001G it is 703 we're going to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America indice we're going to start with public commentary today just a note that usually we do have presentations beforehand we do have a presenter who is coming from one event to another and that's why our presentation is after a public commentary uh so those of you who have not spoken before you will have three minutes up to three minutes if you um get close to that Mrs Levan will be timing and she will let you know if there is uh if you're getting close she'll try to give you like 30 seconds Etc uh we would ask that we have uh respectful communication and if there is a need for somebody to get
002back to you will try to do so uh within a few business days just depends how many um followup items that we do have but those of you um who are speaking uh you can come up to the podium when I call your name and we appreciate your input um it's not a conversation just for those of you who are new um but again we will get back to you and we will listen to you while you're up here we appreciate your comments uh first person we have is Owen Ricks hello thank you for your time my name is Owen Ricks I'm a sophomore at wake Northern High School I've been a student at wake since uh wake school since kindergarten I'm here today on behalf of my baseball teammates and coaches to ask that
003you consider looking into finding the means to upgrade the baseball and softball fields at wake Northern deter Fields according to my coaches we typically use anywhere between five to $10,000 of our fundraising money every two to three years and it still is about 10 to 15,000 to too little to get it done right we spend countless hours before and after practice maintaining the field and Mound and have to constantly repair and replace it with Clay dirt the home plate area has tremendous runoff and huge puddles acrew in that area making it quite wet and dangerous our baseball fields are easily the worst fields in this area installing a Turf infield would not only eliminate these issues it would also cut down on the maintenance costs mowing grading seeding Etc it would also reduce the amount
004of canceled games due to rain making the fields unsafe to play on not mention the time effort and materials required to make the field playable after a spring thunderstorm this would all go away if the fields were Turf it would also allow us to get in more reps at practice currently if it's raining we cannot get reps on our Fields this would tear up the infield and make it even harder to repair and get ready for games for example last season we didn't practice on our field until after two weeks of games because of rain and the field conditions because of this we had no preparation on a real baseball field before we played conference games this is a huge disadvantage in a competitive sense to get prepared for the season this limits our ability
005to improve as a team while other programs are getting the work in and getting better we also have to compete with inseason sports just to practice on the football field in late March to Mid April because that has Turf to be clear we're talking about a Turf infield Only The Outfield would remain grass this is typical and would be approximately 8,100 squ ft of turf this is much less than a football field which is approximately 880,000 Square ft you could Turf 10 baseball fields for every football field it seems that every other school in the immediate area has upgraded their baseball fields Northville Novi Milford Waterford kering Waterford M all have turf fields here on Valley School sent out a letter to local businesses and zot Auto Group donated $60,000 in exchange for naming rights
006of both Lakeland and milford's athletic fields maybe something like this could be explored within the wal community of businesses I'd like to ask this board to find the means to upgrade our fields to the standards set by the school districts all around us I personally would love to see my high school have a beautiful Turf baseball field before I Gra graduate in 2026 thank you for your time and consideration thanks Larry [Applause] gray Larry Gray good evening uh Larry gray uh supervisor for Commerce Township uh item 10 tonight you guys have on your agenda um flashing lights for the wall Central I just wanted to come and let you know that the Township Board of Commerce has supported this with your folks uh this project is going to cost approximately um $73,000 uh out of
007that $73,000 23ds of that will be paid from our Tri party monies so your total cost um for that project will be approximately about $24,000 13d of the cost so I just wanted to let you folks know what that cost would be uh I can stick around if you have questions but uh Congress is here to support you on that if there's anything else we can do just let us know thank you thank you Ryan lipet good evening Ron lipet Commerce Township my wife Denise are 20 uh 20 year residents of the community we have three daughters who have thrived in W Lake Schools including our youngest who is currently a sophomore at wal Lake Northern uh I stand before you to make two very brief points first uh in regard to public comment itself
008uh a few meetings back there was a speaker at this very Podium who suggested it might do the district a service if commenters were compelled to state where they live work or whether they have direct affiliation with the district prior to their statements I remember thinking at the time that this was a terrific suggestion after all contextual data like this would surely help the board and those at attendance to better understand the motivation of those who bring valuable Insight uh to these proceedings and perhaps create some clarity on the views which might come from the outside to be clear this is no way meant to be a limit on public comment uh in fact Michigan's open meeting Act is very clear on this that no person may be excluded from an open meeting except in
009the case of a breach of Peace further any rule which has the effect of denying a citizen the right to public comment is to be seen as invalid that's a direct quote because of this I feel it's in the public interest for commenters to feel at ease uh that their voice is indeed welcome here but should the board accept this suggestion that noting their place of residence Andor affiliation to the district uh before speaking would indeed be valuable secondly uh we are now officially in the holiday season uh I know this because uh each day I hear my daughter frantically practicing her violin uh for the upcoming W Lake Northern collage concert so I hope to see uh many of you at this incredible event next week December 12th and 13th uh sadly a quick
010look at the ludus uh ticketing system confirms it has yes once again sold out uh but his changes always seem to happen I encourage you to inquire to the possibility of last minute tickets next week and if this year is just not in the cards for you perhaps you might consider putting a note in your calendar uh for next year to experience this extraordinary display of talent cheer and humor uh from our community's youth this is one of those moments where all in attendance Come Away with not just the pride of seeing our children excel in the Arts uh but perhaps encourage a positivity and warmth that uh might not have have existed a few hours uh prior uh there's the reason this is one of the most sought-after events of the music calendar and
011I would just like to take a moment to congratulate uh the orchestra band and choir at uh wck Northern along with the dedicated passionate staff who make this event possible every single year it is truly the high point of the holiday calendar for many of us and I hope you can experience it too in the years to come thank you Robert gofy good evening everybody um I was hoping last month when I came up here and talked about uh things like Dei and and um critical race Theory and all those things it would be the last time I had to do so um but about five minutes after I was done somebody came up here and tried to tell us that uh Equity is all about helping students and you know helping them with their
012homework and giving them a little boost that is not what Equity is about um so I'm going to read some things uh this equity is a absolutely a Marxist leninist movement aims to create a classless society in practice this always means a classless Community communist Society where the government owns and runs all productive Enterprises which requires controlling all the people to make sure everyone has equal everything the Marxist leninist idea of equality pivots 180 degrees away from the standards and traditions of equal opportunity and toward a new standard of equal outcome and outcome is one of dei's fun Al PR principles Dei uh uses words and methods drawn from the Marxist communist Vision it sensitizes and conditions participants toward an inevitable adoption of tenants of a classless society notably dei's primary focus upon Equity equal
013outcomes means wholesale rejecting all moral standards of treating people fairly via equal opportunity instead Dei presses for unequal treatment frankly immoral treatment of people to produce the hazy vision of equal outcomes such Equity demands that all identity groups race gender Etc share and equal outcomes irrespective of Competency skill or individual effort now this is a very long article so I'm just going to skip to some other things here typically Equity is used as a spite Club to meet out our retribution and get even with those deemed oppressors or victimizers namely whites not to unify Dei has constituted today is a circular Paradox attempts to fight evil uh for example racist ideology by using the same evil reverse racist ideology still produces evil evil is evil using evil to quench evil only helps spread more evil
014evil can only be out overcome with the opposite Force good Dei inspired initiatives can achieve better outcomes by modifying the Dei Paradigm and shifting to a more principled DOI that would be diversity opper opportunity inclusion mindset 30 seconds sure uh designing environments to reflect a commitment to the menageries of flourishing Humanity requires a complete rejection of equity and all its modern-day collectivist communist baggage and accessories likewise diversity's most significant feature is the inspiring of different viewpoints working together from different perspectives promote Harmony When tackling problems or attempting to accomplish Forest objectives the con of diversity of our strength can become true where race and identity groups are not the focus okay thank you thank you Tim Siller uh good evening Tim sawmiller Commerce Township I'm ass cisgender male using pronouns he him and his my
015remarks tonight are taken mostly from Montello magazine Thomas Jefferson understood that religious freedom including a strict separation of church and state was essential for America with people of many religions Coming to America history taught that any government effort to dictate a proper or acceptable religion was hopeless and dangerous American religious freedom was established as Jefferson wrote for the Jew the Gentile the Christian the muhammadan the Hindu the Infidel of every do denomination that would include atheists Jefferson believed religion was quintessentially a personal decision the product of one's thoughts and beliefs any government intervention interfered with the very essence of intellectual freedom to direct religious belief was to meddle with the most fundamental freedom of thought a freedom without which a republic could not survive Jefferson also believed that for the nation to work and the
