involved amazing kids involved so we hope to see the community come out and support these amazing kids thank you sir Mr scaly thank you Dr Lans I was able to attend the uh fentel fathers presentations that the high schools hosted a few weeks ago as well as the community uh presentation uh it was a a great information that brought forward the important information of about the fentanyl poisoning that uh is impacting our unsuspecting youth um we were also as I said we were able to hold the presentation for

056the community members and they too also were able to learn the tools to recognize avoid and actively address the uh uh public health issue uh I really want to thank uh Mr medor Mr Diamond and Mrs pasik the principles there for facilitating that for our students as well as Mr medier partnering with words of Hope For Life organization to bring that Community presentation forward as well thank you thank you Mr scaling yes M I'm so sorry Dr L bring back you should have brought thank you I should have brought notes with my uh I thought I had it all up here but uh not until Mr Durkin mentioned Mrs Ward's work on the performance at Northern uh I had an opportunity just a few weeks ago to head out to the Michigan music conference for

057a Friday in Grand Rapids we had 12 of our students at the high school level being honored as all state with their music performance so I'm I'm a I'm a fine arts music mom my daughter's a band student at at our local high school so um I I know that near and dear and what it really takes in terms of the work and dedication for our students to make it to the to the state level and and to compete and and perform at that level uh also Mrs Ward and the B Kanto group The the coral singing group at Northern uh were one of four secondary schools selected to perform uh I got a chance to sit and here all the performances all four schools from around the state did amazing but boy did our

058Northern uh singer really come through it was a phenomenal performance and really great they received rave reviews from uh not only the crowd those sitting around us and it was a really great opportunity to hear and celebrate those kids so thanks sorry forgot about that no thank you today I'm going to talk about the what some of our community members talked about which was our our Niche rating which is in one way that we are rated which puts us at 68 out of 557 schools in the state of Michigan now some of our community members might draw a straight line between our ranking and the success of of our district before we draw that line I'd like to bring it some attention to how this ranking is developed and give some examples along the way

059uh first of all it's important to know this company is a for-profit company and that obviously rating any large organism is a difficult process and I appreciate the niche actually spells out very clearly from from my perspective how they do rate districts and I think it's I'll say I'm not an expert on how they rate districts but I'm sure before anyone makes any claim of whether being ranked number one or being ranked 68 or being ranked 557 they did a couple clicks themselves to find out how this actually is ranked for our community that may not have done that let me share with you some examples and the process that they use they have seven factors that they consider academic grades teacher grades cultural and diversity grade student parent surveys on overall experience resource facilities

060grade Club activities grade and sports grade each one of these categories has a different weight for example academic grades is 50% of the total waiting for the ranking where parent and student surveys on overall experiences is 12.5% so of the total ranking 100% And I'm going to dig into some of these just to give you a couple examples obviously you can go to their website and you can dig deeper if you'd like to 125% of how they rank is just based on surveys that people turn in based on a sweep stake that they offer so it's it's important to know that that's 12% to start with but let's just go ahead and let's dig in just a little bit on academic grades because that's important to me it's important to everyone in this room it's

061probably important to everyone that's listening to us so 33% of it is based on state proficiency and that's from the US Department of Education and there's a number of other factors that they use in that 33% but that's a fair assessment I don't have a problem with anyone using proficiency data as a part of a measurement I think that's a fair starting point then they look at top college scores okay if we want to say that all of our kids going to college is important then that might be something very reasonable to look at however the way that they get that 17.3% is by parents self-reporting what their child did so that's statistical data that is only as valid as what people report themselves not that people would report good or bad data it's just

062the data they're looking at we then go down to graduation rate again I think it's a very important data point to look at and then we go to parent uh student surveys on academics that is how parents and students self-report their academic experience here in Wald Lake and that's 12% of the overall factors when it comes to determining the academic grades and methodology then student to teacher ratio AP enrollment and AP pass test rate that that's at 100% of that category that makes up 50% of the overall rating so in that subcategory almost 30% of that is survey data that is self-reported now I I would submit that that's not necessarily the most reliable survey data that we can have is it important to have absolutely as all of you know we survey you we

