Until I ran it. Today, I was like, I I now call this meeting of the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education to order. I would like to remind the public that this is a hybrid meeting and that some of our presenters may join us by Zoom. Miss Ozinski, may we have a roll call, please? Hello? Yes. Okay. Trustee Vasquez? Yes. President Feaster? Here. Trustee Mohammed? Here. Trustee Schmidt? Present. Trustee Wilkerson? Present. Trustee Wilkins? Here. Trustee Wilkes? Present. Thank you, miss Zelensky. I would now like to introduce our nonvoted member member at the table,
superintendent of schools, miss J. S. Parks. Thank you, president Fisher. Good evening, everyone. Thank you. That brings us down to our land acknowledgment statement, and I would invite Trustee Wilkerson, if you would not mind reading that voice. Sure. We acknowledge that the Ann Arbor Public Schools District occupies the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabek, Three Fires Confederacy, the Odawa, Ojibwe and Potawatomi. The taking of this land was formed in a process alien to native cultures by the Treaty of Detroit in 1807. The Ann Arbor Public Schools recognizes that many other Native peoples lived on this land
at different times including the Fox, Sauk, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Miami, Muscatine and Cherokee, many of whom were forcefully removed from their homelands. Acknowledgement by itself is a small gesture that does not exist in the past or solely in historical context. Colonialism is in current ongoing process and we understand our responsibility in educating students about our participation. We further recognize the ongoing relationship, independency upon and respect for all living beings of earth, sky and water. It is our responsibility to care for this land and we honor with our deepest
gratitude, the native people who have and will continue to steward it for generations. Thank you, Trustee Wilkerson. Trustees, you have all received the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? Seeing none, may I have a motion, please? So moved. Second. Moved by trustee Schmidt, supported by trustee Wilkes. Any discussion? Saying none, this is complete. Trustee Vasquez? Yes. President Feaster? Yes. Trustee Mohammed? Yes. Trustee Schmidt? Yes. Trustee Wilkerson? Yes. Trustee Wilkins? Yes. And trustee Wilks? Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, miss Olszewski. That brings us down to the public commentary section of the agenda.
The board would like to remind everyone the individuals who have signed up for public commentary will have their names called and are given an opportunity to speak. Commenters will receive up to four minutes with a total of no more than forty five minutes allowed for the public commentary period. When your name is called, please come forward and speak at the microphone. To help manage your time, a clock will be placed on the screen in front of you. We would like to remind everyone that public comments generally pertain to the Anima Public School District matters. Comments about any individual or individuals are expressly prohibited. Also, please understand that board members do not respond to public comments,
but we will listen carefully and will follow-up as appropriate. Miss Ozinsky, how many times do we have for this evening? We have three signed up this evening. Each person would get four minutes. And the first is Sonia Chawla. Thank you. That's good. Okay. Good evening, trustees and superintendent Parks. I'm a parent of two children in AAPS. I'm here to express concern about building safety, particularly given the recent lockdowns at some AAPS schools. I've obtained information from an informal poll of teachers at one AAPS school about building conditions. Around two thirds of the 70 teachers and school staff at this school responded.
It was a pretty good response rate. Here are some things they said when asked if they are fully prepared to protect their students in the event of an emergency or lockdown. And I'm reading quotes here. The lock on our door is quite flimsy. In the past, a student has broken it open just by pulling hard on the door handle. As a teacher on a Second Floor with no safe escape out of my classroom other than the door, My classroom door has a window in it that would not be difficult at all to break through. My room could very easily be accessed by an intruder, and there would be no escape for myself or my students.
I feel like a sitting duck. Nightlock would be great and being told by the district safety person that my students and I should jump out my Second Floor window if necessary is really frustrating. Our and our classroom doors have windows that could easily be broken and then unlocked. I would like more secure doors. And here's what the data say, the number actual numbers. Over one third of respondents report that their outside facing windows do not open or close properly. None of the teachers whose classrooms are on the Second Floor of the building have safety ladders for exiting out the window in case an emergency.
Just over three quarters of the respondents have functioning locks on their doors, which given it's a high percentage, but really all of the doors should be able to lock. Just over one third of the respondents do not have a functioning lockdown lock. And finally, 29%, so over a quarter of the classrooms do not have an alternate exit in case of an emergency. This is a problem. Our teachers and school staff do not have appropriate safety mechanisms in the event of an emergency. They and our children are not safe in the classrooms. These data are just from one school, and my guess is that other APS schools have similar comparable safety issues.
I implore the board and the district administration to look further into building safety and to use any funds, particularly bond money, to make sure that our schools are physically safe. I'd be more than happy to fully share the data that have been collected upon written request. So I'm happy to make that available to anybody who wants it. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Next is Kathy Griswold. Good evening. I was on the school board from 2001 until 2005 when we successfully passed the bond for,
building Skyline High School and making renovations to all the schools. And one of our strategies was something for everyone so everyone would want to vote for the bond, and I think that was successful. Now we are faced with a 1 mill tax increase, and that seems to be the same approach, something for everyone. But where else can you take $1,000,000 of other people's money invested in a campaign, a campaign where we're not only having to spend the money to hold a special
election in November that's estimated to cost $1,000,000 of taxpayer money through the WISD, but all of the signage and the banners that's appearing at the schools as well as all of the ads that are online promoting CTE are also paid for with taxpayer money. And the return on that $1,000,000 of our money is $250,000,000 over ten years. That's about the same amount,
not adjusted for inflation, that we use to build Skyline and renovate all of the other schools. So I'm really concerned about the use of our money in that way. I am a product of CTE. I took drafting class in the late nineteen sixties at Pioneer High School in the E Wing. And just to put that in perspective, that was when girls had to wear skirts. I was the only female, and I got a a in those classes for design,
but a c for line quality. I wasn't a very neat student. But, anyway, that, was sort of a defining moment. I love that class. It taught me critical thinking, and it sort of set me in a direction where I later went on and got, an information systems degree from the University of Michigan Ross School. So I can't say enough about career tech education. But if we want to be a leader, not only Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, but The United States in technology and in career tech education.
We need to have an agile delivery model to do that, And that delivery model is Washtenaw Community College. It is not another bureaucratic level layer with the Washtenaw Intermediate School District. That is why I am opposing this millage. It also is an it negatively impacts our affordability. And last night, I was at a planning commission for the Anhevra Public Schools. And in the comprehensive land use policy,
One of the statement statements was the high cost of property taxes in Ann Arbor negatively impacts, housing and is a significant factor in housing affordability in this community. I realize it's more than just Ann Arbor, but we have to look at affordability. We have to look at how we can deliver the best education to our students. That is why I recommend that you vote no. For more information, you can go to the website, Citizens Against Regressive Taxes. Thank you.
Thank you. And finally, Blake Lancaster. Can I ask a question? Sure. So no names whatsoever or just nobody within the school district, or what is the no name? It is encouraged that you, not make any personal attacks on associates of the school district. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I can mention students in a not in a attacking way or parents of students. I I don't think that's expressly stated in our in our spiel here.
Obviously I don't think it'll be a problem. Okay. I just wanted to clarify. Thank you, and thank you for your time. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Blake Lancaster. I'm here tonight because after five years of effort, patience, and collaboration, I am profoundly frustrated and disappointed by Ann Arbor Public Schools' continued refusal to support the creation of a Michigan High School Athletic Association ski team. This effort began long before my own children entered high school, And in fact, it started with a friend of mine, Tom Phillips, began advocating for his son,
Gray, who loves ski racing and simply wanted the chance to represent his school. Gray has since graduated, having spent all four years of high school without ever being given the opportunity to race. And now my own children, a junior and freshman pioneer, are on track to experience the same thing. For five years, families have tried to do everything right. We've worked respectfully and persistently with district staff. We followed the process, provided documentation, built consensus. We've generated interest from more than 20 pioneer families and over 40 families district wide.
We've brought forward a fully funded zero cost proposal to form a cooperative ski team with Saline High School. This is one of many proposals we've proposed. One that would require no administrative work, no transportation costs, no financial commitment from APS. The only thing needed was a signature. Yet despite meeting every criteria the district itself outlines for adding a new athletic program, the doors remain closed. Over the years, we've communicated with multiple district leaders. The individuals who are by the district's own account,
decision makers in this process, have been completely unresponsive to dozens of emails and phone calls have gone unanswered. The only meaningful response came after we physically went to the district office and made it clear we were not leaving until someone addressed our proposal. Even then, they refused to meet in person and instead sent a form letter stating that APS is not adding any new sports while simultaneously claiming that the process is open and considered thoughtfully and equitably for all proposals. That statement directly contradicts our experience and the district's own stated process.