016people and to for the nation to work the people had to be educated he proposed a three- tiered public education system what we might think of as elementary high school and University and since genius and ability were spread equally regardless of birth and wealth it was essential that education be at public expense and educated citizenry is a public good when Virginia bed because of the perceived cost he responded the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to Kings Prin es and Nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance either the people are educated so that they control the government or aristocracy will control the government and the people if a nation expects to be ignorant and
017free it expects it expects what never was and never will be while Jefferson believed that public education for the masses was most important all that was achieved in his lifetime was the founding of the University of Virginia that however is a good reminder after all the founders work on political freedom and religious freedom and personal freedom was incomplete more needed to be done expanding voting rights and participation eliminating laws restricting rights based on religion eliminating slavery and certainly expanding public education 30 seconds and the founders knew it in 1818 he told the Jewish rabbi that although we are free by the law we are not impr prce as he approached his death Jefferson wrote that all eyes are opened or are opening to the rights of man these are the grounds of Hope for others
018we must continue that work thank you I apologize if I mispronounce this uh avaline uh bo bo far I'm sure you'll help me and correct me hello my name is Evelyn boyser I go to wnet Creek Middle School I'm in eth grade just that calm and collected it will all be okay is what I thought as I sat in class trying to gather my head around what had just happened you're probably confused so let's rewind a bit to the beginning of the story it starts in my third hour math this class is known to be problematic and I received the most attention from other students because of my sexuality the teacher had recently moved our seats I was sat near the front of the class near her desk she sat me near as many accepting
019people as she as possible but of course it wasn't perfect eventually our quiz came up I'm a good student so I studied did all my homework and taken notes I began to work on the quiz fully prepared to focus and get it done when suddenly my attention was stolen from me a boy had pulled on my chair I turned around around and looked at him of course he acted like he was innocent then again and again it he continued to do it 1 2 3 4 five 6 I tensed up not sure what to do 7 8 9 I couldn't think 10 11 12 just get through this one little bit 13 14 15 and finally done I stood up stood up and walked silently to the bin to turn in my paper while facing
020away I heard a loud bang I thought it's probably just someone dropping something whatever and then I finally turned around horror filled tears built in my eyes red right embarrassment painted my cheeks my fists clenched with frustration and sadness he had fit my chair all the way over the whole class looked at the chair then at me then back at the chair the room burst with laughter until the teacher yelled at us to be quiet I found counting calming for me so the rest of the class I counted to myself when I got out of class I went to the teacher I explained the situation and she had to move the kid this was disappointing though because he was not given a reason to be moved he had not been told what he did wrong
021or how other people could feel because of it this is not the first time something like this has happened I have had headphones ripped from my ears a boy reach into my pants pocket without permission been tripped in Halls and had lockers slammed shut in front of me but it's not just physical I have also been called a furry and many other slurs and inappropriate names I have been told to kill myself and have had inappropriate comments made about my body the lgbtq community is a minority in the school district because of this peers tend to discriminate and harass us and because and if you ask if I've reported it I have tried many teachers turn a blind eye and say that they will do something but the next day things things show no sign
022of change or Improvement this isn't fair please put some thought into how to solve this problem I have been for months now and I hope you will too if we work together we all can change thank you Nancy van [Applause] Len I would like to take a minute to talk about two points of Pride um one today on a Leia activity I had the opportunity to go to Wal Lake Elementary and while I was there had the opportunity to go into a social workers room a room a real room with Windows whiteboard desk table a real room my growing up in Wald Lake as a teacher had the social worker in a custodian's closet in a supply room in a dark room without windows so thank you very much for our people who push these
023things forward who encourage Bond issues to relieve situations like this which is what happened at wal Lake Elementary the former offices became her social work room and new offices were arranged in the building and that's all because of our supportive Community who approve Bond issues and support our schools Point that's my first point of Pride my second was the opportunity to go see The Wizard of Oz last weekend a remarkable performance which only reminds all of us that the Performing Arts are a priority in our district and have been for years and years and years our boards of Education over all of those years even when times were tough even when money was at at a premium the Performing Arts and the visual arts have always been supported and if you look at places like
024The Insider you see of our student accolades for those those who have gone on to Broadway who have gone on to other um facilities and in are performing in orchestras and bands and so forth and so on so thank you again Wald Lake for supporting the Performing Arts and the visual arts thank you for supporting the bond issues Desiree dragon hi I'm a Desiree Dragon parent of uh three w l students um my concern today is about a resource room teacher who is amazing and has been spread thin um she has to drive to two different schools every day um for half the hour in math she has to leave for half of the hour so that other half hour the math teacher is left without support and the students are left without support um
025she's burnt out and it's sad and frustrating to see her like this because it it causes inconsistency for the students and for the teacher and I'm just hoping that you guys consider assigning teachers to a single School rather than multiple schools because having teachers run around town creates teacher burnout and inconsistent inconsistency for students and teachers who require the extra support um you know we all know that they deserve more than what they're getting so if we could make a consideration and get extra support or some type of solution I'll I'll be happy and so will she thank you thank you salvana [Applause] P good evening I stand before you today as a concerned parent joined by over 200 signatures um on this petition to address an issue that affects our community I am here
026to discuss the current state of the special education classes in our district particularly the autism program at Walnut Creek Middle School many of you may not be aware that the special needs classes at Walnut Creek do not follow the SCH uh the school feed pattern into high school this discrepancy is a disservice to both special needs students and their families by separating special needs students from their friends and familiar faces we hinder their ability to form important connections and impede their Social Development within the School Community furthermore the separation of uh special needs students from their typical siblings attending the same school places an unnecessary strain on families and disrupts the family Dynamic we believe that by aligning the special needs program at Walnut Creek with the high school pattern we can alleviate the concerns
027and create more inclusive and supportive School environment for all currently the autism program at Walnut Creek consists of three classrooms with a fourth classroom impending the hiring of a special education teacher however unlike 90% of Creek students who move on to Central High School the autism program directs students to Northern High School the stark contrast in the school feed pattern creates a sense of exclusion and inequality for special needs students in our district it is essential to emphasize that this is not about one school being better than the other we acknowledge the Excellence of the Northern High School program and appreciate the hard work and dedication of the teachers and the staff however it cannot be denied that from my own two children and many others leaving behind their friends they had worked so hard
028to build a relationship with was undeniably difficult furthermore it's important to mention that the existing autism program at Walnut Creek uh caters to 23 students spread across three classrooms where the program at Northern High School currently serves 15 students in two classrooms this indicates that the autism program will need to be expanded by adding more classes in the near future regardless of the feeding pattern in conclusion I would like to reiterate the importance of addressing this issue and urge the wal Lake School Board to take immediate action by aligning the school education program at Walnut Creek with the high school pattern we can create a more inclusive supportive and enriching educational experience for all students together let us ensure that every child in our district has equal opportunities to thrive academically socially and emotionally thank
029you thank you Mara frond good evening everybody my name is Mara FR and I am a parent of a young adult student of the adult transition program also known as ATP so I'm here today to voice some concerns that we um are uh we are talking and trying to fix and that affect directly to our program but first of all um I want to thank Dr Beria for taking the time to meet with a small group of parents um and discuss and listen to our concerns so number number one after great anticipation for the new Wing being built at well War Lake Western High School just recently we learned that ATP is not contemplated as any part of that even though parents staff members of the program and the community in general H otherwise from
030different sources number two as today there is a long list of very basic and much needed repairs and Renovations in the classrooms and in the bedrooms of the program that need immediate attention this being um brought to the ATT attention of um the school district so we would greatly appreciate um some action on that number three as today we know there is a possibility of the ATP being relocated so we are asking asking you to analyze the most appropriate Alternatives keeping in mind the goal of arriving at the best possible outcome for our students our special need students deserve equal consideration and honest and clear communication with regards of decisions that affect them today and in their future our students have great potential we just need to provide them with the tools to reach that
031full potential they can be very very productive and happy members of our society I invite today everybody in this room to give them the chance and also and lastly I just want to thank and um tell them that as a pen I'm very I'm very uh grateful for the uh staff we have at the ATP that they work tiredly LLY every single day with our young adults and they are helping them every single day to become the best version of themselves thank you thank you Michelle brunette good evening my name is Michelle Bernett and I am a parent of a student in the adult transition program and also a parent to um a waleg northern highest honors graduate that went on to play collegate athletics and graduate from college with high honors those two paths
032are very different and what we have experienced in W lake is no different one path was met with ease guidance great facilities and great resources while the other one seemed to always be a challenge advocating for a voice a seat at the table just trying to be included and to be part of the every child every everyday motto we've struggled there and once again we're here needing to advocate for our students we the ATP students staff and families reached out previously in an email about our concerns regarding the program a group of us have met with Dr bernia and we believe he hears us and we are working together to determine next steps for our program thank you Dr Beria we all appreciate that very much but our purpose today is to address the board
033we want to make sure that what happened to this program over the past year or multiple years doesn't happen again the plan or led to believe plan was that our move that our moving our students into W Lake western they would be picked up in the 2019 Bond and rebuild of Wal Lake western to have a state-of-the-art facility to match its state-of-the-art highly recognized program we were led to believe that our students would be moving into an updated facility members of the community and the ATP team had been loved to led to believe that the program was getting its own designated space in the new W Lake western in October of 2023 in a last minute meeting we were informed that the program was no longer part of the bond fast forward a few weeks
034we were then told we were not part of the bond we were informed the district had spent five million on our um our students moving into this new new home the board is now listening to a facility utilization review and proposals to make changes and cut cost to the district an option on the table is moving our ATP students again and our students don't do well with change and the board even mentioned that in the last meeting while we learned that the district spent a lot of money for a temporary move we are here to make sure that doesn't happen again we aren't sure where the disconnect happened but the next move should be the right move because of the mixed messages and lack of transparency we feel like we've been left and not included
035and our students deserve better we are here asking the board to keep us in mind as you review facility changes and bonds We Believe increased transparency and oversight is essential to ensure our students don't get left behind again as an elective Board of this this District we do expect oversight and transparency and that's especially true as you may come back to the taxpayers for another Bond every child every day that should include our transition program students the ATP program is growing while the facility study shows overall declining enrollment with ATP increasing enrollment improved facilities should be at the top of the list to keep our districts here the district Prides itself on being inclusive let's follow that in everything we do and we do appreciate all our hardworking ATP teachers and staff for all they
036do and thanks again for your time and Dr bernia for working with us to make this right for our students thank you thank you Corey [Applause] Hensley good evening everyone uh good evening Board of Education cabinet members as well my name is Corey Hensley I currently serve as president of the special services parent advisory committee pack here in wal Lake I'm here tonight in sport in support of staff and parents of the adult transitions program also known better known as ATP parents first contacted me in September for help specifically to address construction at w Lake western as well as the lack of communication transparency and facility needs as it relates to the ATP program I asked questions met with families and decided that this group needed my help to write or wrong I appreciate the
037Swift response from president CAG Grande regarding the questions but more importantly the purpose of the email was to bring this matter to the board's attention you as a board are tasked with many responsibilities including oversight safety and the welfare of all of our students every child every day staff and parents felt betrayed as they were led to believe that the 2019 Bond included the ATP program and that they would receive a new state-of-the-art facility plans were developed and staff collaborated with Architects to gather ideas for the program space while ensuring accommodations were being met for student needs all the work was for not as staff learned learned that within the last year that ATP was never part of the bond and that there would be no state-of-the-art facility many things just don't add up in
038parents minds and we must do better for adults in the program while we cannot change what's already been decided we can can now and are paying attention we are asking that you as a board also pay attention to the developments of the ATP program we have witnessed you have witnessed stated the art es ecse buildings being built uh the esce building being built schools and classrooms being remodeled and I currently see athletic team buildings going up three high schools don't you think ATP program deserves the very best too as we hear outcomes from the final utilization study this evening with recommendations from plant plant Moran we ask that you keep the ATP program at the Forefront of your mind whether the program stays at Wall Lake western or moves to a new location we ask
039for your support to write a wrong and ensure that the ATP program is a state-of-the-art program drawing F families into W Lake I want I want to personally thank Dr bernia for listening to ATP parent concerns and we look forward to working with you to write that Rong board members can we ask you for your support too thank you thank you Rin [Applause] Shapiro hello my name is Robin Shapiro I'm a teacher for students with autism spectrum disorder at Oakley Park this is my 19th year um teaching in Wald Lake and I'm here tonight to share and highlight some of the amazing things that are happening at Oakley Park just to go through some of the neat programs we have um we participate in a program called Owl Nest which is a monthly 30 minute
040session of multi-age team building activities each Nest consists of kindergarten through fifth graders with an assigned teacher or staff member who help grow and build connections throughout their time at Oakley Park we we host a Girls on the Run and strive club which is a club that teaches life skills through Dynamic interactive lessons and running games and Cates with all the kids participating in a 5k run we are currently holding our PTA annual book fair also um our PTA annual raffle raised um our goal and Mrs frine took eight pies in the face um for the students who earned um and sold the most money to support our school we're very fortunate to have Oakley our therapy dog and he is here tonight he's very busy visiting classrooms on on a schedule and to support
041oural learning we are also recognized as a green school we have a student council we have a school news team so every morning our announcements come from the kids over um a broadcast um we are adopting a family in need from the gsrp head start preschool to bring some holiday cheer and support um to those families in needs our school also has a watchdog program which helps students be positively impacted by involvement of father and father-like figures in their students life we hold grade level music concert last night was the fifth grade concert performance it was wonderful um we also par participate with our parents in a lunchbox crew which provides an opportunity for parents and special friends to volunteer and lend support to our students students during recess and lunch we have a snaps
042program which stands for students need a pal it is a peer-to-peer support system for students with with autism and it currently involves our fourth and fifth grade students our ASD program also runs a beverage cart this um cart um is twice a month and it helps the students practice life skills that include following a recipe sequencing steps and activity fulfilling in order social skills sharing peer-to-peer work basic number recognition reading comprehension health and hygiene and so much more and our first graders have been reading different versions of the ginger gingerbread man parents are invited to a gingerbread program where students will share different versions of the story and read poems and they'll also share their very own version of the gingerbread man that they've been working on and writing I want to thank you for
043allowing me to speak this evening and share how the PTA our support staff and teachers work together to make op a caring Community thank you going to move on to administrative commentary Dr Bern we're going to begin tonight to my right with Mr Durkin nothing nothing this evening Dr beran Mrs kohanski thank you I have nothing tonight m m nothing tonight Dr Beria Mr chadfield uh thank you Dr ber I just wanted to report that uh last week we completed our annually required uh Michigan State Police bus inspections uh we ran 109 buses through the comprehensive inspection program 106 of of those got uh received green tags for a perfect um inspection with two yellow tags and one red tag that were repaired uh right away so uh um just so you know a red
044tag uh has to be repaired before that bus can be put back on the road but a yellow tag uh you have 30 days to make that repair So based on the inspection and based on the maintenance that the uh the dean Transportation mechanic uh perform on our Fleet they received a 99.1% pass rating uh on the maintenance of our Fleet so I just wanted to congratulate Chris Franklin and uh Mike Josh Darren and Ryan the mechanics who do a great job of maintaining our Fleet all right I'd like to officially welcome Miss Zer to the table thank you very much I just want to thank everyone for providing such a warm w l welcome from the the staff to the cabinet to my team and obviously also met people from the public during our
045several of our outings so I'm I'm very happy to be here and anxious to get hit the ground running so thank you uh for me this evening I I want to I don't want to steal anything from board members so I just want to say number one uh thank you to Leia for letting me tag along today it was a lot of fun but I'm sure miss Kap will take it from there uh just last week uh Mrs Levan and I had the opportunity to meet with some girl scouts from Lon Lake I'm thinking she's probably going to take that up so I'm just going to say that it was very nice to meet them and they were a very impressive group of young ladies and were exactly what we hope our students uh turn