063survey everyone at the end of the year at the beginning of this year we surveyed everyone as related to our strategic plan it certainly is very important but it's equally important to know how this numbers come about and we could go down to the second one which is best teacher methodology 25% of that is survey data how diverse your school is 25% of that is survey data and Etc to the point of which one of the categories which is parent overall survey again being 12% that's all it is it's just survey data there's no other data point that would be what I would consider more quantitative in nature nature where Sav typically are qualitative in nature or quantitative based off of the qualitative information offered in that survey so I know that rankings are important

064and I believe that rankings on any particular system is something for us to pay attention to an example of a ranking that that Niche has is Oakland schools is ranked fourth in the state now I find that interesting for a couple reasons one Oakland schools is a service provider of which the the only students that they could claim are students that's in their virtual program which are our students and all 28 County school districts that have their students go to that program as a matter of fact one of the people that filled out a review on Oakland School said I've enjoyed playing ladies soccer for four years and the Friday Night Football games I also find that interesting because Oakland schools has no Athletic program has no extracurricular program has no program at all for

065students other than what they support through OT or through Early College Etc but there's nothing that would relate to that so I say all that to say this no ranking system is perfect no ranking system is going to paint one picture so as we look at success I think there's some other indicators that we could look at at our district maybe every District want to look at this one thing we could look at is are there developments being built in districts absolutely in our districts we have developments being built every year as a matter of fact we're very close to being built out as a school district when when it comes to new homes how how long does a home stay on a market in a district our average for last year was 20 days

066on the market that says that people want to buy homes in our district are House housing housing prices increasing or decreasing they've increased by 4% on average obviously we're 66 square miles so that's an average of a number of different municipalities some would be higher some might be lower for specifically to our district how have our student excuse me how have our School of Choice application s been over the last 10 years they've been relatively consistent those are people choosing to come to our district to leave their District so let's talk about proficiency rates because again I believe the proficiency rates are incredibly important right now our and this is based on our mstep data our thir third grade through seventh grade aggregate for ELA is 54% our third grade through seventh grade for math

067is 52% that's unacceptable you've heard me say that from the beginning i' I'm I can't speak to other superintendent but I've tied my goal to our literacy Improvement I've made that public I've made it a very difficult goal for us to achieve and so that's something that I am basing my evaluation on is increasing our proficiency so that's not something I shy away from that being said it's also important to know what we Benchmark that to because hearing 54% for for us in literacy okay that doesn't sound fantastic and it's not but it's higher than the county average and it's significantly higher than the state average so looking at numbers in absence of other numbers doesn't give you the relevant point of view of what we need to see when we're painting the whole picture

068of what we want our district to be so with all this in mind I caution anyone from over relying on any one source like Niche or like the US News and World Report or college board all of those organizations again paint part of a picture we need to look at our whole picture and with in mind if we were ranked number one in any one of those areas I would not be talking about it because I do not believe that that is a valuable way to identify what is good and what is happening in our district what do I believe that is well I stand by our staff I stand by our staff who every day looks to support Challenge and find creative ways to improve our CH our students learning your children I stand

069by your parents who overwhelmingly support our schools and no I never take that for granted I stand by the curriculum work that we're doing the revisions that we continually make Mrs kohy and her team are doing a fantastic job and matter of fact in December they did a critical analysis of how we did on our mstep and talked about different areas that we'll be looking to improve upon this year and continuing in areas that we're looking to approve upon and finally I stand by our board members who supported again making literacy improvements one of my goals and for the continued request of academic data for me to provide to them we do have to make improvements that's fine but drawing a straight line from any one data source is just too simple it's just too

070easy and it doesn't accurately represent the complicated process that it would be to truly rank 157 I'm sorry 557 schools in the state of Michigan I look forward to what we as the W Lake family will accomplish in the future I look forward to continuing to work with our board to make sure that increasing proficiency continues to be our priority M Kaplan thank you we're going to move on to board commentary Mrs Levan thank you Mrs Kaplan um so there we are then um you know one speaker said it best um you teachers should be teaching board approved curriculum um and you know what I'm disappointed about is that it seems like our board has fallen back into a pattern of not really having meaningful discussions about really anything um you know I requested that

071we have a board Workshop to talk about priorities I requested an agenda item to talk about priorities I was told that that's not a priority so um you know I I'm glad if anything that we're all talking about it left right red blue everybody in this room seems to have some opinion about things that I said on social media and so for that I'm grateful and I'm I'm glad that Dr Lon has taken the time to respond in the way that he has and I'm I I know that proficiency is is important what I think the Board needs to address is priorities it's are we aligning our spending with the priorities we say we want to support our teachers are we doing that through our budgeting are we doing that through paying um you know

