001Ready to go Mrs. King? Yep. Call to order. Meeting of the Board of Education scheduled for Tuesday, March 24th, 2026 held at 7 p.m. at Wyandotte City Hall 3200 Biddle Avenue. Roll call please. Member Bevin Partial? Here. Member Cain? Here. Member King? Here. Member Los Cicero? Here. Member Martinez? Here. Member Weber? Here. President Cerkovich? Here. Thank you. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Baker, will you lead us please? Recitation of the Vision and Mission Statements. Vice President Cain will read the Vision Statement and Secretary Los Cicero will read the Mission Statement. The Vision Statement, a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community that develops resilient, innovative, and engaged individuals. Mission Statement, collaborating and inspiring to educate, engage, and empower all. Reading of the minutes. The proposed minutes of the March 10th, 2026 meeting are included
002in your packet. Is it March 17th? March 17th. Yes it is. Thank you. March 17th, 2026 meeting are included in your packet. Secretary Los Cicero reviewed them and found them to be in order and acceptable as presented. I move approval of the proposed minutes from the March 17th, 2026 meeting to be approved as presented. Support. Any discussion for review in your packet? All right. Seeing no objections, please attach the roll. Roll attached. Motion carried. Thank you. All right, special orders and reports. Dr. Anderson. All right, it is my pleasure to once again bring up Mr. Keast and Mr. Baker who are going to talk about this year's award winners for Poetry Out Loud. Good evening. It's great to be back and we are here once again to present the winners of our Poetry Out Loud
003competition that we had in our high school championship back in, let's see, when was that? January. It's been such a long time ago. And we have since then also been to the state competition. Just for the people who may be watching this that are not familiar with Poetry Out Loud, it is a national poetry recitation contest. It's not where the kids create their own poems. They are given a selection of poems to choose from and they basically have to memorize them and recite them. We have several different rounds of the competition. The first round is just an audition round and it's pretty informal. It's held just in our classrooms. They have to do one poem and there were certain rules in the past about like what the poems had to be as far as like
004when were they written and things. This year was a little different because of budget cutbacks at the national level. Usually the kids have 11, 1300 poems to choose from. This year they only had a little over 400 because they can only use ones that were copyright free. And because of that it was limited which we had to adjust to but the kids did wonderfully. It's a reminder that the poems that they were looking at that are older poems that didn't have copyrights to them still resonate today and to make that connection across you know a little bit bigger gap of time was fun. It was fun for us to watch them do that and be able to make those connections. So first round one poem, second round at the high school championship we have two
005poems and we we announced the top three and the winner of the school championship then goes and represents us at the state championship and usually in Lansing this year was in Mount Pleasant and that was just a couple weekends ago. And the winner of the state championship then goes on represents Michigan at the national championship. So we love to see the kids participate in this. It's great to for us as educators to watch kids who connect with the word and the importance of language and the importance of both finding a voice that you can identify with and kind of resonate with and to be able to share that because it's a very simple competition. They call your name you come up to a microphone not too dissimilar from this and you recite a poem and
006you sit down and then everybody does that one time and then they do it again second time and at the state level the the one who gets the top four kids who have the highest scores get to do their third poem. And it's simple but it's like chess you know it's easy to understand the rules it's really hard to do well and these kids we are always represented well. We have a very we've always talked about we have a very deep talent pool here in Wyandotte and this year was no different. So I'm going to introduce my colleague Mr. Rob Keast and he's going to tell you about these wonderful performers. So we had a tricky school finals back in January we held it on a snow day we didn't mean to but we did
007and the students adapted very well and it was fun in the weeks leading up to the school finals having the students come in and sometimes on our preps or sometimes before school after school on lunch just the sacrifices the people who wanted to do well they made such sacrifices to make sure they got the practice time in and of course we saw the more they practiced the better they got and it's always so fun as teachers to get to see them from the very earliest stages where they're just picking out a poem and stumbling over words and really foggy on the meaning to just shiny at the school and at the state level. So I'm going to first introduce our third place finisher this year and I'm going to have her do a poem this
008is Anna Rascal. Oh I must pass nothing by without loving it much the raindrop try with my lips the grass with my touch for how can I be sure I shall see again the world on the first of May shining after the rain. I would like to recognize our second place finisher she could not be with us tonight Nola Markley finished second place for us and now I'm going to bring up our school champion somebody you probably recognize because she's been in our top three for the final the past three years and somebody who has just really worked hard and may become really a very special part of our Poetry All Out program and tradition so our school winner and our representative at the state finals who just absolutely showed that she was among the