046out to be so I'm very very grateful to them I want to thank some of our Community Partners you may have seen uh through our media feed that yesterday we took a number of Staff members uh around the around the community to some of our Community Partners like Hospitality House uh words of hope uh words for Hope and the Detroit Institute for Children I want to thank those Community Partners for hosting us but I also want to thank our staff for coming along I really appreciate that and then we're constantly one of the things when I came to the district we were hearing a lot about was the the collaboration between general education staff and special education staff uh to that end I brought forth a proposal to add a Cabinet member and I've been
047so pleased Mrs kahy and Miss Mir have been working together I really saw it in action I was invited to Lon Lake Elementary earlier this week where before school on their own time the general education and special education staff come together and they meet and they talk about the issues of the day and have a very practical discussion on how they can work together better and that is what world class school districts do and so I just want to compliment those staff members I want to thank them for the invitation because it was it was enjoyable to to see them do their work and and I also want to compliment them on taking that initiative and last but not least it is the holiday season I know Hanukkah begins today and so I want to
048wish everybody just the the very best of everything with uh with your family and and at this time of year thank you thank you with board commentary we're going to start with Mrs Fernandez anything tonight yeah I wanted to uh just let folks know that uh as a board we had an opportunity to come together and do some training together I won't say more about that in case Mrs Cass Grande or somebody else is planning on doing that but um that course was one course in a series of several that um comprise a uh data analytics certificate um from the mby organization and so with that course together with my peers and then the ones that I've done in self-study um that certification is under the belt and um so I'm trying to feel a
049little bit smarter every time I do something like that thank you Mr seagler anything tonight well you know we are in the holiday season and uh festivities and we're all feeling great and you know I had the opportunity of going to Western for Wizard of Oz and when you look again at the talent of our students throughout the district in all areas it is it just is heartwarming and puts a great big smile on your face and I know we have fools coming up at wal Lake Central uh this upcoming weekend and I also had the opportunity of attending Thanksgiving lunch that we had at Conservation Center and you know it's it's amazing what we as a community can do when we really want to and what we can achieve and it's nice to see
050that we are getting back in that manner because for a while we weren't and I really do appreciate seeing what's going on so thank you and happy holidays anything tonight miss Ty I don't have much of a voice um no I was just going to a little bit what Mr seagler had said um there's a lot a lot of talent in our district here and I know somebody already um you know mentioned the collage concert coming up and last year um I got to attend for the first time um and it was quite impressive um so I just um encourage you guys if you were able um it's a great um just holiday event to attend um but also all the plays um put on by the district um they're they're just all quite impressive
051so encourage you to attend if you're able Mr Peterson anything tonight a few comments um it was brought to my attention about a week ago that there was a new a new uh uh directive or statement that was put out by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Education which basically is a uh policy statement on inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood programs uh it's about a 71 page document uh I have gone from back to front uh it's very uh impressive to be honest with you um I found it was well written it's uh not um it's more collaborative than I've seen in many many documents uh it defines uh several areas that not only for Early Child Development the importance of including our special needs
052and disability uh children but it I think at the same time when you read it you'll find that it uh it really transcends all programs in in in the uh a sense of inclusionary practices so I uh will urge Dr Beria to please post it uh so that you all have a chance to review it I I would uh strongly recommend it um that you read it uh at the same time that I was passing this to to Dr Beria he passed us a uh similar document in this case on the impacts of congressional underfunding of the individuals with disabilities Education Act and the educational system this was actually produced by the K12 Alliance and uh on behalf of Haley Stevens a local Congress Congressman as we U may all know again it's a a
053formidable document it makes us aware of where the deficiencies are where the the funding deficiencies are for disability programs um District by District it's very localized uh in in many ways uh again ask Dr ber to please post it so that you all have a chance and opportunity to read it I think you'll find it very informative um I was fortunate enough a couple weeks ago right before Chris uh Christmas right before Thanksgiving to attend the Thanksgiving feast that was uh is put on by Multi Lakes there were several of us that did uh attend that meeting or attend that the uh U event and it's for our special needs kids and I've done it for several years now and it's just a really great time uh for me not having the opportunity to see
054some of these kids anymore since of since retirement days in June um I was great to see a lot of them that I have had at various times in their educational process there so very good and last but not least last night I did the uh Community Forum on mental health and security uh funding and programs uh Dr Lance chaired that did I think a very formidable job in uh explaining to people that were there some of the pitfalls and challenges and all those other decisions and even I as a board member coming out of there came out with a few new uh points that I was not aware of so these Community forums are powerful um a lot of times there's only a handful of us there you get a chance to really uh
055engage um where you may not have that opportunity or kind of writing an email is not so easy to get a formidable response so I encourage that uh immensely so that's it for me anything tonight Mrs Lin yes thank you Mrs Cas Grande um as Dr ber mentioned happy Hanukkah to everybody celebrating the first night of Hanukkah tonight um everything uh you know that I've been up to the last couple weeks has been covered so I won't uh bore you with things like our workshop and the um Michigan Association of school boards data certification that I've been working on and the Girl Scout event um but what's really been awesome to see is um the various Student Activities and community activities that are happening at all of the schools um like the adoptive families the
056giving trees all of the food collections like the thousands and thousands of pounds of cans that have been delivered so um you know so that's really been great and it's it's always great to see the community come together um in my day job I was able to participate in a shop with a cop program uh earlier this week where there were students from our own District involved and so it's you know it's this time of year that kind of brings everybody together um you know we we've all got our our differences we all have different Traditions but we all celebrate things and so um it's it's great to to kind of hear about those things see those things and really participate in those things so um I do hope everybody has a great holiday season
057and a very happy New Year anything tonight Mrs Kaplan yes thank you um I did want to Echo that fools is this weekend so please come see that uh Mr lipid talked about northern's collage concert Central has a collage concert scheduled and so does Western you know pick one they're fantastic they bring such holiday spirit and cheer to everybody who gets to see one so please come out to one of those I want to say congratulations to the W Lake marching band I'm placing third at Nationals a few weeks ago and that was the first time in an immensely amount of time that we've come that close to a national um win and that's a fantastic the bands travel to Indiana and they compete against all over the country bands and so that's a fantastic
058thing and congratulations to them then I'm going to switch my hat a little bit and I'm going to talk about some of the things from Leia and say thank you Dr Beria for helping us today as we um proceeded over to wad Lake um Elementary with what we called boredom Busters um we met with the fourth and fifth graders and we passed out boredom Buster bags um say that a few times and they include things for them to do over a break you know such as making muffins or popcorn some arts and crafts activities and it was a fantastic the kids were super excited it was a fantastic day for everyone involved um so I want to thank the Lake um L staff that attended and helped us and our Leia staff that helped with
059that on Monday Leia has our first Shop with a hero because we include firefighters police officers and EMS we'll be at our uh Commerce Meyers um it's a fantastic thing we have 26 I think it is um students in our district that come and shop and Meyers so thank you Myers contributes financially to give them gift cards to be able to shop and then each family will get a basket of groceries as they exit so it's a fantastic event there then we also have one on the 12th over at Wixom Myers with I think that one's just Sho with a cop um and again that's with our students and it's a fantastic event and we appreciate that Myers for helping our community and then on the 13th we have adopted child which the community in
060Wild Lake and all over has adopted numerous children in our district um I can't recall the number but I'm thinking 86 plus is where we are at am I right yeah 86 um here on Val hospital is a big supporter of us and they adopt a bunch of our students and our children and they package things up and it is an entire day I think we start over at here on Valley at 8: a.m. and load trucks to bring the packages back here and then we set them all up and then the families will come and pick them up throughout the day and the Leia staff Works tirelessly to pass out these um gifts to the families so thank you to all of our community members that help us with all of those things and
061thank you all for all your support for Leia and have a very happy and peaceful holid season so I just want to say to us we made it through the first year this is our 12th regular meeting right we've had extra meetings but we've made it through the first year and I just want to comment that you know we have study sessions we have close sessions Etc and today I was really noticing a lot of kind of you know jabbing and joking and it was just really nice to see that so you may not see that at this board table because we're here for our regular meeting and it's you know serious work that we're doing here but uh for whatever that's worth my perspective it's really um nice to see the more jelly and
062getting to know each other um whenever you bring in new members and significantly you know three is is is Big with a a board of seven it's it's really nice that over the last year we've been able to uh to get some good work done um as Mrs Fernandez talked about we did have a session on District strategic uh planning and goal setting and we are committed to start working on a strategic plan together so Dr Bernie is going to help us with that um we have had strategic plans in the past and I think that will give us as a board some very good focus and some good work to do that will also involve you know community members along the the way as well as we start looking at this and it pairs
063very nicely with the work that we're going to be doing with the facility study so just um thank you Mrs Fernandez for priming the pump on that I appreciate that I also um we've gotten a few sessions with uh Dr Beria and uh had conversations about how he's doing with us he hit the year mark which uh we talked about at I think our last meeting or so and we continued to have conversations about our you know goals and and how he is doing and what he wants to work on and it's a long list so um I just um want to thank you on behalf of the board for all the work you're doing continue to do and it's um really nice to hear in public commentary the the thank yous too then the
064collaboration so we don't always get that um and that's okay but when we do we really appreciate that so thank you and and last um I will Echo the the Fine Arts and how many times have you seen Wizard of Oz but when I went to Wizard of Oz there's just there's something new and I had gone to to a performance in Royal Oak and it was good but it had nothing on our um performers here it was just amazing it really was and and Toto and the Scarecrow and a few others just stole the show they were just amazing um the yes fools we will be going to that and the collage concert unfortunately I can't hit the northern one because fools is this weekend and it's really hard but uh but we'll get
065there and I have two two sons who um were in the orchestra and it's really just amazing to see the orchestra and the band and the uh choir and personally I don't know what they're going to do this year but when they do the huah chorus um it's just amazing I don't know if they'll do that or not but they've done that before and it's just phenomenal so now on to the rest of the business um so we going move on to our consent agenda on our consent agenda tonight we have an approval of minutes both um meeting minutes are from November 2nd we had a special meeting and a closed session and then we also had a regular meeting we have Personnel recommendations new hires and retirement ments we also have dispersements in the
066amount of 8,762 29 and we have purchases under 50,000 for uh the K through 8 Safari Montage software and license renewal through November 2024 that is for $433 26.75 from our general fund and we also have a head start director's report Miss l I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda as presented all those in favor opposed motion carries 70 and next we have our strategic facility planning committee final report Dr Beria I'm going to turn the floor over to Mr chadfield thank you Dr bernia a districtwide committee of stakeholders representing all schools in many departments uh has been meeting to review data from the facility utilization study completed by plant Moran real point last spring in an effort to assess the study's findings and develop considerations to utilize our facilities in
067a more efficient and costeffective manner Paul Wills from plant Moran Realo who has assisted in facilitating this process uh will provide a final report highlighting the committee's work thank you Mr caffi uh Dr Bernie and good evening board members we're going to get the format here uh one second here so perfect thank you so much y thank very good and good evening um yes is Mr Chatfield mentioned this is the uh final presentation from the committee's work and first and foremost do want to thank those uh 55 plus committee members uh Dr ber Mr Chatfield and some others from central office administration teams to really come together with what we consider recommendations for board considerations so again this is the findings um through surveys through a lot of data mining uh accordingly going forward so
068tonight's presentation uh we thought it'd be helpful just to give it an update on enrollment so the October uh fall count I know it's maybe not officially uh but we do have the unaudited official counts that kind of gives you a breakdown by school also by grade level and then we're going to talk a little bit about the cohorting so again your current K5 689 12s potentially a K4 a 58 or 912 model um talk a little bit about Capital timing so again um I think some of the things you heard tonight is how do you continue to improve on your District's facilities and we'll talk a little bit about that as well as timing so again um previously the board took about a year year and a half to implement some of these changes
069it gives the district really time to really focus on the academics we're going to talk a little bit about that also the financials the operations Transportation Food Service Etc and then in in section four we do actually have the survey results uh for the board's perview tonight then of course we'll open up for questions and answers as we go through it uh so uh update fall enrollment uh so again right now you currently have 12 elementary schools uh if you take a look at the K5 um there's about 5,425 students if you recall from the previous presentations the district has a capacity for roughly 6,500 students uh that 4525 does include special education uh as well as general population education accordingly you can also see the special ed over at twins Sun as well as
070the Early Childhood special education center so this kind of gives you a synopsis not only by building on the lefthand side but also by grades and so one of the things you're going to start to notice in these slides is your current graduating class is over a thousand going forward you have no other classes that are are near that thousand Mark you're going to start seeing 950 9925 you're seeing 888 87 26 so um as we mentioned the birth rate is down in Oakland County um people really like to live in the Wall Lake District area so their kids have graduate the parents stay there and the the Guardians stay there so it's again you're not seeing a lot of uh I'll call it growth but again the decline is starting to starting to uh
071slow down if you will at the K5 level those buildings that you see in Red so again when you look at kind of your peer groups um elementary schools traditionally have um somewhere in the 4450 500 range so again these are uh just kind of where you're at holistically if you go back to 2006 you actually had roughly about 64 6,500 students in the 12 configuration going forward also want to point out the 972 in kindergarten grades um there's 122 Junior kindergardeners so again there's really 850 at the K level and then obviously those would repeat accordingly so that's kind of that new normally we talked about of the 850 875 moving on to the middle school and high school levels so you currently have four middle schools that are grades six through eight 8
072uh about 2700 students in there again going back to 20062 2008 you had just over 5,000 students and then same thing with the three high schools and again you kind of see by grade levels so as I mentioned the current uh 12th grade year have just over a thousand again 895 9935 887 Etc going forward so um as a district you're preliminary uh fall counts just over 12,000 uh it's at 12,138 so what does this mean so obviously you have challenges with decreased enrollment you look at the funding sources from the state of Michigan per pupil and again that's often times the challenge of districts is how do you run more efficiently with the dollars you're given for the students that you have we're going to transition a little bit to the cohorts uh so
073again this is your current 12 elementary schools in the First Column of colors um this middle column is actually your middle schools and then at your high schools you've got your your three high schools there so as you can see not every Elementary goes directly um from middle school until High SCH high school so there's there are some splits if you will uh especially at the Western Central and Northern so again this may be an opportunity for board to really look at that cohort and how do we potentially line our elementary programming to our Middle School programming into a high school so we'll talk a little bit about that as we go forward lastly is also the mapping um so one of the things that we lued hard at as a committee is what if
074we have a K4 Elementary School maybe a 56 then a 78 a 912 there's a lot of conversations concerned about multiple transition I so if I have a fifth grader I have to run across town to get my seventh grader potentially to high school um so again that 56 to a seven um eight was just too many Transitions and you can also Imagine you know again having two schools too far apart from the fifth sixth seventh eth um so really the two things that came out of it were should the district really look at a K4 58 912 models which is up on your screen so we overlay it with the students that you currently have again approximately 450 students per classroom at the elementary again this is preserving special education classrooms uh that um
075Dr L presented earlier to the committee as Wells to the board um you'd re need roughly 10 facilities roughly 450 students right now you have some Elementary as high as 550 575 so you're not maxing out the elementaries um would this also cause maybe potential limitations for K4 or I'm sorry Pre-K for four y olds um yes it would um so the the action of taking roughly 850 or 900 fifth graders up to that Middle School does preserve your four middle schools so you'd be a 10 Elementary four middle school and then ultimately back to the three high schools so what are some of the challenges and opportunities of this um as you can imagine you have significant redistricting at the elementary level I'm going from 12 to 10 um the cohorts 5 through eights
076would pretty much stay level um because that's your current configuration again we did mention about preserving special education music and art um in terms of closing the schools and repurposing them so to give you an idea most elementaries are roughly 50 to 60,000 Square ft this facility is roughly 52,00 ft we talked about twin sun and potentially consolidating and potentially I think you heard something like let's really focus on ATP you know could that be a potential option through Capital Improvements so again that you have two distinct facilities that you could actually consider for that repurposing um lastly we talked a little bit about the the capital fund so back in 2012 the district did do a a facility audit and condition assess with your architect and construction manager there's roughly a $600 million Capital