We were told there's a path and then told the door is permanently shut. This isn't about a lack of interest, funding, or feasibility. It's about accountability and responsiveness. Every comparable district in our region, Saline, Brighton, Chelsea, Northville, many others field an MHSA ski team. Ann Arbor already supports many non MHSAA sports, like equestrian and crew. Clearly, the precedent exists. The infrastructure exists. The student enthusiasm exists. What's missing is the will of the district's leadership to engage and act in good
faith. This lack of responsiveness sends a damaging message to families that the district's stated commitment to student opportunity and inclusion stops when students propose something new, tells students that their voices don't matter, and that they can follow every rule, meet every requirement, and still be ignored without explanation. The board should be aware that this is not an isolated incident. It reflects a broader culture of administrative inertia and undermines innovation and discourages community engagement. When families bring forth fully funded, no cost,
student driven proposals and are met with silence or form letters, it erodes trust in the system, drives family ways from the district. Ann Arbor Public Schools prides itself on excellence, on equity, on listening to its students. I'm asking the board to live up to those values. Look into why a straightforward, no cost MHSA sanctioned opportunity supported by dozens of families has been stalled for five years. Our students deserve better than bureaucratic silence. It's time for AAPS to stop deflecting and start supporting the students it claims to
serve. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes public commentary. Thank you, miss Ozansky. Superintendent Parks, are there any points of clarification? Yeah. I would, offer just a couple points here. Number one, obviously, safety is our our number one priority. So we will look into the concerns expressed, this evening during the comments about, some of the safety measures at at our school. As it relates to athletics, there are a variety of factors that go into whether or not, new teams and extracurricular clubs and activities are added. So we will follow-up with our athletic directors,
to see what is what what's going on there, and we'll follow-up with the the parent who brought the concern for. Thank you, miss Parks. I believe that brings us down. Trustee Wilkinson? Yeah. I would like to make one more clarification. Just the millage that was referenced is a countywide millage through the ISD. Ann Arbor public doesn't control that, and that's not our millage that's put forward. Thank you, Trustee Wilkerson. I'm seeing nothing else. I believe that brings it down to number four, community feedback. Trustees, I would like to call you call your attention to the community feedback for this
meeting. Should all have that in your There there is no community feedback that we received for this meeting. Sorry. No problem. I believe that brings us down to number five, reports of associations. Miss Ozinski, do we, do we have anyone here from the AAEA tonight? I do not believe so. I did not get notified. Does anyone here from the AAAA to report? No. I think we are no. We have no report tonight. K. That brings us down to our community group reports then. Miss Ozinski, do we have any group signed up for this evening? We do. The PTOC has signed up.
Alright. Hi. I'm gonna be your bad penny tonight. Sorry about that. So I'm, while you oh, thank you so much for, like is it the little lever here? Okay. Thanks. Well, like, I challenged. Sorry about that. So, I have already introduced, introduced myself. I'm also here with the PTOC. You wanna introduce yourself as well? Sure. I'm Peri. Stone Palmquist with Student Advocacy Center, and we're happy to be partnering with PTOC. Yep. Do we have our our slides that okay. Thank you. Okay. Perfect. Thanks. So, we appreciate you giving us this time to talk about a crucial initiative called invest
in my kids. Next slide, please. Thank you. We're starting with this quote from former associate justice of the supreme court Louis Brandeis because this campaign is about schools, but it's also about more than that. Public education is the cornerstone of our democracy, and how we fund it goes to the heart of who this nation is and what we choose to become. Another politician, Biden also Joe Biden also said that, show me your where what you fund, and I'll show you your values. So on public education, we value public education.
We know that there's no silver bullet to creating great public schools for every child. This movement has been building since 2015 when education advocates and experts started working together to research and enact smart policies. One of the things they realized is that in order for any reform to be possible, our schools have to be fully resourced. So they built comprehensive cost estimates for a truly adequate system and have been working towards that goal ever since. In the past two years, we've seen the first increases because of a strong economy and additional federal funding have
led to higher state revenues. But that progress has now reached its limit, and it's even at risk of falling backwards because of federal cuts. Next slide, please. Thank you. Here's some of the data that our coalition has been looking at over the past ten years. This is a chart which shows standardized test scores, or one measure of student achievement, and those are the colored bars in the in the graph. In in Michigan, and it's depicted against national achievement scores. So the zero line is the national average, and the bars are where test scores in Michigan fall either above or below the
national average. When the colored bars go below, that means Michigan is below average. And as you can see, in the early two thousands, Michigan students were above the national average and in around 2007 dropped significantly below, where we've stayed for almost twenty years. If you click, there's another part of the yeah. Yep. I get one more time, please. Thank you. Now we look at state appropriations over this time period. So, the squiggly line is state appropriations adjusted,
inflation adjusted for, 2000 for 2024. And as you can see, the, you know, the line is pretty high, and then it starts to dip. And in conjunction with that dip sort of with a little bit of a lag, that's when test scores start to fall. You can see that, that state appropriations have increased over the past couple years. But, again, we can't count on that because of current decreases in federal funding. And even if we could, it would still take time for test scores to catch up.
Yeah. Of course. Into that, I think we may have seen headlines recently about record funding. I'm gonna ask you if you would like $10 today or $10 ten years ago. The value is very different. Right? So when you go to policy school, you learn. You gotta do inflation adjusted numbers. So our per pupil today is actually I looked at, like, 1994. It's it's oh, what 1994 was or early two thousands. It's not record funding, when you when you adjust for inflation. And I think the other piece I just have to bring up is that as
I'm sure superintendent Parks knows, more and more cost for retirement, since 1994 has been put on to school districts. In fact, I think the percentage is almost doubled the last chart that I looked at. So not only is the money going down, but what districts are expected to pay for has been going up. So this only tells part of the story, but I just had to add that. Sorry. Oh, thank you. No. Don't apologize. That's why you're here too. Next slide, please. So as we said, school funding in Michigan has been dropping dramatically over the past twenty five years, and student achievement has been dropping as well.
In the early two thousands, we were spending in the neighborhood of $21,000,000,000 annually on schools. Starting in about 02/2003, we saw that level begin to drop where it dipped for twenty years to levels around 16 to 18,000,000,000. So that's a pretty substantial difference. We've seen an uptick in the last two to three years, as I mentioned, but it only gets us back up to 2,004 levels. COVID dollars, which are not reflected in the chart, have also been a cushion for schools, but those dollars no are not there anymore. Next slide, please.
So our coalition approached the question of how to raise funds for schools in a time of growing inequality very carefully. We met with economists and lawyers who helped us understand our tax effort by income and what mechanisms would allow us to raise significant, sufficient revenue most fairly. Next. And that led us here. The invest in my kids campaign is a valid initiative to amend the state constitution to add, beginning in 2027, an additional 5% tax on annual taxable income over $1,000,000
for joint filers and over $500,000 for single filers. That means it only applies to income above and beyond those thresholds. So you would be taxed if if you're a single filer, you make $500,000 a year. All of that money is taxed at the normal rate. You make $500,001. It's $1 that is taxed at that additional 5% rate. So this revenue must be and this revenue must be deposited into the state school aid fund and is required to be used exclusively on local school district classrooms,
career and technical education, reducing class sizes, and recruiting and retaining teachers. And this fund would be subject to annual audits. Thank you. You're gonna hear a lot of claims over the next year and a half, and it comes down to this. Whose interests are are they trying to protect? Our opponents are some of the wealthiest people in the world. They know that you've seen the chart showing their current tax rates. They can't just say they don't wanna pay their fair share, and they know that you care about kids. They can't just say that they don't. So they'll say whatever they need to,
and we're all gonna have to remember to see through it. And so here are three of the common things that you'll that you'll probably hear. Does the fair surcharge apply to businesses? Absolutely not. This only applies to individual taxable income. So that's wages, investment income, gambling, winnings, business, any individual business income. So this is not corporate taxes or business small business taxes. This is income taxes. That, you that that, you know, $1,000,000 for joint filers, 500,000 for individual filers. Aren't schools funded enough?
And what about the lottery? Well, money alone is not a silver bullet to make great schools, but it is a baseline requirement. Comprehensive nonpartisan studies have shown that we are not funding our schools adequately. Although the lottery can is an important contributor, it only makes up about six percent of the school aid fund. And we can't solve this problem by encouraging people to buy more lottery tickets. It just it's not gonna work that way. So next thank you. So here are our partners. Invest in My Kids is a grassroots direct democracy initiative supported by many organizations across
the state who have a long history of fighting for equity, justice, and empowerment across Michigan, especially in the areas of education and civic engagement. But, next, please. Thank you. But most importantly, we're parents, we're grandparents, we're aunts and uncles, neighbors, friends who care about Michigan kids. This is not politics as usual. This is a peep this is people powered, community rooted, and Michigan grown. Because real change doesn't trickle down, it rises up. Next slide slide, please. And here's our plan to win.