072peras more so that they have the support so that we have enough of them are we supporting our special needs students I hear left and right about you know special needs not being addressed and you know what are the priorities goals are good but what are the priorities and so I'm glad that this has has raised concerns and discussion because that means that we've found something that we can all agree on and I think that's how we start moving things forward so thank you Mr Smith thank you madam president uh sorry I couldn't attend the MLK uh Day celebration I saw that it was a very uh well attended amazing event as always uh just a little up uh or statement is I did complete my masb CBA 101 which is fundamentals of school board

073Service as well as the superintendent evaluation and Rider reliability training so I'm up to dat on my training did that I always look for wonderful offerings to grow and learn as a board member and I will also be uh participating in the Consultants interview next week as well to shed uh some of my my experience on that uh I got to watch the amazing spikers girl volleyball this week uh at CHS and even got to keep score for my daughter's team so I'm truly amazed at all the skill and competition we have in the district uh it's amazing to see uh all the girls and how six seventh and eighth graders coming together and uh really expanding that my daughter loves it so I also want to thank uh Patty uh our new Dublin principal

074for holding a coffee meet and greet with the community event last week I believe we had about 20 families uh or parents that were there I think it was great to meet with her and uh with fellow parents and I think she has some great ideas to move us forward uh with that as well I want to really acknowledge the amazing unsunk Heroes at Dublin Elementary uh the amazing teachers and staff especially the front office that were the constant and professional and adaptable through our principal rotation this year as maybe some of the district did not know uh but we had believe three interims before we got to Patty and so I can imagine how incredibly stressful uh that situation is and I applaud them and as a proud parent of a Dublin student and

075as a board member I wanted to publicly thank them for their outstanding work because for my side as a parent it was seamless but I know to me it further cemented their strength in showing their dedication to the district and our community and they truly are the backbone and lifeblood of our district and I'm thankful for them uh also I wanted to say that uh I know there are students Educators and families that are having many emotions about what is happening in the world I understand again that not everyone has the same beliefs backgrounds or path in life and that's okay uh but you know don't disagree without being disagreeable showing kindness and empathy are Paramount to Traverse through life and I hope that we maintain that decorum all I can say is that personally

076I will always be a voice for everyone in this District as I was elected to be finally I'm looking forward to seeing Joseph this weekend with my family at Northern and uh I really want to say to all the students and staff enjoy your spirit weeks next week and the continued learn learning during black history month thank you Mrs West um just want to let you know that I finally finished my CBA tring as well so we're all caught up there but that's all I have for tonight thank you Mrs Fernandez um so I thought I would share a couple of items I was in early tonight actually to review the World Language books I um am proficient enough to review at least two of the three languages so um thank you for granting me

077that opportunity and um it was it's exciting to see how the materials have changed over the years maybe a lot more how you communicate by texty texty stuff than we ever had in our day and you wouldn't be surprised if the French overemphasizes ESG and a lot of greeny greeny stuff but um you know I I think um the books I'm sure will be welcome Edition um and we'll be talking about them next month um I will do another consultant interview here this coming week um I was able to participate the first time around and of course every time we're giving a chance to participate I'm happy to do so um so I look forward to that uh and I will get my chance tomorrow with my son who was um who participated heavily both

078of my sons in the musicals um to see the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor green coat so he comes back every year every season for those and um and I'll be watching it tomorrow with him thanks Mr eagler you know we're really blessed by the diversity of our society and the diversity within this community and I took great pleasure at the Martin Luther King Day celebration of presenting a an award to a young child from Pleasant Lake and reading what she had reading what she wrote for the presentation and just the look in her eyes and the smile on her face as she was accepting the award gave me this warm fuz he feeling not only as a parent but as a grandparent and as a board member and it really you know you need

079things every once in a while to help inspire you and look towards the future that was it uh I'd like to thank Mrs Glasser PT for the presentation at the Holocaust Center I was unable to make it but I did understand that there was uh great feedback and good participation and I know that took a lot of work to get everybody there and to get the community involved as we listen to what's happening in Washington uh right now I my recommendation is we take everything with a grain of salt until we see what is actually going to be enacted what is going to become law what we are going to be faced with uh the challenges that we as a community as a district as a society will be facing and what changes we be

080forbearing and have an impact on us um I would like to thank Mrs Omar for the detailed information regarding the budget budget changes I know that we will be be reviewing that but thank you for making it very simple and putting it in simplified terms of what we're looking at the changes we're facing and how we have to go about doing that I do have the consultant interview uh next week also and look forward to that and I am looking forward to Joseph as a former band and Orchestra booster uh and having my children all both uh participate in different activities I cannot wait for this event to and see it Saturday night and thank you thank you okay I debated whether I was going to do this or not but I'm going to do

081this I don't usually say the things that I'm going to say so everyone bear with me um I don't know if most of you know some of my past but I had a major loss two years ago I'm coming up on an anniversary on Sunday and with that perspective I want to say to all of our community to everyone here you never know what tomorrow brings nobody knows what's going to happen obviously I did not we are a community we are supposed to be with our friends our families our co-workers however that may be but if we are approaching things in a negative way and we are not positive that may how you be how you go out that is not what any of us want that is not how we want things to be

082left we want to be left with a positive feeling and for all of our community to be together so the negativity the anger we all need to think about that before we speak before we put something on social media before we say something to somebody else because you have no idea as individuals what that other person may be thinking or feeling at the time and your words they may hurt they may be ocal you all know what I'm saying um and that is something that we all need to think about as individuals and I'm not just saying that here in W Lake and in our community I'm saying that in our country I'm saying that in our world tomorrow is not promised make sure you live positively use positivity not negativity to live the rest

083of your lives and try to make an impact on everyone around you in a positive not negative way positivity is what's going to get you heard not negativity thank you Madame President if I I have a request on the bat Throne from Mr Weber we're apparently having a little bit of technical difficulties so if we could pause and for one and a half minutes so he can reboot the system okay we are going to take a recess I'll give him five till 8:15 so we are recess till 8:15 wait for Mrs kohanski call sorry okay we're going to move on with the consent consent agenda which include the approval of minutes from January 9th our special meeting and January 9th our regular meeting our Personnel recommendations our Finance reports dispersements in the amount of 15,

084356,550 now we'll move on to administrative appointment boy I cannot speak tonight administrative appointment Dr LS thank you very much playing the role of Mr hampas Mr scaling tonight Mr hamka is actually in Mount Pleasant attending a negotiators conference to get ready for upcoming negotiations Mr scaling I'll do my best confidence in you sir no pressure I don't see the time well I know the suit's already uh on behalf of Mr hamka I am pleased to recommend the appointment of Dr Gary PE as supervisor special Services Dr PE is a dedicated educator with extensive experience in birth through post-secondary education holding a bachelor's degree in elementary special education from the University of Michigan a master's degree in educational leadership special education Administration from Grand Valley State and a doctoral degree in education Leisure from Central

085Michigan University fire chips fire chip Gary brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to education with a passion for fostering inclusive learning environments Gary focuses on empowering educators to cater to diverse learning needs Gary is dedicated to nurturing the potential of every educator to empower students ensure they have the tools resources and encouragement to thrive in their academic and personal lives pending board approval Dr pe's scheduled to begin working in wal Lake on March 3D Mr Smith Madam president I move that the Board of Education approved the appointment of Dr gett peel III as a supervisor of special services and that this appointment be made consistent with the provisions of the wal Lake School administrators Association Master agreement support discussion all those in favor I opposed motion carries 60 moving on to next item authorization

086agreement for school resource officers Dr Lans thank you madam president Commerce Township has been providing our school resource officers to the district throughout through excuse me the Oakland County Sheriff's office and the Commerce Township substation for a number of years the administration recommends continuing this relationship and entering into a three-year agreement for services beginning with the 2025 school year on a personal note I Mr G appreciate you being here we have a a very good working relationship we appreciate the support the contract that we're entering into allows for not only a Township but for us if there's a challenge with that contract that we have a 30-day I believe exit opportunity so it does even though it's a three-year contract that's for more budgeting purposes if we need to exit that contract we still have

087the ability to do that if necessary Mr Kaplan Mr seagler I move that the Board of Education approve a three-year agreement with the Charter Township of Commerce to provide school resource officers to the district through the ol County Sheriff's Office Commerce substation and authorize the superintendent of schools to execute the contract discussion Mrs Len um I just want to take this opportunity to thank the Oakland County Sheriff Department our school resource officers and um everyone who backs the blue um these are the most important people in our schools when it comes to protecting our children and although I'd always love to see more people protecting our children um these guys work tirelessly they don't just work uh school hours they're at basketball games and they're at other details football games I mean they're everywhere um

088and uh we can't thank them enough so um thank you and um you know although this contract is not cheap I believe it's almost a 50% increase um at least the Board of Commissioners is getting paid more so there's [Laughter] that anybody else yeah Mrs Fernandez I had a question and thank you very much for um appearing here and sharing with us the um 15% um increase from the county as a portion of that bit I thought I understood you to say then that the um that the cola or the the increase year toe was 6% and is that correct what I understand well it is a it is a formula of the Consumer Price inex Plus so plus 6% it seems like a hearty increase so congratulations guys because the CPI plus 6 is

089a lot more than probably many of us are seeing in our annual bonus amounts but thank you for the details Madam president Dr Lance and thank you for bringing that up I I just want to be very clear that Commerce Township is not profiting any additional funds off of this this is there in essence a flow through agency and I mean no disrespect with that and if you have have heard our Sheriff comment the sheriff was not interested in these raises it was the Board of Commissioners that chose to do that all on their own without any recommendation at least it's been made public from any any of the officers or anyone in that Oak count sheriff's department so just want to be clear that the township is is still a great partner and is

090not looking to make any money off of this other than what is appropriate for our partnership thank you whoever tacked that on though congratulations any other discussion okay all those in favor I I opposed motion carries 60 moving on to resolution 20242 budget amendments Dr LS Mrs Z I hope that I know that there is a lot of changes since if you remember in June when we were talking about the budget certainly what we initially proposed and the budget certainly changed dramatically and so what we presented for the board resolutions for the school service fund and for the general fund budget hopefully the board bulletin provided some additional information on those big swings swings and why they took place um so to help you kind of understand those types of things so in that particular

091light then we have evaluated the budget that the items and adjustments have been made to reflect the 2425 revenues and expenditures to more accurately reflect the reality of what we know currently um so Administration recommends that the 2425 budget amendment resolutions for the general fund in school service fund be adopted as presented Mrs Len I move that the Board of Education adopt the resolutions to amend the 2425 budgets as presented support discussion okay all those in favor I I opposed motion carries 60 moving on to resolution um Board review of The Head Start program Dr Lans back to you Mrs quany thank you Dr Lans uh in accordance with the federal Head Start performance standards the Wald Lake Consolidated School District Board of Education is the governing body of the district's Head Start program and

092in order to comply with all federal contract uh regulations Wald Lake Schools Head Start is requesting that the Board review the items that were listed below they were part of your board packet requesting the board's approval of the governing body conflict of interest and Personnel policy for the 2425 school year all items were approved by the Head Start policy committee uh and the school board uh uh has for your review the policy Council minutes standards of conduct and grievance procedure School Board requests for approval of the Personnel policy and governing body conflict of interest Mr Len I move that the Board of Education approv the 2425 Head Start governing body conflict of interest and Personnel policy for the 2425 school year as presented any discussion okay all those in favor I I opposed okay 6

093Z didn't hear from all of you I don't think sorry I only heard from a few of you I'm like we'll try it again we'll try it one more time all those in favor I oppos motion carries 60 thank you I'm looking wrong what's wrong here okay we're moving on to Res resolution of MB board of directors election and regions 67 and 8 I'm going to hand this over to Mr seagler he didn't know that was happening but I'm going to hand it over to Mr seagler since he knows right good guess well thank you uh so we have the opportunity to vote for three regions for the masb uh very good candidates throughout I have had some I've had the opportunity as I believe all of us did to review the candidate information and

094based on that for region six I would like to recommend Elizabeth Odell out of St St Joseph County ISD uh Master board certified uh she has a very extensive background in mental health and she has also a former teacher uh for region 7 guo Lopez 24 years on his local school board he's a master board member uh he's been on the board of directors for several years very strong advocate in Lancing and in Washington a very vocal speaker and uh for Region 8 while we do have two individuals from Oak County Running uh we are we currently have four members from Oak County already on the masb board of directors we also have representation from mome County but we have nobody from Wayne Risa or the Wayne County Community School so uh and also having