077need and the district's done a very good job in 2013 coming out of the Great Recession about a $7.5 million Bond um looking at millage rates in 2019 about 316 so there's obviously still a capital need that can be an assistance to help some of this reorganization go forward so transitioning to the next option which be maintaining your current K5 6 8 912 again that leaves roughly 55 thou or 5,500 students about 465 per building again still opportunities to preserve the special education art music Etc um they' still have your 12 existing facilities at that standpoint still allow for future growth at the middle school level uh again you'd be about 2700 students you'd need three facilities at roughly 900 per um back in 26 actually all three of your middle schools were actually well
078over a thousand so again we know they they fit from that perspective and then more importantly those three middle schools would feed directly into the high school so kind of creating that alignment from K5 into 68 and then ultimately to 912 going forward some of the challenges and opportunities again minimal redistricting uh at the elementary level uh the high school attendants panters will stay generally the same however at the middle school level you'd see a lot more movement from that perspective going forward that closed Middle School about 130,000 square feet depending on the school that's ultimately identified um could accommodate um the ESC potentially twin sun and if so desired ATP there as a primary or secondary site going forward and again same consideration with the capital needs regardless of the facilities going forward um
079with the SC moving in these situations um obviously what would you do with this facility so again if you decide to sell it that just reduces your Capital need to maintain it so again that's part of that next steps of what to do with some of the facilities from the capital perspective as well so we're going to transition a little bit about capital Improvement um I don't expect you read the ey chart on the right but what it's really showing is over the last 25 years uh the pass rate for millage proposals either for a zero M or a reduction is about 89% um anytime you start asking for additional millage rate that drops about 54% um the bullets above again just kind of outline you know you still have some needs going forward um
080you look at some districts that have had a bond probably every 5 to seven years that is best practice because we know your general fund is really focusing on programs and students and teachers um if you're a corporation you may have four to 6% of your general fund I'm really allocated to Capital you may have less than 1% for that going forward and that's not uncommon in the casw market here in Michigan so last thing we talked about with the committee is really understanding What's the timing of this so again this is really just trying to align the facilities um there's a lot of academic planning that still has to be Tak in place to make sure that wall Lake continues with that strong programming are there areas to improve some of that programming um
081both at the elementary middle school and ultimately High School level um communication I think you've the district's done a phenomenal job you've had public forums you've had 50 plus Cent person committees I've had the privilege of presenting at multiple board meetings you know just keeping that communication going forward no matter what decision ultimately the board uh takes place going forward so all this information we then uh went back to the committee and we said okay um the board's looking for some recommendations ultimately these are recommendations for the board's consideration um so the first one is understanding the cohort so on the top question was would you want to realign it to a K4 a 58 912 or maintain the K5 68 912 you can see 75% of the respondents wanted you to maintain that K5
08268 912 so a lot of support uh to main that going forward the next one is should we break up the band uh as we affectionately called it the committee is taking um the Educational Services Center and again looking at potentially a high school potentially a middle school um again how do you best service your clients which are your students and parents and community members obviously this facility would come offline which we talked about reducing um some of your square foot cost of operations and capital requirements so 100% we're um to relocate ESC to an educational facility next one is Twin Sun so again about 12,000 foot facility uh near Lon Lake um it's Antiquated it's doesn't really serve the students really properly the way it should be so again looking at elementary schools um
083other educational closed facilities um there was about a 98% approval um or support for that particular program getting relocated the next one we spent a lot of time really talking about ATP so again um understanding Which special education programs are at the elementary how do they cohort into the middle school I think you heard from some individuals tonight about you know losing that identity if they're not really necessarily cohering to a high school um so again depending on the cohorting um this was a question about really just making sure that they get the right facility so is it investing additional dollars at Western is there two two sites versus one um so again not a lot of um um I'll call it disagreement other than we want to help improve those experiences for those students
084and we understand those students they do have a difficulty with change so again that kind of is going to come into play with the planning exercises of really how to provide the best facility next one is should the district consider Capital project uh to pay for necessary Renovations versus is a general fund about a 94% pass rate again this is without any timing or dollar amounts but just simply recognizing the fact that you have a $600 million Capital need and as we know the costs of materials and labor have gone up probably since 2012 um so at the end of the day how do you best address those physical needs but more importantly as you're looking at reorganizing the district from a facility standpoint is making those wise Investments um going forward so about a
08594% supportive of that consideration and lastly is timing um we have some districts that are at four five 6% fund balance their implementation period is literally four to 6 months that would be rushing it um as you see from the question here by the committee is they want the board and the district to take the time you know take a look at the academic planning look at the finances and the financial opportunities for potential Capital Improvements so about 67% said really you know Implement for the for the 2025 so again this facility here if you were relocate could probably move quicker than let's say you know going from four middle schools down to three um so again there is a timing consideration so the committee's recommendation is please don't rush it uh for 2024 so
086what does this all mean and then uh we'll open up for questions um you know people always ask how do you identify which facility should it be um this facility as we mentioned is kind of an easy one it's supports education but it's not necessarily in the in the general education facilities um things such as agent facility what is the capital need what programs are currently there so we know you do have capacity at the high schools again looking at the middle schools depending if you have three or four how does that come into play most importantly is the academic uh planning which we talked about really focusing on K through 12 uh special education we talked about specials uh at the middle school that was one of the things that right now because you
087have the four middle schools there's hard time actually having some of those electives really fully staffed so tra teachers are not traveling um so it's really kind of limiting the students experience and then also at the high school level just look at other programs so potentially bringing back some CTE program programs from um the otch program through Oakland County or perhaps there's new um career paths that are out there that maybe they're not offered that you could do that so um that that's really at the high school level and so lastly uh the last three are really just operations facility so um I'm glad miss here to kind of help um you know the rest of administration team really look at this holistically and then lastly just from a communication standpoint um just be transparent
088and I think you've done a great job allowing us the opportunity to work with this 50 plus uh committee so with that I'll turn over to president kasag Grande Dr ber and the board are there any questions or comments for our presenter Mr Seer not necessarily for our presenter but you know again I can't thank the parents and the faculty and staff that were involved with this uh I think we learned when we did redistricting and from past Bond initiatives and uh plans that you know sometimes it's much easier for the board when the community brings the recommendations to us and this is a perfect example of that of you know we might have had our own thoughts of what we should do but it's better to hear from people that are there and in
089it every day and let them come back to us to do it so thank you to everybody who was involved with this Mrs Kaplan s want to Echo what he said H being on the other side which I did for a long time I did the redistricting I didn't you know all that on the other side and it is a lot of work for these community members and parents and I truly appreciate them coming out and looking at this and coming up with some recommendations for us as a board to consider and look at and that's a lot of work so thank you all for all your time and efforts so I would like to ask would you go back to the slide where there's the uh question of should we relocate ATP so i'
090like to talk about that a little bit um when I look at everything I was taking notes Here looks like everything um looked like it was pretty high percentage that yes we should we should do this this is the one that's mixed to Mr seager's Point um we look for information and and look for that guidance from the community and from that committee because it's based um it has a makeup of the right stakeholders we hope right um so this is where I'm not clear what the community wants so Dr Bernie if I can ask you our presenter here what are the next steps to figure out how do we get that to be a little bit clearer yeah so you know when you're when you're working with a committee our committee was a cross-section
091from the district so in that sense you have folks that bring their own lens to the table and we asked everyone for their feedback and and that with that said not everyone there is as familiar with the programming right so I have heard you know as was mentioned earlier tonight I've met with parents from the ATP program I can I we have a we have a meeting scheduled for January to continue the conversation and then another meeting scheduled for January and I think that that is really where a lot of that is going to take place because I can tell you that on some of those questions on some of the questions on on the board right now I I have achieved complete and total Clarity on where their where their Viewpoint is on on