009best in the state and had two outstanding performances in the rounds in our state championship so I'm going to have Lydia Blonsky come up here and do two poems. You know by Alice Stewart Miller that in 1869 Miss Jax Blake and four other women entered for a medical degree at the University of Edinburgh that the president of the College of Physicians refused to give the women the prizes they had won but the undergraduates insulted any professor who allowed women to compete for prizes that the women were stoned in the streets and finally excluded from the medical school that in 1877 the British Medical Association declared women ineligible for membership that in 1881 the International Medical Congress excluded women from all but its social and ceremonial meetings that the obstetrical society refused to allow a woman's
010name to appear on the title page of a pamphlet which she had written with her husband that according to a recent dispatch from London many hospitals since the outbreak of hostilities have asked women to become resident physicians and public authorities are daily endeavoring to obtain women as assistant medical officers and as school doctors. And normally at the state championship or at the school championship Lydia gets a little time to reset it's a little jarring to make her jump right into the second poem because it's such a different tone but Here I go. In School Days by John Greenleaf Whittier Still sits the schoolhouse by the road a ragged beggar sleeping Around it still the sumacs grow and blackberry vines are creeping Within the master's desk is seen deep scarred by wraps official the warping floor
011the battered seats the jackknifes carved initial the charcoal frescoes on its wall its doors worn still betraying the feet that creeping slow to school went storming out to playing long years ago a winter Sun shown over it at setting lit up its western window panes and low eaves I see fretting it touched the tangled golden curls and brown eyes full of grieving of one who still her steps delayed when all the school were leaving for near her stood the little boy her childish favor singled his cap pulled low upon a face where pride and shame were mingled pushing with restless feet the snow to right and left he lingered as restlessly her tiny hands the blue checked apron fingered he saw her lift her eyes he felt the soft hands like caressing and heard the
012tremble of her voice as if a fault confessing I'm sorry that I spelt the word I hate to go above you because the brown eyes lower fell because you see I love you still memory to a gray-haired man that sweet child's face is showing dear girl the grasses on her grave have 40 years been growing he lives to learn in life's hard school how few who pass above him will meant their triumph and his loss like her because they love him board members would you like to share any thoughts with our artists that was so I tell when I saw on the agenda it was poetry out loud I was so excited this is one of them clapped when she saw it I'll just this is honestly one of my favorite things all year long
013is to listen to you and you're just so captivating I totally forgot everybody else was in the room yeah it was wonderful how long does it take you guys to remember that I can barely recite how long do you spend when you first get it yeah sure come on up there we go now I'm being picked up but it honestly depends like for me um do you know I memorize because it was like a shorter poem I memorized like honestly fairly quickly like in a week but the other one in school days that took like a little while longer mostly because of the length and the tricky wording yeah I'd say for me it took about two weeks over winter break I just try to memorize my first one that I had to do for
014the auditions and for the other one it took me I'd say it took me longer too because it was a longer one I did and it had a harder meaning but yeah I just want to say too that it's not just about the memorization it's how you recited the emotion behind it so good now you Anna is that what's your name Anna and Lydia thank you thank you thank you any other members you know we really appreciate it and um mr. Baker we're gonna miss seeing you at this event yeah I think that might be a harder thing for some of us to not see you coming because I feel like you and mr. keys together our poetry out loud that's amazing all right thank you again for always coming and making our spring meeting
015so lovely thank you thank you thank you because it is a school night we'll give you guys a minute if you want to you're welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting if you wish but you're also able to exit if you'd like to as well thank you thank you give everyone just a second my heart is full yeah I know it's always lovely always so nice whatever if you want to take a picture whatever you want to do is fine we're fine waiting go ahead absolutely no please do all right we're gonna continue on with our action agenda tonight dr. Anderson yeah first action agenda item is the announcement quite a few retirements for our teachers they were due March 1st and so it's our first business meeting since that time following staff
016members have submitted paperwork to retire Connie Norton we need to be skipped oh that I knew president sir she was just so taken that's right thank you secretary lisa's room for pointing that out to me now support to the meeting where we have the hearing of the public wind up public schools Board of Education welcomes public discourse now is the portion where the public may address the board those who wish to speak should approach the podium state their name and address the board comments will be limited to three minutes per person members of the board and district employees will not answer questions during public commentary is there anyone wishing to address the board at this time seeing none we will now move to the so as I was saying our retirements have come in for