We're recruiting and training 7,000 volunteers across the the state to collect signatures starting well, we started in mid August. The plan is to submit 700,000 signatures in 2026. And that's because once we start collecting, we have one hundred eighty days to get the signatures that we need. And then we'll focus on talking to every Michigander so that a majority, about 2,800,000, vote yes in November 2026. Next slide, please. So none of this works without all of us.
So I encourage you all to to pull out your phones, not right now, after the meeting, and open up investinmykids.org. If you choose, go volunteer and choose to circulate petitions. It would also be wonderful if the board could draft and pass a resolution supporting our effort. Your words of support would mean so much in our fight to more appropriately fund public education. Just a couple of Of course. A couple of things. Yeah. It's all hands on deck. This is a heavy lift. This is a heavy lift. I never thought for me personally that I would be out collecting signatures,
but I care about public education enough to get into a very uncomfortable place and talk to a lot of strangers. I just collected 15 signatures, at a meeting before this. Most of the time, people are very generous and lovely, and sometimes people aren't. And they say, our public school is wasting money. And then I spend a lot of time defending y'all, and talking about what our children, our young people tell us, what they're seeing in their schools, and our teachers, and all that stuff. So, again, I like I'm not a particularly political person. I don't like going out and talking to strangers, but this is so important. And I wanna thank the people in the room who are out collecting,
because that is time away from your family. My My family's like, when am I gonna see you again? Are you working another Saturday? I'm like, yes. I am. I'm collecting signatures. Mom, are you bringing that with you to this place too? I'm like, yes. I am. So there's a lot of there's hundreds of volunteers even here in Washington County who are giving up family time, personal time, because that's how much they care about public education. Yeah. They're spending a lot of time. We need more people even if all you can do is, bring it with you to your faith community or to your family. We need more people collecting. Thank you to the individual board members who have endorsed.
I hope more of you will. There are school boards that are also endorsing as a school board. There's a couple so far and others are having those conversations. So I'd encourage you to think about that. I'm happy to support that conversation. And those who are watching, keep talking. Like, we're not gonna get where we this is and this is only one piece of what we need because we know that public schools are underfunded by more than $4,500,000,000. So this is one piece. It's not a panacea, but we got to do all the things that you guys can do your jobs. Thanks. If you have any questions, though, about any of this, either of us are happy to answer.
Yeah. Thank you all very much. Any questions at this time? Alright. I think we'll reach out to you individually. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Yeah. Thank you. President Feaster, I, missed someone who had signed up for public commentary, and I wondered if we could call the gentleman up now before Aspire, if that's okay. Sure. And it is mister Mayhew. Come on up. Yes. Local local government rocks. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm Dirk Mayhew from Ann Arbor. Thanks for letting me speak. I'm here tonight because Tuesday, I was in Washtenaw County sheriff training for active shooter.
I don't know if any of you guys have taken that, but it's it's pretty intense, kinda grim. And sheriff deputy Eugene Rush shared a lot of information that was kind of eye opening. One of the things he said was that almost always the, there's somebody that knows ahead of time that the shooter's gonna commit murder, a a brother, a sister, a peer group member. And most of the time, more than one person knows. Victims usually know they're murderers. But that means that someone in our community we've been lucky. If someone in our community ahead ahead of time would know, that means we can stop it. It's cheap.
It's simple. Deputy Eugene Rush had a lot of very on point, simple criticism on public school policy and procedure, and I worry that that we don't take advantage of some of those law enforcement techniques and procedures because, like, the rest of the nation, we've become numb. Our version of numb is that we're lucky. You know, Oxford is too far away or that that the Chelsea school shooting was too long ago, and and we're we're just riding that luck. Today is one of the days ahead of when our luck runs out. Tomorrow is another day when we could have done something,
and I'm here tonight to ask that board or individuals reach out to the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office. Eugene Rush deputy Eugene Rush had a lot of really simple things to say and techniques that that work. These are law enforcement professionals with suggestions about how to deal with shooters. Their procedures, according to him, don't line up with ours. We have things to learn. It's available locally. You don't have to boil the ocean to get there. So that's my ask. And somebody please work with the sheriff's office. At least get him to agree that your procedures are good. How about that?
And thanks again for letting me speak. Thank you. Hey. And now we'll hear from Aspire. Hi, members of the board. I'm here from Aspire. We also have a couple of other members that are here with us today. We are parents and caregivers in the Ann Arbor Public Schools who are committed to racial equity, and we wanna thank you for your work, on behalf of our students and families. We We know that you've made difficult decisions. We deeply value the hours and energy that you dedicate to our schools. At the same time, we feel that it's essential to raise some concerns. Number one, the need for dedicated equity leadership. The The district immediately needs dedicated equity leadership to ensure that the goals and strategic
plan and authentic community engagement are met. Without staff whose primary role is advancing equity, we are falling short of our commitments to all of our children. Our thoughts on the climate survey, and parent trust in the community. So some of us listened to the performance committee meeting and the climate survey results underscore the urgency of the work that we are describing. While 82% of staff said that leaders are welcoming of families in all cultures, only 66% of families felt welcomed, and nearly one in ten parents reported their child had experienced personally race or ethnicity
based discrimination. Even more concerning to us, twenty five to twenty nine percent of secondary students report experiencing discrimination and harassment. Forty percent of secondary students reported witnessing it. What is being done to address this? What are you doing to identify groups of students experiencing this discrimination and harassment? When will you report back to the community on your findings so that we can discuss a path forward as a community? We heard you concerned about the low response rates. We share that concern, and we would also like you to consider that this might be a result of district and board choices. We heard an assumption that the low rate was because many people are happy and
things are going well in the district. While that may be true, many parents we know chose specifically not to participate in the survey because on the second page, it required you to identify your child's school. This undermines trust and confidentiality. Many of us backed out and did not complete it. Combined with the board's recent efforts to restrict opportunities for parents to comment, this gives the impression that parent voices are not welcome or wanted in this space. Please remove barriers to parent involvement in your decision making process. And I'd also like to say, even today we had parents who tried to sign up for public commentary and could
not get through the forum. So even today the forum was broken and people could not even sign up for public commentary to come here in person. And I also want to elevate that one of, the parents that wanted to come cannot get here because they reasonably can't get here on public transportation. And I want to continue to highlight that switching to only in person comments limits it to some of the most vulnerable community members that we have still to this day. Strategic plan collaboration and transparency. The strategic plan will only succeed if it is collaborative. Families, students, and staff must be included not only in the plan itself, but in the process of selecting the firm that will guide this work.
A strategic plan designed without us will not be one that reflects our community's needs and values. We must begin to address our opportunity gaps more intentionally. We urge you to approach this work with openness, transparency, and genuine collaboration. Parents are eager to be partners with the district and creating schools where every child thrives. We believe that listening to families will strengthen, not weaken our schools. Lastly, we want to address the comments on the CTE millage. ASPIRE enthusiastically supports the CTE millage. These programs are particularly powerful for Black and Brown students. Youth Policy Lab at Michigan found that Washtenaw County access to career and technical education
programs is deeply unequal. White students in the county are more likely than their Black and Latino peers to have access to 10 or more CTE programs. Black students, on average, have access to three fewer programs than white students. Further, Advanced CTE found that students of color and low income students who complete CTE programs are just as likely, if not more likely, to pursue post secondary education as their peers. For students who may not see themselves on a traditional four year college track, CTE programs offer another way to build a future. In a diverse county like Washtenaw, this matters a lot. We know that racial and economic opportunity gaps persist in reading and math scores,
graduation rates, and post secondary access. While While we should also continue to focus on closing these opportunity gaps, CTE helps close these gaps by offering a different kind of excellence rooted in skill, creativity, and real world problem solving. When students see themselves succeeding in kitchens, construction sites, or coding labs, they start to believe in their own potential. Additionally, in our own county, this millage would free up money currently being used for CTE to focus on improving the gaps in core subjects. Thank you again for your commitment to our students and our families, and we hope you'll take these concerns as an invitation to work together toward a stronger, more inclusive future for AAPS.
Thank you all very much. I believe that brings us down to, board committee reports. And the first one I see is the equity and inclusion committee. Chair is trustee Mohammed. Yeah. So so we met. It was September 30, and we initially talked about past work, the current work that has been going on when it comes to equity. Superintendent Parks went over with the equity, education framework and how that was, you know, how that was a guide, especially of how we make sure that people feel belonging,
inclusive, and and so on. And then we had a discussion about just generally, especially as there is work, hopefully, moving forward without the strategic plan, How do we make sure we engage with the students and make sure that all student groups and all communities feel heard? We talked a little bit about the five student groups, but we also talked about what other what other groups that we can, connect with. We talked about, some of the barriers with engagement, especially under the current administration.