092a couple of topics and so we will continue to to work through that and we'll continue to but obviously it also comes with uh you know Mr wills and the the recommendation is pretty clear that it also has to come as part of a capital planning project that we need to take on and so I'm committed to continuing to work with them but I think the best I think the best way to go forward would be to continue to engage uh with with the ATP families not just not just the ATP families that are sending their kids to Western every day right now but but also growing that conversation to say you know the the next generation of ATP students you know in increasing their involvement and making sure that they have a seat at
093the table um so I'm committed to continuing to work with them because I agree with you I I think but I think the clarity is going to come from my engagement uh with me and my team and the families from that program thank you Mrs Klan just a followup question on that I know you've met with the ATP parents separately but how many ATP parents were on this committee so that these answers does that reflect any of you know their opinions on that two two three three three thank you thank you okay all right thank you thank you very much appreciate your time all right next we're going to move on to purchases uh purchase of new buses bus award bid that ber I'm going to go to Mr Chatfield thank you Dr bernia the
094Administration has obtained and analyzed bids through the Michigan school business officials aggregate bus purchasing program and recommends the award of 10 Thomas replacement buses to hoer transportation uh this purchase would uh will be funded from the 2019 bond fund uh in which uh a dedicated source of funding was um uh scheduled in that Bond originally so we have 277 uh conventional buses at $139,800 passenger conventionals which are for special education purposes at $1,862 a piece on MSB processing fee of $125 per bus for a total uh total purchase price of 1,335 1890 Mrs Kaplan I move that the Board of Education authorized the purchase of 10 buses from hoer transportation in the amount of 1,335 1890 from the 2019 ban fund and any discuss oh any discussion Mr s so we ex we expect that
095the new buses would be delivered at the end of 24 or at the uh early part of 25 uh we currently have 109 buses in the fleet um we anticipate at this time we would be um we would be disposing of 2013 and 2015 model buses ideally that is always the ideal model is to have a 10 year replacement cycle Mrs lvin thank you um a couple questions uh I want to clarify what Mr seagler just said is it a state requirement that the buses can't be more than 10 or that's just a good day what's the state requirement uh there are no state requirements okay um and then you know we we've heard from no less than roughly a dozen um families recently about air conditioning at in the northern gym uh more than
09615 families and then uh students here tonight talking about the turf fields at um the baseball and softball fields at Northern I'm not saying that I don't support buses because we need to get the kids to the school to use those facilities but I am wondering if there are higher priority items Capital items that this money couldn't be spent on first before for the buses or maybe eight buses instead of 10 buses so that maybe uh couple hundred or few hundred, dollar could be used to bring our facilities up to to to speed um specifically the the baseball and softball fields doesn't sound like that'd be a huge expense but certainly a safety concern I understand that the air conditioning is on the schedule for Northern next summer um but you know what does that
097mean for the students that will be using that gym gymnasium this coming fall you know when it's still summer here in Michigan so um you know I have some reservations just about if we have Capital funding we're asking for potentially asking for more Capital funding with while those plant marand slides it's always asking for more but what's the priority and I think that's something that that's been brought up a few different times with a few different buckets of spending it's it's not just spending but what's the priority and I think we have a responsibility as a board to you know listen a little bit to the community you know we want to spend the money responsibly but is it the right order and if it's not going to be you know we take the bus
098money and put it towards something else when and how will for example the baseball fields be addressed if not you know moving some of this money around any other comments did you want to respond to that Dr ber I was just going to point out you know that that this purchase is part of this completes the the process process that the the previous administration and board had started to to complete that the air the money for HVAC uh the bond money is there for that and that work is slated to be done in the summer of 25 in large part because we we could not take all three gyms offline in the same summer and so that became problematic we have the bids that are coming to you tonight which includes hvbc work at Central
099and at Western the design work for that began a year ago so even if we wanted to say pull forward the HB back work you know if you as a board said forget it you know let the high school kids practice in the Middle School gyms over the summer and do all three there is not sufficient time for us to bring you bids and secure vendors and secure supplies to do that work at Northern at this at this juncture um the baseball field issue is is one that uh has come up and and has come up quite considerably but I would recommend the board allow us to study that a little bit um to see if there are syncing fund implications or or I'm not implications possibilities uh I would I would encourage you to
100to see about that because again when you make a capital Improvement to the baseball field at Northern you're thereby obligated to make that same Improvement at Central and at Western so that's something that we have to review kind of that whole picture and so I I would um I would ask the board for sufficient time for us to do that homework and bring you uh a thoughtful proposal we've we've heard loud and clear and and we've heard from the athletes and the coaches and I commend them for being so respectful in their communication uh but that is something that I think warrants further study at this time so that those are my those are my thoughts on that I would also like to to point out my understanding um Mr Chatfield and Dr Veria is
101that this purchase here is primarily special education busing and special education buses go more miles they need to be replaced more frequently uh we need to keep those kids safe and in buses that are safe um and I will say very good record you know with the inspections that you mentioned today Mr Chi but I remember we had like nothing right and so um again nothing against um all of the the great work arm mechanics to Etc but if we start to look at not replacing these then in my opinion you know we we start getting into situations where it's a cost benefit of where the heck do you want to spend the money do you want to spend it keeping up your buses that are older and you'll have those costs and then that
102will offset the newer buses as well so um I I do support this any other comments all right um but did you want to say something Mrs Fernandez yeah I did yeah go ahead thank you so much Mr Chatfield for bringing forward again the stats on the repairs because those were the ones that were in my mind from spring or whenever you last brought them um what I I'm trying to understand is um you know we all want an updated Fleet that's important but are is there any IM immediate at risk of being outdated or not having the buses we need for certain routes or for special ed purposes or regular bus purposes um at this point in time if we don't pass this purchase award uh i' I'd say at this point in time
103there's not and that's simply because um the board has has supported a replacement schedule that's allowed us to to keep a safe and well-maintained Fleet in service so it it was not too long long ago that we purchased four buses over the course of five years and uh we were in we were in a real difficult position with our Fleet um since that time um the the community has supported Bond issues uh that have included the purchase of replacement buses uh this particular Bond had $5.1 million uh in it to um to purchase replacement buses for our Fleet uh this purchase would take that amount to uh just slightly over $4 million and um barring some unexpected catastrophe that would complete our bus purchases for the 2019 Bond so um so no there's nothing em
104imminent but uh two years down the road I wouldn't be able to say that understood thank you the other thing that I'd like to just um add that I think I heard tonight especially I don't know that I have enough detail about it but along with AC which I understand the planning implications and the um and the fields which we' become aware of and and thank you for saying that you'll look into that uh I think I heard tonight also that there's some critical needs in the ATP buildings and programs and I'm certain that I don't have a great appreciation for what that is but in detail but I feel like that needs to be a priority as well um from a spending perspective any other comments all right all those in favor I opposed
105opposed I don't know who opposed it Mrs levven Mr Peterson Mrs Ty and Mrs Fernandez motion is not passed 324 all right bid Awards Dr ber we're gonna go back to Mr shaffield thank you Dr Beria uh we have two uh Bond bid packages for your consideration the first is Bid pack 7 uh which represents the majority of the bond work for the renovations to Central High School and the outdoor education center there are 17 bid categories representing site work building envelope interior Renovations and mechanical and electrical upgrades the bid awards for uh bid award recommendations for Central total 6,481 N7 and for the Outdoor Center those totals are one mill 1, motion carries 70 Dr Bernie back to you right back to Mr chff the second bid package is for phase two remodeling work
106at Western High School uh it also includes the pool mechanical upgrades at both Western and Central High School which were bid together as a package uh this package includes 42 bid categories uh and involves the demolition of the A and C wings at Western along with a complete re build of the D and G Wings which are in the center of the building uh it also includes replacement windows and blinds uh in the in the adult transition uh rooms this work will start next spring and Renovations in the DG Wings will continue throughout the 2425 school year uh the the uh recommendations for Western total 24 m472 78 and for the central pool work a total $474,950 Mr Seer I move that the Board of Education approve of bid awards for the 2019 Bond project
107Western High School Phase 2 Remodeling and Central High School pool equipment from the 2019 bond fund any discussion all those in favor I opposed motion carries 70 Central High School flashing limit signs Dr ber Mr chadfield thank you Dr bero in an effort to improve Traffic Safety on Commerce and Oakley Park roads in front of Central High School Administration has worked with the road commission of Oakland County and the Commerce Township Board of Trustees in support of the installation of new school speed limit signs with flashing signals to better control traffic at the beginning and the end of the school day uh both entities have agreed to participate in a trip party agreement with Wald Lake schools in which uh the approximately s approximate $73,000 cost of this project will be split equally uh and