017the year the majority of them some of our units do not have a date restriction on announcing their retirements we may get a few more but we've had a lot this year we're just this group alone is close to 400 years of institutional knowledge so it will be a job to replace them the following staff members have submitted paperwork to retire Connie Norton Garfield and Monroe she's been working with us for 28 years Mikaelynn Zalewski 31 years RHS Julie Bezzoli RHS 41 years Mark Dyroff RHS 25 years Layla Blake RHS 27 years David Blake RHS 30 years Warren Baker mr. Baker who was just up in front of us RHS 35 years Tina Weller RHS 27 years Jeffrey Weller RHS 28 years Christine Bertolino Joe Brighton 23 years Bernie Bowers Board of Education maintenance director
01840 years Diane Fisher board of education benefits coordinator 26 years Joseph Pichocki maintenance 14 years motion please I move acceptance of the following resignations for the purpose of retirement of Connie Norton, Mikaelynn Zalewski, Julie Bezzoli, Mark Dyroff, Layla Blake, David Blake, Warren Baker, Tina Weller, Jeffrey Weller, Christine Bertolino, Bernie Bowers, Diane Fisher and Joseph Pichocki after a combined 375 years of service to wind up public schools and thank them for their many years of dedicated service to the children of Wyandotte and Wayne County and wish them well in their retirement years support any discussion that was really hard for me to read but maybe you were the right person to do it thank you they will all be genuinely missed absolutely wish them well and welcome to the club my friends so many people who
019I can't speak about just one because so many of these folks shaped both my children's one of them my sister's high school experience and so we of course are sad to see them leave us but we are so happy for them going on to the next chapter of their lives Wyandotte's been very lucky very lucky yes but we're gonna make room for some new experts to come our way and that's another kind of delight any other thoughts before we take a roll call please member Bevin partial yes member Kane yes member King yes member low Cicero yes member Martinez yes member Weber yes president circuit yes motion carries all right consent agenda because items on the consent agenda are routine there's little need for discussion one motion can complete this part of the agenda if
020anyone is interested in copies of reports recommendations or information please contact the superintendent's office at seven five nine six zero zero two I move approval of the Board of Education bills in the amount of one thousand eighty dollars and bills and vouchers in the amount of eight million two hundred and ninety one thousand fifty eight dollars and seventy four cents support any discussion checkbook role was in your packet everyone clear all right let's take a vote member Kane yes member King yes member low Cicero yes member Martinez yes member Weber yes member Bevin partial yes president circuit yes motion carries bills are paid all right committee of the whole discussion agenda the next work session will be April 7th 2026 630 p.m. at the Board of Education office we will be getting our strategic plan
021update from the cabinet at that time and we have some other business in front of us it'll be right after spring break so we'll be headed hitting the ground running working then announcements dr. Anderson speaking of spring break it does start this Friday so Thursday at three o'clock is the end of the week for us this week school of the back in session on Monday April 6th also if you haven't had a chance yet I hope you'll take a look at the wind up public schools Facebook page we have a little contest going on where we're trying to get crowdsourced submissions from our teachers and so there's new content coming up on the page daily kindergarten roundup will be held on April 22nd in the elementary schools that'll be from 530 to 630 so we
022want to get that boost that signal and our school of choice opens up for next year on April 15th and goes through August 17th so we are looking forward to welcoming new families to the wind up public schools community board members any announcements yes tomorrow evening is the district-wide vocal concert it will have the Academy Youth Choir the Wilson vocal department and all of Roosevelt's vocal department beginning chorus concert choir a cappella choir of a sea corral and we'll finish with all combined voices as a finale lovely any other announcements I want to thank everyone who supported the wind up scholarship foundation fundraiser last Friday we had a fun 80s spring break I saw some crazy 80s hair and some yes we did I went home I literally stood under the shower to get the
023hairspray out but I think the water was coming off of my hair so much hairspray in my hair but you know we saw a lot of great fun outfits and we heard some great music and some great fellowship so I think people who supported it and look forward for just spending some more time fun times with you at fundraisers for the scholarship fund foundation in the future I also want to congratulate the barebots they finish up their season and they had a historic finals bid that was the first time in barebots history that they made it into the finals round they were not did not advance beyond that but they that was a great move for them and I know they were really excited and we went and hung out with them in and they
024were doing a great job as they always are so go barebots anyone else sure so we're closing out March is reading month so if you have the opportunity go to some of the elementary school Facebook pages they've had a lot of really cool events just to bring all the kids together as one community like reading the same book reading different books having contests so check that out and see what they've been up to all right seeing no other business I'll take a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn support