001thank you very much [Music] thank you right outside things feelings all right I apologize we're starting one minute late I'm going to ask install please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance we're going to start with our golden apple Awards Dr bernia thank you very much Madam president members of the board tonight we are going to open with Kirsten would be Kirsten are you here right on up next to Mrs kahanski right there that's the spot right there tonight's first golden apple recipient is Kirsten would be District Parent volunteer Kirsten was nominated by Michelle azarek first grade teacher at Keith Elementary because Kirsten is the utmost professional when it comes to volunteering she tackles every job with a smile on her face and a positive attitude she is wholly committed to doing everything she possibly can
002to be of assistance to our schools and the district as a whole in Kirsten's nomination letter Michelle shared Kirsten is the definition of self-motivated when working on a project she spends countless hours at school and does not stop until her task is completed she often takes materials home to work on them in the evenings and on weekends her hard work ethic and positivity are inspiring Kirsten puts a great deal of thought into her work when organizing the Keith literacy Library she spoke with several staff members about what they liked and what they did not like about the current setup of the library her thoughtful approach to tackling projects makes them well planned Kirsten takes ideas from others and then processes that information to figure out the best way to move forward with a project Kirsten
003is a problem solver and an exceptionally hard worker she creates positive relationships and is always cheerful and friendly with everyone she comes into contact with she puts 100 into everything she does Dr Marcy augenstein principal at Keith Elementary celebrated Kirsten's nomination sharing Kirsten is amazing she has given so much time effort and energy to our teachers in our school that she simply must be recognized for her efforts although she is humble by nature and would never seek recognition she is an outstanding parent volunteer and we are Beyond thankful for her support and contributions to making our school Community a wonderful place for teachers and students Kirsten thank you for your dedication to our schools and making sure that our students staff and families have everything they need to be successful it's our honor to recognize
004you this evening [Applause] thank you congratulations please let the minister reflect that's the second Standing Ovation at a board meeting this year our second recipient uh this evening is Kimberly Juilliard SCI para educator at Sarah Banks Middle School Kimberly come on up Kimberly was nominated by Julian Young School social worker at Banks because Kimberly goes above and beyond on a daily basis for students and staff members at Banks when there is a need Kimberly is there to fill it without thinking twice Kimberly works with students who often have difficulty regulating their emotions managing their behaviors and finding success in the classroom she has a level of patience and compassion for students that is second to none her ability to connect and develop meaningful and supportive relationships with students and parents is evident daily and Kim
005in Kimberly's nomination letter Julianne shared Kimberly is a very dependable staff member over the course of 20 years she consistently comes to school with a smile a sense of humor and her Compassionate Heart to help the students who need the most support at Sarah Banks Middle School Kimberly is an Avid Reader and loves learning she humbly seeks out assistance to best serve the student she supports she is a reflective person who is willing to try out new strategies think outside the box be flexible and help her students laugh when they need it most Kimberly is always giving her best self to others and I admire the selflessness she provides to students and staff she makes the bank's Community a sense of belonging for all students Michelle calhorn principal at Sarah Banks middle school supported Kimberly's
006nomination sharing Kimberly has a level of patience and passion for students that is above and beyond her ability to connect and develop meaningful and supportive relationships with students and parents is evident daily she has had a massive impact on the lives of so many students in her years as a para educator and we are so incredibly lucky and thankful to have her as a part of our team at Banks Kimberly thank you for impacting the lives of so many students in your years of service to the bank's Community it's our honor to recognize you this evening [Applause] all right next we have fallen winter sports recognition back to Vernia I'm going to turn the floor over to Dr lons thank you and I'm going to turn it over to our District athletic director Mr Brian
007swinehart well uh thank you this is um it's a pleasure and honor to be the athletic director here in Walled Lake it's my 13th year here in Walled Lake 25th as an athletic director I still get a little pregame Jitters butterflies coming up here to speak but it's definitely an honor this is the district I chose to have my kids raised in I believe in this district and I love this District what it's about so I do want to thank first of all the board for giving us the opportunity to take a few minutes to recognize our athletes that we have here our administrative team as well which includes cabinet along with uh just special uh thank you to Bill Chatfield and operations who does a lot of work to help support our athletic programs
008that are there and then our building athletic Administration that are out there working also the parents as we know the sudden happened by accident with the success that kids have as parents were taking our kids to practices and games and and early on with who's got the snacks and what's happening in carpools and all that so a huge thank you to our parents for their commitment to their students uh to their to their children our coaches it's really important to take the time to recognize their coaches who spend more time during the season with their student athletes than they do their own families they give up that time to be with our children with your children to be able to make them better people then finally our athletes who are going to recognize tonight um
009they are the ones that put in the work the time everything we want to acknowledge them and their accomplishments that they have but before I begin I do want to point out three things this year that I'm really really proud that our athletic department was able to start we started three new sports one was archery at the middle school there was a huge number of ET Smart in our archery program I love this because there were kids that normally weren't on a team that were part of the smart archery team and got to represent their school I think that's really important boys volleyball the fastest growing sport in our state we started boys volleyball this year it was so fun to go out and watch kids that were a part to compete within our district
010and to have that success that they have and it may be the next support the mhsa has and then finally probably what I'm most proud of this year has been our Unified sports and for those I don't know if you're aware it's where our general and our specialty needs students are paired together to play basketball games we're able to do this at our showcase nights where the Wall Lake schools played each other and I was just talking about this back there yeah I cried during it it was that emotional and that rewarding it was um just an incredible event so I just wanted to point that out how proud we are but getting back to the the individuals we're going to honor for the success whether it was on the in the court the pool
011the track or any other place so tonight as you look at these awards that you're going to see here you'll see Allstate you'll see state champions and you'll see a national champion as well in our athletic community and I don't know if you've heard there's an old saying that that talks about participation in extracurricular and that does mean the Arts along with um if it's performing arts or any of the other extracurricular activities leads future success in life and I say that's not entirely true what's important about with that is that successful participation in extracurricular activities leads to future success with the right culture the right coach the right director who's ever in that role teaching those lessons and doing it our athletes our students that are in those will learn teamwork they'll learn self-worth
012and pride responsibility hard work commitment dedication and more what's most important is that Athletics and extracurriculars aren't truly an extension of the classroom they really do impact the classroom because research shows the number one aspect of success for students is motivation those extracurricular activities help students connect and help to keep them motivated in the classroom and I just I can't say enough and it's in it the Championships are great and all those things that's not a cliche that what we do in the athletic fields in the on in the band in the um in the on the stage in the theaters those things do have a direct impact on the success of our students that we have in there so um I think it's really important to remind ourselves of those things as you're watching
013what's going on here that these are our future leaders these are the ones that are going to be leading our country leading corporations leading businesses um those types of things are really important because at the end of the day one percent of high school athletes one percent go on to college and get actually get a scholarship a far less number actually make money on our Sports it's rare very very rare we have you know whether it's Connor hallibuck who's in all um who's an All-Star goalie in the NHL or if it was cam view who got a chance to pitch for the Pirates last year um out there from from Western or Ade and I'm sorry Audi I'm not even going to try to pronounce your last name who was from Central that plays for
014um in in the NFL right now it was a captain at Notre Dame those are the athletes those are the people that are in our district that we are recognizing and are proud of because that's what's important because before before we leave the field the court the pool wherever we are the scoreboard's turned off and what's left are the memories and the relationships and those things that we have that are um that are left to build us for later life so as it's continuing to scroll I do want to I just think it's really really important to thank you the board for allowing us to continue to do what we do to fund the Athletics to do those things and our administrations our coaches and our parent parents that provide the support so that our
015athletes are able to compete and be successful and have what they um have this success that they have and then the students that are out there and aren't watching are a part of it or what's going on I hope in some way shape or form you joined a club joined um get involved in the theater art and athletic team we have lots of non-cut sports that are out there get involved be a part of it make that connection back with their schools I think it's really really important so again congratulations to our athletes we're really proud of your accomplishments we're really proud of the community that helps them with their success so thank you very much to everybody [Applause] foundation for excellence awards Dr bernian yes at this time I am thrilled to introduce someone
016who works so hard on behalf of our district and is seemingly everywhere these days you cannot go many places in Walled Lake and not see Jackie Gerwin who I'm sure wants to tell you about a golf outing that's coming up so I'll turn it over to her thank you so much Dr bernia so as many of you know the foundation for excellence is all about giving back to classrooms across our district we recently gave back over sixty one thousand dollars to support additional tools and projects within classrooms while I'm the one who handles the day-to-day operations of the foundation I certainly don't do this alone our board is made up of Staff members parents and local business folks in the area and I'd love to invite my board up here to help me present this
017evening's award so I know there's actually maybe more of you than usually show up to my meetings so please come on up to the front so Marsha Beatty Susie Crafton Marcy Augustine Matt Hewitt Brian feldposh Mark Siegler did I miss anybody all right so our first award is for outstanding support and generosity and goes to Barb Garbutt Barb is a former teacher within our district who spent 30 years making memories with students of all ages what began as a job teaching phys Ed at Dublin Elementary became something much more as Barb took on the role of director of the outdoor education center for over 17 years last year the foundation earmarked funds to help support the construction of a new Pavilion at The Outdoor Center in honor of our 30th anniversary but when it was
018determined that additional funds would be needed Barb stepped right up and made a generous donation to help make this a reality we are working with Carrie Martin to finalize funds and to hopefully break ground on this soon thank you Barb for always stepping up and making sure our students have a phenomenal experience in Walled Lake Schools [Applause] can we take it take a quick picture thanks [Music] so our second outstanding support and generosity award goes to Phyllis Wagner while Phyllis can't be in attendance tonight as she no longer lives locally she's continued to make a difference through a generous donation to the foundation in honor of her late husband Robert I've spoken with Phyllis a few times and I always enjoy taking a walk down memory lane with her she met Robert by chance when
019she was teaching at Dublin Elementary and Robert was temporarily assigned to that building while waiting for a position as a head custodian at Walled Lake western they fell in love and built a life together while they both continue to work within the district Phyllis said that they were unfortunately unable to have children so the district became their family their students became their kids Robert passed away back in 2017 and when Phyllis speaks of him you can hear the love and admiration in her voice her choice to honor Robert with a donation to the foundation helps support many additional classroom grants this year and will continue their legacy of treating the students of Walled Lake as their family a huge thank you to Phyllis Wagner for her generous donation [Applause] see this is why I have
020board members okay not just that our third outstanding support and generosity award goes to DFCU Financial so we have Jamie Lieberman here today to accept this award so come on up DFCU has been supporting the foundation for nearly 10 years and they have become a great partner to the foundation in that time one of the things that struck me about DFCU is how different how many different educational foundations they support Detroit Birmingham Novi Taylor Lansing Walled Lake the extent to which they support all these organizations is a testament to their belief that strong education is essential in a community beyond the generous donations to the foundation this past year DFCU has also helped give me ideas of future fundraisers that they work with the other foundations on sometimes support comes in dollars and sometimes it
021comes in ideas DFCU has helped provide both of these to the foundation for excellence thank you to all of the staff at DFCU for being a great partner to us for the last 10 years [Applause] all right our final outstanding support and generosity award goes to Walled Lake Schools Federal Credit Union so Brian come on over just take a few steps over um supporting Walled Lake Schools is not only in their name it's in their souls if there's an event supporting our community you will likely see Brian and likely Connie there as well they volunteered at the ffe golf scramble help sell tuition Expedition tickets are huge supporters of the Warriors for warriors pink out program they've helped the ffe with substantial Financial donations and surprise staff around the district with flowers during staff Appreciation
022Week pies during Pi Day they're always doing what they can to put smiles on faces of our staff and students I can say without a doubt that our partnership with Walled Lake Schools Federal Credit Union is one of our strongest and our community is lucky for having them around thank you so much Brian hold on all right our let me take it out all right our final award tonight is an extra special one that's made in honor of Michael Bernhardt a former foundation for excellence trustee who passed away in 2015. well I was never able to meet Michael I can tell that he made a huge impact among the trustees on the ffe board they describe him as a steadfast supporter who was never focused on bringing being acknowledged for his hard work and did
023what he did because it was important to him this year's Michael Bernhardt Legacy award goes to Cameron Bibi Cameron is a rock star student who works hard every day without worrying about if other people notice when I took this job Michelle Bianco told me what a wonderful young lady Cameron was and I don't think her praise even gave Cameron half the Justice she deserves she's an outstanding athlete a National Honor Society student and a fantastic supporter of the foundation for excellence in this past year Cameron has volunteered at her golf scramble helped sell tuition Expedition raffle tickets and worked hard to engage other wildlike Northern students with the ffe getting students to understand the importance of the foundation is not an easy task but Cameron has made sure to share our accomplishments with her peers
024and we notice that more students are understanding what we do so thank you for that Cameron I do want to take a second and read a quick note from Don Bernhardt who is Michael's brother he was unable to make it tonight but he wanted to share a couple words with you dear Cameron congratulations on receiving this year's Michael Bernhardt Award presented by the foundation for excellence I'm very sorry that I'm not able to attend this year so I'd like to drop you a quick note Jackie told me about you and your activities and from that I definitely understand why you are the recipient of this year's award I thank you for spreading the word about the great things the foundation does and provides to the students in the Walled Lake School District the foundation for
025excellence meant a great deal to Michael and to see the success of the foundation continue is outstanding good luck to you and successes in all your future endeavors so thank you so much Cameron we will miss you but we hope you have a wonderful time and the University of Michigan and go Blue [Applause] thank you so much and next we have the Michigan school band and Orchestra Association msboa All-State and spring honors Dr biryan we're going to go back to Dr Lyons for this you know I'll do what I do best and turn it over to our district secondary instrumental music department head Mrs Kristin tuczynski thank you so much my name is Kristen dudzinski I'm the band director at Sarah Banks middle school and also the instrumental music department chair and I'm being joined
026tonight by several of my colleagues if you wouldn't mind coming up here right now I can give you the certificate so you have them ready to hand out to your students that would be great we have Theresa Sierra Hall the orchestra teacher also from Sarah Banks Mike York the band director from Geisler we have Heidi Takis Orchestra at Central and Northern Mary helberger the band director from northern Pat dudzinski the band director at Western and Dave Rogers the band director at Central [Applause] tonight we are pleased to recognize the instrumental music student selected to participate in the 2023 Michigan school abandoned Orchestra Association All State bands and orchestras and spring honors ensembles our Walled Lake students competed against thousands of young musicians from across Michigan to gain acceptance into these prestigious ensembles the students selected