108you saw supervisor gray here tonight indicating Commerce Township supported that um that that frankly is some some tremendous progress um in our relationship building with Commerce Township so Administration recommends that the Board of Education support this agreement and authorize the superintendent to execute all necessary documents this Len I can't read with my glasses on I move that the Board of Education participate in a tri-party agreement with the road commission of Oakland County and the Commerce Township Board to install school speed limit signs with flashers around Central High School and further authorize the superintendent to execute all necessary documents any discussion question yes Mrs L when are these uh expected to be installed that gets appr uh the work is uh expected to be started this summer hopefully completed by the end of summer Mrs Fernandez
109I think I don't see superintendent gray here anymore but um we didn't get a chance to respond and say thank you wholeheartedly for the support and thanks for helping to build that relationship to make that happen any other discussion Mr Peterson as you know I've uh I drove in and out of central for several years I know the congestions particularly in the morning uh first question I have is this both going to be on Commerce and South commas and Oakland Park both sides uh yeah actually there will be three signals one on um uh one on Commerce road uh west of the school before you get to the intersection one on South Commerce south of the school and one on Oakley Park Road East of the school okay um I know we have a similar
110um lighted system at Oakley Park Elementary also correct yes so the only thing I would suggest and and you know I've been over there I have watched Wolverine Lake Police Department uh periodically citation drivers for not following those signs um I sure hope that our local law enforcements would uh would take some extra time to to uh CU signs or no signs we had signs even with the lights I I'm I'm fine with this with the lights um I see what happened at Oakley park to a degree but I think it's still Central is really challenging um partly just by where the accesses and uh to uh the student parking and that and uh parent drop off so it's a challenge either way I don't know if this is going to be a big fix
111it'll help a little bit more just remind people again what they're supposed to do I hopefully long enforcement will will do and issue a few more citations to Mr Seer I believe very early in Mr chatfield's tenure with the district we were talking about getting any signs at uh Central and you're you're right I mean we we were we had instances many years ago where students would not use the crosswalks or not choose to use the crosswalks and we had incidents of students uh being struck by cars so do caution and I'm glad to see we're going The Next Step so thank you all right all those in favor I opposed motion carries 70 authorization of restrictive covenant for Community Education property Dr BR Once More Mr chadfield thank you Dr bernia uh following extensive
112efforts to mitigate soil and groundwater contamination on the former Community Education property a small section of the site still contains contamination in excess of state of Michigan Department of environment Great Lakes and energy permissible concentrations for unrestricted use of the property in order to establish permissible uses of the property the school district must enter into a restrictive covenant to restrict uses only on the affected area of the property Administration has reviewed the restrictive covenant with legal councel and recommends its approval Miss tys um I move that the Board of Education approve the restrictive covenant for the former Community Ed property and authorize the superintendent to execute any and all necessary documents to effectuate the scene any discussion all those in favor I opposed motion carries 70 new course proposal adoption Dr Beria Mrs goans thank
113you Dr Beria um as the board may remember the new course offering of of orology uh at Wald Lake Northern High School was presented at the November 2nd 2023 board meeting uh by Mr Scott Terry one of our uh fantastic science teachers at Wald Lake Northern and the new course offering for the program of studies has been endorsed by Administration and is being presented to the board for the approval of its adoption tonight Mrs Lin I move that the Board of Education approve the adoption of the new course entitled Ornithology or bird watching at wal Lake Northern High School any discussion all those in favor I opposed motion carries 70 resolution Section 105 limited schools of choice do Beria for many years Wall Lake Consolidated Schools has been open to Section 105 schools of choice
114under the state school aid act under the section of pupil May enroll from one Oakland County School District to another the administration is requesting that the board of educ ucation approve Wall Lake Consolidated Schools as a participant in Section 105 limited schools of choice for the 2425 school year with a designation of school openings not to exceed 5% of the most recent October count in any individual school which continues your historic practice and not to exceed 10% of the most recent October count for the 2425 school year specific to kindergarten only which is also something that we brought to you last winter and you approved Mrs C I move that the Board of Education approve administration's recommendation that the district participate in Section 105 limited schools of choice for the 2425 school year and the
115school openings be designated by Administration not to exceed 5% of the most recent October count in any individual school with the exception of increasing the kindergarten openings not to exceed 10% of the most recent October count in any individual school any discussion yes Mrs L this just came to my mind Dr Beria is the definition of kindergarten kindergarten or Junior kindergarten plus kindergarten uh so this year and I would defer to Mrs kahky but I'm pretty sure she's gonna agree this year our schools of choice was open to kindergarten but we don't have any schools of choice students in junior kindergarten at this time because we placed all of our resident students in those spots and didn't have any open spaces is that accurate actually Dr Beria we did Place several schools of choice students
116um and what we did for that then that's great um uh we opened it up to School of Choice uh siblings so any of our current School of Choice families that have students here we wanted to be able to offer to those families the ability to be able to bring their junior kindergarteners in um so uh we we didn't necessarily prioritize based on Resident versus non-resident or you know School of Choice versus non-school of choice we prioritize based on need based on birth date so remember that Junior kindergarten program program targets students that are quite young for kindergarten that September 1st to December 1st uh waiver window so not that uh so in many states September 1st tends to be a cutof off date for kindergarten but in Michigan uh it's traditionally been December 1st
117a number of years back uh the state recommended moving that uh back to September 1 kind of commensurate with other states but then also offered a waiver to families and so we know that um kindergarten and for many of our families of young children that can become a uh a a care issue right a cost issue and we know that our youngest Learners need that extra time I'm kind of getting a little bit down a rabbit hole and I don't mean to but I wanted to just give some context to to Junior kindergarten so we went based on need um and I believe we have three or four students that are siblings of our current School of Choice families that do attend our Junior kindergarten Mrs Fernandez I have a follow-up question about that because
118somewhere in our policy committees we were dealing with the um with a language around um faculty and staff being able to send their students to uh um out of the district and I thought that I understood at that point in time that prek are not able to bring their students into the district because you have to you have to belong in the district is that the case so pre prek is different than Junior kindergarten so preschool is part of our early childhood programming from ages three to five but Junior kindergarten is for young fives so those kiddos that don't turn five until that waiver window um and so that Junior kindergarten program actually in terms of pupil accounting with the state is part of the body of kindergarten students so that's counted in k12 and
119not counted in prek okay so prek different from Jen thank you for that bet just to get it out there publicly when does the School of Choice window open for wal uh I believe and and I will answer on behalf no it's totally fine I'll be uh happy to answer on behalf of Dr Lon I know he does oversee our School of Choice window that usually uh opens in January I don't have the exact date in Front of Me Maybe Mr Durkin is uh searching for that and I do believe it's open for the month of January so mid January to mid-February we just confirmed on our website so yeah thank you very much any other questions or comments all those in favor I oppose osed motion carries 70 all right board meeting date change
120so in uh 2023 24 our meeting dates were published and we originally had intended that we were going to do our organizational meeting our annual organizational meeting um on uh January 11th and there were um a few conflicts and some concerns with um personal work travel Etc and we felt it was extremely important that we had have all of our board members here if we could um so we are bringing a motion um before the board to consider um moving that organizational meeting date to January 4th we would still hold the January 11th meeting as a regular meeting but we would hold an additional meeting on the 4th so I'm going to go ahead and read the motion I move that the Board of Education hold the annual organizational meeting on January January 4th 2024
121any discussion Mrs Kaplin so the organizational meeting are we just doing organizational stuff and then we're saving the 11th meeting as our regular standard meeting yes yes that's what this would mean any other discussion all those in favor I opposed motion carries 70 board policy adoption Dr Beria uh thank you very much Madam president the updated board policies were provided for your review at the November 2 2023 regular board meeting the updated policies are in alignment with the current law and I recommend their adoption uh after a careful review with the board policy subcommittee I'd like to compliment them on their hard work uh we've had five meetings in two months and so I I really do appreciate their diligence good questions and hard work have a motion Mrs Klan I move that the Board
122of Education adopt the updated board policies as presented any discussion I think we went through the process um just to confirm uh before we vote um you know we bring a first it comes to the policy committee we bring a first reading which we had last time comments were given from some board members that went back to the policy committee then they got revised again and came back to us um so that's what we're voting on tonight all those in favor I opposed motion carries 70 and we are adjourned at 8:47 it just moved thank you