095worked with this individual I would like to nominate rodri means uh 28 years years on his local school board mat Master Platinum uh he's been very active in government relations bylaws board leadership and training okay I need a motion and if you want to insert those names and then we can discuss it Madame President I move the Walle Consolidated School District Board of Education choose the following candidates to be masb board of directors uh for region six as I said Elizabeth Odell for region s gamer Lopez and for Region 8 rodrik means support okay discussion go ahead M Len Mr SEO this is a role you have right this was I am on the board correct okay and what exactly do you do well basically we are reviewing policy one thing I you know let

096me let me State this first of all when you're one thing that board has taught me how to do is look at things globally within the state uh where we in Oakland County or you know W Lake Rochester districts like that we this is given me a purview of everything that goes on within the state we are doing lobbying for what is in the greater good as a consensus for all of us within the state we are working on training of school board members uh offering classes looking at insightful training we are reviewing the budget uh what what I see here from a budget perspective for the district is much different than what you have to see from the state sitting on that board has taught me how to really look at things from a

097Global Perspective uh the issues that we have here you know you're talking 12,000 students you're talking you know 20 buildings and then you go you look at other districts where you have 900 students and one buildings we're talking about doing you know we talk about things transportation and buses and how many miles we drive and then somebody looks at me and goes yes we have adequate spacing in our parking lot for x amount of snowmobiles and the A and the average time it takes a student to get to our school is x in the middle of winter so we look from the masb board I'm looking at things from a very Global Perspective for the state uh and it allows me to really get a better understanding when we have issues that we have conflicts

098on it also allows me to look at things and understand their points of view because we don't always agree on everything that comes before us as an masb board or that we have to go to Lancing for so we have to go for what is in the greater good of the state and work as a collaborative team as we do on this board to move forward make sure we have funding make sure we have the uh proper things in place I mean one of the things that I take great pride in as from sitting on that board as well as sitting on this board is for years we try you know we had the breakfast program and then we had to we wanted to expand it to the lunch program uh a lot of ISS

099issues in that and then when we were in when I was in Washington several years ago with representing both masb and and Oak County and wal schools we had a meeting with our representatives and we had our priorities and we were talking about the you know the lunch and breakfast programs and I was talking to represent representative Johnson representative James and you know he talking about the program and we're talking about the breakfast and lunch program and he says oh we support it I was talking representative mlan came in we support it and I'm and then you know the Democratic contingent came in we support it and I I looked at them and I said have any of you sat down together to discuss this to see how we can move this forward to to

100the governor's desk and actually make this work no and we were able to arrange a meeting with everybody and granted you know it's not law right now but we you know it's still a categorical if you will and I'd love to see it written into the budget as part of the law we were able to get that accomplished you talk about things like idea funding idea funding reimbursement to our district should be 40% the highest I believe we have seen it during my tenure on any board is 18% we're still struggling to get that funding that is owed to us that we're taking out of our general fund back so it's a lot of lobbying sometimes it's a lot of trips to Lancing to meet with our Representatives uh you know I found in my

101travels that a personal visit is much better than a phone call meeting these IND meeting our individuals and Lancing face to face so we do that and it's you know we're not getting compensated for that that's in addition to what I'm doing on this board what I'm doing within Oakland County trying to make a difference and make sure that we as a as a greater good can still achieve for our children any other discussion Mrs Fernandez thank you I would have an alternative suggestion for Region 8 in Paul colon and I think that um something that strikes me a lot about Paul is he is perhaps the most involved person I've ever seen across um not only his board but students teachers and parents um just universally everywhere the man is everywhere and I think

102that that gives him a really good perspective on you know the needs and things that should be represented um in uh at at this level so um I don't you know I I think it's possible to amend the motion um with a name and then you deal with the amendment first no I think we vote on the first motion that came through first and then we amend it okay and maybe we can take that up separately just to clarify that because I think there's um we should probably all be clear about that at some point in time but it's fine I am just saying I have a an alternate opinion okay and um I understand we're gonna have one person put forward three names and we're just gonna vote on it so I um but

103that would be my recommendation strongly okay Mr seagler and that's why I stated you know we currently have four members from Oakland County on the Oakland count or on the Michigan Association to school boards and in order for us to have in my opinion true representation we need we we have nobody from uh Wayne or Detroit right now and we have had individuals there before so I I would as much as I would love to have somebody else from o County I think we would start monopolizing the State Board I'm not sure we made that a consideration when we put our ownselves forward um for that board so I I understand what you're saying um thank you for that information okay y y Mrs Len I think that you know if we're talking about you

104know a Global Perspective I think it doesn't necessarily need to be geographical uh you know if we don't want to have a monopoly on the board perhaps we don't want to have all Progressive people on the board Paul is a more conservative voice and I think that that's not a bad thing to have on that board doesn't matter where he lives I think it matters how he approaches things he is um curious not furious and I think he has a great way of asking questions and and finding answers I don't care where he lives I care what he brings to the table any other discussion Mr Smith just random so this is just our our votes correct so it's just this is just the votes from Wild Lake every gotta School IND same votes these

105are just ours yes okay just for clarification out there that um we have to settle the well we have to yeah we have to let let let's we'll Vote for This motion and then we can amend and fix where we need to okay so the motion that's on the table is um hold on one second um I just wanted to I I don't think that that's the correct process um if the amendment is related to the current I I believe that if Mrs Fernandez amendment is seconded that it can be brought before the board as a vote um that you don't have to vote on the main motion first if it unless it's not related or it's not gerine to the to the motion on the table so I think it's correct that provided it's

106seconded you guys should be able to um yeah but what it says there also is if it's considered a new motion which means it's a substantive change of the original motion then you have to deal with the first motion first so it's a specific person since you're changing specific names substan it's a it's a difference between an amendment and a motion yes this is so technically Mrs Kaplan you need to rule on whether you believe this is an amendment or whether you believe it is a motion from Talking Mrs Fernandez and and to be considered an amendment it cannot be substantive in change a substantive change is considered a new motion yeah I believe it's substant and change since it's a person's name um that we're changing so we do have to that would be

107non-substantive so I am I would like to amend this to vote one by one I mean that's yes yes that that would be that would be an amendment that we can do support how about that okay so so we're all clear so we're going to go with what Mrs Fernandez just said and we're going to vote on each individual rather than as a whole okay and we got support from Mrs um Lin so Mr Smith uh just for clarification Madam president if are we able to will it degate our vote if we only say come to a conclusion on two and have a vote of no or blank or I'm just curious just for clarification okay thank you I think I think it a vote is a vote and if it's a no vote then

108it's you know it's if it's s it's just that's the way it goes to the to the state okay so we're going to adjust the motion amend the motion amend the motion do you want to read the amended motion Mrs Fernandez or do you want Mr still by how we're defining what is a substantive change for the but what you're telling me right now is the am turn your mic on they said they can't hear you there you go the suggested that I cannot suggest a different name because you're telling me that is too substantive but you you can put in the motion that we're going to vote you know we're putting in just go to region 6 if you say you know Elizabeth Odell and then when you get to Region 8 you can

109put in the two names that were how you vote oh no you need to vote on region 6 region the last thing you said was v on each region at a time region six then region seven and then be hon whether this is going to make any difference or not um uh so if you're telling me the only non-substantive amendment I can make is to say I would like to amend this Motion in order to vote separately for region six region 7 and region eight correct and Mrs L support you support that and you and you agree that that's an amendment not a motion yes I do agree that that's an amendment yes yes yes yes go ahead Mr Seer saying a lot of yeses okay I move the Walle Consolidated School Board School District

110Board of Education choose the following candidate for region six Elizabeth Odell okay discussion on that okay then let's vote on that one all those in favor of Elizabeth Elizabeth Odell I I opposed motion carries 60 I move that the Walle Consolidated School District Board of Education choose the following candidate from region 7 guo Lopez discussion okay all those in favor I opposed motion carries 60 I move that the Wald Lake Consolidated School District Board of Education nominate the following candidate for Region 8 Rodrick means okay can have the discussion here and then we'll have the vote and any other further discussion no okay then let's vote oh I'm sorry Miss West did you have something to say no oh I'm sorry okay then let's vote all those in favor I opposed nay okay motion does

111not carry 3 three I move that the Walley Consolidated School District Board of Education choose the following candidate to be on the MB Board of Directors for Region 8 Paul colon support discussion okay all those in favor I opposed I or nay n so again does not pass 33 Okay okay we're moving on to board policy administrative regulations update thank you madam president just making the board aware that we are adjusting our 2001 AR student fees related specifically to our pre preschool programs to keep us aligned with the preschool programs surrounding our district not only private but also other public school preschool programs and then obviously amending the 4,000 AR to reflect the hiring that we just that you all affirmed so thank you for that Madam president thank you thank you with that we

112are going to adjourn at 8:40 and I'll give it to 401 have a good night and everyone be careful in the weather thanks everyone