027for the Allstate program performed extremely difficult etudes memorized scales and sight red for their audition only the top performers were accepted into the All-State ensembles and I am proud to announce that seven of our Walled Lake instrumental music students were included in these groups the All-State bands and orchestras performed at the Michigan Music Conference in January the students accepted for the spring honors ensembles must go through a rigorous process to prove themselves as the top high school musicians in the state they must qualify for msboa high school state solo and Ensemble Festival where they perform a proficiency examination which includes a demanding solo memorized scales and sight reading only the top scoring students in the state are invited to participate in the spring honors banson orchestras and five of those students were from Walled Lake
028we are also pleased to recognize two students for their acceptance into the honors performances at Carnegie Hall nearly 10 000 students from around the world auditioned for this opportunity students from 48 states Bermuda Canada China and South Korea joined for a performance on the world's famous Carnegie Hall stage a venue that marks the Pinnacle of musical achievement acceptance into this Elite group is a direct result of the talent dedication achievements demonstrated in the application and audition achieving success at this level is no easy feat and is a testament to the hard work and dedication of these talented musicians the instrumental music teachers are proud of these outstanding students and are pleased to have the pleasure to work with them through their participation in Bandon Orchestra at this time we will recognize each student calling them
029up by name the abandoned Orchestra teachers will present each student with a certificate students please remain standing at the side of the room over here by your teacher until everyone has received their certificate and then we will take a group photo with Dr bernia and Mrs casagrande from Banks middle school we have Jonathan song violin and he was in the Allstate Middle School orchestra foreign okay how about we can move to the front when you have your students let's move to the front and get set up for the picture thank you Dr Alex from Geisler Middle School we have Eden Choi clarinet and Saya Farrell oboe and they were both in the All-State Middle School band from Central we have Ella fried on trumpet who is in the Allstate High School band sarasa iria alto
030saxophone in the spring honors band and Katherine Rogers clarinet who is also in the spring honors band [Applause] from northern Ione in Chastity bassoon Allstate High School band Kendall link string bass spring honors Orchestra Andrew Pierce euphonium who is in the Allstate High School band the spring honors band and the honors band performance at Carnegie Hall and Casey Thai violin in the all-state high school orchestra foreign from Western we have Luca curtel a percussionist in the spring honors Orchestra in Jorge Palacios Rodriguez on string bass in the honors Orchestra performance at Carnegie Hall congratulations again to our Allstate and honors students and thank you again to the school board members for allowing us to have this recognition tonight [Applause] thank you perfect right here one two three one two three [Applause] can the parents come
031up please [Applause] we are going to take a brief intermission if you want to stay you are more than welcome we're going to get set up for our curriculum instruction report but we will start back at about 7 35 we'll give us five minutes thank you make our way back to the table that would be great all right it looks like we're getting ready here uh Dr Bernie and we're going to talk about curriculum and instruction our report uh yeah I'm going to uh turn it over in just a second I really want to thank Mrs kohanski so the the testing window for spring assessment for our students closed last week so um with the with the holiday and everything else that that's going on to end the school year uh we had to we
032had to work quickly on this so what you'll see is an overall overarching uh review of our data but uh the board obviously wants to know more about about subgroups and subpopulations and and really to parse out the data we we will do that going forward but for right now we felt it best to at least give you a quick update in the spring as to how we performed so Mrs kohanski yeah thank you so much Dr bernia um so I'm back I was with you earlier in the year to talk a little bit about our fall assessment data and taking a look at the use of our iready Benchmark assessment system uh like I said we've used I ready for well over 10 years I think this might be our 11th or 12th year
033I would have to look back we were one of the original i-Ready assessment districts in the county they're used widely across the state and actually across the nation which means when they collect National Norm data it's a very large sample size of students in grades k through eight that they that they reference so I just want to remind everyone that our i-Ready assessment that we give three times a year the beginning of the year at the middle of the year and then at the end of the year summatively we take a look at this data we're legislated to take a look at this data and to provide information to parents about that after every diagnostic window parents do receive a very detailed report of their student students performance and how they're doing and mastering those
034grade level standards our teachers have professional development that aligns with this assessment so we we don't just use the assessment and give it in check a box and say we're done it's a very active assessment that we use we use it in terms of planning for instruction we use it to take a look at how our planning around our systems and Alignment comes together and and really as I had mentioned a couple of years ago to you this is really an integral part of a system that we're creating here in Walled Lake and I'm excited to share our end-of-year data with you so as Dr Bernie has stated this is an overview of it we're just going to get started with reminding the board and and members of the community about our goals and our
035priorities so several goals that our learning Services team and I have been working on really diligently is the integration of our multi-tiered system of supports and our mykip which is our Michigan continuous improve movement plan that's our district Improvement plan all school districts have to have goals and and Improvement plans and the integration of that with the way that we support students in reaching those grade level standards is really iready is at the heart of that uh this year our goals were rebooting that focus on our multi-tiered system of support that my team and I designed over the last few years we'll talk about that kind of in a in a summary at the end but we implemented that at the elementary level starting last year so this year we did a little reboot on
036that and we were really intentional about the role that iready plays in looking at student performance and making sure that no student is falling through the cracks Elementary we focused our goal around small group instruction I should say our strategy to meet the goal of reading informational text that Elementary level small group instruction was the core of a lot of our professional development this year it's a very high leverage strategy it allows teachers to really tailor to smaller groups of students and very specific needs when I shared the fall data with you I talked about how teachers can run those grouping reports right they can take a look at how their class did and say I want to break these students down into these students need work and and this phonic skill or these students
037need work in Geometry or algebraic thinking and they can pull those students with them into some very small group intentional instruction and that's what we focused our professional learning on this year with our teachers was how to implement small group instruction in reading and math in the Middle School level we've used I ready in our Essentials classes that really help to identify students that need support we've also used those in our core classes as well and really keeping that relevancy of iready at the middle school level has been a challenge given that I don't know if if you have a 12 13 or a 14 year old at home but sometimes it's hard to keep that engagement when they've been taking a similar assessment for a long time we worked the team and I worked
038with I ready themselves and talked about how they could make that Middle School assessment interface more engaging for that age group and they listened to us they took a lot of those cartoons out they've really looked at how they could modify the assessment to be more appealing so we're glad that they've taken our feedback and listened to that as well and at the secondary level disciplinary literacy is a strategy that focuses very specifically on reading of informational text across content not just in uh English classes so we've partnered with Oakland schools with some of that work some of the Consultants there are working at the state level and disciplinary literacy Network into which we've been involved in some of that professional learning and some of that work to help our teachers so those are our
039goals and priorities this year and just to take you back this is just a really quick refresher for the board and and for members of the community on how we look at these relative placement levels so the overall data I'm going to be showing you is placement there's two ways to look at at student performance there's placement how did you do in mastering standards and then there's growth how are you growing from where you've you've been and so the growth data is still that data that's kind of you know we're still piecing that together I know Dr bernia mentioned at the beginning some of those subgroups I'll talk a little bit about what that growth data is showing us but the actual data I will be sending you uh very soon but as we look
040at these placement levels we want to take a look at how our students have grown from their performance in the fall on grade level standards to their performance in the spring and it's broken down by grade level for you so I want you to pay close attention to the way the bar graph looks especially in the green areas what was the green area looking like in the fall what does that green area look like in the spring and how do the yellow and red areas look like those are reducing so that's really an overall kind of glance as to looking at student placement when it comes to standards the first uh set of data that we'll look at is our math data so I'm going to advance over to the next screen and this is
041that comparison the first bar graph shows you the fall scores the second bar graph shows you this spring scores and we just finished these assessments last Friday I uh Dr Bernie mentioned we did a really quick turnaround we really only had two days Tuesday and Wednesday to get this data put together and pulled and and ready to present so a couple of things to note just a tremendous amount of growth especially when you look at kindergarten first grade second grade obviously we always want to turn that attention to our youngest Learners and how they're doing and mastering standards and it really is just this data is really is really speaking to some really positive things that are taking place I want you to note some really significant increases in the percentage of students that are
042mastering standards in kindergarten we saw 54 percent more students mastering standards than we did in the fall that's a tremendous growth the same thing with first grade we've got 55 percent of students more mastering standards now than they were at the beginning of the year in second grade 42 percent these increases are fantastic and they're increases that we haven't seen since prior to covet so these are really just uh some phenomenal gains that our students are making in K5 six seven and eight we also see gains one of the things that we're looking at is perhaps why the significance of the gains in elementary might not quite match those gains that we're seeing in six seven and eight so we're going to be digging deeper into that and looking at that I know when when
043we talk a little bit about our data profile our middle school students are our just our watch area those are those are things that we want to be looking at in terms of we talked a lot about revitalizing that culture around the assessment working with teachers to have really intentional chats about student data because we we really tend to wonder a little bit is there some Middle School apathy that's involved when it comes to you to performing on some of these assessments and and doing their best because we do look at this right um and and it's really important work um one of the things I would like to notice note is the math growth this is not in this chart I'm just going to verbally share this with you but you'll see it in
044some of that subgroup data that I share with you um growth is measured in uh how well students Master a Year's worth of standards in a Year's worth of time if if students are are meeting a hundred percent typical growth targets that means that 100 percent they're they're making a hundred percent of the growth we would expect them to make in math however our growth is 106 percent so that means our students are actually growing Beyond a Year's worth of of gains in a Year's worth of time they're actually growing past that so that means we're covering ground for students that might be falling into some of those lower categories and you'll see that growth data when I'm when I'm able to extract that and and get you some really good graphs to look at
045but that's the great news in some of those red and yellow areas we're seeing students growing 135 140 percent yes they may not be moving into that next placement level but their growth is beyond that Year's worth of growth in a Year's worth of time so I'll like I said that that really detailed data will be coming to you as we're able to get that pulled but it's remarkable next we're going to take a look at reading and readings even even more startling in the growth and K5 again taking a look at some of those significant increases in percentage percentages of students mastering grade level standards in kindergarten for instance we've got a 58 percent increase in students mastering standards not 58 of them a 58 increase in students mastering standards at kindergarten and a
04652 percent increase in students mastering those standards in first grade so um really almost non-existent red areas when we take a look across lower L upper L again that's something that we want to take a look at looking at the Fidelity of implementation of our of our curriculum focusing on small group instruction and some of those High leverage strategies which are kind of newer for upper L and we know that that's a newer teaching philosophy in Upper l so we want to we want to continue to focus on that because our lower L seems to really have embraced that as Dr bernia and the cabinet and I travel out and and take a look and do our instructional visits at buildings we note that that small group instruction is sort of alive and well and
047a little more robust when we when we walk through lower L classrooms we want to see that same instructional model being implemented comprehensively at the upper L as well but still fantastic growth um and then again when we take a look across Middle School yes growth not as pronounced as we see at the elementary level we've got some curricular things that we would like to take a look at again looking at increasing the use of data with our students at the middle school level and really involving them in taking a look at where their performance is and again the growth in literacy in Reading overall I talked about that growth in math right 100 percent would be our great Target like a hundred percent of the kids are making that that Year's worth of growth
048we have um in Reading 125 percent growth so they're they're exceeded they're going a quarter past what we would expect them to learn in a year overall in our K-8 data and some of those subgroups are achieving tremendous growth um we even I'll I'll break it down when I give you that data in forthcoming but even in like our top tiers because we wonder like how are those top tiers growing are we ignoring the kids that are already in green and only focusing on students that that might be behind the growth that we're seeing in in grade levels in in the green is 130 140 150 percent growth so you'll take a look and see that those growth targets are really just just um off the charts one of the things that we we we
049noted when we met with iready this uh yesterday yesterday when they shared these data this data with us is um I already said this this doesn't happen so that's really um a Real Testament to um some really hard work on the part of our teams um you know I I know I mentioned a few years back that putting systems in place and aligning things takes time right it takes time not only to put those things together but it really takes time to realize what that growth can look like and I think we're really in that mode right now where we're starting to see that alignment that systems work that myself my team and then staff across the district have really worked hard on things like the the multi-tiered system of support process that we have
050in place for students the goals around my Kip that are really drilled down and related to reading informational text like like really getting down to the heart of what seems to be holding students back leveraging some really high impact strategies and helping our teachers see how to implement those on a daily basis in the classroom the alignment of our curriculum K5 is really evident in that K5 progress we want to see that progress in middle school so taking a look at how we can help support curriculum there and then making sure that the professional development calendar is aligned to all of this work so it's very systemic it's very integrated and I'm pleased to report that we're really seeing tremendous gains from our students across the district um like I said even though students up
051in the green growing well beyond 100 120 130 percent growth and even students in those red areas making tremendous gains so I will be sharing subgroup data with you as Dr bernia mentioned we're still working on making sure we can put that into the right graphs and and explain that in the ways that we want to but I'm just I'm really pleased to be able to share this uh this data with you so I always end these data presentations with talking about what those next steps look like when meeting with our iready team and talking with our learning Services team these are some top leader actions that I already identifies that help us to to continue that growth trajectory we've worked really hard on things like building the community and the culture around i-Ready we
052worked really hard this year with helping teachers understand how to create structures and schedules that support not only the diagnostic but using that data then and working that into how do you work small groups into your into your structure and your schedule during the day um and then that promoting professional growth is always part of our PD plan but next year we're going to continue to focus on the third and the fourth item up there the using assessment and data and then supporting teaching and learning and those are two really high top leader actions that not only myself and my team will be helping our principals with but principals helping instructional Specialists with to help coach our teaching staff with we're all in this as as one big system and one big team and like
053I said it's taken a few years to make sure that we have these things in place but they're really really um showing just an incredible amount of growth and I'm really proud of of our team our staff and our students so I'd be happy to take any questions that you might have any questions comments I just have one question so all seems obviously very high level very positive anything keeping you up at night or anything um that just from a high level that that you're worried about as you saw it come in and I know it's early and you just got it but it yeah I think it I think it is just really to continue to help um support our teachers to me that's that thing that keeps me up at night like how
054can we you know make sure that we're reaching everyone that we're we're giving them and getting feedback from our teachers on what they need we we have a really continuous Improvement cycle of every time we'll run a professional learning session we ask for Teacher survey feedback you know how what did you think of this what it you know what could we do differently one of the things we heard loud and clear from teachers this year is um a one-size-fits-all PD doesn't work for me you know I'm I'm three steps ahead of of maybe a teacher down the hallway I need something a little different and so two of our PDS this year focused on like a mini education conference where we had breakout sessions where teachers could self-select what they wanted to go to for
055some they may say you know I need a really basic overview of how to pull I ready reports and look at data for others they're like you know I'm ready to get into some real standards Mastery with these kids and I want to I I want to kick this up a notch I want to do data chats with them I want them to chart their own progress or I really like to learn more about small group instruction so we we've really heard from them we've it's it's been those are those huge lifts so for me that keeping me up at night the growth is is speaking for itself so I'm pleased with that but that continuation of how do we continue to support our fantastic teachers and helping them get better at the excellent job
056they do and it's that that trajectory from from good to Great from great to excellent so thank you thank you appreciate it yep and next we have the facility utilization study and presentation Dr bernia I'm going to turn it over to Mr Chatfield for this one thank you Dr Bernier over the past several months representatives from plant Moran cressa have conducted Community demographic and enrollment studies throughout the district analyze the instructional facility and operational cost data for each facility and held public feedback forms for the purpose of preparing an assessment of the efficiencies and utilization of our facilities similar to what they did assessments they did for us in 2011 and 2018. Paul Wills from plant Moran cressa is here tonight to present the results of that study thank you Mr Chatfield and good evening
057board members Dr Bernier again just real quick overview of the presentation tonight we're going to be brief be interested and then be seated I think that's the best way to present a lot of great data at these points hit a little bit about the 2011-2000 updates to enrollment projections and utilization and then also what are those some of those things that we're seeing not just here in Walled Lake but across the county across the state and obviously future considerations for the district going forward I'm not going to spend a lot of time who plant Moran cresses you might have heard of plant Moran from the tax and audit standpoint primary Chrysler the capital projects group working with a lot of large organizations a lot of school districts from Detroit Utica Wall Lake I think we
058work with about 35 of the top 50 largest districts here in the state but some of this demographic information is used by some of our Hospital clients Beaumont DMC Olympia development of Michigan Wayne State University and various counties so one of the things we're going to show you tonight is we drew a polygon of Wall Lake schools and we're going to give you a lot of that information of what to look for in terms of number of households number of households with children what's the average age of those householders what is the meeting Aid cost of this house is going forward and really just tied into the enrollment trends that we see going forward um so again back to 2017 uh there's a couple things that really started that conversation I'll defer to miss less
059but I believe the state took 470 dollars per student away per person across the state um this is right after the 2008 9 10 11 recession um also I believe some additional funding I believe it was 20j was also reconsidered so there was a significant straight on the financials which really is the impetus of this and working with Dr Gutman and and um Dr Delgado and a 54 person team so the Tony is actually continuation of that 10 years of work and it is best practices I appreciate Dr Bernie the board the opportunity in the in the trust here with planner and Crest to re-update this so at the end of the day the end result was about a reduction of 175 000 square feet of operational space out of the 2011 study we're going
060to talk about what does it cost to operate your schools currently going forward to 2018 again some of that was really taking a look as that bubble of the elementary that we saw in 2011-12 working its way through the system uh into the middle schools and ultimately while we're here tonight is throughout the entire K-12 programs but again that was really more of just identifying and optimizing the efficiencies of those facilities as part of the bond program it is obviously looking at renovating interior spaces additions things that nature that really came out of the utilization kind of going forward so what are we here tonight for as I mentioned we do this for about 70 districts across the state we take a look at these three Geographic charts I know it's a little hard to
061see um on the TV screens but these are the three Maps we have the elementary cohort Maps the middle school and ultimately the high school we compare that to What's Happening Here in the county what's happening in the state of Michigan and a special thanks to miss last Miss chat Mr Chatfield and a lot of the accounting pupil offices for a lot of those data points as we go forward so the first sheet on the right hand side again it's a part of a 54-page demographic report but again what we're finding out is there's 102 900 people in that boundary you overlap multiple municipalities but the Walled Lake School District is comprised with roughly forty six thousand 925 units that equates to roughly 90 percent occupied and the median age is 52.8 years of age
062so again not a lot of zero to fives coming out of that cohort like you'd see at a South Lyon of Brighton some of those school districts that are actually growing in terms of population we break down even further total number of families how many households actually have children so 46 percent of household units actually have children we often get a chance like well if we build 100 houses how many houses would you typically expect again at the median household value about 225 about 0.46 kid per unit we'll talk a little bit about where that's important here going forward school-aged children in that boundary again this is pk-12 there's just under 16 000 students that number is 19 000 students back in 2011. 86 percent choose the public schools which is Walled Lake it could
063also include a schools of choice and or Charter and about 13 percent choose private as a county you're actually just below that County average about 14 percent and that really has not changed over the last five years from that going forward we talk about probably public Pre-K and private so again that's some of that opportunity of having a pre-k program you heard Governor Whitmer mention a Pre-K for four-year-olds how does that overall come into play with planning going forward so this is the demographics as of today what are some of those Trends so the total population will remain relatively steady the state of Michigan's always hover right around 9.9 10 million people from 2000 there's over 2 million K-12 students now about 1.4 1.5 so half a million less kids I think you heard today
064the governor mentioned a study and Coalition of how to actually increase the population here in the state of Michigan so the trend data we're looking at is about a 6.4 percent decrease of zero to five year olds about a 4.6 from that 6 to 11 cohorts five percent uh 12 to 17 and then about 5.9 at the 18 to 24 year old the median age of householder will go up so we're not seeing that reversal of age of that meeting a household or going forward taking the same amount of data swimming back to 2010 when we first started working with the district snapshot in time here where in 2021-22 and as you can see is still a continual decree decrease across all those cohorts so people ask minstrels why is that happening this here is
065a chart of the live births in Oakland County actually we went back to the 2011 we actually went back to 1980. for this one we went back to 1990 so there's over 17 000 live births in Oakland County at that particular time coincidentally had about 17 000 kids at that same time period when you go to the 2000 11 2012 you can see that dip right there in the middle that that Middle School cord is actually working its way through the system right now and obviously you just see the impact coming out of the recession the birth rate has actually never really increased it's leveled off about 13 500 during code actually dropped below 13 000 it's going to rise up with about 13 200. that's kind of the normal for Oakland County so as
066a county in the next 10 years the County's looking at roughly about 40 000 less students between the school districts here going forward so how does plant Marine crosses do enrollment projections again we take a look at the community demographics we look at in historical enrollment which is audited by the state that's how I get your foundation allowance with your fall count and your spring count we're also looking at those live births that we just calculated going forward uh this chart is just a representative of the historical data chart so this is your reporting form this is the data that we use so again this does get audited by the state what is this showing is that you know you used to graduate about 1100 students you're now graduating about 850 890 students that's going
067to be the new Norm going forward and we'll talk a little bit about the entrance level at the kindergarten level here shortly so we take the same data that thick black line you see in the left everything to the left is again historical data what's happening is you're going from live births of 13 600 down to about 12 500. wall lake has always captured right around six and a half to seven percent of those live births for that particular year so as the birth rate declines again that percentage will stay the same you do offer great programs at the kindergarten level the kids do stay once they're the systems but again you're going to see graduating classes of under under a thousand here for the next five years going forward some people ask the impact
068of covid you actually dropped about one percent of that enrollment for that year but you've actually bounced back up over seven percent last year so again we're seeing a lot of strong returns for a lot of districts coming out of coven same information looked a different way so again just kind of the flat line you can kind of see the impact of of covet here the decrease of the k5s again that popped back up but again the declining birth rate and that bubble kind of working its way through the system uh the k-8s uh I'm sorry the 6 8 which is your blue squares again is starting to level off but again you'll see that steady decline here of roughly two percent and then ultimately your high school level again as that bubble Works its
069way through the next five to ten years going forward we're gonna switch gears a little bit so again we talk about the enrollment levels so again really going back with the projections going up to 27 2027 about a 670 decrease over the next 10 years at the elementary level uh decline of roughly 686 at the middle school level and about just a thousand students at the high school level over the next 10 years so what does this mean obviously from a state aid funding allowance you take that times it by you know decline of 2400 students that's gonna be some of those challenges that the district will face balancing education programs Etc going forward and then ultimately you're spending operational dollars in underutilized facilities that was the big impetus in the 2011 study when the
070elementary schools were below 80 for 80 percent going forward so before I switch up into utilization any questions on enrollment it's kind of everyone's shaking their heads like you kind of hear the declining birth this is just very specific to Walled Lake here so so the second part of the engagement was really taking a look at facility costs so again we're looking at Staffing per building utilities maintenance and then coming up with the cost per building and cost per square foot um again we're not going to have you read this but again looking at all your facilities going forward you have about 700 Acres at the elementary level about um actually building size about 700 000 square feet uh going forward with the annual utility cost of roughly a dollar a foot or 756 thousand
071dollars at the middle school level just under 000 square feet about 3.8 million and then obviously the high school just under a million square feet taking the better way to look at it again just break it down to some sub bullets same information different format collectively you spend just under ten dollars a foot which is within your peer group for operational costs so this would be staff Personnel billing specific and then maintenance costs so there's parking lots there's grass things that nature you spend just over a dollar a foot at the middle school level the facility sizes are a little bit larger Harvey get some efficiencies with class sizes so that price per square foot drops about 645 and then it's still same cost of Moen and cut grass and things that nature roughly a
072dollar a foot and the last day at the high school level as I mentioned three high schools just under a million square feet again because of class sizes the cost per square foot actually does drop to about 5.31 cents however you do have larger acreage of land and a lot more fields and things that nature so that cost for maintenance goes up to about 1.55 so we're going to switch into utilization so again when plumber and cresa takes a look at the utilization we're counting general education classrooms we want to preserve special ed and Support classes so these will not be part of that calculation of capacity we also want to preserve art music computer labs Pre-K things of those Natures we're also looking at vacant classrooms and then of course the equity among the
073schools so this is just a sample floor plan of how we came up with the calculations again taking a look at the elementary levels you have 250 genetic classrooms you have a student enrollment of just under 5300 going back to you know 2012 you had about 6 600 kids at that time so that decision that the board made at that time was right to look at the decline enrollment here you have a capacity of roughly about 6 500 students which could say 81 percent the state wants you right around 80 to 85 percent is kind of a goal so from an elementary level you're right in part with that going forward the next one if you take a look at is the Middle School level 149 General general education classrooms you have enrollment of 25
07431. obviously these schools were kind of built in response to the 70s 80s 90s and 20s growth so right now you have a capacity about 51 percent at the middle school level and then at the high school level about 45 or capacity so when you take a look at historically the number of square footage you have you have a total capacity for about 19 000 students which would go back to the mid early 2000s in terms of total enrollment for the district going forward so again not going to go through it again other than the fact that you're about 81 percent at the elementary level 51 percent at the middle school and then obviously 45 at the high school levels going forward so what are some of those next steps so what are those opportunities
075we see a lot of districts taking a look at stem or steam or some other other sort of collaborative spaces that can they can regenerate and renovate existing spaces which actually maybe take some genetic classrooms offline and help increase that utilization and lower the number of classes what are the priors of the district in 2011 it was oh my gosh we've got a 20 million dollar budget you're not in the same position which is great however there is some concern of declining enrollment even with the increase of state aid fund there's the essers um I'll call it sunset in 24 25. so a lot of the changing and funding will happen here in the next three to five years long-term planning so as you start looking at strategic planning updating that strategic plan from an
076academic lens a facility lens going forward then information I still need what are the priorities of the district the administration team the board and the community I think the 2011 process was pretty insightful where we had literally hundreds of people at various you know functions and forms so tonight is really more of a phase one it's fact finding this is data we thought and again commend Dr Bernie his team to really bring this to light is as you start to look at the next three to five years again what are some of those considerations what does Pre-K for four look like how many gsrp classrooms do you have now what does that change in potential funding and legislation look like current Corner alignment so we see a lot of this discussion of opportunities of do
077we want to stay at the k-568912 I know that was a big impetus in 2011 was kind of get back to that normal normalcy consolidation expansion of current and or future programs we see things such as robotics we see other programs that really are not necessarily Core Curriculum that could potentially be there how does that get lined into it what's the desired Target enrollment utilization so again districts of your size they typically have elementary schools of five to six hundred kids Plymouth can't live in elementary with 750 kids again we have some of that pure data that we'd be able to share with the district as I mentioned the department of treasure really watch about 85 percent utilization when they do calculate their utilization they actually have significant less number of kids um so as
078you've gone through the bond process for the 2017 Bond 19 Bond they're looking at 20 22 kids in a classroom where we know reality is much higher than that going forward reconfiguration again taking a look at enrollment Trends and operational and most importantly just continue this ongoing operational enrollment utilization review and so again it's been our pleasure over the last 10 years kind of come back every five years and kind of give you the update so at that point I'm going to turn back over to the board and Dr Bernie for any questions I know I know whatever we do we all get the community involved we will get the community involved in this as we're moving forward I know that we all you know the rumor mill will start flowing as soon as people
079walk out of here and I will say that no decisions have made have been made we haven't even you know we're just at base one so the people that will be calling us saying what's you know is the school calling or that school calling trust me we are at the same point of this as you are this evening we don't know uh and I just want to make the community aware of that and I look forward to the information as it flows in because I think you know we will be again you know right sizing is the key word in this situation uh looking at facilities for possible possibly being repurposed or redesigned uh new programs coming into the district if we have the funding to do it and new offerings The Early Childhood Program
080possibly opening opening that up at different buildings or additional buildings in the district I mean there's plenty of opportunities there for this mm-hmm any other comments or questions Mr Peterson I know in our uh some of our Outreach meetings we had we talked about the Pre-K did we do did you have a chance to do any more of a dive into um permanent residency in that age level versus home ownership we're able to look at that anymore and determine if there was a trend there if those kids were staying in the district yes right now if you take a look you have about a two to three percent core from kindergarten to first grade so again looking at your Pre-K numbers uh that's about relatively the same the question to get into is right now
081there's about a 50 50 split between private and public so the question is if there's the funding for the Pre-K for four-year-olds can Wall Lake schools have those programs that are attractive especially if they're at no cost to those residents we would expect to see an increase Court from pre-k into kindergarten so I'm not sure the exact numbers at this time because again the state hasn't really come out with the numbers the funding sources Etc we could tell you how many four-year-olds are within those boundaries we can work with Dr Bernie's team to get to that if you're looking for that level of detail so mm-hmm and Dr Brianna Bernie I don't know if there's anything you want to say kind of at a high level I know that one of the things we've we've
082talked about is the potential for creativity um in in next steps um but I don't know if there's anything high level you wanted to share with the public I think first and foremost I've been through this before and so I've worked in a large district and and I think managing the footprint is the right is the right way to say it and so there is there are strategies and there are things that I have done in my career including working with playmra chrisa before in another District um to to engage families and to to Really identify the the high Target priorities and then we go to work on figuring out how to make things more efficient right and so you know once we can once we can identify once we bring people together and identify
083that and can find ways to make things a little bit more efficient because there are things that mean a lot to the community and there are things that don't mean as much to the community and and and there are also some program adjustments that we can make you know plant brand was incredibly helpful with us in Warren as we thought about an alternative high school program or stem programs to make our buildings more efficient or we moved some District level functions around to make our buildings more efficient and so I I guess what I what I want the community to hear me say tonight is as you're walking out of here seeing that our buildings are about to become less efficient we're going to go to work and and we've I've been through this before
084so that we can we can engage you understand those priorities and then do a great job for you so that's all I have okay we're going to go ahead and move on to the public hearing on the 2023-24 budget Dr Vernia all right I'm going to turn the floor over to Mrs Les thank you Dr bernia all right thank you we'll start with uh some positive financial highlights from this school year and there were a lot of them it was a it was a really positive Year from a financial standpoint a lot of good things happened our student enrollment that is our Blended count and I use that because that's the number that is what determines our funding and of course funding is what I care about when I'm looking at our budget the reason
085that that 12 188 students is a positive number is because our original budget included a number of 11 749 so or I'm sorry 769 so we this our final student count was 419 students higher than what we had originally built our budget on so when uh talking about our our facilities and and the jump or the bounce back of our enrollment we we saw that this year with 419 students more than what we had anticipated the foundation allowance came out at 450 per student we had originally budget budgeted 300. so uh when the budgets come out from from the state there are typically three different proposals the Senate the house and uh the governor's budget and we usually take a blend of the of the three of them or or somewhere in between and that's
086what we had done last year with 300 and with 450 150 extra student the combination of 419 more more kids in total and 150 dollars more for every student really was impactful for us this year special education funding this was a huge shift typically or historically for special education funding we've received roughly it goes out four digits but 29 of the cost of special education in a roughly 70 percent of the cost of transportation and they give us that historically have given us that or the foundation whatever is higher well now the change for this year is that we would get those percentages still but in addition we'd receive 75 percent of the foundation allowance that was a tremendous jump in our special education funding uh for this year about about 300 and uh about
0873.7 million rather jump in in that area as well especially as as well as at-risk funding so the at-risk funding that quadrupled for our district this year we weren't able to even spend it all for this year and that's not something we'd want to do you it takes time to to really plan to to appropriately use that kind of funding and so that will happen over the over the next couple of years but very glad to see Johnson in these two areas several state grants that we haven't seen in the past also learning loss Grant roughly seven hundred thousand dollars for that mental health and school safety both 1.4 million dollars so grants that we are continuing to put to use we we didn't spend all of those this year either as we are developing
088plans for those and then some other positive things interest income even was was significantly higher than it normally is at about 675 thousand dollars compared to last year was roughly 45 and you're looking at about the same amount of money in invested so just a tremendous increase and then also Public Act 18 that's the county special education millage and uh that was was up as well uh we received a special allocation that uh Oakland schools decided on part way through the year of about three hundred thousand dollars so many positive things for this school year which will put us in a really good position for next school year as well 2023-24 our budget of course is a tool and it's based on a lot of assumptions I don't have a crystal ball nobody does it's
089it's based on on History a lot of Education a lot of predictions and of course we hope very educated guesses but essentially a budget is is a guess and so that is why we make amendments as we go through the year as actual things happen and we can swap out those guesses with with what actually materializes we don't have the state budget yet so our budget is due by June 30th we have to have a balanced budget approved by June 30th in order to function come July 1st but the state doesn't have to have a have the numbers to us by then so we're guessing even on on what they will do this budget is based on a 458 uh dollar increase in the foundation allowance that's the increase proposed by the governor and is
090the middle ground between all three proposals which is why we adopted that as uh as our budget assumption 11 989 students that's a 199 student Decline and that's based on on two different uh enrollment projections both from plant marine cressa and then we also use a professor out of Michigan State University who takes a look at at similar data and I track their accuracy over time and use kind of a blend based on on the accuracy that I've seen so 199 less students for purposes of funding special education funding we're also or this budget includes an additional increase so I had mentioned that we would receive this this year 75 percent of the foundation allowance each of the various proposals that have come out so far include an increase they vary but this budget includes
091an increase going from 75 percent to 87.5 and then retirement assistance the state of Michigan has over the last several years provided assistance to districts to help with the cost of of retirement and I'm assuming that that assistance continues and it's also in all three proposals Public Act 18 the county special education millage that's predicted by by Oakland schools to go up roughly seven percent and that's what's in this budget the federal grants are are going down significantly as uh we've talked about some of the expiration of the the user funds and others as we're using those up and the timelines are are wrapping up we'll see a decline in those interest income I'm assuming that that that the positive inflow that we had this year is is not likely to continue and so I've
092really decreased that and then pay to pay to participate there are athletic one piece of our athletic funding that we collect from from families to have their students involved we're going to be making a change to that and that is reflected in uh in this budget as well to to decrease what we're collecting from families in terms of personnel expenditures so our uh our budget is roughly 85 percent personnel as it should be we're a service organization and that's what what you should expect out of us out of a school district in terms of assumptions around salaries and wages The Proposal that you have in front of you today to accept the the wlea or teacher contract that is built into into this budget as well as comparable agreements with our support groups so we've
093talked a lot about that Public Act 152 that is the cap that's established by the state an adjusted annually and it covers the amount that a school district in Michigan is allowed to spend on behalf of their employees on health insurance and so I've adjusted that according to to the cap which is which is currently known we've also added or planned to add for next year three Junior kindergarten sections and the cost and uh statistics are included in this budget for that other expenditures are property insurance is experiencing a significant increase we already know what that's going to be it's going to be about two hundred thousand dollars higher and that's really a a function of the increase in property values and the cost of building cost of buildings up roughly 33 percent and so
094with that goes your cost of insurance utility and fuel costs have adjusted those in contracted Services also to follow what we know will be happening in the next couple of years so this is a very summarized we have over 16 000 accounts for our general fund alone so if you take all those 16 000 accounts and roll them up this is a very summarized budget for you of our revenues and expenditures so heading into to next year roughly 177 million dollars in in revenue and and you'll see just slightly more than that in our expenditure category that is what we have really have planned for the for the last several years is to build up our fund balance there was a big influx of dollars from the various different grants and we really took that
095as an opportunity to cover our expenses into the future to not just spend them all in one year but to enable us to afford ongoing items including multi-year contracts with our employees in in the absence of that in the absence of the built up fund balance we wouldn't be able to do that foreign one of the things that is not yet included in here which will be a significant change is a gasby or governmental Accounting Standards Board statement Number 96 we implemented 87 last year that related to leases it's complicated and doesn't make a whole lot of sense so I won't get into the nuances of it but 96 we will also have to to implement it affects income and expense it's large it will have no impact on our bottom line but is something
096that that we'll need to to put together we have to read every contract every single contract that we enter into and determine the the the the length of it the we have to do present value calculations on on all of them it's just an enormous amount of work for something that will not impact our bottom line but I just want you to be aware of it because you will see adjustments coming down the road that will relate to to that gasby so if you take the the revenues and expenses from the prior page you'll see that we have a projected net loss of roughly 87 000. that's a really tremendous it was when we looked at our our long-term plan really I would have expected to start driving down our fund balance sooner than now
097so this is really setting us up to be able to afford like I mentioned the the multi-year contracts with our employees we're going to need it and so this is uh puts us in a good place our projected fund balance at the end of this year you'll see is is about 21.2 million and at the end of next year just slightly less than that in terms of a percentage of Revenue 11.95 percent now that's that's sort of not entirely real because as our revenues decline so as our grant funds go away and our revenues decline your fund balance becomes a higher percentage because it's it's a percentage of a smaller number so I just wanted to to mention that as well and we would expect in our planning for that to go down over the
098next couple of years as we go through our our longer term contracts our general fund tax levy that's also needs to be a part of this and and is in our paper and and is something that we need to approve in order to have uh our eight different communities that collect taxes for us so that they're able to to print our tax bills I do have to read this so although annoying uh I'm sorry for that our principal residents qualified agricultural qualified forest and Industrial Personnel is uh zero Mills the state over the last couple years has sort of taken that over at least on a temporary basis so we will not be collecting uh any uh for from our principal residents and the rest as you notice from our commercial personal properties 4.7461 Mills
099all other properties 16.7461 Mills both of those are the same as our our current tax bills this is the first year in several that we are not impacted by by a hudley rollback for purposes of of Hadley the rate of inflation is 1.079 so you know that our inflation rate has been much higher than that which is why we we are not impacted by by Headley because we have no uh no collection on our principal residence there is no impact to our property owner our homeowners uh from an operating standpoint uh because of because of that going away so zero tax collection from an operating standpoint our sinking fun Levy that was uh approved and and and uh restored last year in November will be 0.5 Mills and that is projected to generate just over
1003.1 million dollars annually in the debt fund Levy also the same as you would have seen on your tax bills this year at 4.13 Mills that's on all properties district-wide and is projected to generate almost 26 million dollars to pay our current debts and with that I'll take any questions that you have okay questions comments from anybody none absolutely none oh they're coming yes with this group the questions are coming I know they're coming and and so I just want to say that we appreciate that something that is very complex I think I wrote down that you said we have 16 000 accounts for you to be able to give us this synopsis we really appreciate it and for those of you who have been at some of our meetings lately we've had some extra
101meetings where we've gone through a lot of information about the budget and how it is put together Etc so we've had a lot of conversation about budget and I think overall we're just very pleased to see that we're finally in a situation where we have additional money coming in it has been so many years since that has happened and and so I'm glad that that we're seeing that but more to comma on the budget and of course I know you'll answer any questions that the that the public has whether you're out at a community coffee or whether you know on our website Etc but no other questions for you so thank you that's unbelievable thank you [Applause] all right we're going to move on to public commentary and I do have quite a few cards
102here and Mrs Levin are you okay to time uh for us tonight okay you have a lot of battery there [Laughter] so uh we want to thank you for addressing the board tonight I will go ahead and and call the names you can come up to the podium here and Mrs Levin will let you know if you do get near the the three-minute time limit if you are close to that time limit she will give you a kind of a little bit of a warning when you do meet that if you do speak to three minutes or right up to that point uh we'll ask you to please finish your thought and then please step down so that we can get to the next person who wants to address the board just for those of
103you who have not spoken this is your chance to address the board we ask that you addressed the board Administration and if somebody does need to get back to you we'll try to do so in a pretty timely manner I will say that it could potentially take a little bit longer this time if we have to get back to you because we have graduations we have a very busy week coming up here but we will do our best to get back with you if we need to do them all right first person is Miss Nancy van lewen I'm Miss Nancy van lewen and I'm here to speak in support of both of the book offerings tonight um the elementary social studies and the high school Social Studies books I'm not going to make extensive comment
104on it but I do want you to know I support that I also would like you to know that it's important that you support the wlea contract in its ratification from my past experience and I was involved in negotiating probably more than a dozen contracts with this district for the wlea it's a long arduous process it's a process that takes creative thinking that takes a lot of dialogue that takes input from a lot of people and once that agreement is reached it's a very important document and so I strongly urge you to support that I also would like to issue a couple of reminders because I have been president most of the board meetings since our new board members took their seats and I would like to caution you that as a board member you
105do not represent an individual group or individuals you represent over 12 000 students you represent probably around 2 000 employees I think it's a little less than that you represent numerous parents and I think that was presented to us today 25 000 or something in that nature and it's very important for you to remember and keep in mind that this is a public school that you do not represent a certain race a certain ethnicity you represent all students with needs special needs you represent those with different gender identities you represent students of different reliefs represent students with various languages and at one point I don't know the exact statistic but it was like somewhere in the nature of 80. um languages that are spoken in this District you represent everyone so listening to a small
106few the loudest people are not necessarily the ones who represent the majority so um again I urge you to support 30 seconds I urge you to support the textbook ratifications and the ratification of the wlea contract thank you [Applause] our next person is Randy is it freed fried I want to get it right freed thank you thank you and the board members I'm here tonight to thank you for using the district's well-qualified teachers to make decisions on curriculum and the books available to our schools and and of books available to our schools teachers and Educators have earned at least a four-year degree in education and continuing ad every year to help make them experts in this field I am thankful that the school's large variety of literature continuing contain diverse characters and themes and reflect
107on our diverse Community including lgbtq community I am thankful that the history curriculum is taught with understanding that the history is complex and our teachers are there to help our children become critical thinkers in a diverse world the best teachers don't tell our teacher kids what to think but help them to question and to see multiple perspectives we cannot let parents choose the curriculum based on their individual viewpoints and religion those are conversations to be headed home and next we have Ella fried thank you so much Dr bernia and the board of education for allowing me to share my voice I would like to start off by making it clear that I respect parental rights and religious freedom and I definitely don't want to alienate anyone because of their religious beliefs similarly I do not
108want students like myself to feel alienated in classrooms and that is why I would like to thank walvik schools for making my school experience welcoming and inclusive for example my English classroom has a pride flag and my math classroom has a sign that says that this is a safe space for all identities these signs make me feel welcomed in these classrooms and more likely to participate in things like class discussions because I know that I do not have to hide any part of myself because of who I am and the same can be said about the diversity in the novels that I've read at school when I see a reflection of myself on the page of a book I'm reminded that I am who I'm meant to be and that I belong in this space
109I truly I truly hope that this welcoming environment continues for students who come after me as I said earlier I don't want anyone to feel alienated because of their religious beliefs on the same token I don't I don't want religion to limit what children are able to see hear and talk about in classrooms to be clear I'm not arguing that inappropriate topics be discussed with young children rather I want classrooms to be a safe space for children to be open about their experience and identities for example the pronouns that they go by I would also like to thank the district because I appreciate that history is taught from through multiple complex lenses because having a well-rounded view of History allows me to learn from the mistakes of the past and feel pride in the triumphs
110going through my history classes has made me feel proud of my American identity having this inclusive environment has made me feel like I am important and that I matter and it also builds my confidence in what I can achieve in the future that is why I would like to thank the Walden schools for giving me this experience and I hope that future students feel just as welcomed as I did and next we have Joe Brandis good evening and thank you for this opportunity to address the board I'd like to discuss the new AP textbook titled American government stories of a Nation if you've got to say the review process was very professional I learned that the AP content is controlled by Boards and if there's a list of books that meet the standards and of
111course the AP class is not mandatory and can be used for college credit and I want to thank Miss Kathy for uh be very hospitable appreciate that um so my concern is that the information be as balanced and unbiased as possible are any of the available textbooks balanced in opinion if not what are some ways to ensure that both sides of an event are presented here's one example I found in the uh in the book that showed some writer bias on page 53 talked about the founders motives so Columbia professor Charles beard wrote the story surrounding the framers have shifted over time the founders of the American Republic have been described as being Guided by their own privilege and accused of crafting a government that preserves distinction of wealth and class many of the founding
112fathers were debt holders but under the Constitution they would be paid the full value of the bonds so my comment on that is the Constitution just affirmed what was already in the Articles of Confederation and it was we made sure that the US didn't default on the debt and that's not mentioned in the text what is interesting too is I was informed that every 10 years these books need to be upgraded so um Professor beard made these comments in 1913 and since it's only been rejected by many modern historians but here's another view point of view of the 56 founding fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence just the signing of meant that they would be hanging for treason if they were caught John Hart at 65 he was pursued while trying to make it
113home to his dying wife unfortunately she died before he made it home and his 13 children never seen again Abraham Clark had two sons who were captured and held on a prison ship Clark was offered his sons in exchange for pledging loyalty to England he chose his country of the 56 who signed nine died of wounds five were in prison 12 had their homes completely burned yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word does this sound like man driven by wealth and class so if this is how such a steam men are portrayed 30 seconds the book can we trust that the chapter on public opinion discussing current social issues will be fair and balanced so what is the answer I'm not sure that any book will ever be completely unbiased I
114think the students parents and teachers need to be open to discussed and debate information in textbooks if there's errors in content it should be fed back to the Publishers to be corrected since these are AP classes are for some of the highest Achievers I think they deserve the best thank you and next we have Jennifer lacrosse good evening my name is Jennifer lacrosse and I am the K-12 math science coach for Walled Lake Schools tonight I want to take a moment to recognize the remarkable work being done by our teachers in science classrooms these unsung heroes are making a profound impact on our students by creating science classrooms that will help shape the next generation of scientists engineers medical professionals teachers and innovators over the school year I have had the privilege to visit many
115science classrooms and amazing things are happening science teachers are promoting collaboration and teamwork and science through group projects lab activities and scientific discussions teachers encourage students to work together share ideas and solve problems collectively by fostering collaboration teachers are preparing their students to thrive in a world where scientific breakthroughs often require interdisciplinary collaboration in Laura Jennings biology classrooms student teams created working models of the human leg using recycled materials all of our physics teachers have Incorporated our new physics equipment into team-based Hands-On learning where students collect and analyze data regularly in Laura shipa's Middle School classrooms student teams work together to create models using chemical equations to explain photosynthesis and respiration and in Emily Whitney's third grade science lesson students found that a sponge can soak up more water than its own Mass at all
116three levels students are engaging in appropriate scientific practices and are using scientific vocabulary math and literacy skills to make sense of science Concepts on a personal note my family has lived in this community for over 20 years my three children have had the privilege of attending Walled Lake Schools the regular rigorous curriculum and excellent teachers provided the foundation for my oldest daughter to continue to pursue a science related creative as a doctor she's actually in her fourth year of medical school school she just started my son is a recent graduate from Western Michigan University and our youngest daughter just finished her first year at Michigan State and she's pursuing a degree as a special education teacher all of my children were inspired by their teachers and coaches here and have have often spoke of them
117to speak of them our family is not unique daily I hear stories from Neighbors community members and business members who are proud to share stories about the amazing things that are happening in our schools in conclusion teachers are doing a doing great things in science classrooms in all classrooms they are fueling curiosity embracing technology and promoting collaboration these dedicated educators are shaping the scientific minds of Tomorrow instilling a love for Learning and equipping their students with the skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world thank you [Applause] next is Ellen McDonald hi good evening my name is Ellen McDonald and I'm a parent of two students in Walled Lake one of them attends Walled Lake western and one Sarah Banks um and I'm also the math and science coordinator for Walled Lake Schools
118I feel lucky that I get to work with the students teachers and administrators and the families in this District tonight I'd like to spend three minutes talking about mathematics everybody's favorite subject um our standards for mathematics in Michigan have two components the first is the mathematical skills Concepts and procedures the second are the practice standards those are the habits of mind that mathematicians have to help them make sense of the mathematical world around them tonight I'm going to highlight one of those practices modeling with mathematics with modeling it means that they use representations like drawings tools graphs objects or equations to make sense of a situation it's amazing to see how the students and teachers are interacting with this concept in their classrooms in kindergarten students in Amy Miller and Nicole lindblade's classes are using
119linking cubes to model numbers to see how large they are and to be able to make comparison statements in second grade Dan love is working with his students to write number stories and then to create pictures to show what is happening my favorite Alex going to the store to buy four boxes of six donuts and would he have enough to share um third graders in Rachel's cars Rachel Carr's class are busy using strategies to make sense of multiplication facts so they can see how one fact builds upon another in fourth grade and Aaron Bailey's class students are learning how to use what they don't know yet to figure out what they do know to help them with what they don't know yet they have access to tools to help them make sense of the mathematics
120and in our middle schools teachers like Amy Hurley Cindy nazardy Sharon ratzlaff Angie gross Amber Tatum and J mcgluskey are using vertical whiteboards to help students make their thinking visible so that students can learn from each other Craig tarnis and Kevin zero zero are using Desmos to make students to help students make sense of linear relationships and to see how the rate of change affects the slope of a graph and our high schools teachers like Amy Clark are using Desmos to model exponential graph change and Linda Hein and James Milat are using multiple representations to make sense of mathematical situations Rob Ritter is using strategies to help students refine their thinking so that their explanations or models of geometry ideas clear and concise I could go on and on as a parent I will be
121forever grateful to Pat dazinski Kristen dezinski and Dave Rogers for creating a community of musicians where all students belong and all students are feel that they are part of something big we have so many things to be proud of in what lake and I'm glad that I get to work here every day [Applause] next we have Susie Crafton hey everyone thanks for showing up at the board meeting tonight and thank you to the board and administration for the opportunity for public comment tonight I'd first like to thank Dr bernia and the entire instructional team that he oversees the i-Ready growth is phenomenal and is a testament to the hard-working professional Educators and the aligned instructional and curriculum systems that are present throughout our district our our educators are experts in child development instruction curriculum and
122assessment and fostering inclusive environments for all children so that they can grow to their full potential they deserve to be respected and trusted as the professionals they have been proven to be therefore I urge the board to respect the recommendation of the professional Educators on the social studies curriculum Review Committee for context I'm an Alum of the district a parent of a recent graduate that was set up for Success both in College and Career thanks to the rigorous academics and Career Technical courses offered to our diverse student body I am speaking to you today from my actual lived experience in this district with direct experiences with our actual teachers administrators parents and students and our actual curriculum and materials they're used in our actual District I continue to choose to send my youngest to this
123District that I love so much and has served this community so well for so many years thank you again to the education professionals deeply committed into and prepared to ensure our youth are ready for a future we cannot yet imagine I implore you to Value the voice of those in this District that have direct District experience with steady leadership and Trust for our education our educator professionals we can continue to thrive as an inclusive and supportive district for all thanks for your time [Applause] and next I have Haley and it also says Ari mullet so I don't know if that's two people okay hello everyone my name is Haley but I go by Ari and I'm an 11th grader from Central I would just like to thank the board for making the schools to be
124so welcoming and inclusive I came out as non-binary this year and all of my teachers accepted me and quickly adjusted to my new name and pronouns my classrooms are now a safe place where I can be myself and I'm so grateful for that I'm thankful for the school supporting all students no matter how they identify because these open classrooms make the lives of kids like me so much easier so thank you again for letting students like me feel safe at school and I hope that this continues in the future thank you foreign [Applause] thanks I appreciate appreciate your grace I'm trying so thanks again for the opportunity to speak as everyone has said and many have said much more eloquently than I can um but I had to talk tonight I'm sorry oh I grew
125up in Royal Oak and I moved to Chicago with my and I met my family and created a family there when we wanted to come back to Michigan it's because we wanted the education that Michigan has to offer we looked for places we could afford as well as places we could grow and a good friend offered Wixom as a place to look at and I lived here in 90 when I was single and crazy and uh in the Stone Ridge Apartments so thank you Stone Ridge Apartments I had a good time um and now I'm back and I'm a homeowner and a bonus is that we got a wonderful band never knew my kids were so musical so thank you Mr Rogers in the desins case um but uh what I really wanted to talk
126about was the wonderful diversity in the curriculum the spiraling of the education that like was mentioned by Miss McDonald of the way that we bring it up and I'm sorry the maths educator as well all that spiraling has brought in real world applications plus math Plus numbers plus social studies plus government my daughters are so smart because of the opportunity that they have from this District my one daughter has come out my other daughter is just crazy you know but they're they're they have made great connections with their teachers who are welcoming who are inclusive with diversity with understanding with integration with passion and with love and hugs when they need them and reprimands when they do as well um keep the strong curriculum keep the diversity that has made us part of a world
127leading program that brings our children into Western Michigan University of Michigan we want our children to grow we want our community to stay welcome I religion is beautiful but you know what it's not in my public education that I chose for my children it's a discussion we have at home our diversity is part of our world our inclusion is part of our world this hate that has been risen when we need to love each other to make ourselves stronger to show how much passion we have our education that can grow us to make our nation strong it begins with diversity it begins with inclusion it begins with acceptance from special education to people from different races and cultures lgbtq 30 seconds keep the curriculum strong listen to these educated teachers that have founded our great
128Walled Lake School District that I am proud to be a member of and every day I look outside and go this is the neighborhood that is growing my children to be stronger than I ever could keep it strong keep it subversed thank you next we have Teresa Renaud oh sitting a little too long there good evening I'm Theresa Renault District director for state senator runstead here supporting our mutual constituents the elected board our superintendent and the administration I just want to say you guys have been working really hard and tonight was a great example of um some great programs uh that are in the works right now I attended uh superintendent's uh Community hour last week or the week before thank you for doing that thank you for all that you're doing I just want
129to give a shout out for the academic academic excellence in terms of the focus and the financial uh financial responsibility so two huge areas that will continue to keep our district hopefully leading the state thank you next we have Robin mifsad my name is Robin mif said um and I live in the walled School District I'm concerned about the books that are in our school libraries and classrooms for our children to read and I understand the book The Lovely Bones by Alice siebold is in all three of our Walled Lake high schools this fictional novel is about a 14 year old girl who is brutally raped and murdered by an adult male neighbor the rape and murder goes on in great deals for in great detail for several pages reading it made me feel anxious
130and sick to my stomach and I could see no benefit for any child reading a book that will make them feel anxious and uneasy I also have a big issue with the author Alice siebold is white and was raped by a black man while she was in college the police found a man they thought was the criminal and put him in a lineup Alice chose a different man in the lineup she knew this and allowed the police to change the records to the original man the police brought in Anthony Broadwater a black man based on Alice pointing to Anthony in court he was found guilty Alice knew Anthony was not the man she chose in the lineup and yet she allowed Anthony an incident an innocent man to serve 16 years in prison after serving
131his full term a judge overturned the conviction of Anthony Broadwater for this reason I don't think we need any books written by Alice siebold in our schools or libraries thank you for listening to me foreign [Applause] good evening as she mentioned my name is Sandra Byer and I'd like to thank Dr bernia for responding a few meetings ago to someone who complained about music on a bus and it was resolved so it's nice to know that our Administration and our board follows through with things that parents are concerned with I really appreciate that also I've learned that on your website you have a form called citizens requests for reconsideration of instructional materials and I did find that on your website and I think more parents ought to be aware of that because we don't all
132agree with things that are appropriate or age-appropriate I wanted to talk this evening about a book called red a crayon story and it's in two of our elementary libraries and a synopsis of this book says that Red's Factory applied label clearly says he's read but despite the best efforts of his teacher fellow crayons and art supplies and family members he cannot seem to do anything right until a new friend offers a fresh perspective it's about being true to your inner self the crayon is really blue inside one group of Educators said that about this book how do you know if you're a blue crayon wrapped in a red label this could be an opportunity to discuss being different than the way you appear and the relationship between what you do and who you are if
133age appropriate this set of questions can lead to a discussion about sexuality or gender or many other things now this book doesn't seem to be to be really about creons I think it's a soft sale about gender identity and as more and more of this literature is absorbed into the minds of children they may someday desire to transition to the obvious of sex and see no problem with it if you allow various kinds of Pride flags and other things in the classroom you're giving a green light to those activities and transgenderism which is often included in the colors of the flags it reminds me of the Marlboro Man now most of you are probably not old enough to remember those commercials however he was a chunk and he was a good-looking hunk of a man
13430 seconds and he had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth now how do you think he looked 50 years later with lung cancer I don't think he would have been very attractive what what what will kids and youth experience if they transition and later have the multiple kinds of medical problems and regrets with the desire to re-transition it's horrendous to sell and emotionally and physically destructive lifestyle to Children and Youth schools should not be passively allowing this material in their curriculum or libraries or endorsing it in any way please stick to Reading Writing and arithmetic and the great teachers that you have teaching that thank you next we have Becky barons good evening members of the board and administrators let me bring up an issue about certain books in our school libraries for the
135benefit of the public I am a retired Emergency Physician and so I have some acquaintance with medical issues obviously one book that is in of three of our high school libraries is entitled becoming Nicole the transformation of an American Family by Amy Alice Nutt this book synopsis has the following the inspiring true story of a transgender girl in her identical twin brother in an ordinary American family's extraordinary journey to understand nurture and celebrate the uniqueness in us all it's the story of an extraordinary girl who fought for the right to be herself it's a story of a republican NRA member father who overcame confusion and fear to become a vocal advocate of trans rights and so forth seriously the right for a female child to be herself how does a child really understand what her
136true self is especially when the majority of children with gender dysphoria grow out of it there are lots of problems with this despite the media and academic parade which is endorsing this did you know that Dr Anthony fauci's National Institute of allergies and infectious diseases has funded almost five hundred thousand dollars to inject hormones into male monkeys to make them females yes a transgender monkey experiment why because trees on HIV in fact 49 times higher than non-transgender individuals and scientists are trying to figure out why University of Alabama researchers are now studying how testosterone treatment for women used in transitioning to males weakens disease fighting microbes in them making their immune systems weaker I could go on and on children who take puberty blockers have significantly less bone density than their peers which puts them
137at Great risk for early onset osteoporosis and fractures in adulthood and these effects May last a light a lifetime not reversible most kids you take puberty blockers end up on cross-sex hormones these hormones increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and increase risk of breast and uterus cancers mood swings and even psychosis there's no long-term data determine the risk of ovarian cancer medical academic societies are very politicized and keyed into supporting the prevailing leftist cultural Winds of Change especially when the NIH has billions of dollars to dispense for research which is the lifeblood of medical academics especially when Medicare Medicaid and insurance companies set the protocols for patient treatments hospitals and doctors don't want to lose their licenses and reimbursements University professors who push back risk losing tenure in their jobs so it is a big
138deal when there are books in school library series that praise the transgender movement and extol those who transition as Brave and courageous whatever happened to truth and advertising let me finish my thought it is Criminal not to inform kids what might really happen to them medically if they Embrace this ideality let us hope we protect the well-being of kids in our school district and halt the popularity charade of transgenderism thank you thank you next We Have Allison Abramson or eight I hope I said that right thank you good evening I I'm a parent of two kids one I have pulled out of our district he's now in a private school because of all of these issues he was not welcomed and I fear for the safety of every kid that has any sort of Identity
139or sexuality or any any other or diversity or anything else that they are not welcomed in this District um it makes me sad I've been sitting here crying through this like it's just I feel like we're going backwards in life like are we going to come for the African-Americans are we going to come for the Jews are we going to come for the Native Americans like why are we coming for the we need please thank you like it is we're in 2023 it is time for everyone to feel welcome foreign [Applause] I have another child in the district she was very concerned about being in here I have promised her that she feels that she is safe here but as I sit here and hear everything and hear all of this backlash I wonder is
140it really safe for her to be here too and I will have no problem pulling her if if things are not okay here and I think that I've heard multiple families that have already removed their kids and more that are on their way to removing them because the district is making decisions that are just not safe for all kids so I know the district motto is every child every day start practicing it [Applause] next we have Tracy Walker are you Tracy Blanca Walker Walker Oh Walker I'm sorry [Laughter] well you're next by the way just so you know hello when it comes to the education of children in Walled Lake I put my trust for my kids and others in the highly regarded teachers and School administration every day not simply once a month at
141a board meeting I trust those Educators and administrators know the state standards they need to teach are cognizant of the Learners in their classrooms and that's what they are trained to do I trust a committee of trustworthy trained individuals reviewed the textbooks and methodologies they chose to make my child ready for any AP or state test and that their review is thorough I trust this process is not clouded by any select people's personal bias or misinformation without meeting minutes or facts to back up the case I trust that this trust was verified again tonight and those improvements you saw in the iready data the Michigan Association of school board states that the role of a board member in curriculum is to quote approve recommended curriculum and textbooks based on standards goals and policies established by
142the board let's take a look at the words found in the Walled Lake Board policy 3004 textbooks and other instructional materials the superintendent May utilize well-qualified administrators and teachers to assist in the selection of textbooks to be recommended to the board for approval and to the extent required by Michigan law and all those numbers that come with it it does not note board members this trust extends to our media center materials 3005 selection of media materials the board intends that students be provided access to a wide variety of educational materials in various media to support learning the superintendent is authorized to make or approve purchases in the media center and may receive recommendations for such purchases from professional staff members parents and students let me repeat that again professional staff members parents and students your
143own policy does not mention board members again to instructional methodology including inquiry-based learning 3003 instruction to the maximum extent feasible student instruction will be delivered using research-based and peer-reviewed instructional methodologies the superintendent May develop regulations that are consistent with this policy again the superintendent I would hope any board members who are not in favor of supporting the work of quote well-qualified administrators and teachers and your own board policy have provided specific cited evidence of how their decisions do not meet the set policies and we'll have those available to be provided Tracy Blanca thank you [Applause] hi um thank you to the board for allowing us to speak my name is Tracy Bellanca I'm a parent of two students one goes to Walled Lake Schools one voluntarily chose to leave we've I'm going to cry I
144don't know why but we moved here specifically so that we could send our kids to Keith Elementary and because we felt the community was a welcoming one and I hear some of the older people here um I don't know if they're afraid of the diversity in the community but the community is changing it has changed I moved here in 2006 and I've seen a lot of changes over time and if we really do want to live up to every child every day we will look at the diversity of our student population I'm an educator I work in a neighboring School District I have students who ask to be called by different pronouns I I oblige because it gives them a level of comfort it is sad to me that families like the abramsons had have
145had to pull their students because they're students with gender um differences don't feel safe and welcome in our community as an educator as a parent as a mom um as an a good neighbor it's um I find it very disturbing and sad I'm sorry that some of the community members don't want to see the the diversity and the change in our our local community and that's all I have to say thank you [Applause] next we have Heather Martinez good evening my name is Heather Martinez I go by the pronoun pronoun she her and hers and I believe in everyone's right to choose their own I'm The Graduate of Walled Lake western a parent of three current students and a proud to be very proud to be a former public school educator and administrator I want
146to wish everyone a happy first day of pride month thank you to all our educators that provide a safe space for all students I'm asking for the third time tonight where is our diversity equity and inclusion committee stand I've asked before and I'm asking again what's the status of this committee my understanding is that it was ended abruptly by assistant superintendent lons are there plans to bring it back where the curriculum in tonight's agenda in tonight's agenda reviewed by that committee it's my understanding that one of the board members said that they would not support any materials that are related to inquiry-based education I want to share with you the exact definition of what inquiry-based learning is inquiry-based learning is a learning process that engages students by making real world connections through exploration and high
147level questioning it's an approach to learning that encourages students to engage in problem solving and experiential learning inquiry-based education is mandated by the Michigan Department of Education and the basis for most of our curriculum as such the purpose of inquiry-based learning is to create citizens in our society with higher level thinking skills the ability to problem solve and not ones who are narrow-minded and believe that there is only one right way in summary if you don't understand and support the basic foundations on which public education is built you should not be sitting on a public school board next we have Kathy cubic Kathy you have noted on here that you're not sure if you want to speak do you want to speak I wasn't sure but today I have to say I'm old and I
148was taught a different way when I went to school we were we had one flag in each classroom it was the American flag I was taught a pride in the United States we were taught our country was a Melting Pot of many countries to become a the greatest country in the world immigrants came and they brought their cultures and they were allowed to still have their cultures Irish Catholics Jews Muslims we had everybody we were taught a love of America patriotism is one way America became the greatest country on Earth no culture was pushed on anyone I worked in these schools I had different kids all different kinds of kids in my classroom my goal was to make every kid know that they were worthy I to know that they were cared greatly for that
149they were being taught and being brought up in a great country that's what I was taught I wanted them to be happy to go home and believe in themselves I worked in special ed their IQs were up to about 90 at the most I I love those kids and if you teach a child that they are loved they're going to do great things I this this tonight it has upset me that we are dividing we're constantly dividing and I'm tired of it and I hope that people realize this is a great country and you should all be fighting for it not no matter what you are but we need one flag in a classroom and it is the American flag foreign [Applause] ER caught me off guard there hello Tim sawmiller Commerce Township my pronouns
150are he him and his last month remarks were made here opposing the purchase of the new AP Government textbook American government stories of a Nation those remarks prompted me to purchase a copy of that textbook myself and review it this book was written by two distinguished Educators one clearly liberal one clearly conservative they have produced a book that presents political history of our country plainly and factually there is no modern moral lens applied to this book a point was made that slavery was not defended by the founding fathers well it wasn't denounced either an essay written by James Madison after the draft of the proposed Constitution was published and it's quoted on pages 38-39 he was even aware of the inherent contradictions in regarding slaves as both property and members of society but that's about
151as far as any founding father would go and yet this textbook renders no opinion of its own there is no denigration of the founding fathers the facts presented show that they were human with human failings just as humans are today reviewing other sections has revealed that there is no bias in this textbook either in favor of nor against any political party I believe this textbook to be an excellent resource for any government course as for school libraries certain books complained about to this board may not be suitable for elementary or even middle middle school readers but that does not make them pornography these books are not categorized as pornography because they do not predominantly appeal to prurient interests and they have serious artistic and literary value public schools are by definition public they are secular
152like it or not they are a microcosm of society there's a wide variety of ethnicities religions cultures and Lifestyles out in the real world public schools are the real world and public schools will have the same variety parents desire to raise their children as they see fit is naturally their right but that right does not imply a right of control over what others see hear and do the First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression and that right encompasses intellectual Freedom which includes an individual's right to receive information on a wide range of topics and from a variety of viewpoints libraries play an important role in facilitating that free and open access to information there is a reason that amendment is number one thank you next we have Mike
153wise is that correct thank you I'm like I'm Mike wise and tonight there'll be a vote regarding these two books an American and an advanced placement American government textbook and a social studies book tonight I would like to comment uh I would like to respond to the comments made at the last board meeting pertaining to the advanced placement American government textbook information was presented that does not agree with the facts it was said that this book was an attack on Republicans and mocks them on every single page the pictures and images in this book are left leaning that it lacks balance and is very biased none of this is true I spent over six hours reviewing this book including looking at over 50 images and Graphics this book provides an accurate Fair humorous and entertaining
154learning experience Michigan schools using this book include Bloomfield Hills Clinton Township Detroit Northville Okemos and Sterling Heights it is also used by the National Heritage Academy in the Grand Rapids area of Betsy DeVos supported for-profit educational management Charter School take that yeah by not approving by not approving the use of this textbooks this textbook our students are put at a disadvantage when taking the American government advanced placement test for college credit at the end of the year this is a great book I wish this book was available when I was taking American government in the 12th grade there are certain elements here in Commerce Township and Michigan that are trying to make it difficult for great school teachers and administrators to move forward and to do their jobs in hopes that they will become fed
155up and leave the teaching profession this element wants to turn Michigan into Florida or Texas we can't allow that to happen thank you to the board the teachers of the Wall Lake schools and especially Dr brunia for all you do [Applause] good evening everyone my name is Corey Hensley for those of you that don't know me I am president of the current parent advisory committee for special services in Walled Lake the parent advisory committee if you are not aware Works in an advisory capacity to help parents navigate the special education system which can be very difficult one of our other goals is to increase awareness and inclusive opportunities as Mr swinehart had spoke this evening one of our points of pride is uh starting up Unified sports and we hope to grow that and continue
156that next year into the middle school level as well I'm here tonight just to highlight a few of the things that we have done as a pack this spring that I wanted to bring to your attention uh on May 9th we held our shining stars awards ceremony in the past it was held here on this night uh the very last board meeting and so I'm very proud that this year was held at Walled Lake Western High School we had over 40 parents or teach I'm sorry we had over 40 nominations those could be anyone Associated working with a student with special needs so we had teachers parapros bus drivers nominated and it was exciting to be there to honor everyone we had over 100 guests for the evening we had board members Dr bernia thank
157you for your attendance and we hope to see all of you next year as we continue this we had two top winners one of them was a tier one teacher in the adult transitions program Corey I'm sorry I can't not say his last name for the life of me and Olivia blumer and the Buddy up Club at Walled Lake Central so we're very honored to honor our top two winners uh again and so look for nominations those viewing tonight look for the nominations form for next year to come out sometime in January to nominate those who work with children and with special needs on May 23rd Dr bernia and Mr Russo thank you for asking pack to put together a special pack meeting this as many of you know uh Miss Moore has resigned her
158position as uh director of special services and we begin search for a new person to fill this position I want to thank the board and Dr bernia for making this a cabinet level position so it'll be good to see that person new person sitting here at the table as the superintendent of special services um 30 seconds it was nice that parents were able to voice their concerns and qualities that they look for in the new uh this new position and I look forward to be a part of the interview committee on Monday just a plug this coming Monday we are hosting secure planning strategies they are financial planning firm and they will discuss how to life plan for a child with special needs this will be at 6 pm at Clifford Smart Middle School so
159we invite any parent is welcome to attend and this important workshop for parents and you can find us on the special services website Facebook and Twitter so I thank you for this evening Ben malonis hello I'm Ben milonas a teacher at weldick elementary and I'm here to talk about the great things that happened at waldickell I was here last month but didn't only three minutes is not enough so um I want to talk about we recently at Walled Lake L we recently hosted a family math night and we were fortunate to have Ellen McDonald come and speak to the speak to the parents about how math instruction has changed over the years and she worked with the parents I worked with the kids and we gave all the kids left with us a great cool
160math tool kit to play games with their families at home and um in our exit survey a hundred percent of the parents said that they now have a better understanding of mathematics instructions thanks to Ellen and they also said 100 of the family said also said they would they would attend another family math night if given the opportunity another great thing at Wall Lake L is that we this just this past week we have a brand new book vending machine it's pretty cool it's like you know like a candy if any machine but it's full of books and uh um that was done through the use of some of our Title One funds but our to make it inclusive for all students our ptas agreed to help stock it with uh with books so we're
161looking forward to having that ready for students this fall um today we had our annual field day um if you ever get a chance come to waldick Elementary's field day it is the best day of the you know it is one of the most special days of the year it's a great time for students volunteers and staff and I want to you know give a special shout out to Mr Bill Cox our PE teacher for for setting this whole day up it was amazing we loved it uh I also want to address the proposed social studies curriculum for second and third grade the walthik elementary teachers are excited about the possibility of a new social studies resource we encourage the the board to adopt them I also want to encourage the board um uh to
162to ratify the wlea contract I want to thank all the the the negotiating team who uh on both sides quite honestly because it's it's a nice contract I'm very I've been here a long time I've seen a lot of contracts this is nice you know it's a very nice contract uh thank you and um please my thank you in advance uh finally uh as someone mentioned someone mentioned was pride month today on the first day of Pride I I'm proud of many things at wildlife in Walled Lake but tonight I was the most proud of those two students who stood up here and uh what they said I mean you can hear my voice it I am so proud of that that young people I wish I was like that when I was their age
163um but I'm glad that I'm part of something that made them who they are time [Applause] Andrew Abram Abraham or Andrea I'm sorry I'm it's Andrea right sorry I said it wrong good evening my name is Andrea Abraham and I support social studies and Ela K-12 prior to this I was a Social Studies English and psychology teacher at Wildlife Western in my position I am fortunate enough to work with many teachers across the district and see the great things that they are doing to support our Walled Lake students in our social studies classes students are engaged in independent and collaborative activities that help grow the knowledge skills intellectual processes and dispositions to be actively engaged in fulfilling their responsibility of civic participation this includes debates and discussions historical analysis mapping field trips and more in
164our secondary English classes teachers focus on developing students Reading Writing speaking and critical thinking skills while fostering a love for literature and language students are working with a variety of techs which promote understanding enhance critical thinking expand vocabulary and reflect real world complexities well there are hundreds of examples of teachers doing great things in Walled Lake I want to call out a few at Keith Elementary kindergarten teachers Lindsey Ashman and Carissa byback developed an inquiry unit that asks students to think about how can people work together to get what they need and want this project culminated with kindergartners being asked to identify a need and a want for their classroom and how they might fulfill that need the kids were highly engaged third graders from Pleasant Lake and Dublin have already or are planning to
165tour the state capitol as well as the Historical Museum to learn more about the state's government and history according to Martha Rogers third grade teacher at Dublin the students were excited and curious and asking all kinds of questions Matt Hewitt fifth grade teacher had his students work in collaborative collaboratively using flipgrid to share the unheard voices of the American Revolution in middle school all 8th grade students have had or will have the opportunity to visit Washington DC students from Creek wrote letters to Honor Flight veterans to thank them for their service and are planning to personally deliver them in June at Northern High School AP Gov teacher Carrie Lopez had her class attend a youth and government day presented by Oakland County they had the opportunity to hear and interact with a panel that represented
166many members of local government lastly Anna Murphy English teacher at Wild Lake western had her students engage in a research project that ended with them creating a slide presentation using images and writing to convey what they had learned they presented their digital projects in groups and listeners allowed to ask the expert questions these are just a few of the things that I would love to talk about but I want to end by saying how proud I am to work with the teachers that I work with they are truly a dedicated group of professionals who possess the expertise the Knowledge and Skills necessary for teaching they work tirelessly to cover what is required while also engaging young people who have a lot more distractions than many of us did when we were in school thank you
167to the teachers and thank you members of the board for working with teachers to help our Wild Lake community next we have Christine Titus [Applause] good evening I'm Christine Titus I'm a proud instructional specialist at Hickory Woods Elementary but my husband and I have also been residents of Commerce Township in the Walled Lake School District for 30 years so 31 years actually now but I was very gratified tonight to see all students celebrated our athletes our our artists performing artists our four children had the opportunity to go through many extracurricular programs like that as well as achieving academic Excellence from this District so I'd like to shout out to all of their teachers as well I'd like to publicly thank the foundation for excellence for the grant I received this year to help support our
168youngest Learners with the purchase of some decodable books in addition to what the district also provided can never have enough books and kids hands um I've had a chance to um I kind of stole some of Mrs kohanski's Thunder last meeting but um looking at data in my building I saw that the foundational skills are pretty solid at Hickory woods and I'm very proud of that um through the collaboration with my colleagues within our building through the mtss process and also working with my instructional specialist counterparts and other buildings some of who are here tonight we've really worked hard to make sure that kids are getting what they need in those foundational skills so I'm very pleased and happy to work with those folks we're all working to support student achievement um I'd like to
169give a shout out to our new principal Lisa Shannon who's done an awesome job in her first year in our building and just guiding us very um with a lot of empathy and compassion and I watch her work with kids on a daily basis and it's it's a marvelous thing to see um also finally I would like to thank our current and past board members who throughout this 22-23 school year for their support of what we do to help make our students successful in all ways so thank you very much Michelle black good evening and thank you for the opportunity to address the board tonight my name is Michelle black and I am a proud 25-year employee of Walled Lake Schools currently my role is the English language arts social studies curriculum coordinator I am
170so grateful to be able to do the work that we do in Walled Lake and I feel so fortunate to be amongst such amazing students teachers administrators and Families I wanted to take a few minutes tonight to highlight some of the incredible literacy work we have done at the elementary level this year we are in our fifth year of using an explicit and systematic phonics curriculum in our K2 classrooms and we continue to see tremendous growth in our students foundational skills particularly around phonemic awareness and phonics our teachers have begun to integrate meaningful decodable texts into their small group instruction to ensure that students continue to grow in their phonic skills while also growing as readers and writers we continue to grow and expand our instructional coaching model in all our elementary schools thanks to
171the hard work of our instructional specialists this model includes intentional And Timely professional learning for our teachers modeling best instructional practices in our classrooms and using data to inform instructional decisions with an emphasis on small group instruction our teachers are able to meet the instructional needs of all students and we continue to see amazing growth in our data in many schools teachers have participated in something called Mega Labs which are as exciting as they sound in a mega lab teams of the instructional Specialists work across the district in classrooms to model and Coach literacy instruction for the day they have an opportunity then to debrief and support the classroom instructional work going forward and we've gotten incredible feedback from our teachers administrators and even the students who participated in this work the level of collaboration
172around literacy continues to grow and Thrive here in Walled Lake we continue to not only teach the standards but also Foster a love of learning in our students and I could not be more proud of the work that our teachers do every day thank you and Mr Peterson has asked if we would just take a few minutes break just to make sure that we're still focused is everybody okay if we take what do you want Mr Peterson five minutes five minutes okay thank you I don't think I should get up you're still alive on our agenda is Administrative commentary Dr bernia thank you madam president uh in light of uh the the agenda that we still have to go and the fact that it's getting late our team met in the hallway a second ago
173and we've decided to forego administrative commentary tonight uh but we do want to say we're all uh very proud of the work that we're doing and very excited about graduation on Sunday sounds good all right and next we have board commentary anything um Mrs Fernandez I'll follow suit with the cabinets Mr Siegler sorry okay that's all right you know I want I want to applaud everybody who spoke today and the audience overall for listening to everybody uh the key as I have said to many people is listening and understanding to the parents who had to pull their children out or didn't feel safe I want to apologize because we should never have to have any of our children in that position as I look at our mission statement you know in partnership with parents and
174community is to become the best educational system in America so all students and I like the word all students demonstrate they are caring responsible and knowledgeable citizens ladies and gentlemen that's our future those are the people that we are going to depend on as we grow older and uh they raise our children and our raise our grandchildren so I want to thank everybody and it really meant a lot to me tonight to hear everybody speak and thank you okay anything uh Miss dice um no I don't really have anything tonight except for just to congratulate all the seniors that are going to be graduating on Sunday for a job well done okay Mr Peterson quick I want to say thank you to the fellow people I have been around in the transportation department and my
175part-time Venture as I retire at the end of the school year from driving I will miss my special needs kids um immensely they have been a great new educator for me and it's hard to say when you get older that you can be re-educated and re-educated and re-educated but you can and it's a it's a phenomenal thing I will miss them greatly I will miss the the individual teachers the individual parents mom and dad I'll miss them all um I can't even tell you what that feeling is it's been one of those things where you write that chapter in your life and you say wow that's been a great four or five years and so and I want to say thanks to all the transportation people I have worked around and with and I could
176name a billion of them it seems like they just there every day it's hard to imagine you're up at 4 30 in the morning and uh out there running rain snow sleet whatever it is like the postman um cold bus warm bus covid bus you name it Mass Shields boots cold wind warm wind you name it but again I'll miss those special needs kids I can't tell you how uh how profound that is it really is very special thank you this is loving anything tonight [Applause] um I will Echo what everybody else said about congratulating the seniors and all the students being recognized at all the various honors nights and programs and last band and Orchestra concerts and Choir concerts and all that but I also want to say congratulations to the students and the
177parents who simply made it through the year for some that in itself is an accomplishment and you too should be proud so congratulations anything Mrs Kaplan yes I'll be quick I just want to say as everybody congratulations to everybody who's graduating that includes our transitions tomorrow our adult transition program tomorrow morning I'm very you know thankful to all of our staff and teachers to make it through the year thank you for everything that you've done for our kids and our families and happy hope you all have a fantastic and wonderful summer foreign and the only other thing I I will say to end up board commentary is uh check out our website check out our social media feeds I have attended one Community conversation I'm hoping to get to your other two that are coming
178up in June but they're a good good method for people to ask you questions and for you to give updates so there's a couple more coming up in June there might even be popsicles popsicles that's probably going to be at Henry Ford in the kitchen right no okay I'm wrong all right on we go we have the consent agenda we have an approval of minutes we have two meetings from April 2023. we have two meetings from May 4th 2023 and then a final meeting on May 11 2023 again these are all meeting minutes we have Personnel recommendations new hires retirements resignation and non-renewal we have Financial reports we have disbursements in the amount of 17 million seven hundred and eighteen thousand eight hundred and seventy three dollars and we also have a head start director's
179report can I have a motion this is Casa Grande Mr Sigler I move that the Board of Education approved the consent agenda as presented all those in favor aye opposed motion carry 7-0 we're now going to move on to purchases we have a social studies purchase Dr Bernie yeah I'm going to turn it over to Mrs kohanski thank you Dr bernia we have on the agenda tonight a social studies grades two through three textbook and online resources my world interactives Savas learning 2019 Edition in the amount of 190 220 and 25 cents to come out of the general fund I move that the Board of Education approved the purchase of social studies grades two through three textbooks and online resources from my world interactive saves learning 2019 for 190 220 and 25 cents from the
180general fund any discussion Mrs Helen so I reviewed um this curriculum and also reviewed the teaching guides and I think that the curriculum is fine for you know for what it is there was nothing uh you know a really remarkable one way or another about it but I was very concerned about the teaching guide even having a mention of gender and sexuality for seven and eight-year-olds and I cannot in good conscience support giving almost two hundred thousand dollars to a publisher who thinks that that's appropriate for children who are seven and eight years old I don't question the content of the curriculum but I do question the content of the teaching guide any other comments Mrs Fernandez I um for this and for the books that I commented on previously have similar concerns largely lying
181in the instructional guides and um you know there's nothing wrong with new teaching techniques and inquiry-based learning but some of the things that have appeared in the instructional guides for teachers specifically indicate that they should not correct children who are working from knowledge that you know that they that is just factually wrong and this for very young children groups so you know in case some of my objections to the criteria last month were not clear you know it's not that we would use and teach by inquiry that's obviously a great method but the guides push that to an extreme that seems unreasonable for young children in that and other areas so I also have still a problem with it I do want to thank the likes of Ms lacrosse Miss McDonald Mr uh malonis Ms
182Abraham for pointing out that great teachers are coming up with great methods and keeping up with challenging kids in very different ways no matter what materials that they're working from and so it just seems to me that you know we have great Educators that are doing that and we ought to be able to find materials that that don't have some of those controversial things because the newer and younger educators are quite likely to pay a lot of credence to them so I have those concerns still Mrs Kaplan I want to say thank you to the curriculum committee for taking all the time and energy to go through our books and to recommend what they've recommended for us and I have to say that I need to that I put trust in all of our teachers
183in the district and if there's something in a book that they're teaching from I trust that they're going to make the appropriate decisions and how they're going to teach their curriculum any other comments Miss Tice so I too review the textbooks last month and I would basically Echo what Mrs Levin has already said I didn't find anything um questionable in the content of the curriculum itself however I I can't in good conscience approve something that you know is encouraging the teachers to promote um this transgender ideology um I think that um you know it was already stated tonight about how parents can inform students at home of their beliefs and what they wish and I think this is a subject if parents want to teach that to their children at home they're more than welcome
184and free to do that but I don't think that that's something that we should be pushing in our classrooms any other comments I have one last comment I did talked with Dr Bernie about this because I know that we do have a very robust process and I have had talked with a couple of of board members who who wanted to talk about this and um for me it's the professionalism of our students and it's a professionalism of our staff and somebody here today said the world is changing the world is changing and when there was something in a guide again we have protocols that help our teachers and we continue to learn from each other and I am in full support of this material and the process that we go through to review it so
185thank you Mrs kohanski and your team for everything you do all right I'm going to go ahead and call Fargo all those in favor aye opposed motion passes four three [Applause] and next we have the advanced placement government textbook Dr Vernia right back to Mrs kohanski thank you Dr bernia on the agenda for you tonight is the advanced placement government high school textbook entitled presidential election update American government stories of a Nation for the AP course Bedford Freeman and worth 2021 in the amount of twenty three thousand eight hundred seventy four dollars and ninety five cents to come out of the general fund Mrs Casa Grande I move that the board approved the purchase of advanced placement government high school textbook entitled presidential election update American government stories of a Nation for the AP course
186Bedford and Freeman and worth for 23 874.95 from the general fund discussion yeah so I just want to mention a couple of things here uh not surprising that I have um that I have a similar Viewpoint um what I'd like to just submit for consideration is having just run an election here recently we know that our community is 30 percent strong leaning in One Direction 30 percent in the other and forty percent wholly in the middle so there are a lot of mixed feelings and polarized views on a lot of things and something like an AP Government book you know is bound to hit triggers when we hear communities and that in one meeting you know are speaking you know with certainty that this is terribly right-sided and with the other meeting or saying it's
187terribly left-sided and when when the perspectives can be that polarized it just seems to me that that's a strong indication that we really need to do more work to come to the table and figure out what is something that uh that uh that really is a little bit more close to or less incendiary for uh for anyone's point of view so um I also want to say we have um you know in along with any of our book purchases and things we do approve and have approved recently and probably every year a whole vast number of resources in Safari and other types of subscriptions so I know there was some concerns voiced you know about having materials and turning down materials that didn't offer a lot of variety for teachers and Educators but I thought
188I would point that out as well any other comments Mr Peterson yes I would just like to say I think from having spent time with most everyone on the board here over the last few weeks on some of these different subjects related in this area I do believe and I would like to make the suggestion to Dr bernia that we we have a pretty robust Workshop secondary schedule for the board this summer but I would like to see if we can get an overall better understanding because I for one am not the most knowledgeable when it comes to how we get to a book at some point being reviewed somewhere so I would love to know and understand clearly how it starts at the top and how it rolls down to the bottom I think
189it will help us all in trying to understand that process and all the the very various nuances so um irregardless of the books and what your commentary thoughts are either way I just think the board could use that as a secondary Workshop agenda to better understand both the legal anything in the state and again how the state operates how they get them how we get it down to the district level so on so forth I just think it would be a worthy value thank you any other comments Mrs Levin thank you Mrs casagrande so I had raised some concerns about this AP Government textbook and one of the resources that was shared with the board was the Publisher's guide or response to to the concerns and the summary uh of my understanding of that response
190was it made people angry on both sides so it was okay and I believe that something um you know like like government is is a factual representation it doesn't need to incite emotion on both sides the point of the class is to uh you know create um or help cultivate a student's ability to form their own opinions and I think that when the book put has opinions strongly on both sides that is in itself helping the student form their own opinions rather than presenting fact-based materials and historical accounts of what happened whether it was good or bad from whatever perspective and I think that this particular textbook is is so um dramatically offensive to either side that there needs to be a a happier medium and from what I understand AP maybe has a bigger
191list of books than what was narrowed down to the initial or the last three that were narrowed down to this one and I would love to to understand you know is there a different book and really what are the guidelines that the committee is using and and maybe that needs to be reviewed so that we don't end up having teachers spending all this time and then potentially have to go back to their drawing board and and you know we need to I think maybe look together at what is it that we're starting from similar to to Mr Peterson's comment but a little different and what are the criteria that are being used by these committees to to get to where we are at the end so that maybe we can avoid the time and the
192energy that doesn't necessarily align with what maybe the board agrees the the curriculum criteria should be any other students who I'm not even going to tell you how many years ago took AP government and did use the tax at the time and what's very um helpful in helping him to take that AP test and to pass that and to achieve college credit there is a a very um in talking to Dr Vernia an understanding there is a very um strict protocol and with AP courses and for us to maintain our ability to offer those AP courses there is a second and third order of fact in looking at this particular book and again I trust Dr Bernie his staff and I I think the community members who spoke about it but I am in support
193of this I'm going to take the vote all those in favor I opposed motion passes four three [Applause] we are now going to move on to the 2022-2023 budget amendment that's where I am I'm going to turn the floor over to Mrs Les thank you Dr bernia the Administration has evaluated the budget line items and adjustments have been made to more accurately reflect the 2022-2023 revenue and expenditures Mrs lemon I move that the Board of Education adopt the resolution to amend the 20 2022-23 budgets as presented all those in favor aye opposed motion carries 7-0 and move on to the 2023-24 millage rates Dr Vernia back to Mrs Les thank you Dr bernia based on the provisions of proposal a and the change in the Michigan business tax in 2011-2012. the military is required to
194generate the homestead and non-homestead millage rates for 2023-2024 will be 16.7461 Mills on all non-homestead properties zero Mills on Homestead Properties and 4.7461 Mills on Homestead commercial properties to satisfy the debt obligations for 2023-24 4.13 Mills will be Levy down all properties and 0.5 Mills on all properties for the sinking fund who's brave enough to read that motion Mrs lemon I usually do it I move that the Board of Education approve a general fund millage rate of zero Mills on principal residence qualified agricultural qualified forest and Industrial Personnel 4.7461 Mills on Commercial personal and 16.7461 Mills for all other and further approve a debt retirement rate of 4.13 Mills for all properties and sinking fund rate of 0.5 mils on all properties for 2023-24. support any discussion all those in favor next we have the
195ratification of a wall Lake Education Association wlea contract Dr Vernia Mr Russo thank you Dr Bruno Administration is proud to present this two-year ratified agreement with the Walled Lake Education Association this contract provides a significant investment in our teachers and places our district in a very favorable position as we continue to navigate labor shortages while still being able to provide high quality experiences for students and parents what follows or highlights from this tentative agreement this is a two-year agreement beginning August 12 2023 and going through August 15 2025. there's an increase of the instructional day at the high schools by three minutes this agreement creates a conference structure at the middle and elementary levels which allows for both in-person and virtual options for parents while the high school remains virtual this also provides three additional
196years of calendars starting with the 24-25 school year and goes through the 26-27 school year some salary adjustments are as follows in year one teachers who are on the top step receive a seven percent on schedule increase with the 1 200 off schedule lump sum for those at the top step full steps for all members who are in steps and removal of half steps on the 13-step schedule in year two there's a removal of the 15-step salary schedule all members move to the same step on the 13-step schedule so all members will move to a 13-step schedule there's a 2700 off schedule lump sum for those at the top step and members who are in steps who are already on the 13-step schedule receive two steps I move that the Board of Education approved the
197ratified agreement between the Walled Lake Consolidated School District Board of Education and the Walled Lake Education Association has presented support any discussion this is Kaplan I just want to say thank you to both sides for the time and energy that you've taken to get this contract to us and I'm very pleased thank you Mr Ziegler again as echoing Lord Mrs Kaplan said Thank you to everybody involved on both sides of this for us to be able to have a two-year contract after all the years of going from one year to one year is absolutely remarkable to be able to finally bring teachers to what somewhat being more whole than they were in the past after being concessionary for so many years is a tribute to our Administration and our staff for working on this and
198the fact that we are able to come out with a calendar so that everybody can plan for the future also is just in my mind I think it will help the community and the parents overall so thank you to everybody involved comments um I I guess I want to address the elephant in the room I want to thank the legislature for giving us additional money so we could actually go through and negotiate and have the extra money going back [Laughter] [Applause] all right all those in favor aye opposed motion carries 7-0 very happily seven zero next we have our Head Start self-assessment procedure and Dr Vernia we're going to turn it over to Mrs kohanski thank you Dr bernia that improving Head Start for School Readiness act 2007 and the Head Start program performance standards
1991302.102 articulate regulatory requirements regarding the self-assessment of Head Start and Early Head Start programs self-assessment is an annual comprehensive big picture assessment that evaluates the context and achievement of the program the effectiveness and progress in meeting program goals and objectives and the implementation in compliance with regulatory requirements with a focus on health and safety and School Readiness the process for the 2023 self-assessment consists of a collaboration of all Head Start programs in which focus groups collect analyze and assess findings of data and feedback related to health and safety and School Readiness the proposed Head Start self-assessment procedure for 2023 was approved by the Walled Lake Consolidated Schools Head Start policy committee on May 10 2023 to comply with all federal contract regulations Walled Lake school's Head Start is submitting the 2023 Head Start self-assessment procedure
200for board approval I move that the Board of Education approved the Walled Lake 2023 Head Start self-assessment procedure as presented any discussion all those in favor I opposed motion carries 7-0 next we have the resolution for storm water management plan Dr Bernie we're gonna go to Mr Chatfield thank you Dr Bernier since 2009 Walled Lake Consolidated Schools has implemented storm water management measures in accordance with requirements of the Clean Water Act of 1987 and has been issued a permit from the Michigan Department of environment Great Lakes and energy also known as Eagle to discharge water through the district storm water system to Waters of the state of Michigan following a recent review of our program by eagle officials they are requiring Board of Education approval of a storm water resolution to retain authorization to continue
201this practice through the permit that they issue to us and we have a resolution for your consideration Mr Sinkler I move that the Board of Education approved the resolution and support of the stormwater management plan as presented any discussion yes Mr Peterson Mr Chatfield please can you explain why you think Eagle would have required that this time the board approval uh they they required it initially upon initial permit they require it every five years um it's it's what they consider their regulatory ordinance that will ensure that the Walled Lake Schools commits to following uh proper storm water management plans and procedures uh limiting runoffs from construction sites uh things of that nature it's it's one of the reasons why um frankly school car wash events have been minimized to a great degree so so is
202this re-renewed every five years is that what it is okay thank you Mrs Fernandez your comment yeah I'm just wondering can because we've received it awesome thank you yep any other comments all right all those in favor aye opposed motion carries seven zero and next we have a waiver request Dr Bernier right back to Mr Chatfield thank you Dr bernia uh the Commerce Chargers in Walled Lake Braves youth football and cheer programs have been direct feeder programs to Walled Lake Central High School and Walled Lake Western High School for many years they are non-profit organizations comprised of football teams and share squads based in Commerce Township they are truly a community program as league rules dictate the students on these teams must live in our school boundary area these programs work closely with our High
203School coaches in the respective Sports to better prepare student athletes for when they arrive in high school about 95 percent of our eighth graders that are part of the Chargers and Braves go on to participate at the high school level over 60 percent of the district athletes that participate in Walled Lake High School football and cheer programs began by participating in the Chargers and Braves Community programs recently the district had to discontinue the Middle School tackle football program leaving the district without a middle school youth football feeder program and it Administration recommends that in accordance with board policy 7002 AR fee schedule for school facilities the district reduced the athletic field rental rates as requested by these two groups by 50 percent to ensure the contingent strength of these Community programs thank you Mrs Levin
204I move that the Board of Education approve a 50 reduction in the athletic field rental fees for the 2023-2024 school year for the Walled Lake Braves and commerce youth football and cheer programs in accordance with board policy 7002 AR fee schedule school facilities any discussion yeah do we have a uh pending AR rep um that's going to reduce some of the pay-to-play that has not been announced is that correct or no uh yeah we're finalizing the details we're finalizing the details on our proposal but um but as a preview to everyone uh when we come to our meeting on June the 15th that's still part of the budget process and still part of everything that we're rolling out but the board can expect an update on that that I believe based on my conversations and
205feedback from all seven of you that you will be pleased with thank you any other discussion or questions all those in favor I opposed motion carries seven zero now we have a resolution for the Michigan High School Association mhsaa membership Dr turn it over to Dr Lyons thank you sir the Board of Education here by devil against his superintendent or his designee the responsibility for the supervision and control of the district's secondary athletic activities and hereby accepts the Constitution and bylaws of the Michigan Association excuse me Michigan High School Association the district adopts its own rules regulations and interpretations as minimum standards as published in the current athletic handbook as the governing code under which Walled Lake Secondary Schools shall conduct its program of interslastic Athletics and agrees to primary enforcement of said rules regulations
206interpretations and qualifications in addition it is hereby agreed that schools that host or participate in the association's meets and tournaments shall follow and enforce all tournament policies procedures and schedules this author authorization shall be effective from August 1st 2023 and should remain effective until July 31st 2024 during which authorization may not be revoked adopt the Michigan High School Athletic Association membership resolution as presented any discussion all those in favor aye opposed motion carries seven zero is it okay if I keep this one and don't pass it off to you okay board policy so see it's faster and more efficient board policy adoption so prior just prior to the meeting we had just a little bit of individual discussion we have a lot of work that we feel we still need to do we have um
207you know new new board members we have um just things that we still have questions about and and so we feel that it's best if instead of going over some of the policy information is going to come today if we postpone this to a future meeting and everybody was in agreement with that we're going to officially vote though so I'm going to bring a different motion that was originally on the agenda with the same topic so I moved to postpone consideration of this motion regarding board policy adoption to a future meeting date to be determined any discussion further than what I have brought forward okay all those in favor I opposed motion carries 7-0 and I know that Miss Silva Will Keep Us honest and we'll bring that back when we're ready to do so
208and next we have the Oakland County School boards Association ocsba awards event I before I read the motion for attendance so far I have me Mr Siegler Mrs Lavin is there anybody else who's going to attend well I don't think I need to approve you though okay I move that the Board of Education approved the attendance of Mrs Casa Grande Mr Siegler Mrs Levin at the Oakland County School boards Association awards event on Wednesday June 21 2023 an authorized payment of the registration fee any discussion all those in favor aye opposed motion carries 7-0 and we are adjourned at 10 18. thank you for all of you who stayed for the whole meeting