There are groups are worried about ICE and and worried about, being in public spaces to to meet. So we talked a little bit about that and just kinda brainstormed, a little bit of how what are some different approaches. We also talked about I know we were gonna talk about, some of the criteria that we went from as a board for the search firm. And one, I believe, trustee Wilkins mentioned, about it is important that whatever not search firm. I keep the firm that we're gonna be using for the strategic plan is that,
how they communicate with different groups and what language and words are being used. So that groups don't feel like we're just interacting with them as, like, a token effort, but more like actually, you know, them feeling included in the process. And then we talked about, again, a little bit about kind of the barriers and, some of the outcomes that are important that we include, when we're interacting, measurables when we're interacting with these groups. So that's a little bit about what we we talked about. But we're hoping that you know,
I'm just presenting what we talked about, but I'm hoping that this would be a broader discussion, especially when we start looking at firms and their criteria and how we approach the strategic plan and intentionally making sure that we look at, a more inclusive, equitable approach, especially with these five student groups that we always talk bring up. I don't know. Did I miss anything, trustee Wilkes or Wilkins? Is there anything else? Can you just sort of clarify the five student groups? What are you talking about demographics? Can you be a little more specific?
Yeah. So it was definitely the groups that we always monitor when it comes to academic achievement, when it comes to discipline, when it comes to, like, all the reporting. And then it it includes the, black student group, the Latino, the socioeconomic disadvantaged groups, special education group, and then ELL. ELL. I should remember that. English language yeah. English learners. But that's a great question. Thank you, trustee Mohammed. Alright. No question. Next, I believe, is the executive committee. We met very briefly to set the agenda for tonight's meeting and to discuss the
agenda for the October 22 meeting. We did, discuss, the possibility of adding, some of the items the trustees have mentioned in the past to the agenda for those meetings. Some of the parks are still working to collect some data and put some things together. But we do want to address, those items which do include the, cell phone policy, and the broader, question about the social media, litigation, how that ties in with the cell phone policy. So those things will be coming to an agenda soon. And those are pretty much all the things that we,
that we addressed at the executive committee meeting for the this meeting or the next meeting. Did I miss anything? Alright. Seeing that I did not, now I'll turn it over to trustee Wilkerson, for the finance committee. Excellent. The finance committee met on Tuesday, September 30 at 9AM. We did an initial review of the literacy materials, which will be presented during first briefing night. And if you don't mind, I'll cover the planning committee. Yes, sure. Our planning committee met on Tuesday, October 7 at 12PM. We had initial discussion on the approach to strategic planning.
So we looked at draft planning process and the draft rubric for vendor selection and provided some feedback in that meeting. Thank you very much, Trustee Wilkerson. And that leaves us with the performance committee. And I will turn it over to Vice President Schmidt for that update. Okay. We met on Wednesday, October 1. We had two reports that we, reviewed. One was the annual culture and climate survey and also the student achievement annual report. This evening, the board will be shown the student achievement annual report.
So for the full board to talk about, ask questions, and, a report about the annual culture and climate survey report will be forthcoming to the whole board. Thank you, Trustee Schmidt. Seeing no questions, I will move down to the information section and superintendent Parks, the superintendent update. Thank you very much, president Feaster. I appreciate the opportunity to provide an update, this evening to trustees and our community. We'll start out with our recognitions. This month is a recognition of National Principals Month where we express gratitude for the dedication and service of our Ann Arbor Public Schools principals,
who provide our students and families and staff members, with their service in their communities each day. An effective school leader makes a significant diff difference in serving and supporting the school community. So we thank our leaders for their tireless efforts to strengthen and work alongside the school team while maintaining the school environment as a welcoming and safe place for all. So thank you to our Anarbor Public Schools principals for the positive and profound differences you continue to make in the lives of your students, your staff, and your families each day. The month of October is Filipino American History Month with which honors the history,
culture, accomplishments, and legacy of Filipino Americans, the second largest Asian American group of The United States. In the Ann Arbor Public Schools, our teachers, librarians, and school teams highlight literature, picture books, and a variety of developmentally appropriate materials to honor and celebrate the Filipino experience, culture, history, and contributions. We are a much stronger, school community and district community as we honor, embrace, and celebrate our diversity, continually create a culture of belonging for all, and value the connections that unite us in our inclusive community.
October is also Head Start Awareness Month. This is a nationwide celebration highlighting the enduring national commitment to breaking the generational cycle of poverty by providing access to critical early childhood education and support to families in need. Head start programs support children's growth from birth to age five through services that support early learning and development, health, and family well-being. Head start is an effective investment that helps prepare all children regardless of their circumstances at birth for success in school.
October 6, so a couple of days ago, we we celebrated World Cerebral Palsy Day. This global event aims to raise awareness of the millions of people worldwide diagnosed with cerebral palsy by promoting inclusion, challenging barriers, and advocating for a more accessible world. Cerebral palsy is the most common lifelong physical disability, but it remains one of the most overlooked and underfunded global health issues. The 2025 theme, millions of reasons, highlighted the diverse experiences import and importance of support for individuals with cerebral palsy.
We are a stronger community, again, as we honor and embrace and celebrate our differences, our diversity, and create a culture of belonging for all in our school communities. Many of our Ann Arbor public schools plan to engage their communities in National Walk Enroll to School Day tomorrow, October 9. Throughout October, school communities are using this focus to encourage safer routes to school and to inspire children and families to be more active. Next, we would like to, congratulate Wines Project Lead the Way teacher, Sarah Shemansky. Sarah Shemansky has been named a twenty twenty five twenty twenty six outstanding PLTW teacher.
This award recognizes outstanding educational leaders across The United States for their commitment to providing students with meaningful learning experiences through Project Lead the Way programs. Miss Shemansky was one of sixteenth ELTW launched teachers nationwide to receive this recognition. There she is on the screen there. PLTW is honoring Sarah Szymanski for her work in the PLTW launch pathway. Sarah has been a teacher at Wines. She was also previously at Carpenter in Dickett Elementary as well for ten years.
Sarah has co has coed our PLTW launch team and supports our Ann Arbor Public Schools work and our PLTW programs, Wi Fi through 12. She as well, supports our CTE programs. So congratulations to miss Szymanski. We have a quote here from the the president of PLTW. He says every day educators show up to make an important and life changing difference in the lives of young people and communities all across our country. They build on students' natural curiosity and inspire confidence while helping prepare them for a
range of of life opportunities and experiences. PLTW is proud to honor and celebrate extraordinary educators each year through our national awards program, and we here in the Ann Arbor Public Schools are very proud of miss Sarah Szymanski. Retired Ann Arbor Public Schools and, educator honored, by a Michigan Alliance for Environmental and Outdoor Education. So last weekend, Dave Siegel was honored during the Michigan Alliance for Environmental and Outdoor Education annual conference when he was awarded the William Stapp Environmental Education Award,
which is m a e o e's highest honor in the field of environmental education. Mister Siegel retired from Ann Arbor Public Schools in 2024 after serving in the district for thirty eight years. For twenty eight of those years, he worked in the district's environmental education program where he led tens of thousands of students on field trips to explore and get hands on learning about nature. The award is named for doctor Bill Stapp, who is often credited as a founder of environmental education and who helped launch the
AAPS environmental education program in 1959. The statewide professional organization honoring mister Siegel's lifetime of service and significant contributions to environmental, environmental education in Ann Arbor is a proud moment for AAPS, and the fact that the award is named for doctor Stapp's Doctor Stapp makes it even more special. So congratulations to mister Siegel. Yeah. And lastly, we wanna remind, our community of our AAPS early fall break for students and staff, which is coming up on October 10,
this Friday, and Monday, October 13. And that concludes the superintendent's report. Thank you, superintendent Parks. If there's no question on her report, then I will turn it back over to superintendent Parks for the student achievement annual report for twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five. Thank you very much, president Feaster. We have miss, Linden, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning coming forward. We're also with, doctor Dan Berger, who will be sharing the fall twenty twenty five student achievement annual report this evening. This report is,
a highlight of the results from our M STEP, PSAT, and SAT, achievement data that, I'll turn it over to doctor Berger and miss Linden to walk us through. Thank you very much. Good evening, president Feaster, trustees, and superintendent Parks. It's our pleasure to bring forward the fall student achievement report. This represents the results of the spring assessments for M STEP, PSAT and SAT. As we did last year, Doctor. Berger is going to walk you through all of those data slides and take any questions you may have,
and then we'll wrap with some next steps. Thank you. Good evening, members of the board, Superintendent Parks. So much like we did last year, we're going to walk through, the M STEP, PSAT eight, and SAT results. A few slides just to give you some context and some reminders about the testing. So the state of Michigan mandates a set of 20 content, specific summative tests for students. They're listed in the table that you can see on the slides here. There's the M STEP for, English language arts grades three through seven and math grades three through seven, for science grades five,
eight, and 11, and for social studies in grades five, eight, and 11. The PSAT eight is used, to assess reading, writing, and math in grade eight, and the SAT is used to assess reading, writing, and math in grade 11. So together this is a set of 20 content specific tests. The other state test requirements that we will not be talking about this evening are the WIDA test, which is, looking at English language acquisition for English learners in the district and the my access tests, which are for students who use IEP, since they need to take an alternative to the regular M STEP PSAT,
SAT test. Go on to the next slide, please. So a little bit of context. The M STEP SAT and PSAT are given once a year. They represent just a single snapshot at one moment in time on that one day. So, you know, if a student's having a bad day, they might not do well. If they have a great day, they might do well. But we figure if we take the average of all the people, all the students results together, we get a pretty good idea of of how we're doing on those things. We do though know that there is some bias on, standardized assessments that is present in the writing of them. So, you know, I just wanna forward that. That is a true statement that we know.
So we know that that's a weakness of these tests. We also know that sometimes the high stakes nature of the assessments can create difficulties in the measurement. Students might be more nervous about these assessments than another one because it's this big thing that's once a year. So it it can create some difficulties. But nevertheless, despite all these things, the assessments are a carefully conceived measure monitored over time across all of our students. And they serve importantly as a way that we can measure how well our system is serving those students. And via disaggregation, we can see how well we are serving specific groups of students.
So we can monitor that over time and we can look at that, in a single snapshot moment. If we go to the next slide. And a final note, you know, what we're presenting here is not cohort data. It doesn't represent individual student growth. The results represent different groups of students in different years. So if we're looking at the twenty twenty three third grade math test versus the twenty twenty four third grade math test versus the 2025 most recent third grade math test, we know that those are different groups of third graders. Totally different students. And so, you know, when we do comparisons,
we do track and see, like, how are we doing for third graders over time? But there's always, some variance in different student groups. So we don't want to look at it too, too carefully as this group of students from third grade to third grade because it's not the same group of students. So just wanted to bring that in your mind as well. So with with all of those caveats out of the way, we'll we'll jump in here. And the first table is looking at kind of the overall results of for all students, from 10,000 foot view. And so these we're looking at these 20 tests that were listed on the the
front slide. And for each These, we're looking at the percent at or above what the state says is the proficiency level, on that 2025 spring testing. So that's the bold part, that you see in the the bold columns. And And then, of course, the number of students assessed is there. Generally, it is, you know, around 1,200 ish in most of our grade levels. So you can see that, overall, we increased our percent of students who are proficient in the in a given grade level from one year to twenty from 2024 to twenty twenty five in 13 of
the 20 tech tests. So 65% of the tests, we increased. That's actually better than we did from 23 to 24 when we increased in 11 or 55% of the tests. And those are marked with stars on this table. So if you look, for example, at M STEP grade five ELA, you can see that 63.6% has an asterisk next to a star. And that says that that's an increase from the percent of students who are proficient in the prior year in 2024 at that grade level and subject area. On top of that, we also had six tests or 30% of the tests,
and those are denoted by the plus sign here, where it was the second year in a row that we saw an increase in the percent of students who were proficient. So overall, 65% of the tests, we saw an increase. And in some of the 30% of the tests, that was a two year increase, that we're that we're tracking, one year to the next. And then so we're gonna look at this in several ways. That was us compared to ourselves last year. What this next plot shows is Ann Arbor Public Schools results compared to the state of Michigan as a whole and to our ISD,
our intermediate school district that we were part of, the Washtenaw ISD. I'm gonna talk about this one a little carefully because you will see a chart that looks a lot like this one many times later. So if you look at the the plot that you have in front of you, the green dots represent the percentage of, students who are who are advanced or proficient for the whole entire state of Michigan. The purple dots represent the Washington ISD, but I have removed the NR Republic school results from that. So it's just the rest of the ISD. So the ISD minus us are what the purple dots represent and that's,
it's it does say that in the legend. It's the Washington ISD without APS. And then the blue dots are our results, which match what we just saw with the percent of students who are proficient or advanced in each of these 20 subject areas. You can see that if we look at these overall results, the entire Republic Schools continues to perform at higher levels overall than the state and the intermediate school district on the entire battery of Michigan State tests. Our dot has our students are reaching a higher, percent proficient or advanced than the ISD or the state. So that is an overall result.
If we go to the next slide, this slide is a little busy, but, I think it's it's useful. And this slide is showing us, our results for 2025 in the Niagara public schools broken down by different student demographic groups. So if you look at the table or I'm sorry, the display here, the large blue dots will match what you saw in the blue dots in the last one. That's the overall student all students results. And then we have a bunch of smaller dots and diamonds that represent, different student demographic groups. The round dots represent a race or ethnicity, group,
and the diamonds represent, another demographic group. So you can see, for example, the purple diamonds represent the economically disadvantaged students. The kind of bluish teal diamonds represent English learners, and the black diamonds represent students with disabilities. If you look at this chart, you can see that, unfortunately, we continue to see wide disparities in performance by student demographics. You can see if you kinda look at this overall across the 20 tests, there are certain groups that we see are above the all students regularly, and there are certain stu groups of students demographically,
specifically our five focus groups, Hispanic, Latino students, black or African American students, economically disadvantaged students, English learners, and students with disabilities who are below the all students. So you can see these gaps, that we still have, that we're still working, to to try to ameliorate. If we go on to the next slide, actually, I put these here for you. We're not gonna talk about these carefully right now. But these are just the actual raw number percentages from everything that you just saw on the prior slide. I know sometimes it's hard to look at the dots and say what exactly that percentage is, but but it's all here for you in this slide.
And if you go on to the next one in this slide as well. So if you want the actual raw numbers, they're all there. But the next thing we're gonna look at is are the Anarbor Public Schools compared to the state and the ISD, but within each of these student demographic groups. So the first plot you see here, is comparing Asian students in the state of Michigan, the Washington ISD without us, to the Ann Arbor Public Schools. And you can see that the Ann Arbor Public Schools continue to perform higher than the state and intermediate school district on the entire battery of Michigan standardized tests for Asian students. Go to the next slide,
please. We generally perform higher than the state and intermediate school district for most tests for black or African American students. Although, you'll note that the ISD is close to or outpaces us in a couple of the tests. Specifically looking at grade seven M STEP ELA. You can see that the purple dots a little bit ahead of ours. They're pretty much right with us for grade five science M STEP. They're a little ahead of us for grade 11 science M STEP. So overall, we are still outpacing the state and the ISD, but not quite by as much as we did on the for the prior demographic group.
We go to the next slide. Ann Arbor performs higher than the state than the immediate school district for most tests, for Hispanic and Latino students. There's one case, you can see, grade 11 M STEP science where, the ISD outpaces us. And it's a little bit closer to our results for eleventh grade in general. You on to the next slide. Ann Arbor performs higher than the state and the ISD on most tests for, students of two or more races. Although the ISD is close and again, in in one case, specifically, again, it's that M STEP grade 11 science, that the ISD outpaced us.
Moving on to the next slide. You can see that we continue to perform, better than the state and the ISD on the entire battery of Michigan's test for white students. Moving on to the next slide. We perform higher than the state earning immediate school district for most tests for economically disadvantaged students. Although, and and for we're higher than higher percentages proficient than the ISD on all the tests. But the state actually outpaced us on both of the grade three tests for math and ELA. And on two of the grade five tests, specifically, that was grade five.
I'm lost my notes here. Grade five ELA. Thank you. And, it was social studies. So the next slide is English learners. You can see again, we we tend to outpace the state and the ISD. Although the state outpaced us for grade three and grade five ELA tests, English language arts tests. Continuing to the next slide. We performed higher than the state or intermediate school district on all the tests for students with disabilities with the exception of, the grade three mathematics test. You can see the ISC is just a little tiny bit ahead of us, on that. So in summary,
our 2025% proficient or advanced on state assessments increased on 65% of the grade level subjects tested between 2024 and 2025. The average increase across those 13 areas was 4.9 percentage points or almost five percentage points. And for 30 on 30% of those tests or six of them, that's two years in a row of increases. Of course, this means that our proficiency levels fell on 35% of the tests, which is, you know, something that we need to work on. The average fall, the average drop of of the percent proficient was,
negative two percentage points. So about two percentage points less on average for those, for those other seven tests. We unfortunately still see relatively large and predictable achievement gaps in our results by student demographics, specifically for black African American students, Hispanic Latino students, economically disadvantaged students, English learners, and students with disabilities. And we generally outpace both the state of Michigan and our local ISD across grade level subjects, although we do less well comparatively for those five groups than the other groups. So we're we're closer to or in some cases being outpaced by the state of
the ISD. We're doing less well for those groups comparatively. And that's the end of the data piece. So I will turn it over to, miss London for next steps. Before we move to next steps, are there any questions about the data bits for the slides, the charts? Yes. Miss Lam. So I know I asked this before, during the performance committee, but it would help still. I know that you can turn it around in a short amount of time. But to have the percentage changes, not just overall, but even within those student groups to see,
you know, are they increasing? I think that's important for us to look at, and especially see where those gaps are, because obviously they are I I know there's a lot of work around, and I know that's your part, but there's a lot of work around trying to address those gaps. But we've been seeing these gaps for many years. And then yeah. I think I think that's the big thing is just trying to see the the difference. Trustee Wilks. Yeah. I, had a question, with slide number five. If you could go back to slide number five. So many of these numbers indicate an increase in proficiency advanced label level compared to
2024 and 2023. But do any of these numbers indicate a decrease or no change? So again, on slide five How are we? How are we? Because some of the numbers don't have a plus, aura, and asterisk. Yeah. Any For example, ELA Mhmm. M STEP third grade, 56.3%. What does that number represent? Does that represent holding steady? Does that represent a decrease? What does it show? So none of the results were identical to 2024.
So any that does not have an asterisk or a plus sign, those are the seven where we saw a decrease. Now that decrease in, you know, the smallest case, it was a decrease of point one percentage points. And in the largest case, I think it was a decrease of a little over five percentage points. But but all the ones that do not have a star or a plus sign are a decrease of some amount. And the average decrease across those seven was negative two percentage points. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. Of course. So welcome. Do we have any data on,
whether there are more and more students opting out, especially at the SAT level now that colleges more colleges are test optional? So because these are state mandated tests, there is no option for opting out of these tests. The state of Michigan does not allow any option. It is possible that somebody could just not show up to school and refuse to take it. Right. But in general, our percentage of students who are taking the test is always well above ninety five percent. Okay. Yeah. There's not sort of a a formal opt out because the state says that you can't have an opt out for these tests.
Okay. And my other question was, you mentioned there were two groups that this wasn't represented. One of them was students with IEPs that have, extra allowances for test taking. So are those not included in these numbers? Students with IEPs are the students with disabilities that are included in these numbers. Okay. Specifically, the group of students that are not included here are the students whose IEP says that, they they can't even take this specific M STEP or these tests, and they take a separate test called the MyACCESS.
Okay. So that's actually a pretty small number of students overall. Sounds good. It's maybe around a half of a percent of our total population. It's less than a 100 students who took, the m the MyACCESS instead of one of the other standardized tests last year. K. I mean, the other group, it wasn't it wasn't that a group was missing. It was at a test we are not reporting on, and that is the WIDA test, which is a separate test that is used to measure the, English language acquisition of our EL students. Yep. Doctor Schmitt? Yeah. I'd like to follow-up on that. So, back when M STEP,
maybe it was another test. They've changed names over the years. In high school, they actually gave an award of $2,000 or something if you took it to high schoolers. Go back. Yeah. I know. Because the numbers were so low, kids were like, I don't need to take this. And the state wanted to evaluate what was going on in schools. They were like, I take the ACT. Then, of course, this all started. ACT and now it's SAT. But when we look at these numbers, and you go back to that slide, if you would, are we there? No. Sorry. You might as well just keep it up.
When we say six okay. Let's look at, PSL PSAT. I'm looking at eleventh grade. So the SAT, the lower corner. 57.7% were proficient. That's 57.7 of the students that took it. Yes? Uh-huh. I think knowing how many students didn't take it because I suspect there are students that aren't taking it. I don't care that it's required. But I can imagine if a student doesn't plan on going to college, unless we're saying you can't get your diploma unless you take this, I really wanna know, do we have students that aren't doing it?
And the reason I ask that is that if we have a number of students that perhaps wouldn't do well and they're not taking it, it kinda skews the percentage and the the increase. Do you do you follow me? I do. If I'm not mistaken, board policy actually does say that the students must take it to receive their diploma. Okay. So the the MME, which of which this is part of the Michigan merit examination. So then I'm gonna add another layer to this. If I'm a senior and I'm not going to college, I don't give a rat's rear about that test. I have to take it?
Ding. Ding. Ding. So it I just, you know, I mean, it it's just that this data, we have to always think about, you know, what are the unintended things that are happening, and we're putting so much weight on this snapshot. There's a lot of other things happening. I wanna connect to another thing. So, I'm looking at the amount of testing that happens. And when I was at Scarlet, I mean, I figured it was six weeks of instruction that was interrupted by testing I had to do in my classroom. Because if a child missed one day,
they the next day, you know, they had to be pulled out of class. I mean, it was just it was ridiculous because you have the NWEA three times a year. In, eighth grade or fifth grade, they have the math, ELA, science, social studies, M STEP, then they have end of the year. I mean, think about all that testing and how much instructional time is being sucked out of our classroom. And I just I know some of these things are required right now with benchmark assessments and such, but especially in the spring, when we look at when these m steps hit, these kids are so tested out in the spring window,
especially our eighth graders. There's so many tests they take in the spring. It's like, oh god. It's an NWA day. Oh, it's an M STEP day. We're not seeing the really best that they can give us, I don't think. So it's very different than when all of us were in school. We weren't tested so much, and the kids become desensitized in many ways with these tests. So we really have to be, mindful when we look at this data. It is just a snapshot, but I don't think it tells us a lot about what's going on. Okay. We'll trust the Wilkerson first and then trust the Mohammed. All right.
Two quick questions. The WIDA test and myACCESS, we don't include those. Is there a reason why we don't report on those? We never have. Well, it's a great question. We do monitor WIDA very carefully. We're looking for, how students are growing through the program, their scores changing. We're also looking to see the number of students who are exiting. So we use that data building by building. Huda Horajli, our director, and her team, they visit the buildings. They meet regularly with the EL team and the principals to review those data points. And when things aren't moving along, there are always interventions and things they work together to solve,
but we have never brought a WIDA report to the board. Okay. We can do that. Yeah. I think that would be an important perspective as we think about, you know, our new literacy programs, and we're going to talk about later today to see the impact of those for that specific subgroup. And then another question is, I mean, all of these exams or tests are evolving year over year, right? So, even though there are certain percentage decreases, it doesn't mean the test was the exact same. From a comprehension standpoint, it could be a bit different, more challenging exam from year to year as well.
Is that accurate? Are they? Yeah. That that can be true. They also adjust the cut score for proficiency every year. So that's, well, I would say every year, but they they do adjust that cut score regularly, based on what the data is showing. Okay. Alright. Thank you. That's sort of an trust the psychometricians moment, I think. Okay. Mister Mohammed? Yeah. I wanted to, I know trustee Schmidt made some really good points because there is definitely over testing, and Mhmm. You're taking one point of time. I think that's why it's important to look at trends. Yes. So,
and that's why, like, I'm looking at this data, but it's, like, I don't know. I mean, it's good to see that there is a very small change and shift, but just seeing kind of over time, what's happening, especially in these five five five student groups. But I just wanted to echo some of the points that trustee Schmidt made. Thank you. Trustee Schmidt? Yeah. Sorry. I get a little worked up about this. So, politically, there have been some really very interesting things that have happened over the last twenty years in education to the point where the political move is,
let's make public schools more accountable, to the point of removing instructional time. So think about how nonsensical that is. We're we have less time to teach. We're doing more testing with that time. I mean, that doesn't even make sense. And the move was we we want there was a political move to try to make public schools look bad by doing all this. And it's really, it is important for us, I think, as education leaders that we need to continue to talk to the people that are making these decisions at the state level,
that we have to balance trying to have accountability and testing without really, taking away instructional time. We also added professional development to be done now during the school year, and a lot of school districts are taking professional development time for the teachers, and that's taking instructional time away. So, I mean, you you just you know, you said it was a hundred and eighty days of instruction. It's not a hundred and eighty days of instruction anymore. That's not happening. Could you remove all those days that we do tests, days that are professional development?
I mean, so we need to continue to talk to legislators because they're calling the shots on how this goes for our children. Thank you, Trustee Smith. Trustee Wilks? Yeah. I'd just like to sort of piggyback on what you just said, Trustee Schmidt. So the outgoing state superintendent just recently said that, that the current instructional times have decreased. It used to be one hundred and eighty days, and, I believe for Ann Arbor, the minimum instruction time was a self imposed one hundred and eighty two days. I do believe correct me if I'm wrong,
superintendent Parks. We we have one hundred and seventy seven instructional days and instructional days and four professional development days that can be counted as instructional days. Okay. So a total of one eighty one. One eighty one? Okay. So I guess my point is is that like what trustee Schmidt was saying is that we're seeing fewer instructional hours for our students, and how does that play a role in what we're seeing. And I believe that as as a highly effective board, we don't wanna blame things such as poverty and,
you know, we don't wanna go that route. We really wanna look at what Mhmm. What sources or what contributing factors outside of our control are are not or what's within our control that we can fix? What initiatives can we put in place? And I do believe that that's what we're going to talk about soon, next step, which I'm really looking forward to that. Great. Thank you very much for your comments and questions. I think we share the concern in the data. I do think the trend data is helpful. Trustee Mohammed,
thank you for raising that here as well. I will tell you that to see those was it 13 areas, Dan, where where we've seen increases over two years, and these are separate cohorts improving, that does point to some changes that we are making in the system that could be having that positive impact cohort after cohort. We'll know more as we see the trend data improving in year three and year four. But it is significant to see almost 5% increase on average in areas like that.
Typically, when you're writing a district improvement plan, you're saying as a stretch target, we want to see 5% increase. So it that is positive news for us. However, when you dig into the data and you look at who is proficient, and we look at our demographics and our ethnicity groups, our our joy at that quickly, falls because we haven't made the headway that we should be making. So, we continue to work really hard in just about every single area that would impact students and their well-being and their achievement.
You may recall that last year, we had a far more comprehensive follow-up set of slides to doctor Berger's data where we talked about attendance and we talked about SEL, and we brought in a whole lot of slides to demonstrate the curriculum we've brought forward in SEL. We didn't do that this time. We wanted to focus our attention this time on those initiatives that are newer or in this ongoing implementation phase. But we can talk about any of those things as the trustees wish.
So we chose to highlight tonight, the district wide professional learning focus that's taking place over a three year path to dovetail relationships and routines, which really are the gateway to student achievement and engagement, and the transparency of learning goals and success criteria so that students can be far more engaged instead of learning blind in the classroom. They know where they're going. They know whether they're successful in it and what they need to do next. So really clarifying those things. It's a big deal for us as a district.
We have done some district wide focus for professional learning, but there has always been a building level, focus in competition with that. And we have operated that way for a while to honor the individuality in the buildings and the needs that are happening building by building. But this really marks the first time that we're allowing the entire district and the teams of the schools to focus on this and only this. So we're really hoping that by the end of this year, we can move into some more supportive and accountability pieces around this work,
really start surveying students more about their experiences. Has it changed for you? Do you feel yourself more engaged? Looking to see if the attendance has been impacted by this district wide focus. And, you may recall I shared some of those professional learning books with you earlier this year. So that's something in my time here that we have never done. And I'm very grateful for the district administrative team who helped set this focus for us and our teaching and learning team who are both working together on the curriculum design days and the staff meeting days to keep the foot on the gas of
this work. Because as you know, we we actually only have, during the school year, two days of professional learning. The other two days happen in August before we we begin school. So that's a big deal. A while back when we were talking about professional learning, you heard from Casey Elmore, the principal of Skyline, about the cell phone policy that has has been put in place there. So we're carefully monitoring those interventions. We're very proud of the results that we're seeing from that. So we're hoping that that element and that newer implementation will also have a positive
impact on student achievement. We're also proud that our partners with the AAAEA, we are working together to develop a student classroom feedback survey, that we will pilot this spring, and we will be engaging with our middle school students, at each of our middle schools from sixth, seventh, and eighth grade to help us develop the questions. We're gonna center the voices of students from student groups that we have not served well historically in the district, and they're gonna help us ask the right questions. So, we look forward to bringing an update to the board of education as those surveys
get developed by our very wise students. And our wonderful teachers who choose to pilot that with us will be, likely here with us sharing those data points as we get those underway. And I wanna thank our partners with the AAAA for working together with us on that. So those are some overall student engagement strategies. Similarly, those attendance strategies that I know Doctor. Hayward and Ms. Melita Alston have shared with you are ongoing. That work continues daily, to get our students into school. But just as a reminder,
last year, we shared the attendance rates pre pandemic and post pandemic. And, this is just a quick reminder that pre pandemic compared to post pandemic, we saw an increase of 11.2 on average days of absence per student. So that that is a significant increase in lost school days, and it's very concerning. So as a result of some of those data and the achievement data, we have been carefully monitoring doctor Berger administrative teams,
our MTSS team, all got together to develop that early warning system so that we can intervene quickly. So you may recall every single month, the buildings receive reports from doctor Berger on attendance, who's coming, who's not, who's being flagged as someone we need to reach out to immediately because they're on track to hit, targets we don't want our students to hit when it comes to missed days. We also add grade points when terms end or semesters end. Those grade reports are going out. So we're looking to see students who are on track to be successful in class
and those who may not, and those are more flags. So those flags help us to identify students who have one or two or three or four factors that, really mean they need some adult intervention, and a lot of that is really individualized. So I wanna thank our school counseling teams, our social workers, our building principals, and all of our educators who are busy monitoring for that and doing all that individualized outreach and support for our kids. So moving on, when it comes to English language arts, you're gonna hear more tonight from me. But we're very proud of a transformation that's been going on for the last several
years. So this year marks the full implementation of our arts and letters, reading and writing program. And we really, really look forward to sharing M STEP data from this coming spring, M STEP 2026. We expect to see small incremental improvements, but as students progress year after year through the elementary program, they're gonna be some of the best writers y'all have ever seen. So we're psyched about sharing that with you. So that transformation continues. And tonight, you'll hear about a special differentiation component that we're going to bring forward with grant
funding. You may not know that our secondary literacy intervention teachers, those who teach English plus academic literacy, have been and are being trained in AARI. That's an adolescent accelerated reading inventory. Our teachers are really working hard to help build knowledge and build comprehension while also supporting students who may need more of those early literacy development skills. So I especially wanna thank those educators and Terry Anderson who's been leading that work in the district. Lettres training continues. We now have nearly 200 teachers,
198 by last count, and there's another cohort, proceeding through LETRS training. It's a very intensive set of training. Our goal is to continue until every single teacher has been through this training. It is voluntary. So, again, I need to thank all of our educators who've come through that training. It does take multiple years, to complete, and it's transformational for our educators. But it's also a lot of work. So thank you to those nearly 200 educators who have completed L E T R S training. And we have heard trustee Schmidt mention the power of an Orton Gillingham training.
We're very proud that that training continues. And, trustee Schmidt, thank you for your support with that as well for funding. We now have nearly 200 teachers trained in Orton Gillingham as well. I'm sorry. 100. We have nearly 100 teachers trained in Orton Gillingham. I wish it were 200. We have nearly 100. And then another piece that is ongoing, we're about in in mid transformation. You may recall we have shared with you, secondary literacy novels, which are used in our English lit courses, in the District 612,
have been for the last three years, undergoing a complete transformation to ensure that the text that students are engaged in, are actually of relevance and interest to them so so that they're representative of the students who are participating. And we're extremely proud of that work. And on the next slide, we just have a couple more areas to focus on. In the area of mathematics, at the elementary level, we do continue to use the everyday math program. We are in the fourth edition, which is the newer edition. We still believe in that program and the power of that program,
and we know that it hasn't been enough. It's not a one size fits all. So we have been working through grant funding to train our general education teachers in advantage math recovery or ABMR. It also is a pretty intensive thing for them to go through. They have to not only go through the learning process, which is intense, but they have lots of homework. So when they come back from the training, they have to implement those strategies, document, videotape, bring back, evidence of their implementation of this to move on to the next phase.
But as they complete it, our educators overwhelmingly are saying it has changed the way they teach mathematics, are more focused on the conceptual understandings for students and building up toward those more complex concepts in ways that really stick. So we're really, really proud of our teachers who've been working through that process and miss Siobhan Watson who's been leading that program. We continue to use DreamBox. Doctor. Berger did a recent, maybe a year and a half, two years ago, study on the impact of DreamBox in our district because we want to expand our
our monetary resources in ways that are effective for students. And we know that it has a powerful impact in improving student achievement. So we're gonna continue to invest in that, and support our students in using it. And then, of course, we will be looking at the adoption of some new middle school math curriculum over the next several years. It it's a big deal to adopt new programming. The middle school has not seen a new adoption of math curriculum in several years. So, that's just something on the horizon for us.
And, finally, I have to thank our instructional technology department and our instructional technology consultants for all the work they're doing to help improve access for students in our district. You heard doctor Heather Kallstrom talk about the implementation of MacBook Airs, for our high schoolers. That's been a really powerful piece. We continue to invest heavily in Schoology, particularly with the attendance rates that we are seeing. So as students miss school, they've got to be able to have access to what went on in class. So, again, really powerful that we have that. Access tools for text to speech, speech to text,
much better translation capabilities now. And then we also have the varsity tutors on demand homework help, which is available twenty four seven, and that's available to any student through Clever. So that's something fairly new for us. And then newer, just coming out are better ways for families to monitor how our students are doing. And that is the my power hub, which is this improved view for families to be able to easily see attendance and assignments and all the lovely things through widgets or tiles.
