WLCSD Board of Education Meeting - October 5, 2023

001going to go ahead and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please to of the United States of America and to the it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay we have uh Golden Apple award Dr Beria all right good evening everyone Jennifer van Wagman come on [Applause] up come on up to the least comfortable place in the room right there that's perfect right yep right on the WL and that way they can get you on the live stream you're being broadcast live online right now my mom's watching tonight's first golden apple recipient is Jennifer van waget principal at mebrook elementary Jen was nominated by Heather isers and a mebrook parent because she is impressed at how Jen jumped into a role as principal at MBE and acclimated so well Heather

002shared M van Wagman is such a kind person and deserving of this recognition Jen is devoted to her students through various interaction and acts of caring she works with parents when she's concerned about a student wellbeing sets examples and follows through she seeks out ideas from other Educators as well as parents and is motivated by her drive to have all children succeed and be supported Dr Lans our Deputy superintendent enthusiastically supported Jen's nomination sharing M van Wagman has been a wonderful addition to the Wall Lake family she is supportive dedicated and compassionate and cares deeply about her students staff parents and the mebrook school Community not only is she an amazing leader at her school but she is also a valuable resource to her colleagues I look forward to working with her as she continues

003to lead her met Brook Mustangs Jen thank you for all you do every day for students and families at mebrook elementary it is our honor to recognize you this evening Jim congratulations be great if you'd like sure I just want to take a moment to thank my family and my staff um for being here this evening and for Nikolai and his mom for um nominating me for this and for all the support from Dr lens and the cabinet members uh I wouldn't be standing here today if it weren't for those lovely people beh behind all of you they make the world a brighter place and so this is really their award and I wanted to take an opportunity to share that with all of you so thank you so much thank you all right and

004next we have an audit presentation Dr ber yes thank you madam President we have come to that point of year where uh our third party audit has been completed by Moran and so I would like to welcome plant Moran to the podium they'll introduce themselves and then walk the board through their slides and their presentation about their findings uh and and from there uh just so the community is aware we're going to have a slight procedural change this year so generally in that historically we've had the presentation and the board has voted to accept the audit right on the same night this time we're going based on board feedback we're going to have the presentation and then the board will vote to accept the audit at our meeting on October 19th which will give them

005a little bit of additional time to do some studying and ask questions and make sure that they feel comfortable so with that the floor is yours great thank you very much um my name is Donna Hansen I'm the partner in charge of the audit um with me tonight is Michael Walsh he is the senior manager um both of us have worked um with uh W Lake schools for a few years now um appreciate the opportunity to uh be on your agenda tonight and we're going to cover the results of the audit and some key highlights um in a graph presentation um the board should have received um four items in the board package um one is the basic financial statement which is the big thick document um the federal programs or the single audit report

006which details the grant dollars the district received um the end of audit correspondence to the Board of Education which includes several informational items for for your reading pleasure um as well as this graph presentation um we have completed our audit procedures um and the the um you have received those final copies um and that's the audit reports make sure I how do I move this okay here we go just to cover some key highlights from the audit um we have issued an unmodified opinion on the district's financial statements an unmodified opinion is the highest form of insurance that we can provide that the district statements are free of material misstatement and can be relied upon um the financial statements are Management's responsibility to prepare um we have the responsibility to audit the financial statements and

007render an opinion on the financial statements which is what that unmodified opinion is um on the 2023 Federal program audit results um we tested three major programs this year um we test not only the dollars of those federal grants but also compliance with all the rules and and guide guidelines that the district has to adhere to and how those dollars are spent um we tested CH the Child Nutrition cluster Title One and the Esser funds and there was about $6 million of that one-time funding um that is in the district's financial statements um we noted no um compliance findings no um question cost in regards to those um Audits and those programs we also just want to bring to your attention there are included in the revenue of the district some non-recurring funding sources of

008revenue as I mentioned um the coid dollars um those are dollars that um needed to be spent those Grant programs um call them ESF funds Esser funds and those dollars are winding down now and all have to be spent by September 2024 and also included in the financial statements is one-time funding an additional payment for the pension plan for the mypers program those are dollars that come in to the district and go out directly into uh the pension plan the mypers program that was approximately $8.3 million which kind of grosses up your financial statement so there's 8.3 in revenue and then it's 88.3 in the expenditure side as well we also tested as part of the audit the bond and syncing fund compliance so your bond programs um not only just the dollars that are

009spent but also that the the proper bidding and and the allowable costs under the ballot language and um in compliance with the guidelines for bonds and syncing funds we had no issues with regards to that something we do take a note of um as we're auditing is assessing uh the budget process at the district um the uniform budget act um by law um the Board of Education adopts the budget and the Administration has to work and not overspend that budget um we saw found that the district continues to have good budget processes and procedures in place and there was no um overspending of the budget this year and finally just want to congratulate the district on again earning the asbo certificate of excellence in financial reporting for 2022 this is a certificate that you'll find

010in the financial statements um for last year's audit report um and it just speaks to the quality of the district's financial reporting um as well as you can see there's a much more comprehensive information in the district's financial statement I'm going to turn it over to Michael and he's going to cover the highlights of uh not only the general fund but uh the balance sheet of all the major funds of the district thanks Donna um so the to kind of kick things off from a a numbers perspective um wanted to just give you know the balance sheet of the district at June 30 2023 really just an overview of of the governmental funds of the district um so really moving left to right there um we see the the first the our major program so

011for the district the the general fund being the main operating fund of the district um you see that on on on the left hand side there um we'll talk about a lot more about the you know Revenue expenditures um and that ending fund balance of the major fund of 22.2 million on uh some later slides here um the next two major programs are both capital projects funds um the 2022 bond issue fund and then the 20 or the 2020 bond issue fund and then the 2022 bond issue fund um for the 2022 bond issue fund there was about spending on on uh Capital related expenditures about $62 million I'm bringing that ending fund balance to 65.3 million um the 2022 bond issue fund um with the focus of spending down the 2020 bond issue fund

012um relatively consistent in terms not a ton of spending in that fund um so fund balance uh coming in at $64 million um the final column over there the non- major governmental funds um that um consists of the the district special Revenue funds um The Debt Service funds um as well as the syncing fund so the moving into the general fund um specifically this first slide is meant to highlight the the general fund Revenue sources um for for the year ended June 30 2023 and then also for comparative purposes we have the 2022 uh year over there on the right um for the year ended June 30 2023 the district had $186 million of general fund Revenue um one real quick comment here on if you're looking at it from a comparative perspective and and

013Donna mentioned this um there's that 147 C2 that that the district received so that that's uh $8.3 million to fund those retirement costs that's unique to 2023 so you're going to see your revenue and your expenditures inflated by the 8.3 million if you're looking at it from a year-over-year perspective um focusing specifically on the on 2023 and in that pie chart there um you see the largest component is is the state portion of the foundation allowance coming in at 42% of of total revenue um we'll talk a lot more about that on some later slides here that's really driven by um you know the district's enrollment as well as the foundation allowance set by the state so we'll get some historical information there on some later slides um there's other state and local Revenue makes

014up about uh 33% that includes those uh retirement funds uh that comes in from the state so in in total about $24 million this year for for the existing 147 C1 money that you had would have received last year and then that $8.3 million that was new this year um property tax that that orange bucket comes in at at 177% um and then Federal funding at about 8% and that that the federal funding would be subject to our our single audit and um as Donna mentioned there's about $6 million in that in that pool of those uh non-recurring ESF funds so the the next two slides are now looking at general fund expenditures um so general fund expenditures for the year for the district came in at $11.8 million um this first graph shows it

015by object so kind of really showing where the where these dollars are being spent um for you know first school district being run by people you'd expect to see a significant portion of that going to salaries and employee benefits um and and for 2023 you see that at 81% going to to um um salaries and employee benefits for employees of the district um thir and and that again would include uh some of those 147c doll from an expenditure standpoint um related you also see purchase Services coming in at about 13% so that would would be um you know contracted workers that the district has I think um Subs bus drivers things of that nature um and then you also see supplies and and some other expenses rounding out the the rest of the the pie

016chart there so the the next graph here shows that same expenditure pool and just um breaks it out by function as as defined by by the state and that's really looking at it more of like an activity or Department level view um you know from a comparison perspective you know bigger pool again of expenditures for some of the things we talked about but overall the percentages by by department or by function are very consistent year over year um we see you know the largest piece of that coming in at 78% indirect and direct instruction um really with the focus keep keeping you know those resources um in in you know in the classroom and um indirect being um you know counselors Librarians things of that that nature so combined you're you're looking at about 78%

017of of total expenditures um um in that pool um and then you know the rest uh the rest of those buckets um all coming in you know between you know a couple percentage points so the the next few slides as as I mentioned with the you know the districts the largest funding source um coming from the state we wanted to talk about the the foundation allowance and and you know with the two drivers being enrollment um as well as what the foundation allowance set by the state of Michigan is um so this first slide's really uh meant to show that the trend in enrollment um for the district over the last 10 years and um overall you see we see this trend um is pretty consistent across the state of Michigan um decline you know

018a lot of districts dealing with declining enrollment for a variety of factors um you know some being just you know a lot of families there's less less kids um in a in a family environment um there's competition from private online coming out of the pandemic um um different private schools things like that so um you know we certainly see this trend um in a lot of our a lot of our local districts so overall over the that 10-year period there you see the district um at a loss about 2,800 students um so we'll talk a little bit more about that on on the next slide in terms of what that means from a funding perspective um I do want to comment um specifically on you see the the asteris there for 2020 2021 um and

019then you you see the drop in the following year in 2122 and um that I wanted to we wanted to point that out specifically spefically that there was um the state came up with a mechanism coming out of the pandemic knowing that enrollment figures would likely drop um to allow you to um use um some of your enrollment or or pupil figures from pre- pandemic to to kind of lessen that drop in that year um with that though you then see the following school year once the super blend formula went away um you see a larger drop in in enrollment so that's really the way I view that is that's really two years um in that year for that's shown on this graph um so I'm going to pass it back to Donna to kind

020of talk about what you know what that enrollment means from a from a funding perspective thank you Michael we always like looking back at um a bit of History um when comparing financials um and this graph is very telling in what the district has been working through for the past several years um the the red portion here is the student population which Michael just mentioned and then the blue portion is the per pupil Foundation allowance so you can see that's been relatively flat over time the F First Column there the first line is actually from 2008 and 2009 so at that time the district had 15,71 students and the foundation was 8,635 per pupil um which amounted to around 130 um 135.7 million of Revenue compare that to where um the district is today in

0212022 23 year um the per pupil Foundation was $ 9,195 per pupil with 12,210 students so over that period of time and we we always use this 2009 year as the mark because that's when funding Cuts started so that per pupil Foundation allowance was cut um so you know the last few years there's been increases in that Foundation at that time there were Cuts significant Cuts in addition you know Wald Lake is a hold harmless District which means some of that Foundation is made up of um property taxes and there was a a a 20j uh component to that which capped um you know how much um impact inflation affected the district and that cap went away um or that 20j funding went away which was also very impactful to the district's revenue and so

022what has happened since that time and the mechanism that the state Incorporated for several years which was the two times funding mechanism is the lowest funded districts um had bigger increases in funding um and of course the higher funded districts had more per pup um wall Lake was what we call like one of those middle districts that got kind of squeezed in the middle so over time as the district was losing per pup number of pupils you were also not increasing um the foundation allowance was not increasing over that time and so the district was being squeezed essentially and so and essentially shrinking over that period of time it was very difficult to manage through um managing your cost structure I recall all the work that the district did during that per period and it's

023quite telling in the sense that if you look at where your per pupil Foundation is now $99,100 that's only $560 more per pupil than you received back in 2009 so over that period of time it's pretty pretty T pretty Stark in in how little the LI the funding has been and $450 or $450 of that just came in the last year so um you know I've always given this District a significant amount of credit for the amount of work that has been done to live within the revenue dollars that you you receive um and for all that you do with those dollars and in comparison we just wanted to show you some other um Oakland County districts um when proposal a went into effect um there was a great disparity between the lowest funded districts

024and the highest funded District districts and over over time um those lowest funded districts were um their funding was increased there was big increases not big I would say larger increases in those districts per pupil funding um bringing up those botom districts to um at a greater speed than the middle funded districts and now as a result um you know Wald Lake was more of a middle funded district and now you are about second um lowest funded um in in the county and finally just a graphic of where the fund balance as a percentage of total expenditure stands um as that as of the end of 2023 um this is a a measure that districts compare themselves with um and also the state monitors so the Statewide average is is depicted in that light teal

025uh shade there at the bottom in comparison with where wal lak's fund balance as a percentage of expenditures is um in 2022 the average um at of the state and they exclude Detroit public schools from this calculation is around um 20.3% we did see a ticking up um of District's fund balance as a result of the co D the co grants that were coming through um wal Lake was at um 10. 5% which was roughly half that amount um and then moved up to 12.2% when some more of those Grant dollars were being realized in 2023 um this just speaks to like uh at the fact that about 12.22% that's around six weeks of operation resources that the district has in fund balance currently okay just to recap posi positive audit results um we know

026the business office um goes through a great deal in preparing for the audit um being audited isn't fun um it's in addition to the day-to-day uh work that the district is uh doing each day um I want to acknowledge um Vicki Amore um she's our Point person at the district um in preparing the financial statements um and uh Terry L who is no longer here she was here through July I believe in in assisting and closing the books um this year as well um but we appreciate the the diligent work and uh the processes and controls the district has in place um are a positive happy to entertain any questions y anybody have anything tonight Mr seber just a little recap so the audience has a little bit of a better understanding we lost 20j

027in 201 11 I believe and that was roughly $4.3 million a year at that time close uh that we were that we never recovered uh we are more of a 1x District when it comes to the multipliers coming from the state than uh some of some of our neighbors which are 2x districts when you look at that fund balance we went through a period of that fund balance was as low I believe as about a 5.8 or 5.9 at one point in time and we've made great strides to increase it a little history on on our on the budget and what we've done we used to have a book that had our budget items in it that was probably about 3 to 4 Ines thick and when we started to do cuts and Mrs Casa

028Grande will remember and several of my board colleagues that were here earlier would will remember it was like a menu what okay we're going to take this from this column this from this column and this from this column and we can get through this year and it proceeded to go from about a 3 to four inch binder to a single piece of paper onesided and we've been fortunate to maintain a fair amount of programs we've been fortunate in the last few years to bring back several programs that we' had to uh put put aside uh I have to give kudos to to our to all of our administrators and our Administration in this district for doing the job that they've done because had it not been for their foresight and their diligence in doing this

029we would be in far worse shape than we are in this day and age so I just wanted to a little give a little history on that sure yes Mrs Lin so one thing I noticed while I was well we're reviewing the presentation you know it's $186 million budget that's a a big number and we break it down you know there's the foundation allowance there's property taxes it's from the state but in reality every dollar that the state gives is really our money so um $186 million came from all of you so thank you for all supporting um the school district and you know I I speak for myself and hopefully for other board members when I say that we really try to do the best with the dollars that we are given by any

030entity um to to Really spend it the best and and make as as good of decisions as we can with the votes that we make so um just want to you know recognize the support of the community because that money doesn't just come from the state it comes from us so thank you Mr Peterson one question can you give me an idea in a simplistic way uh maybe the 2500 foot level when you do your audit how what do you and how deep do you dig into to each of these categories and again I don't want to like just an overview no I I appreciate that question um so it just is it's a good opportunity to remind everyone that this is an audit of the financial statements of the district there's different types of

031audits there's forensic audits which look for fraud there's internal control audits that just specifically look at internal controls of entities um this is a financial statement audit and so we look at the functions that the district has so payroll is a very big function um Revenue coming in is a very big function and we we assess the risk where are the risky areas and we do this in in several different ways um we understand and assess the internal controls and processes we don't audit them um but there is kind of the support for how we design the audit procedures um and then we test in detail um those different areas that have higher risk um from you know an audit perspective so we drill down deeper test more detailed testing in the riskier areas of

032the district y any a comments or questions thank you we appreciate you coming tonight thank you for having we'll see you on the 19th and before we move on I just want to thank the business office the business team uh Mrs Mor and and her team and and the work that they've done to get prepared for the audit but also this is this is the compilation of a Year's worth of work and so this is a very nice uh this is a very nice tribute to how hard they work and what good what a good job they do for us um and then selfishly speaking I I called my mentor to tell him we had received I had received a superintendent my first unmodified audit and he said he had just received his 17th so

033I got a long way to go thank you all right all right are there any more cards because we're to start public commentary and then we're not going to take any more cards I've had a lot of feedback from people and people are saying we really want you to follow the rules that you set so we're going to try try really hard to do that um Mrs Lovin is going to time for us and she is going to let you know if you do get close cl to three minutes everybody has up to three minutes you don't have to take three minutes but if you want to you can uh when you come to speak at the podium I will try very hard to get your name correct if not you will help me along

034and the podium is right over here and uh somebody asked me um this week and asked the board to you know talk about personal attacks and I thought well there's a lot of ways I could do that um you know we're all adults here I think we know what a personal attack is and what it isn't and I would really um appreciate and the board would really appreciate um if if we could have respectful conversation and here um we will not have a discussion with you we will listen to you and also know that um it's a great area and and we also have to allow you to speak because it's public commentary so I I try really hard not to judge that too much I try to give you a little leeway but we're

035all here for the same mission for kids for the district so again I would just ask that we um listen respectfully to each other and allow you to have your time to speak tonight all right our first person is Megan Young hi um I'm coming tonight because I was coming for the Food Service kind of questionnaire um so we just moved here about a year and a half ago go and we love the schools and we love everything about wal Lake but I just wanted to I was very surpr sorry I'm very nervous but it's okay I was very surprised when I found out about the lunches that were being served in for the elementary schools um I found out that I think okay so I work in a different district and I am a

036lunch lady but so I was trying to figure out you know parents are not allowed in schools anymore so I can't see what my child is being served so every day she comes home and I would just like her to be able to get a lunch every once in a while but she will not eat the food and I couldn't figure out why so after talking to a couple people we have figured out that it's basically because everything is being shipped from a base kitchen to the elementary school so everything is in warmers and so um I I just don't so everything's in warmer so nothing's actually like cooked or fresh everything's in bags um I I guess um I I I guess I would invite everybody to go to one of the elementary school

037lunchrooms and maybe try a lunch um the first lunch and the last lunch so you could see what it's like for the kids that sat there for three hours and had the last lunch from the warmers um sorry um um okay so and I also know that maybe it's a staffing issue so let's just say this because there's only one lunch lady in all the elementary schools which is probably pretty unheard of everybody us has two you have one that would run a line one that would sell snacks and then you would have someone that made the food in the kitchen so also we the situation was that Dublin is that they're not being sold snacks because there's not enough staff um but you run on a skeleton staff at all times so I just

038don't understand because this I know from I know there has to be some kind of budgetary where you could probably have it to staff and elementary schools at all at all times even in Co not coid um I know the numbers um I I just I just want them cuz we're all here for the kids and we all we we we just want them to eat and if the numbers are there it's great but what what's the numbers mean if everything's going in the garbage and they're not eating you know you want them to come home there's some kids that never I know different levels of situations over here but there are some kids that don't get meals unless it's here and it's you know breakfast and lunch and so if they're not eating it

039I mean those those are their only meals and they're they're they're coming to us and so we want to serve them the best that we can you know so I just wanted to put it out there that if you do have a warmer in there you could roll it out and put in a um oven just say but that's it and and and I know everybody does their best and everybody's here for the kids and I don't mean any disrespect at all thank you Tim Smith good evening board thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight um my concern is also with uh the lunch programs but for slightly different reasons um at the last board meeting several folks shared their excitement over the expansion of the free lunch programs to all students but

040I just wanted to identify with every action there are unintended consequences um one of the first unintended consequences is that um that the Food Services Group was already under staff they had open requisitions for uh employees that they were unable to fill with the existing program and the the issue is tends to be that um they have constraints that govern who who's who's likely to be somebody that would be interested in the opportunity the opportunity only allows somebody to work 3.75 5 hours a day so that it essentially is 20 less than 20 hours a week which if they break the 20 hour thresold then dental and vision benefits are are are required for those employees and I'm I'm getting my my information from a friend that actually works in the Wall Lake School F

041Food Service activity and so these are just some of the the things that that she has shared with us um the hourly rates are proving to be uncompetitive and somebody that will only work less than 4 hours a day is obviously somebody that's a non-working parent that has a child in school and then they can they can come to school and work while their child's in school but there's not a lot of people that are out there that are interested in these jobs or taking these jobs so before the expansion of the program they were already underst staffed so one of the things is um you know that the the food program with the expansion of the the free lunches to all students went from a needs-based program to one that's a needs-based program with

042the addition of convenience and I think that that I have a couple of different concerns about that aspect of it because the already understaffed resources are now required to deliver twice the amount of food at at every every meal and there's a lot of students in the school they're not even aware that the breakfast is free also for them so once they do then these people are just they're absolutely swamped so it's like there's just not enough people to manage the food so it sounds like a great idea to offer free free lunches to everybody but it's with the constraint of an under staffed uh group and also with um them needing to deliver twice as many lunches in the same same time period as they normally would so no problems whatsoever with with the

043need-based lunch program program the understanding would be that everybody would be um that needed a lunch would get a lunch and um but when people with uh people that are capable of paying for their student lunch it just seems like an unnecessary aspect of adding free lunches for people that are clearly capable of paying for lunch for their kids or making their kid a lunch and sending them to school so um my final uh consequence of this is is why should the taxpayer be funding these free Lunes to families that are fully capable and you know what we really want to do is we really want our our students to um you know when when our students take anything that's free they have to they have to understand that somebody is paying for that and

044in this case when the government is issuing it that's taxpayer money and it bu I think it builds a dependency on you hit your three minutes just so you know if you could just finish up we'd appreciate it okay yeah and when they get stuff for free then they that develops an expectation in them that they can look for their their care to come from the government I think we wish to develop self-reliant young people that are knowledgeable and capable of taking care of themselves thank you thank you Kathy cubit after attending many uh board meetings and it used to be there were four people in the audience and you'd only have to call on a few to talk but um I would like to bring to attention to the order of comments in which

045Miss Casa Grande calls on the attendees interested in getting up to speak at our school board meetings I've observed there seems to be a prejudice against certain members of the community and favoritism to others that always Place certain people at certain times in the commenting lineup for example I have have noticed despite what other order people arrive and submit their cards Miss kasag grandi is shuffling the Cards into some particular order I think this violates the Equitable treatment of wlik uh School citizens I would like to call upon miss miss krandy or the board um to allow those who choose to comment to write a NE the next number uh in numerical sequencing on their card card when they hand them in and to call the speakers to the podium in the set sequence of

046card submission I don't know if that's possible because I just saw how people come up at the last minute but I'm just observing and then all attend attendees will be assured of being treated the same thank you I know you try your best but I think that what I have observed is that uh certain people are first and then others are last maybe it's the way they hold off their cards but I want it to be looked at thank you so much Tracy [Applause] Walker hello I'm here to speak on a change that I have seen with the w Lake Schools the W Lake school board meetings have seemingly become a forum for people to come at the behest of a few outside organizations this quote sneak attack as it was called in a recent

047YouTube video was done purposely to cause disruption to the broader needs of the district to begin let me remind you of your own board policy in regard to how you serve our school Community section one1 duties and responsibilities of board members board members are elected to serve the interests of the school district and the entire School Community these interests are not to be subordinated to any partisan principles group or interest the code of ethics that you that say you will promote the best interest of the school district as a whole and will adhere to these ethical standards and principles number nine states I will respectfully listen to those who communicate with the board seeking to understand their views while recognizing my responsibility to represent the interests of the entire School community and to be fair

048to all the board members and to prevent showing bias to only a few as we get started a few a quick internet search of all board members did not return any results with this same rhetoric I will mention today as a matter of fact it took much more time to determine if they had political bias at all back to the oath as recently as June 14th of this year at a meeting of a politically motivated group one of the elected board members on this board stood up and said in regard to those with those different views or interests that are noted in the oath that the quote other side will not back down and would be very good at organizing and getting people to come out unquote this was followed by a statement in reference

049to the 2024 open seats that this political group quote really needs to fill those with some strong conservatives unquote my question is if you are serving the whole district and following your oath what quote side are you referring to and why are you voicing a need to back candidates from a specific political party for a supposedly nonpartisan position at another meeting with members of this board present the statement was made that this group planed to quote use Wald Lake as a guinea pig unquote for pushing very politically agenda based items again if board members are holding to the oath they took what exactly is our district being us used for and why are they there I am tired of our school district being a pawn in someone's political game if board members want to have

050a place to voice their personal or political views please resign and go run for political office these statements and actions are towing a very thin line of breaching the oath of office that this board agreed to uphold Teresa renod Teresa yeah thank you good evening uh I have three things to say this evening first of all thank you uh Mr Russo for your followup with me last week or last month I mean with regard to our bathroom policy which is complicated I get it I it's all around the title N Stuff and actually I think it was yesterday national news broke that a Pennsylvania school district has uh reversed their bathroom policy and will now take on I'm sure gazillion dollars of legal law suits or legal lawsuits um to fight that challenge so I

051respect uh the situation that you guys are in it's a hard one it's a cultural one we're going to have to really uh as a as a community figure out what it is that we want so I've been doing a little bit of research and I've also been doing a little bit of thinking as I look back on why Title 9 was actually implemented it was to give equality uh mostly um financially for girls girls to be able to compete in sports Title 9 did not say we're going to send girls over to the boy Sports and we're going to force boys to play with girls so I don't understand why we're forcing girls to have to go to the bathroom with boys I don't know where the common sense is in that I don't

052know where the legality is in that but that's not me I'm not an attorney and um I'm just just wanted to put out an opinion but I appreciate what you said it's comp at I get it I did want to read in um Michigan law uh MCL 380 because we do have a little bit of conflict there my ultimate question and then I'll stop is how much Title Nine funding does the school district get because that's what is at risk the lawsuits and the lack of funding will impact us so if our federal governments decide that boys can go in girls' bathrooms and we don't have to have separate bathrooms we will lose funding and potentially get sued so if we could understand how much Title 9 funding we get then perhaps the community as

053a whole could give you input on whether or not they'd like to subsidize whether or not we should you know make separate bathrooms but in addition to that we do have a Michigan law MCL 380 which does state it is the natural fundamental right of parents and legal Guardians to determine and direct the care teaching and education of their children the public schools of the state serve the needs of the pupils by Co cooperating with the pupil's parents and legal Guardians to develop the pupil's intellectual capabilities and Vocational skills in a safe and positive environment so that's my my question tonight how much funding do we get from T Title 9 I appreciate the feedback Christy rust uh good evening I just just I know it's school safety week coming up or whatever it should

054be all the time um and I just wanted to voice my concerns opinion again with how the district is um viewing what school safety is all about I know we've had many many people come up here and talk about wanting to have some type of security guard a retired police officer something like that um I've been up here before to tell you I work in Brighton Schools and um our security guard at the elementary school he's in plain clothes the kids know he's there to keep us safe not only is he there to keep us safe um you know from the outside world whatever it is he's also there as another role model for children another safe adult that they can talk to um he I I talked to him just the other day and

055I was like how many times do you Circle this building to see that the doors you my classroom door I see him walk p handful of times a day sometimes when I leave it doesn't necessarily already click all the way shut so I'll if I don't hear it I go back but not everyone notices he goes around the building multiple times a day he is a huge impact for these Children's Mental Health as well we've got um we did some PD at the beginning of the year and we all wrote postcards to oursel as kind of a check-in like hey are you remembering to use this and that so there are some students that we have that have needs things like that and one of the things that he is doing to make connections with

056students is he's going around delivering these postcards to the teachers so now this student who needs more positive role models is with the security guard who's delivering things so in addition to keeping us safe checking in the volunteers making sure kids go to the right people um he's also building positive relationships with the students which in turn will hopefully you know make them all feel safe at school have a positive um figure adult figure in the school and so I really hope that um W lake is seriously going to find some money to put people like that in their buildings and if you don't know how to get the money you know what call Brighton they're doing it I know it's a smaller District but it's at the end of the day they have less

057pupil so they probably have less money and we have more pupils and and I think that it would really um put a lot of us at ease if you could you know figure out how other people are doing it how other schools are doing it and how we can do that as well thank you I have Melissa I think it's Melissa Paul because I think I'm getting to know your writing a little bit am I right okay hello on this rainy night when our son was a a student in the district I was in one of his office School offices one day and inquired what kind of security the district provided them at that school which by the way had more than a thousand students teachers and personnel there every day they said we've got

058electric electronic screens that show what's going on in various parts of the building and we have doors that automatically lock and it's the same today so first let's talk about the electronic screens that are picking up what goes on in the school I then asked is there someone who is monitoring those screens someone to notice if something is a miss or to notice if someone's in the building who shouldn't be there and they said no there is not no one has the job of monitoring those screens so I ask you if you haven't given all of our schools a security guard to monitor those screens then what's the point of having real-time electronic screens that are in essence showing no one what's going on and let's talk about the automatically locking doors it's been my

059experience and I bet most parents experience that those of us who've ever set foot in our child's School know how easy it is to catch a door behind someone going in or have a door held open for you so I ask again if you haven't given all of our schools a security guard to be at the main door to monitor who's going in and out then what's the point of having automatically locking doors that aren't able to keep a person with ill intent out I know the idea of metal detectors without a security guard has been an idea I've heard batted around if this is what you're thinking I would remind you that anywhere you go through a metal detector TSA a courthouse wherever there is logically a competent armed security guard who's capable of

060stopping an armed perpetrator from entering and causing death and destruction I've yet to hear a cogent compelling or convincing reason why our district does not have on-site security Personnel for all its schools please don't say it's about the money because you have been sitting on for a while now a $1.4 million Grant to be used specifically for School Safety and Security and please don't say you won't spend Grant funds which will run out on salaries for security guards because this district has used user grant money which is also limited for salaries in recent years in today's day and age having this kind of school security is something that potential District families desire they look at this kind of thing before moving into a district so if you want to encourage enrollment which is one of

061your goals to be sure this would be a crucial thing to look at as it is very important to parents I'm asking for each board member to please please state where you stand on this issue time the parents and teachers of the district deserve to know know please help us understand why you as a whole appear to prioritize armed security for yourselves case in point the competent officer is standing at the door right now but why not do the same for all the children and teachers of the district thank you Sandy [Applause] d thank you one nation under God we said tonight God sees everything but so parents and taxpayers can see transparently isn't it time that the school district work to reins confidence in our public schools by installing video equipment in our classrooms

062purchases noted by the agenda 9A being made with school safety grants of almost a quarter of a million dollars should include video cameras and I didn't even know about the previous speaker mentioning the $1.4 million Grant what parent wouldn't feel more confident in their school if they could tune in occasionally and see how their child is actually an interacting in their classroom and learn about the material their child is learning the presence of security cameras provides greater peace of mind to parents and is a much better experience when issues do arise it demonstrates that the school administration takes the interest of parents in their children's education seriously and priority izes student well-being and general parental concerns this should be an issue that both sides of the Divide could agree on for everyone's Protection security cameras

063also allow administrators to resolve incidents more quickly and give parents prompt and satisfying answers Co school closures cause students to stay home and learn virtually giving parents the opportunity to see the materials our schools were teaching children it was what initiated the questions many parents have surrounding the curriculums being used in taxpayer funded public education parents now are questioning what criteria is being used to select material that seems to integrate certain ideologies that may be contrary to the values they are teaching to their own children in their home in the postco era some parents have lost trust in their children's Educators or curriculum what can be done to reins still that trust because without trust we will continue to have contentious Schoolboard meetings across school districts the answer might lie in what tools other professions

064are employing to protect vulnerable people in situations where there are others in authority over them nursing homes daycare centers babysitters police patrol cars all have something in common they are monitored by video cameras to ensure the safety of those who may be unable to protect themselves vulnerable elderly residents in nursing homes are now much safer from the possibility of abusive workers live video when used in daycare centers gives parents peace of mind that their child is happy and well cared for surveillance cameras have been used for years now in the protection of citizens from aggressive police officers and often are shown to protect those same officers themselves from false accusations by the people they encounter in their line of duty in some instances students can threaten teachers and vice versa um a friend of mine

065had a situation in W Lake High School where her son was in the ninth grade and she would have liked to have a video to see what actually took place between the teacher and her son harassment can be highly detrimental to a child's well-being and academic development while false accusations damage a teacher career and reputation having security cameras installed in classrooms provides some objective truth when any number of allegations can occur if an incident happens video footage can provide leadership with accurate information to act on nothing's more important to parents than their child's safety and well-being video cameras in schools would be a powerful tool that to ensure that parents regain trust in public institutions again safety issues should be a top priority for this board you cannot buy trust with dollars you can buy

066cameras trust but verify Thank you Lisa [Applause] West good evening um so I have a couple things I want to talk about tonight one is I know parent teacher conferences are coming up and something I had mentioned last year um we had done it online last year but I'd really like to see that we have the opportunity to both go maybe go back in person or have a choice for virtual many families I know do well in Virtual but it's not necessarily perfect a perfect system as sometimes you have glitching with the internet people are talking over each other so I'd like to see an opportunity for in person as well um in regards to the Safety and Security grant that we have I appreciate that you guys are considering purchasing the blackout Shades however

067that's still not a full replacement to make sure sure that all doors are secure if our doors aren't secure our students and our staff are not safe so we need to make sure that doors are secure um we with a 1.4 million Grant we also need to make sure that other security measures are met from what I understand um many buildings I don't know if all of them but don't necessarily have fire ladders so if there's a fire our students and staff on the second floor have no NE necess Safeway out so we should see some about some of those things um as well as cameras for deliveries to see who's on the other side of a door if it's a solid door um and then finally there's the Lu Lucy Caulkins second grade work

068writing workshop and Mrs kohanski I appreciate you getting back to me however um I am very concerned that there was an introduction in teachers guide and I understand that when this curriculum was adopted that you're not going to go through each page um to see what is in it and that it's up to each teacher's discretion to decide of whether you're going to implement that particular lesson for the day however when they start talking about sexualizing children to second graders kids who are between six and eight years old there's no room for that whether it's heterosexuality or homosexuality and to include little nasx who I find demonic personally when I hear about blood and shoes I don't see any reason for that to be brought into my child's classroom and I understand that they're not

069bringing that particular aspect in but I don't see any reason to have that even included in any type of curriculum and I would like to know how the district plans on going ahead making sure that this particular lesson or any other lesson that might relate in any other type of way is not included within the classroom so um we have young L young children here um they deserve to have their innocence preserved um and I'd like to see that we continue to preserve their innocence um our child we have our motto of every child every day let's preserve their them being children thank you Michelle [Applause] Fister hello Freedom we all want to be free and be able to live free in Scriptures it talks about if the sun set you free you will be

070free indeed in the Declaration ofp dependence it says we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal endowed by their creator with certain aailable rights which are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness Amendment one of the Constitution says Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion Pro prohibiting the free exercise of it AB Bridging the freedom of speech or the press or the right of people to peacefully assemble as I have been to a couple of these meetings to hear about what is the heart of w Lake Schools I have heard bigotry bullying disgust along with situations that concern minors I see three new new board members who have been rightfully voted into this school board by members of the community I'm asking rhetorical questions here to promote

071thought what is the purpose of school growing up I received a college preparatory education here in the public schools of Michigan beliefs or ideology regarding my race Faith or gender were not part of the public school space attached to education in the public schools is tax funding by its community members I see two groups of parents on different sides are you saying that only one side has the has say and the right to free speech all men and women are created by God as it says and talks about in the scriptures and that he created the male and female parents who disagree with the beliefs of race and gender Theory don't want it taught to their children or want to pay for it being forced upon their children in public school I suggest a two-track

072system where parents who want the say the freedom and rights they hold based on the judeo Christian beliefs supporting scriptures and who also support or support the Declaration of Independence and Constitution can place their children in a school supportive of those ideas these parents want their children educated and prepared for life after school with that education supporting that their children are their own not the government's then the parents who support race and gender Theory can place their children in a school that supports those only in conclusion at this point in time in the history of our communities and and there is an attempt to intimidate our Free Speech as parents family and friends of those who have children in this District we disagree with this attempted intimidation and we stand firm against it the only

073way I see public school getting back on track is to return to protecting parental rights of their children as miners where there is no indoctrination of beliefs or of gender or race Theory 30 seconds this will help eliminate both bigotry and bullying this will help eliminate that and finally I hope this board can work together to promote a safe place for children to learn Reading Writing math History Science and the Fine Arts thank you Linda Brandis Linda [Applause] Brandis yep yep sorry good evening thank you again all of you for the time that you put in to trying to make our schools a better place um thank you for this time to share a few Thoughts with you um I have a few topics that I want to address tonight uh the first is speaking

074at this Podium I would like to know if there's been any further work to create a policy for our underage speakers given that some on the board have had issue with local meetings updating public to current comments uh this topic needs to be addressed I believe looking from a legal perspective I'm sure the school district's Council would advise that the current release should have a parent or Guardian signature for those not yet at a legal age to offer consent indicating that they acknowledge and allow their child to enter into the public forum understanding that once they do so there are no further protections of their privacy I would like to receive uh by email any policy in effect um and I'd like to add to that that um it's been noted these kids are very

075eloquent um they have a right to speak I want to hear what they have to say but they have to understand that once you come to this Podium and that you are on a public television there is no coming back from that the same as being on any other social media as a school safety month I'd also like to once again request this body look at steps and the funding required to achieve a higher security plan for each School in our district having safety officers present in all schools while children are in the building is a good first step to to secure our children our teachers and our district workers all serving to deserving to feel safe while at school to my knowledge I still not seen where the million dollars plus is going within

076our district and certainly safety should have been at the top of the list for the spending priorities using these funds will give time for future budget decisions to continue showing the community that our children's safety is part of every child every day a phrase we hear often finally I know many are here tonight are concerned with teaching AIDS currently being used for creative writing in the early grades this is just another break from the trust that we give you as parents and community members to install best practices ensuring an increase in proficiency please be assured that this current plan is more disturbing to many that teachers would use a rapper expressing his big feelings about coming out as gay to second grade age students to teach children how to write but my bigger problem is

077not with teaching the use of pronouns is that that we use Lucy Caulkins reading and writing projects at all even Columbia teacher college no longer trains teachers in this whole language style of learning I'm almost done because they know it doesn't work would this District use any Luc Lucy ckins program Studies have proven that phonic based programs are superior in outcome to this site reading style of learning it's concerning that I was unable to find not one study or paper cited that gives support to subject of our readers to this program subjecting our readers to this program parents can go to leg cmis school.org research your own school once on the site select parent dashboard to see documented measurements for your school currently Commerce Elementary has only a 58 proficiency rating and this is the

078average of most schools that is unacceptable and I'm sure we're all working toward it but we need to start looking at different ways to have our kids learning to read um and math uh maybe if we were to worry less about teaching current social norms and work to keep our eye am making sure students in this District can read helping to assure that they will go to college prepared will make them better citizens I thank you thanks William lensbury hi I'm William Lansbury um I'm a product of Wall Lake Consolidated School District uh my children both are um my thunder got taken away by the last couple speakers so I will just hit a couple high points on this uh second grade indoctrination into the whole sex porn thing um why are tax dollars why

079do you all allow the people to make those decisions to make those decisions this wouldn't pass the smell test anywhere um so it's Rogue sex ideology most of you should be as angry as I am with the other people in this room you're 18 years old you get to make those decisions on your own leave here tonight go home make a change remove this from our school district thank you Marlene pallets I apologize if I got that wrong my topic today is gender the biggest single policy Catalyst for the transgender explosion was Obamacare when ObamaCare was enacted in 2010 it was included into the law a provision in which insurance companies were mandated to provide coverage for what is deemed to be medically necessary gender affirming care as a result of that just between 2010

080and 2016 there was a 50% increase in sex reassignment surgeries of all procedures recorded by the American society for plastic Engineers s sorry plastic surgeons sex reassignment surgery was among the most rapidly increasing between 2016 to 2017 it increased by 155% in this period with a 289 increase for transgender men and a 41% increase for transgender women in 2021 about 42,000 children and teens across the United States received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria nearly triple the number in 2017 this is according to writers thank you halale [Applause] wolf good evening it appears that uh several of my predecessors have stolen some of my thunder so I'm I'm going to just uh talk a little bit about your writer's workshop and it doesn't make sense to me how you would uh be teaching young kids second

081graders about using an example of this rapper that's his songs are pornographic and so forth um but let me just give you a few examples of real courage and bravery that you might switch this guy out for Harriet Tubman leading 300 slaves uh to freedom on the Underground Railroad Rosa Parks we all know what she did right uh Patrick Henry Give me liberty or give me death and the rest of the revolutionaries that uh set us free from uh the tyranny of Britain uh some of which my documented ancestors fought for uh police officers firefighters Etc during the 911 uh tragedy in New York those people are are very brave so I just want to say that there are examples that should be used that aren't and there are ones being used that should not

082be thank you Carl gretzinger good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is Carl gretzinger I have two topics for tonight the first one is two courses that I think should be given consideration for inclusion in the W Lake District the second part could be called many things but I call it empowering local school boards to have more Authority so part one is really 1 a and 1B one a I advocate uh teaching the history of Russia from 1850 to 1950 because in this period of time was the most horrid tragedy That Could Be Imagined the Russian people were duped um that they would have a revolution that there would be a temporary dictatorship and that they would transition to true communism of each to his own ability each to his

083or her own needs and the final withering away of the state well the state didn't wither away and for a century the Russian people have been oppressed beyond anything you can think of and people need to understand that the second course um I just switched over from like uh surgery to readers I can't I can't read anything I can sure see a long ways away sorry okay so the second course I think to go quickly because I want to spend more time on my third topic is this uh book is entitled agenda 230 and I think that should be the subject of coursework because what this book is about is a nurse and a mother and a wife who started to feel uncomfortable about things and so she decided to dig into what's really going

084on and there is the world economic forum and Governor Whitmer has gone there this year for their yearly uh uh meeting and the city of Detroit is on their list as the pilot program for what they Envision as the new world and it's pretty scary it involves governance by unelected officials uh population control open borders Etc there's a lot in here there's a lot to learn the students of today are going to face this tomorrow by 20:30 that's what they want to do okay and my third topic is um how a course gets into the wall Lake School District and the flaws that I find in that course and of course there is a course here that we've talked about and it's kind of the case in point of what I call the transgendering teachings

085and here's what I say the Constitution of the United States is very clear in that it states those Powers delegated to the federal government is all they get those Powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or repeat or the people and so I don't think US Department of Education has any right to tell anybody what to do to hell with them that's what I think they do not have a constitutional right to exist they were not in the Constitution they were not in an amendment forget them if the people don't want it we shouldn't have to have it thank you thank you Becky Barons I'm sorry I called Becky Barons sorry if it didn't come out that's okay I promise we'll call your name good evening my name is Dr

086Becky Barons and I had previously made comments uh before this board about I ready which is an online program for reading and math K through 8 which is used in our school district it is designed to help teachers determine their students needs and personalize their learning and monitor their progress Mrs keni has been very helpful in explaining this program to me as I have ongoing discussions with her about I ready and I appreciate that so I have some additional questions and comments about this I talked to a parent recently about her eighth grade daughter's experience with I ready she said her daughter went through three hours of I ready testing near the end of testing she was just clicking on any answer to get done with the test she has a 4.0 grade point average

087in math and reading but her recent I ready scores said that she was below grade level in reading comprehension her mother spoke to the principal who was very helpful and concerned he said that maybe testing should be done in smaller chunks and he also said that 300 other kids were behind in reading comprehension per I ready testing as well it is my understanding that teachers do not see the online responses of students test they don't see the correct or incorrect answers kids are then kicked back to Prior levels of instruction which is on the computer which is repetitive of much material they already had learned and therefore they become extremely bored why not go over the specific questions they missed or is it easier to just stick the kid in front of a computer screen

088rather than receive indiv individualized help from a teacher those who Market IR say it should not be used for grading but I have heard and read that teachers often resort to using it for grading in overcrowded classrooms because they are overwhelmed or in classrooms with too many kids below grade level thus it replaces the teachers knowledge in personal observations about students I realized that coid learning loss plays a role in lower reading score results but you know reading problems existed long before coid hit from what I remember of the last IR scores in our district there was some improvement in in reading scores but there was still a significant percentage below where they should be 30 seconds why are the proposed remedies suggested by I ready not causing significant improvements overall in all the schools

089in our district in reading and math I keep I keep hearing comments from parents that their kids hate I ready I realize there are many factors that play into this problem dysfunctional families kids raised in The Tick Tock era who have no patience or desire to read books households with two working parents too exhausted to pick up the pieces and help their kids I'm almost finished but we also need to look at teaching and testing methods and philosophies are we long overdue for a course correction I would ask the Schoolboard members to dig into this as there is nothing more important than getting the next generation of kids to be able to read well and understand math thank you Robert gofy [Applause] okay okay I have a few things tonight um mostly I guess I

090come up here and relate what I heard the the last m month and last time I heard a couple people give long diet tribes about conservatives and their supposed proclivity towards Banning books uh I just want to say nothing could be farther from the truth it is conservatives that have pushed for free speech and fighting against censorship clearly the gentlemen who made these accusation accusations don't understand the difference between adoc advocating for age appropriate subject matter in school libraries and the complete bands of books any adult who wants to read books to to educate themselves on issues of sexual nature is free to do so and nobody cares but it's like this if I walked up to a six-year-old boy on a playground and showed him pictures of two men engaging in oral sex I

091would be arrested and considered a pedophile predator or other brand of sexual deviant so why is it okay for that same material to be available for our kids to view in school it's simply not we Al also witnessed a man attacked one of the board members Miss Ty claiming that the use of her Christian values as part of her judgment is not acceptable in public institution as seen for decades the public totally misconstrued the con Constitution's division of church and state what the Constitution directs is that the government and the church not be one and the same however there is no problem with the influence of things such as the Ten Commandments and judeo-christian Concepts or other Rel religious concepts for that matter be considered or utilized in forming government and public policy in fact

092the US was built on judeo-christian principles Miss Ty had every right to use her conscience as her guide and in fact it would been deric to not do so finally last month I was confronted for calling out uh calling teachers Marxist I explained that to this person that this it was a teacher that if you believe in and push Dei you are a Marxist since Equity is a Marxist socialist construct further I had to explain to a former board me member that Came Upon Us that Equity does not mean equal Equity means the same outcomes this is by definition socialism so all you people pushing Dei you're pushing socialism and we we don't like it the fact that a board member didn't know this explains a lot I'm guessing most of the Educators Across America

093are in the same boat 30 seconds I suggest you all read up on Marxism socialism communism Fascism and any other isms then maybe you will understand our concerns about Dei CRT seal and the other alphabet soup initiatives that are being used to push Marxist Concepts and division amongst us one last comment U I've heard a lot of things here tonight that everything comes down to money uh a lot of people are asking for more Security in these types of things everything we've heard has been about we need more money so I guess I'd really like to ask everyone on the board to tell us why we have three schools and what's the plan for diminishing it and R reducing some of these expenses Ron lipet Ron lipet good evening Ron lipet Commerce Township my uh

094wife tenise and I are 20year residents of the community we have three daughters who have absolutely thrived in wal Lake Schools including our youngest who is a sophomore uh right now at wal Lake Northern uh the great comedian philosopher John molini uh responding to criticism on why he never took interest in politics prior to 2016 reinforced a common truth and that is I don't check up on people when they seem to be doing good at their job and I'm lazy by Nature he added uh you may think that's an ignorant answer but it's not it's a great answer Mr meany wasn't wrong mundane School boards of the past were important to be sure but hardly the culture War uh front line in which we find ourselves today we used to not pay attention 20 years

095before for coming to this community I hardly expect to be up here talking about book Banning book Banning in Commerce Township Michigan it's a notion almost as toxic as it is embarrassing I have spent a career in Consulting and the best outcomes often come when Partners understand a root cause of an issue one of the most trusted models we use is something called the five wise root cause analysis five wise five wise essentially asking why y five times in a row to get to a root cause so if you don't mind I'd like to apply five y's to book Banning why number one why are we Banning some books yes we are Banning books answer to prevent children's access to them why number two why are we preventing children's access to them answer to prevent

096them from being impacted by their content or perhaps making decisions that they wouldn't otherwise make why number three why do we not want them impacted by the content the answer because some may discover that children might empathize with grow accepting of or worst of all personally align with content which others might find controversial why number four why do we want not want them impacted by the content why number four why do we not want children empathizing or aligning with controversial content the answer because this might run in contract uh contradiction to moral beliefs 30 seconds and some may fear this may shine a light on many of us who are already in the community and why number five finally why do we not want a light shined on the truth of who we are answer

097because many of the Comm in the community have fear fear of what happens when love and knowledge and support creates empowered kids who become mentors and leaders of future generation fear lies at the heart of our issues fear of who we already are I ask the board to consider a simple question does Banning books strengthen the potential of our schools or does it impower fear fear of acceptance inclusion and love thank [Applause] you Tim Siller Tim Siller good evening Tim saw Miller Commerce Township I'm a cisgender male using pronouns he him and his unlike some speakers that appear at this Podium I live in the district the term secularism is a relatively easy and straightforward one to Define at its most basic level secularism is a commitment to upholding the separation of church and state

098anti-government extremist hate groups like s for Liberty and the Great Schools initiative Lobby for book bands and changes in curriculum that erase the lived histories of and present experiences of black brown indigenous and lgbtq people all in the name of religion Public Schools aren't just about learning certain subjects they are also where kids learn the Civic virtues needed for our society to function kids practice getting along with each other and respecting people from different cultures and experiences but those values run counter to what these Christian nationalists want which is a society run by and for a small segment of people that they deem worthy they do not represent most parents nor most people's views on education the strong majority of Americans oppose book Banning about two-thirds of the general population and even 51% of Republicans

099oppose it recognizing that it prees the rise of authoritarianism Judge katangi Brown tells tells us the work of our time is maintaining our hard one freedom and to do that we are going to need the truth the whole truth about our past we must teach it to our children and preserve it for theirs knowledge of the past is what enables us to Mark Mark our forward progress if we're going to continue to move forward as a nation we cannot allow concern about discomfort to displace knowledge truth or history end of quote not teaching students about the injustices black and Indigenous people face to this day as a result of colonialism is the conscientious eraser of history that benefits white supremacy teaching children about ideas you may disagree with is not indoctrination teaching children only about

100ideas you do agree with is the very definition of indoctrination a rainbow won't make your child gay they're born that way a display won't make your kids trans they're born that way if you don't love and accept them for who they are you're an awful parent they haven't failed you have 30 seconds kids that are loved at home come to school to learn kids that aren't loved at home come to school to be loved good people don't spend their time harassing marginalized communities and publicly attacking kids at school board meetings you know I have no energy for hate I either love you wish you well or hope that you heal remember that every kind of love is better than any kind of hate thank [Music] [Applause] you Jan rectenwald Jan rectenwald to get it close

101thank you good evening my name is Jan rectenwald I'm a retired school teacher and I was the first PTA president of Pleasant Lake Elementary School and I thank you for taking the time to hear me I would like to think that we all have the same goal to educate in an environment where kids can be safe and curious and happy Parents create safe places where children can just enjoy being kids and all parents want their schools to be safe places for their children physically and psychologically but our culture seems bent on indoctrinating young minds there's a new contagion that is quietly crept in to infect and transform children it was given a name in 2018 study called rapid onset generation gender dysphoria with that said I have great concerns about the agenda that you as

102members of Wal State Wald Lake School Board have concerning sexualizing children raising children in this culture can be an overwhelming task but when the school is targeting our children with inappropriate sexual propaganda we parents must do everything we can to protect them many of us here are here out of concern that the schools are trying to normalize radical sexual ideology please please do what is right for our children protect our children from programs like comprehensive sexuality education parents are not the enemy we want to work together with wal Lake School schools to raise healthy children so they can become healthy adults we teach our children about boundaries concerning private parts at a very early age we help them to respect others and setting healthy boundaries has always been a top priority by age 10 puberty

103has begun it's natural for them to feel socially insecure and confused about the changes in their body we are the ones who help them to sort it out we are the ones who lift them up so they know they have a beautiful body sometimes parents need to help children Embrace their biological gender but this should not be the norm we are the ones who warn innocent children to stay away from pornography because it will negatively affect them all of the days of their lives do parents feel that wal Lake School teachers are providing an environment that encourages healthy sexual boundaries are wal Lake Schools encouraging their students to embrace who they are biologically and to communicate openly with parents increasingly radical activists have been able to use the schools to propagate their beliefs in all

104sorts of things LGBT issues all sorts of things and many schools keep this hidden beyond the watchful eye of parents we are here to ask you to be transparent about your policies on things like sex education gender Theory and gender change requests let's do this together don't allow the progressive culture pressures to influence education to our schools we want to work with you to raise children to be healthy adults thank you thank you Jonathan tasses Jonathan [Applause] tasses good evening everyone I am uh retired police officer Jonathan tasses I uh started a business Oakland K9 which is uh specializes in security with schools what I have established is I use highly trained detection dogs to detect Firearms as well as explosives and hire retired police officers as well to be concealed carry where there is

105no open weapon shown anywhere or any place inside the school not to mention with this they are Role Models men and women that have served The Thin Blue Line and are looking to continue do that with our kids and keep them safe our staff as well the best part about my program is I take no money from the school budget I've already established federal grants that will cover my payment and are already in the mix to establish more every ounce of payment nothing comes out of the school budget uh I look forward to talking with you more in depth about this because not only is it detection and protection we can also specialize I in case students get lost and having canines track them whenever there is also perfect example everybody here has three minutes

106do you know how much bad can happen in three minutes there's already a trained officer on scene with a trained canine that also couples as a therapy dog so when the dog is not working he's here to comfort kids have time to play and I don't use the the mark do not pet on the side of my uh vest for my dogs it's ass the pet okay because when the dog is working it needs to concentrate it needs to stay in line and find what it's looking for and get its reward I'm a father I'm a husband I want the best for all of our kids and there is no room for fear in schools there are so many children that don't have positive households and their only Outlet is the school system fear should

107not be tolerated I'm asking you please to consider this I have further information Galore and I will answer any questions that anybody has thank you very much for your time and I appreciate seeing you all again thank you Evelyn [Applause] boyf hello my name is Evelyn I go to Walnut Creek Middle School and I'm in eth grade why do they do it It's a cruel and heartless act so why they've heard the effects they've been to the bullying assemblies and yet they still scrutinize us with their insecurities and inabilities they treat us as if we're their guinea pigs a test subject seeing how long and how far they have to take it for us to fall apart as if we have little to no meaning well to that I say I am done being their

108guinea pig they have tolden many things from me including my self-esteem and self-love and my scientific calculator bullying has its effects many people know I know have wanted to hurt themselves because of this that's not okay your MTO is every child every day but clearly this is only surface level we need to implement stronger consequences for bullying or at least get some form of Justice it needs to stop getting overlooked this is such a huge thing that gets so little attention staff should be better trained to spot identify and handle bullying I hate the idea of a child thinking they are worthy of bully bullying because at one point I was there I've been buling bullied and I still get bullied no one deserves to hate thems the most common age for suicide in children

109is between 12 and 17 which is the also the age that most Bullying happens we should not expect the fact that it we not we should not accept the fact that a child is making another child feel like killing themselves is the only option another thing we could apply is the resources for bullies themselves we should give them ways to get help if they are struggling change will happen when we start implementing it so giving the bully as help will make it so that they don't bully again punishments only do so much to teach them please consider some of these ideas in the topic itself I don't know how much longer your kids can take getting bullied also a little bit of a shout out while nut Creek is working with me and my friends

110to crack down on some bullying and I am very thankful for that thank you Lee asborn Lee [Applause] asborn hello everybody my name's Lee uh I just when I come in when I arrive in I get the card that I put my name on that's and on the back it states that their name calling will not be tolerated I've been coming here for the last three times and some sometimes it just doesn't work because uh it should be corrected that name calling is not tolerated unless you are directing it to the insults toward three board members those three board members have been name calleded and it's outrageous that the board president allows this to happen to our citizens to allow citizens to get up and disr setting board members in the future I'd like to

111see the board members treat everyone equally thank you Janette weam thank you for letting me speak tonight um every year the United States welcomes nearly 1 million new citizens through the Naturalization ceremonies all these people must pass the US citizenship test by answering six out of 10 questions correctly while 90% of legal immigrant applicants pass the exam only 3% of public high school students in America can pass the US citizenship test that's a shame if we want to restore pride in America let's look at ways we feel to educate our kids on the simple principles of citizenship what can we do to increase our students knowledge about the founding principles of this great country we live in there are many divisive things that are brought up at our Schoolboard meetings but I hope and I

112believe that 90% of the parents in this District would support increasing the goal to raise the number of students capable of passing the US citizens test to at least 10% and setting goals to double that number each year wouldn't it be wonderful if wal Lake School District could someday be a shining example of passing the citizenship exam equal to 90% of those new legal immigrant applicants hopefully we could also match the enthusiasm that these new citizens have for the opportunity of Living in America which many of us take for granted thank you mik wise probably couldn't hear me when I had my mic off sorry Mike wise Wall Lake U school uh resident 22 years here who is familiar with the group moms for Liberty a quote he alone who owns the youth gains the

113future I repeat he alone who owns the youth gains the future quote by ad Hitler from the moms for Liberty publication from Hamilton County Indiana June 2023 in 1933 Nazi right-wing conservative dominated German groups carried out public burds of books they claimed were unerman the book burnings took place in 34 towns and cities the book burnings stood as a powerful symbol of Nazi right-wing conservative intolerance hatred racism and as we see here during public commentary sessions in Wall Lake school board meetings censorship the Nazi right-wing conservative book Banning and uh burning and banning in 33 is probably the most famous book burning and banning in history I believe we will catch up with it here in the United States unless voters wake up to the anti- inclusion anti- acceptance racism and unamerican pressure being brought

114to bear by right-wing conservative extremist groups on our public schools and public libraries in 1933 conservative right-wing Nazi German authorities aimed to synchronize professional and cultural organizations with Nazi ideology and policy by burning books Joseph Geral Hitler Hitler's Nazi propaganda Minister succeeded by bringing German Arts culture literature and ways of thinking in line with extremist conservative right-wing Nazi goals once the Nazis were in charge they purged cultural organizations and took Direct Control of government governmental entities including the German military they murdered officials including newspaper Publishers journalists Radio broadcasters and teachers alleged to be politically left and suspect and who performed or created artworks or literature or writings or worked in scientific fields which Nazi ideologues labeled degenerate sound familiar a certain element is determined to abolish government entities in the United States like the Department

115of Education the National Endowment for the Arts The Corporation for Public Broadcasting the Department of Health and Human Services and to defunded Department of Justice including the FBI in a symbolic Act of ominous significance in May 1933 German Nazi mobs burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of unerman books pre-staging an era of State censorship and control of culture and what people were allowed to think on May 10th 1933 right-wing mobs marched in Torchlight parades similar to what happened at the Neo-Nazi March in Charlottesville Virginia on August 12th 2017 about Charlottesville we got to hear uh to be unnamed politicians say there were good people on both sides in Nazi Germany the scripted rituals called for Nazi right-wing officials to address the participants and Spectators with nationalistic right-wing hate and similar Nazi torture light rallies Nazi mobs

116threw pillaged books on the bones great ceremony I appreciate it okay in Berlin 40,000 persons gathered to hear Joseph Geral deliver a fiery add address Geral and joined the crowd I consign to the Flames the writings of Hinrich man Ernest Glazer Ernest Hemingway Jack London and Helen Keller these writers believed in social justice believed in improved conditions for workers and supported women's rights Nazi propaganda was a resounding success receiving widespread newspaper and radio coverage in Berlin radio broadcast brought the speeches and songs of Jance to Nazi Germans Nazis started by burning books but ended up burning people thank you KY shba [Applause] somebody yeah I was GNA thank you for that yes thank you she gave me fanatic so I would pronounce her name correctly I work with kids you know we all have a

117strugg very ni uh so thank you for letting me speak my name is Kelly Shuba and I'm a resident of Wixom I have two kids that are being very well educated and supported without within the school um I was going to end with it but I'm going to start with It Go banded so yay but um I just wanted to make a couple of few statements I I'm not as we're continually hearing about school districts around the country in other states banning books as we've been talking about thanks Mike um and we hear about the rise in hatred amongst all of us when we have a common goal of taking care of our kids okay um I just keep hearing about the hatred for lgbtq and again a hatred for inclusion um I'm hearing anti-racism

118I'm hearing a lot of anti yeah right so we should hear a lot more for and I would have to say that I've been grateful overall I mean we we've got a lot to worn learn we've got a lot going on in the district but I'm really a proud parent in the wild Lake Schools we moved here from Chicago back to Michigan so our kids would get a good education and be supported we didn't know what they were they were just little blobs and I would have to say um overall the environment in wal Lake School District has been very open um open towards the inclusion I love that our district is has everybody in it we have people low income High income all color in lgbtq plus and we're allowing our kids to recognize

119their preferred pronouns their names because they're kids we can grow we can change we can have different things but let's keep them in the schools and learning not this High suicide rate 12 to 17 my kids are in that range right um we we try to talk to our kids we try to talk to them about what's going on and that's part of like my husband and I talk to our kids about what movies they can watch what books they can read but it's the school's opportunity to provide those discussions to provide the opportunity to hear things that I didn't hear about I'm not a teacher I'm an OT but I'm not a teacher I just have to say I'm very thankful for the way that we do review the curriculum I was very happy

120to hear those books passed after our very strong C curriculum review recommended books we accepted them and teachers then take it like you have the dictionary you don't use every word in it the teacher knows their classroom they use what they need 30 seconds and I would just have to say thank you Wild Lake School District thank you for keeping inclusion thank you for listening to our children um we can always do better there's some things that were talked about on everybody's page that we can work together on maybe make some changes some improvements but keeping open keeping them alive and I'd have to say not with guns in the schools but more with gun safety laws but that's not our school district but keeping our positive and support and love in our school because

121that's what we want them to be in the community thank you oh and someone left glasses up here I don't know somebody's glasses oh yep it Nancy van Len I will be brief um number one with Mrs kaplan's absence I would like to uh big give a big shout out to all of the people who supported Lakes Area Youth assistance with our Taste of the Lakes event it was very successful um we had some of the nicest comments from the public saying how great things were so we appreciated the support we always appreciate the support of the district our cabinet those people that uh participate buy tickets and help us out so thank you very much for that um I also want to comment um there's been a lot going on this evening and I

122don't want to be labor at one of our board members our current board members had a posting on Facebook that uh she ended with United We Stand and divided we fall it's a good one and I'm hearing the division tonight I'm sorry um I'm sorry you have to sit and listen to all of this I'm sorry you have to hear words like propaganda and indoctrination um some of these terms that are derogatory I'm sorry you have to hear Express expressions of dislike or distrust in what you are doing I'm sorry our staff has to hear those comments that they are not trusted to do the job they were trained and hired to do um I hope that we can come to the United We Stand it's pretty critical at this time and Wald Lake Schools

123deserves that thank [Applause] you Susie [Applause] Crafton hi there I'd like to start by grounding Us in language commonly used across the district from the board approved student code of conduct the district believes in a development of each student's potential for learning in a positive orderly and safe School District from the school district's belief statements quoted in part physical and psychological safety is critical to learning number two we are participants in a global society and value diversity I'd like everyone in this room to think about these statements have the people in the room behave in this room been behaving in alignment with these stated commitments and beliefs over the past many months and sadly tonight I think not therefore I have two very specific and actionable requests of the board that based on my research

124are within your governance role and comply with the First Amendment and the open meetings ACT first before a public comment I request this statement be made asking that all all speakers comply with the district's code of conduct which I will quote quote in part the board of education is committed to preventing and prohibiting bullying at school bullying is defined in part as verbal communication that is intended or that a reasonable person would know is likely to harm one or more District students either directly or indirectly by and then there's a few examples one adversely affecting a student's ability to participate in or benefit from educational programs by placing a student in reasonable fear of physical harm or by causing substantial emotional distress or two having an actual detrimental effect on students physical or mental health

125at school for purposes of this policy means anywhere on school premises on a bus and at a school sponsored activity some of the behaviors in the September meetings public comment blatantly violated both state both stated components of the bullying definition and previous meetings have also had public commentary that is likely to have placed a student in reasonable fear or physical harm or caused emotional distress and this is a school sponsored activity and we are on school premises 30 seconds I implore all trustees to raise the public comment Behavior expectations at least to the bar we have in place for our students my second request were a district comprised of nine municipalities some in whole some in part would like to see the board president request that those offering public comment identify the municipality they live

126in and if they are a direct stakeholder of this District or not for example I live in the part of Novi that is zoned to Wall Lake schools so I would introduce myself Susie Crafton Novi resident direct stakeholder to the district a speaker that also lives in Novi but is owned to Novi Public Schools would then introduce themselves as a a Novi resident not a direct stakeholder to this District thank you Christine Titus good evening um Mrs Crafton um thank you and I'm supposed to address my comments to the board but um I'd been thinking along those same lines So Christine Titus resident of Commerce Township 32 years um stakeholder in our district um as I was sitting here listening tonight I was number one offended by the characterization of teachers as those that indoctrinate

127the students that is far from the truth um I also heard um information about I ready I'd like to um repeat as I've heard Mrs kohanski repeat many times that it's only one measure of how we measure student progress um or not um and then the idea of teacher guides um they're but one part of a bigger toolbox that we employ to deliver curriculum to our students I'm a current teacher in the district I'm an instructional specialist at hickorywoods elementary I think there's a misconception about teacher guides that are helpful to our teaching and the changes that come about in our Global Society uh if you think about math when the digital age came in analog kind of started to go away I wish it were still around I think there's value still in teaching

128kids about analog um science we have the new Next Generation science standards you need to change teacher guides social studies think about the global impact of social studies and the changes in countries and boundaries English language arts there's novels moving from what used to be more of a homogeneous Focus to a more diverse focus and we should be celebrating that um teachers guides are just a guide however they can give a new teacher guidance into what might be new curriculum and a veteran teacher insight into changes that are reflected in the new additions of textbooks that come out however they're just guidance if needed a professional educator knows his or her students and may or may not take that guidance depending on the needs of that student population which changes every year okay our student

129population and their families also reflect changes in our school community and a classroom teacher will be sensitive to those nuances as an example perhaps a classroom may have a student who has suffered the loss of a close family member a teacher aware of this may choose to not use a text where this kind of loss is highlighted being sensitive to the students needs or on the conversely may use that text as a mentor of how to deal with grief again this comes from the educator knowing the students in the classroom my point which I've made in the past is to trust us as the professionals we are trust us to know our students our families and our school Community thank you okay I can move on in the agenda or we can take five does

130anybody need five five okay let's take five we'll come back at uh just a couple minutes after nine thank you of our regular meeting we are gonna open tonight with Mr Chatfield thank you Dr Beria uh just uh just a quick update uh in case you drive by any of the high schools uh you will see starting uh this week actually uh construction activities around the um athletic team buildings that are being laid out and we'll soon be um see a groundbreaking uh at Stadium sites and um the Western Field will wait and uh we'll start that construction after the pink out game next week but we're excited to get those projects rolling and uh get those open next spring so thank you Mr Russo thank you Dr Brun I have two things tonight uh

131first is that uh our Golden Apple award uh Miss man wagon I just wanted everyone to know that that was my very first hire in the district so I'm very proud of that uh thank you thank you very much uh secondly uh it's my pleasure tonight as part of the consent agenda to recommend the appointment of Mr Ryan West to the position of principal of Commerce Elementary a little bit of background uh for the board as a part of as a part of the consent agenda um Mr West has served most recently as prin as principal at Roosevelt Elementary in West Bloomfield since 2018 previously Mr West served as principal at Elva Lynch Elementary in theier Community Schools from 2014 to 2018 Mr West has served as a middle school assistant principal and athletic director

132previously and Mr West is also a Wald Lake Consolidated School District Community member where he has where he has children at Clifford Smart Middle School and at Wald Lake Northern High School Mr West holds an educational specialist degree in educational leadership from the University of Michigan Flint a master of arts and sports Administration from Wayne State University and a bachelor of arts and Elementary education from sagov valy State University he holds an administrative certificate with a central office endorsement and a professional and a professional teaching CT in the state of Michigan Mr West pending board approval will begin his post as principal at Commerce Elementary on October 16th Miss Mir nothing at this time Dr B Miss kohanski I also have nothing tonight thank you Dr bernia Mr Durkin nothing at this time Dr bernia

133Dr Lans I want to use my commentary uh just to compliment the we're up and running in the fall uh home homecoming happened at Northern and Western homecoming is tomorrow at Central uh with the fun runs and the color runs are up uh Trunk or Treat is right around the corner so it's not just a matter of all of the exciting things that are happening inside our school buildings from the beginning of the day to the end it's also all that exciting stuff that's going on outside the school day and so I really want to compliment the commitment of our staff not just for coming in and doing their job but for staying late to participate in some of those events that are are so memorable and so important and lastly I want to highlight

134uh just a few weeks ago I I took my daughter my oldest daughter has just started playing volleyball I took her to see uh a game at the varsity at wal Lake western and the the young ladies on that team were exemplary and exactly what we would want our students to be they were so warm and so so kind to her they gave her their time and talked with her and and made her feel special and just the other day they were kind enough to send a care package to my office with a t-shirt that she wears every time it's clean it's the first thing out of the rotation um I know it's senior night for the ladies at wal lck Western but hopefully this message gets to them uh how grateful I am and

135what an exemplary group of young women uh that is exactly what we want our students to to be and and to act like throughout the district thank you going to go on to board commentary Miss Ty anything tonight sorry um well I know um October is um the month to appreciate all of our principles and so just want to acknowledge all of our principles across the district and just um just thank them for the tireless work that they do every day Mr Seer last night I had the pleasure of uh attending OK schools meeting uh some of the things you'll be hearing in the near future is the school re research collaborative re faciliity study and I know that uh Mr Chatfield is looking for forward to that as well as the transportation study and

136the energy studies that are all going to be happening uh My Hope Is that these studies do result in some of the benefits that we have gained from the research collaborative initially and that they don't sit on a shelf somewhere uh Gathering dust also you know we're looking at sign die for the House and Senate as of November the 9th this year uh a lot of bills and legislative action is still out there and still pending uh there's possibilities of Charter School reforms uh the introduction is expected soon the FAFSA former requirement for high school diplomas is still out on the floor the Labor Day start bill it's stalled on the house floor uh it could be fast-tracked before the uh session is over the educator administrator evaluations are expected in the senate committee soon

137uh there's new uh items being looked at for legislation for dyslexia the Mandate for Dental Oral assessment they think that's going to probably not be here if it does show it's possible there might show in the uh lame duck session um the meals program is looking for possible another uh adjustment and uh there is also a bill it's a rumor right now but uh I have it I have this police rumor sometimes grow uh require schools to allow ABA clinical providers to deliver medical necessary services at schools during school hours uh I think that we'll probably get an initial introduction but we'll not make it through this session uh but I mean there's a lot of things out there right now that are pending and we've got basically 12 days of in session for all

138of this to happen before they break for the uh breaks so for those of you who want to watch this or have any desire to watch it keep your eyes peeled because I think things could happen quickly uh as miss van Leen said the taste of the likes was a phenomenal uh phenomenal event big spender I'm not a big spender I just enjoyed it my my wife has no idea until she sees us tonight uh and uh so so you know that was wonderful you know we're coming out with pink outs and everything else for October uh looking forward to all of those events It's a Wonderful tribute by our students in memory of those who have passed or those who are currently suffering and I want to give accolades to everybody involved in all

139of those programs and then next on the agenda will be our plays and our shows coming up very soon so keep your eyes peeled Mrs Fernandez thank you Miss KAS Grande I'm I know it makes for long nights but I'm really excited that we see more and more of the community here and we're striking it feels like we're striking a better balance of some really um great commentary to hear and just tonight alone we had everything from lunches to policies to K9 to bullying to curriculum and and it is good for us to hear that type of commentary uh so that we hear from all perspectives the one that stumps me that continues to stump me over and over again is hearing um folks who are passionate about book Banning and I say that just

140because earlier when that became a topic of conversation I asked if I've been in the district for 50 years have we ever banned a single book and I'm pretty sure it was probably a few months ago but I'm pretty sure the answer is no and so to me that's like a fact checker thing right like we have we have a lot of passion around this this thing and it gets labeled something and I don't think it's ever happened and so I'm just gonna say I'm gonna Reas the question internally behind the scenes and see because we have had books come up and topics and I don't know if maybe that answer has changed but um to me it just feels like let's keep bringing some of these things forward and take some of the things

141that are um that that suck a lot of energy from other items and yeah I just wanted to say I'm pretty sure the answer to that was no very recently and I'll ask it again so thanks Mrs Lin thank you Mrs Cas Grande um so each of us like to introduce um you know our board commentary with you know different topics and one thing I like to try to do is inform the community of like what I've been up to that relates to my time here on the board over the last you know since we last met um so over the last uh month or so I have been putting in uh a lot of hours um going through some masb Michigan Association of Schoolboard classes uh I'm working toward my data skills specialty um

142and it's uh very eye opening um you know I'm learning learning better questions to ask learning things not to ask learning how to interpret um data that's that's given to us um probably asking Dr Beria a few too many questions but that's okay because I think it's helpful for people to see the answers um you know whether we've been on the board for 10 months or we've been on the board for 30 years um sometimes getting a Refresh on the answer I think is is a good thing so um you know one of one of my goals as as we've gone into this school year is to really really try to focus the conversations on student achievement that's what we're all here for the ideological stuff it's not our place it's not what any of

143us are here to do and so my conversations my work that I'm trying to put in is really on how do we provide the best outcomes for our students educationally because that's what the school district is here to do um there's different roles throughout the community uh you know doctors do medicine parents do guiding of their children schools teach academics so I really want to focus my work on student achievement the data surrounding that how do we interpret the data how do we ask the right questions to um you know get better outcomes I also would be um totally on a different topic remiss if I didn't mention that um last month was um Childhood Cancer Awareness Month uh I don't know that we did a whole lot for that but there are certainly children

144in our own community that are suffering through this um this horrible disease um every day and so uh although we didn't officially recognize something last month it is it's always on our minds um this month October is dyslexia Awareness Month um I think that's super important we have a lot of kids that struggle with that parents that struggle with how to help their kids with that um and I think that uh you know it's in you know we could make board proclamations for everything but just a mention of that I think is important today most important day world Teachers Day thank you to all of the teachers teachers who uh you know work tirelessly um not just during the school day but you know at night on the weekends during the summer um we see

145you we hear you um and you know speaking of teachers one of the things that I I also heard the community talk about tonight was um you know concerns about you know some things in the curriculum and we heard um you know some people have already heard back from administrators we as board members heard back that um you know concerns about the curriculum you know things are are left to teacher discretion right and we hope and we assume that teachers will use their best discretion to not necessarily read everything in a teacher guide word for word and and that's great I think teacher discretion or any professional discretion in any profession is very important the things I'm concerned about as a board member are what about the days when we don't have teacher discretion what

146about the day when there's a substitute and the lesson plan says do The Writers Workshop unit 2 and somebody opens it up and they read it that's a problem legally that could be a problem but that's just a problem if the the material within that unit is controversial what about if it's a brand new teacher who has not yet developed teacher discretion or that teacher discretion muscle right you don't even know what you don't know to even ask and by the way those new teachers whether you're brand new or brand new to the district you are on probation and I don't know about you but in any other profession when you're on probation you probably follow the rules pretty closely who are you going to be to deviate from what the guide says maybe that's

147just how things work but again that can be problematic but most importantly and I brought this up on a vote um you know previously in my comments we need to send our resources the money that the taxpayers in our community count on us to spend wisely to vendors Publishers businesses that we do business with to those companies that stay away from the controversial stuff I don't care if it's St we can ignore we need to stop supporting it whether we're spending $50,000 or $500,000 that's money that's important to throw away part of a curriculum means maybe we shouldn't be using it so I'm going to continue to scrutinize the curriculum I will continue to come in here and review it and I invite the community to do the same because like somebody said we can't

148read every page but if more of us look at things more of us can see other pages and if something deserves a no vote it's going to get that no vote from me unless there's some sort of policy put into place that will allow us to not have to worry on an official capacity rather than just leaving it up to discretion because discretion means different things to different people so I have heard from teachers who are afraid to speak up because they don't want to be the teacher who spoke up they don't want to be the one that rocks the boat but they know deep down inside something's wrong in fact one teacher said to me I am here to teach not to preach and I hear you I I hear the teachers I I

149want to know that you are heard and supported and I'm going to continue to do whatever I can from where I'm sitting to provide you with that support and just know that I hear you thank you thank you Mrs C Grande um got a few different topics so this kind of retired old guy is kind of getting in his Groove so he did a lot of things the last couple weeks in the district so the beginning of last week I watched and visited the northern versus Milford boys varsity soccer game um northern obviously did not Prevail but then again my Alber moer of where I coached for many years Milford High did um but I was not sure who I was really cheering for um either way when on from there we had our first

150bylaw meeting which I'll defer to Mr Fernandez later in the meeting to give you some kind of a recap of how that uh that started off went on from there to watch W day Northern and Wall Lake western play on Thursday night if you remember last Thursday this week it was pretty cool kind of windy um wall Lake western I think probably the prime of the the teams in our in our uh three School league um I think it's probably the number one they were well ahead at the end of the first half um went on from there Monday four o'clock was to visited and watch the first Unified sports uh soccer game at uh Wall Lake Central and um great hot day for them kids uh they weren't I don't think anybody was prepared

151for that obviously they didn't have a whole lot of time to prepare but uh they showed well um the team they played against obviously had been doing this a lot longer so but uh I I do expect good things from them down the road um and they were very representative and very well engaged uh went on from there to attend uh the adult transitions program waves parent uh session meeting at Wall Lake western that evening and uh I want to commend uh assistant superintendent myr uh did an excellent job in uh piloting that meeting with the parents uh I set as a willful and uh willing advisor oversight uh viewer um at one point miss m asked me if she could identify who I was for those that didn't know who I was and there

152were some people that were quite surprised that a board member actually showed up to do that but there were some issues that are still out there uh they spoke first of all very highly of um the teachers and staff there at ATP I have a somewhat um experience with the adult transitions period uh uh program uh it's it's a phenomenal Program for Young People that uh as they move out of high school um then go on to having uh uh development learning skills uh to try to give them some autonomy in life um these do go on to their 26 there were some issues uh that still are out there um and I'll let let that stay with the assistant superintendent um there was um some vigorous conversation um no question about it and uh

153there are some old issues there are some new issues um it was both parents and teachers um but I'll tell you what for those of you that do not know what the adult transitions program is you need to take the time look into that it's phenomenal what they do those young people um I would love to see it even be bigger I had two kids I know from uh my last year of driving Special Needs Bus that are both in the program now it's it's it's it's it's incredible program um that's all I can say um so um very delighted to be there um and very delighted to be a listener the other one is I uh learned on Sunday night that my granddaughter who happens to be a student here in Wall Lake was

154uh tested positive for coid 19 and it made me think again I actually had already if for those of you that don't know you can get free for free government provided um testing kits um that are all processed by the USPS um if you if you don't take advantage I actually signed up for that on Friday when it happened and I've already got my for in the mail as of yesterday so but Co is there it's just one of those things you just want to bring to people's attention be considerate to your bus drivers be considerate to your classmates and be considerate to your teachers you know um it it's one of those things that's going to be with us um forever and ever and ever so um take advantage of those free kits and

155be considerate of everyone around you if you do test positive and uh and uh you you uh you follow a policy our policy uh goes back to August of 20122 here in the district I don't know if we're going to update that or have an update coming but um it just brings it home um when somebody in your family member uh tests positive so I'll leave it at that um thank you just a couple of things um I couldn't agree more with uh Mrs Levan on the the data to drive decisions so when we had our our session and talked about kind of where we want to go um I had mentioned that I had pursued that data specialty certificate and also Mrs Fernandez is taking some of those classes as well and um I

156think it is extremely important and I I thank um you know the board members who are doing that because it it is good information learning I think you nailed it learning what questions to ask and you know and and Dr Bernie is going to bring to us as he continues to to uh put together the data package for us looking at many things um I'm known sometimes to say we can't look at things as one note and what I mean by that is that we have to look at different indicators and then when we see something we have to ask the question it's for example it's great that we have 60% who are achieving what are we doing for the other 40% and are there any of those 60 % who are overachieving and we

157need to give them supports as well and I know that our district is doing that and and when we ask that question we can um continue to understand how our kids are doing it's not just about one set of numbers that we're looking at so thank you for bringing up the fact that that you're doing that um Lakes Area Youth assistance I heard a number of 30,000 raised so that wasn't said today um by Miss vanan or by um Mr seagler but that's phenomenal um for kids who are in need and families who need support and the last thing I wasn't sure if I was going to say anything but I I was traveling and we say things at the beginning of the school district about bus safety and being careful and watching out for

158kids and I see that here in this District whether I'm walking and in my neighborhood I see buses or whatnot I was in another state I'm not going to call out a state but it wasn't the same I had people who were beeping at me because they didn't they wanted me to go on by and Rush by the bus and I just just kind of a reminder that it isn't just remember bus safety in September it's remember bus safety throughout and we care about um our students and our bus drivers all the time so I just wanted to end it with that that I was proud that every time in our district I see people who who are caring about that and we have some roundabouts uh around here now even more of them and

159it's kind of hard sometimes to to put a bus through a roundabout so um I appreciate everything that our our drivers are doing all right with that I'm going to move on to the consent agenda on the consent agenda tonight we have the approval of minutes from September 7th there was a special meeting closed session and a regular meeting we have personal recommendations as U Mr Russo mentioned we have an administrative appointment we also have new hires resignations and retirements and we also have a head start director's report Mrs Len I move that the Board of Education approve the consent agenda as presented all those in favor I opposed motion carries 60 now we have a series of purchases do you want to just take the purchases and go down one by one okay Dr

160ber we'll start with Mr chaff field thank thank you Dr Beria uh a a recommended best practice for school safety is having a means to quickly cover classroom windows and glass to prevent visibility inside the classroom uh systems were investigated and administration recommends the purchase of nightlock safety Shades which can be quickly and easily deployed uh nightlock shades are available through the tips purchasing Cooperative which is where we recommend that we purchase them uh the this purchase in the amount of $227,700 53 cents will be funded with proceeds from the Michigan school safety Grant and a separate bid recommendation for the installation of these Shades will follow momentarily Mr Sinkler I move with the Board of Education approve the purchase of districtwide security Shades from night lock through the tips purchasing cooperative for $227,700 53

161from the school safety security Grant funds support any discussion all those in favor I opposed motion carries 6 Z we're going to move to Mrs kohanski thank you Dr Bernie next on the list is Edgenuity online courseware from Imagine Learning it's an annual renewal in the amount of $957 190 from the general fund and that cours whereare goes to support over 600 students who access online courses either in person in Flex classes in uh seated classroom computer labs with teachers or our W Lake virtual program program which allows students to access a virtual program in grades 9 through 12 which is also overseen Daily by our wal Lake teachers uh as well as credit recovery courses that students take throughout the year and as well as in the summer uh in cases where students in

162high school have failed graduate credit courses they can easily retake those courses uh to make up for that credit so that they graduate on time Mr seer I I with the Board of Education approve purchase Ingenuity isine courseware imagine learning and annual renewal of at this and I know we had some conversation amongst ourselves earlier about do we know you know exactly what parts we're using it or how we're using it I'm not sure that I have a particular um issue with the content of this program but I know that it did rise in popularity as coid came up and there just weren't a lot of options right for for this degree of online um courses and I know that we have we have another one coming up after this we have already approved some

163other software programs and um so I um while I don't have a particular issue with this one I do believe that I would like to see us get a holistic look at the courseware that we're using in software and see where there's duplication and how much adoption is even being used and I feel like you know we're out of the weeds with the online learning um tragedy that everybody had to figure out and um and so uh so that's where I um that's where I stand on that and I believe for that I will probably vote no um but I don't um you know I I just I'd like to see us take a look at this Mrs Ty yeah so um you know especially in light of everything that kind of came up with

164the Lucy ckins curriculum um just kind of coming to light some of the stuff that was in there with the teacher guides um kind of made me wonder um you know what kind of things might be in this course where um that maybe we're not aware of um so I kind of echo Mrs Len's concerns from earlier with the Lucy cockin stuff that um you know okay so maybe some of our teachers you know do have the foresight to um not use that particular portion of the guide but that doesn't mean the subs coming in don't and it doesn't mean that the new teachers that rely a little bit more on the the guides don't um and I think that as a district if we are going to um purchase a curriculum and use this

165curriculum we're saying that this curriculum and what it contains is good for our district um and so I just I I do have a problem um with the content of that um being pushed on our children and I think that as a board we have the responsibility to to protect the hearts and the minds of these um kids and to protect especially the innocence of these young ones um and so I know I reached out with some questions um and one of the things too I tried to look online a little bit I saw that um this software only has like a 2.5 rating um and so you know it was kind of came back like we don't know all the content that's in there um it's hard to research some of the content because

166you have to have login information for it um so I just decided to actually call the uity um people and just ask them hey can you tell me how you promote Dei and can you tell me about some of the stuff that is in this course Weare um and they did confirm that um you know that the um you know same ideologies are also um in their courseware and he's going to was going to send me some examples um of that but I also you know I feel like if we are saying that you know diversity we have to include you know every child um and so you know um I feel like there's a lot of focus on um you know certain children with certain beliefs but we don't give other children with certain

167beliefs that seem um respect if you will um um the same um even just exposure to tax you know so if we're going to promote the lgbtq ideology then where are we promoting you know um the people who you know um want to hear about you know Jesus Christ or other things like that um I it was mentioned earlier in public comment somebody said something and made reference to our Constitution and how our constitution even starts out with you know the creator has endowed us with certain inalienable rights um and you know um our Constitution acknowledges that there's a Creator um and I believe every life has been designed for our creator um for a purpose and has value um and I I think that we um operate best and are most prosperous and blessed

168when we live in light of what we were designed to do how we were designed to live um and so as we look back at history um we have a long history of prayer being in the schools we have a long history of um The Ten Commandments being on our walls and um I think there's been a direct correlation of the decline um in Academia when we have taken out that sense of morality um Miss Ty I'm sorry to interrupt you I just want to understand how you're correlating this to the curriculum I'm getting a little confused I'm trying to be respectful but I'm getting a little confused okay well if you will follow um let me finish I'll bring it around um you know certain people want to say that if you speak against

169their lifestyle that that's hate speech and I think we've heard that a lot of times even in um some of these board meetings um but I can disagree with one's lifestyle and still be loving to them um and so um I'm just going to give you two examples I think when we um when we truly love and care about somebody we're going to speak the truth to them and so um you know I had a high school friend who was um I found out my senior year she was involved in drugs and um I was too scared to confront it with her because I was afraid of what she might say or the dissolving of our friendship um and so I didn't care enough about her I didn't love her enough to to speak what

170I believed the truth was um to her um and so um as a board member um um you know I want to do the same I want to care enough about the kids in this District to speak the truth in love and I don't think that it's loving when we push these sexualized agendas on our kids um like we saw in the you know um the potential even for that right that we see um in the guides the curriculum guides um and so just even you know that content appearing um in this course where um it would violate my conscience to vote on something that contains that because I don't believe that exposing kids to that is in their best interest and because I love the people whether people see that as love or not

171I can't vote on that did you want to say something Mrs Lin y I'll keep it brief um you know in in light of my comments during the board commentary I think that reviewing all the curriculum is is something that that we have to do as board members I'm not voting no on this curriculum so no worries there um but one thing I do want to dive in you know one thing I've learned as a new board member is we kind of go through a cycle we got to hit everything one time we got to see everything one time before we can really dive in the next year so what I'm hoping is that between now and next time we have to vote on our renewal that that um you know I'll know more debt

172questions to ask to um you know to understand more about what's the usage of this software what are the outcomes our students achieving on this software or are we just using the software type of things so um you know of course I want to know the content but I think you said there's like 927 courses that's never going to happen but maybe there's something we can use or do or something we can look at to just understand what are we signing up for what are the other options if this is the option what you know what's what's it accomplishing so just want to understand that more not going to hold up a vote tonight but just wanted to throw that out there okay did you want to say something Mr Peterson yes um wasn't going

173to say anything but I will um first of all as M Dr Beria knows I sent him a note the other day um requesting a little bit more information in a broader sense of now we're seeing some of these renewals in various activities some could be administrative teacher administra softwares things of that nature we did not see these up until a couple months ago so even for us that have been on the board it's a little bit of a new experience so I did ask Dr Bernie and I told him it was not a hurry um that we go back and try to get an understanding of all these different softwares that we have under licens them some form how do we analyze those and how do we make a decision in some cases be

174book versus electronic um um so I think we need to do a little bit of higher Overview at times um get a better understanding and and I I think I want to ask uh Mrs kohanski if she could please reiterate what's the process normally when you guys look at the even know this is a renewal what's your process well I've been through this before but there may be a few board members that have not heard this before yeah absolutely thank you I know there was a question asked about this at genuity courseware when was it reviewed when was it adapted how long has it been here uh Edgenuity has been used in the district for well more than 15 years so it predates me um and unfortunately then I can't speak to the process that

175was used at the time for looking at that evaluating that I would probably make an educated guess that 15 years ago there wasn't a whole lot of options in online courseware out there for students and at the time I believe that the Educators that were in this district and making those kinds of decisions were looking at the needs of students right so we always look at student need and when you have kids that let's say for instance in the example of credit recovery right we have students that are taking in-person classes at the high school level who let's say they fail Algebra 2 and Algebra 2 is a requirement for graduation um and let's say they're they're a senior they fail it in their senior year uh that's going to prevent them from graduating and

176getting that diploma that they need so in place of that they can't take another Algebra 2 class with an inperson teacher teacher during that time right during that year but what we can do is we can offer them the opportunity to have access to an online course which they can take complete it's accredited and then they can go ahead and get that credit that they need and and obtain their their diploma and graduate so I believe that early on those student needs are what drove a lot of the decision-making in terms of selection um now as far as a review process for online courseware uh I can't speak to that because I've not purchased strictly online cour Weare for students um I think one of the things that I responded to in some board questions

177that came up this week was how do you make a decision whether you choose something electronically or choose something that's hard copy and really oftentimes in learning services our hands are a bit tied with that it really depends on the vendor so let's say for instance we're looking at um a math program in middle school I'm making a hypothetical we're looking at a math program in middle school and it's just a renewal for us to to get the new addition because the new additions come out board has previously reviewed it and approved it but this is a new addition now the vendor says well you can only get this or you can only get some online resources um instead of a a a hard copy workbook let's say that's not our choice to say well

178we really want the hard copy workbook when the vendor says we don't make those anymore and I have a feeling that a lot of the vendors that are out there are being driven by I'm sure there's Financial uh gain for them to sell you online courseware versus hard copy courseware you think about the printing the cost of manufacturing of that and shipping of that when they can charge you the same if not more for an online version of that right so I think there's a lot of layers and complexity to that but I agree with you Mr Peterson this change in process for us has now brought some of these things in front of us to talk about and take a look at um one of the things that I'm working on with the business

179office right now is a comprehensive list of what we typically do and and renew um and talking more at length about what some of those processes look like and and certainly open to hearing feedback and questions from folks about you know what do we do with this how did we get there what decisions were made around that and and certainly I'm open to to having more conversation this year about that yeah is there somebody want want to say something yeah I'm sorry did you want to say something else Mrs fris sure yeah I just wanted to to make it clear that I don't um I don't have any foundation for um for thinking about this from what the course content is right but what I've seen from this particular software and it's probably because it's

180been around for a very long time is you know that there's some technical challenges with it that the student support model is not robust enough and that you know there there's a flooding of um you know not enough folks able to support the the population of students and folks that are accessing it and needing help and um and there's one more but I can't even see what the heck it was because I didn't think oh the the question and answer format just the way that it's it goes about it it makes it so you know like if you don't get it the first time it's much easier than maybe more modern curriculum to just guess your way through it the second time or the third round so there's really I think those are the types

181of things that I'm sure we'll get into and we'll be looking at as we start to think about those renewals and th those are the those are the items that I you know I'm hopeful that we'll be able to take a look at it as we get into that and I know you absolutely thank you for that yeah so Mrs Fernandez I would ask maybe um like one of the things I think about there's a couple things I think about when I when I look at this purchase so one we used to have a program um we used to have a high school Community High and Community High was a program that was pretty expensive but it was uh pretty effective and um those kids many of them were there for you know credit recovery

182and they could do the things in person we don't have that anymore we don't have the supports there we've tried to do a couple of different ways um I look at it where when something isn't maybe exactly perfect maybe we will get a holistic look um I I worry that voting no on something like this you have 600 students is who are using this that what are they going to do in the meantime so can we support the superintendent his staff and pass this knowing that they are going to give us more information and we're going to holistically look at everything so I'd like you to maybe just think about that before you vote no that's fair and honestly my uh just stating that I am thinking of voting no is knowing full well that

183I expect it will pass and and it's really just making it very clear that I I don't want to keep voting yes on renewals and things over and over again this came up before when we renewed other packages and we haven't done anything differently and so I feel like what can I do you know what can I do differently to make it clear that um that I really think it's important we're going to vote on $150,000 plus worth of these types of things and I don't want to see you know months and months go by and every new renewal is just you know like let's just put this one through and again I just flip it I just say what about those 600 students who are depending on this right now and don't have anything

184else right now that's all I'm asking you again you're going to vote how you want to vote but I want you to just think about that before we take the vote Yes Miss Ty so um you know I do think that that is a valid point right and I don't think anybody wants to hold up you know 600 students I think at the same time you know we just want to know or I I'll speak for myself I you know just would like to know that um we're also protecting the thousands of students that we have in the district from um just being a sexual agenda being pushed on them I just don't see it the same way we're to agree to disagree on that one okay yeah all those in favor I I opposed

185n motion passes 51 the name was from Miss Ty we are going to go right back to Mrs kohansi yes thank you Dr bernia next on the agenda is The Edge climber through illuminate education annual renewal of 6682 195 from the general fund and just a little bit about the educ climber platform uh that is something that grew out of our mtss committee work that started four years ago when I entered the district there was not an mtss process that was systemic in place to help support students uh and in looking at what systems we were going to develop and put in place to help students those at the those who at the struggling end and those at the top end that need more enrichment and more growth um one of the things that we

186noticed was we have a lot of data to look at when we talk about kids so what does your attendance look like what do your grades look like um do you have any behaviors have you been suspended um you know what do your test data look like and we heard a lot about I ready being one point of that right so what is your I ready data showing us what are your um benchmark assessments that you're taking in your in certain courses look like um what does your mstep or state assessment data look like and so what we found in that committee is that in order to get a good picture of what a student's profile looked like so that we can kind of make smart decisions about what we're seeing you know we heard

187about an eighth grade student that was clicking through I ready kind of willy-nilly because of you know some test apathy and not really caring about that test well other data points would point to the fact that that student's not reading below grade level right we would look at grades we would look at other anecdotal notes we would look at other benchmark assessments State assessments things such as that so what educ Climer does is it allows us to look at all of that data in one place so it's more about Expediting processes for for talking about students and supporting them in ways that that we know they need um and that's what this platform does is it's it's used by our staff and our Administration in order for making sound decisions about what kids need um

188and so that's what this is it's not used by students it's not an interface or a software curriculum it's just a data warehouse so that it can communicate with all those other systems and then we just can get all of that in one spot all right Mr seagler again I moved to the Board of Education approve the purchase of UC climber illuminate education annual renewal for 66 $82.95 from the general fund any discussion Mrs Fernandez I have just the similar comment and I know you you're you're dutiful and hear me um in that area um I'm sure that it's useful I um as a um in my professional career I can't help but wonder is there duplication of this versus like the critical incident tracking and some are there areas if we were to look

189at the whole portfolio of softwares and things we might might you know we might be able to um to have some thoughts about rationalization and and how it all looks at as a whole but same coming as before nothing new there may I go ahead and make a comment about that yeah absolutely thank you for that um and actually that's that's what we found is we didn't have a software platform that there there isn't a duplication there's lots of buckets um of data and and different ways that we collect that whether it be through Skyward through illuminate I ready has their own thing the state has its own um place where all of that student data is housed and what this does is it kind of pulls it all from all those little individual buckets

190into one so right now and I'm happy to share that when we get that bigger overview of what our software renewals look like we don't have anything currently that's duplicating that this is kind of a standalone oneoff thing thank you yeah and I would just say as soon as you started talking that I I wrote down data lake so part of my day job I'm working on putting a data light together right now um so it is I think I applaud the district for having a data analyst who who does that right pulling in that information because when you pull reports from separate places and then try to bring it together from different software and you don't have something like this it's really inefficient um so I actually I applaud you for for having something

191like this and I do support this um all those in favor I opposed motion carries 60 and we're on to bid award Mr Chatfield thank you Dr Beria uh the installation of the security shad um was not part of the bid uh for the purchase of them earlier um we so we did solicit bids for the installation of these Shades we received five bids and recommend uh awarding the installation of the security Shades to nightlock uh based on their low bid of $3 39,5 uh nightlock of course is the provider of the security Shades that were just approved uh and they have successfully completed many installations throughout the State and this the installation of these Shades will also be funded uh from the Michigan School Safety and Security Grant Miss dice um I move that

192the Board of Education approved the bid award for the districtwide security shade installation provided by not nightlock from the school safety Grant support any discussion Mrs L just a question I thought of sorry for not asking sooner um assuming this passes since the purchase passed when would these be in uh it it will take several months to get all the materials or are several thousand different shades sizes go all the various size of Windows uh and once they arrive uh they will begin installing I would say it would be after the first of the year and this work will be done after school hours okay thank you all right all those in favor I opposed motion carries 60 District annual report Dr berni yes uh we are the the district is required to publish an

193annual report but ours goes far above and beyond the requirements so I do want to thank Mr Durkin and our community relations team for their hard work it is outside on the table uh board members were provided this it gives a nice highlights of several things that happened in and around the district over the 2223 school year uh including your decision to hire a new superintendent so I uh appreciate that very much okay the proclamation Michigan Safe schools week October 15 through 21 2023 Dr Beria yes uh whereas schools make a substantial contribution to the future of America and to the development of our young people as knowledgeable responsible and productive citizens and whereas excellence and education is dependent on safe secure and peaceful School settings and whereas the safety and well-being of many students

194teachers and School staff are unnecessarily jeopardized by crime and violence such as substance abuse gangs bullying poor discipline vandalism and absenteeism in our schools and whereas it is the responsibility of all citizens to enhance the learning experience of young people by helping to ensure fair and effective discipline promote good citizenship and generally make schools safe and secure and whereas all leaders especially those in education law enforcement government and business should eagerly collaborate with each other to focus public attention on school safety and identify develop and promote Innovative answers to these critical issues and whereas numerous nous schools and school districts throughout Michigan along with national programs are among those Innovative answers and whereas the observance of Michigan Safe schools week will substantially promote efforts to provide our schools with positive and safe learning climates now

195therefore be it resolved and Proclaim that October 15 through 21st is Michigan Safe schools week all right and you have another Proclamation I do I do princial month yes one of our school resource officers is in the room uh so I do want to thank officer gfin who's right back there she works at Wall Lake Northern uh and and works with our our two other resource officers who are stationed at Central and Western and I want to thank our law enforcement Partners also they they get we get together with them a couple times a year from all the various municipalities and and I'm very grateful for their support so now we will move on to the proclamation for principal's month which reads whereas throughout Michigan and across the country the school principal plays a central

196role in creating an environment conducive to learning and whereas the State Board of Education acknowledges the challenge of 21st century teaching leading and learning and whereas the school principal acts as the liaison between the school and the community it serves and ensures that parents and taxpayers are aware of student achievement and whereas the expectations for principal leadership within schools have increased greatly in the past decade including quality and accountability for all children and whereas energetic and expiring and inspiring School leadership is essential if schools teachers students and support staff are to implement College and Career ready standards and rigorous assessments and whereas the goal of Michigan school principal month is to raise awareness of the importance of educational leadership in the school and valuable contribution of the school principal to the success of the Learning

197Community now therefore be it resolved that the wal Lake school's Board of Education and administration support Michigan schools principal month and encourage each school and Community to appropriately recognize their principal during the month of October 2023 and the vital role the principal plays in the success of all students thank you and I noticed we're doing some social media highlights of our principls that's great yes indeed all right our next to last item before adjournment is our board policy committee update and I'm not going to steal any Thunder from Mrs Fernandez but what I will do just for those who may not be aware we did um decide to form a policy committee we've had a policy committee before uh we feel that that is an effective way because there's just a lot of work and

198a lot of discussion that needs to take place with policies all of it will come back to here to us at the board um but um thankfully U Mr Peterson Mrs fernandos and Mrs Kaplan have agreed to do that work with Dr Bernie and his staff so Mrs fernandas I'll hand it off to you for an update thank you I just wanted to share some highlights as we um had our first uh get together to kind of figure out what our approach was be would be and how we would move it along um if you've been following our board meetings you'd know that earlier meetings we'd had some policy updates and so we'd gotten through a first reading and shared there were about 14 or so policy updates that were recommended that we start with

199and um we voted in June to kind of defer some of that specifically to a later date uh as Dr Bernie and staff were furiously getting ad administrative regulations in place and and some other foundational things so um so with respect to the approach that we uh that we agreed we would like to bring forward and and share here um uh we want to First address those updates that we'd already started with along with six new items that are on the fall list from Miller Johnson uh so that would make about a total of 20 uh specific policies that we've been recommended to update so that feels like a good start along with the code of ethics language that um we've been talking about which is in section 101 and so that little bundle of

200items feels like a good quick first first hit so that's um so that's where we uh where we agreed to start um we then also had some conversation about which policies should be reviewed and uh at least in the committee our uh recommendation is that all policies be reviewed um and uh we talked about a pecking order if there should be a pecking order and in fact wanted to um give ourselves the flexibility or suggest that we would have the flexibility to not go in straight numerical order or things like the It security policy at the very end would might take a really long long time to get to and it might be more important that we pull that one forward for example and so uh as a committee we'll work to identify some other

201bundles and make sure that we're sharing them ahead of time uh for your uh input uh and then uh and then start the process um we talked about a Cadence or flow to make sure that all of the stakeholders are appropriately involved that starts with the superintendent and staff um and then uh comes to the committee and then goes to legal and then comes to the board for first reading and uh questions would go back and forth and then a second reading so all of that is very uh much aligned with what we do uh normally anyways but um it felt good to just confirm that we were all in in alignment on how that would flow um and then we did say you know that we would like to uh in addition to looking

202at the policies which might take us quite some time there's more than 170 of them to also make sure that we're aligning on the mechanics of future updates so whether that's um future updates request for new policies you know consideration for you know Miller Johnson Neola has been raised and some folks have asked some questions about you know who do we keep using um all of that is uh feels like something that we would also like to align on after we get a lot of work under our belt on the um committee so I think we've got a date now for our next meeting is that right Mr Peterson it was like the 17th meeting sat yeah so um we've set a a next meeting date and we're thinking that our hit list list or

203our quick wins list we'd like to be able to work uh together with the board on um bring uh forward as soon is maybe the November 2nd board meeting for the first reading and then uh Target September or December 7th meeting for our second reading so we want to we want to get a quick start and then kind of get a Cadence going perfect it sounds like you had a lot of good conversation it was great conversation yeah and I really appreciate um Mr Peterson and miss kathyn and Dr Beria and Lisa who helped us as well so okay I think we're ready to we're ready and excited to roll all right well thank you appreciate that and at 959 not 10 we are a joury