So, doctor Kallstrom will be sharing more about that, but we're excited about some of those elements. This is not nearly everything we are doing. We could go on for many hours to talk about it, and we should. But much of the individualized approach is is really due to our exceptional educators, and we have to do more. So I'm happy to take your questions. Trustee Schmidt. Could you go back a slide? Just an update. The Orton Gillingham money, it's 35 d in the state budget, was not put in the budget this year. That money is not available. And I hope we as a board in our leadership position that somehow we've got
we had 60 people signed up for this training. The cohort now is 30, and there's 30 teachers that wanna take this training, but the money now is not there from the state. So I hope that we find a way. This is, it's it's just a life changing experience because they became highly trained. And I know the group that's doing it right now are, special ed teachers, and they're gonna end up with the most difficult cases of children, that have dyslexia or characteristics of. And, we know that without reading, you can't access the rest of the curriculum, so it's very important.
The other point I'd like to raise is that the LETRS training, I really applaud the teachers that are taking that on. It's intensive. But what we have to remember is that L E T R S training is only, the basics of what the peer review research shows in cognitive science of how the reading brain works. It doesn't necessarily mean that once you take that, you change your practice. So the fact that we invested in the good curriculum materials that our teachers are using uFLY and, great minds, That's where it all comes together. That's right. I have some questions,
though, about I know that the law that passed that will be kicking in by January 2027, that if we see students, and it goes all the way to twelfth grade, that have some indicators that they have some difficulties with decoding words, which are characteristics of dyslexia, that we're required to use structured literacy with them. Correct. And that doesn't mean that they're not on an IEP. We still have to. And I'm I was just looking up the AARI. That's a program that works a lot on critical thinking, reading comprehension. I just hope we have some things in place for our secondary that we're addressing
that. If child can't read it, you can talk all day and night about comprehension, but they can't read the words. Yeah. It's a both and situation. Okay. Absolutely. Thank you, trustee Schmidt. Trustee Malama? So I wanted to ask, especially with the secondary I think it was, like, the math support or I think it was a step. It was for support for secondary for math, math program or support. How does that look like in practice? Like, I know that there were for secondary schools, especially middle schools, there were, like, support classes. Oh,
yes. So I guess how does that look like? Because I know that did that shift? Did that change? Is it more integrated? How does that look like? I would say to you that we have become far more consistent in the way we implement that intervention. So we have adopted the Delta Math RTI program, which is a a set of eight units, specifically designed to support students at the point where they have that need. So students do receive that through academic math courses. They also have the opportunity in ninth grade or tenth grade or eleventh grade,
if need be, to be assigned intensified algebra, which is a two hour block, much smaller group of students, to really solidify those algebraic concepts that are really important for students to pass geometry and algebra two. So those are two of the the systemic elements that we have in place, well, three to count by course. So they're integrated, not like a completely separate course? No. They are separate intervention courses So they are. That students are scheduled into. Yes. Okay. Thank you. You. Trustee Wilks. I just have a quick comment. So I'm really looking forward to seeing the results from the pilot of student classroom
feedback. And I also think that those results will sort of dovetail with what we're talking we're We're gonna be talking about the culture and climate survey Agreed. Which I guess we're gonna be talking about sometime in the near future. So it's gonna be really interesting to see how those two coincide. I completely agree. I I think it's really important that student voices have a space, that is safe for them to share how it's going for them. And as an educator myself, I can tell you that there were times when I thought I was knocking it
out of the park in my classroom, really had a great relationship with my kids, and they were doing wonderfully. And I'll tell you a very short story. When I was teaching middle school, one of my students, one of my quieter students had dropped a note. This is back before texting and cell phones, dropped a note on the floor of the classroom on her way out, and I didn't find it until well after the class was over. And And of course, I read it. I probably shouldn't have, but I read it. And and in the note, she said, I have Mrs.
Linden again this year, and I still hate her. And I thought, wow. I thought I had a great rapport with this student. And, you know, clearly, she was not feeling the same way. So I gently, you know, asked her about it and said, I, you know, I apologize if I'm doing something. Is the class not engaging for you? You know, what can I be doing differently? And, you know, very reluctantly, she said to me, you have favorites in here. You always joke with these kids. And she named them, and she said, you never joke around with me. And here I thought I was showing the class that I valued them as human
beings, and I, you know, had a sense of humor, but it was having the opposite effect that I intended. And thank goodness I picked up the note. But these are things that are really excellent. Educators can't know unless we ask, unless there's an avenue. That was a mistake that she made, but thank goodness she did. So I share that just be just to say none of us is perfect. You know, we are all doing the best we can. And without feedback, how do we how do we improve? You know, how do we know? Absolutely.
So it's important. And it goes back to relationships as well. Yeah. So all of the above. 100%. And one of the things that we talked about in the committee when we brought forward both the achievement report and the climate survey is that there is a significant overlap between those two things. Climate and culture Go ahead and hand. Achievement go hand in hand. Mhmm. And what are some of the common the common areas that we can really identify to be able to address because one impacts the other. Yeah. And I also believe that,
the culture and the climate impacts absenteeism. For sure. It Parts and engagement. And the opposite is also true. Yes. Yep. So in in the, committee, I shared another story of a teacher in our district right now who has one of the most student driven classrooms we've seen at the elementary level where the students own morning meeting, they're in charge of it. They plan it. They're on a schedule. When it's their day, they run it, which is so incredible. And that teacher has actually reached,
at this point in the school year, a 100% attendance right now in a title one school. So there is something to be said for ownership and Agency. Agency and voice. Those things are Yeah. Yeah. They're important. This classroom can't run without you being here. It's not just about the teacher running it. Yeah. We need you. Absolutely. Trust investment. Thank you. I I look forward to hearing the about this climate study survey as well as understanding, the acceptance, the willing to take feedback on the teacher side.
I mean, that was something for you to accept the fact that something's not right, and you took the proaction to to address it. We know We know there are adults in this in our our climate who aren't as accepting, who aren't willing to take that. So with the again, I don't wanna discuss this because it's not on the agenda, but one of the things I look forward to hearing is how will we utilize this data with the adults in our buildings. It's something for a student to offer the feedback.
Sometimes students do it more often than we would think. But we have to be willing to accept that it's given and how do we address it and incorporate the changes. There's gotta be some changes here. I mean, we look at this this data, and I don't think, you know, we're very happy with it. No worries. So that means that we have to make some changes and tough decisions, if you will. So, when we bring this forward, you know, I look forward to having a discussion at that level. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you. Alright. Thank you. Well, thank you all very much.
Jaden. And I believe that brings us down to number nine, which is first briefing. We're, first briefing, the of a n two two four one high school. Excuse me. High quality literacy, materials, great minds, purchase, recommendation, 35 grant. Thank you, president Feaster, as miss, Linden Gibbs settled there. This grant, last last school year, the Michigan Department of Education awarded $87,000,000, for the creation of a committees committee for literacy achievement for them to develop some
recommended materials. And we were awarded of that $1,500,000 to purchase some materials. So miss Linden is going to talk through, our recommended purchase this evening out of this 35 m grant that we have received. Thank you. Oh, and I'm sorry. We've got, miss Kristen Davis on the screen here too. Pleasure. Good evening. We are thrilled to share good news with you at this moment with, the superintendent Sorry. Hart. Oh, yep. Yep. I'll introduce her. No worries. We have been granted, $1,532,096
for the purpose of supporting, k five literacy in our district. And I'm joined tonight by Kristen Smith. She is our English, or or I'm saying English language arts, Kristen, and science coordinator, if I can get it out, k five in our district. And you've seen her many times because she is, just extraordinary in the leadership that she has brought to this role and to our district and the transformation of our literacy programs k five. So, Ms. Smith, on behalf of everyone here, I just wanna say thanks for everything you have done.
So tonight we're bringing forward a recommendation for purchase of two elements that will support us in differentiating instruction for our students. The first is GEODS. It's a level k three classroom kit. And the next is Great Minds volume of reading, and the professional learning is also included in this. So Kristen is gonna take it away after I walk you through the breakdown of the costs. So tonight, we're asking for your approval to purchase Great Minds Geodes and Wit and Wisdom volume
of reading materials. The quote reads $1,508,076 for those materials. It also reads for professional services, dollars 21,220 and 1 year of digital licensing at $3,000,000 The total we're asking for to be authorized for payment is $1,532,296. And there's about a $917 difference between the quote and what the grant has been allocated. We have allocated,
the the quote to to provide equitable kits to all elementaries, but we'd like your authorization to also spend the additional 900 where where an extra kit or two may be needed in our district. So you won't see that on the quote. So I will hand over the rest of these lovely slides so miss Smith can walk you through why we've selected these materials and what the materials will be doing for us. Miss Smith. You so much. Much. I'm excited to be here this evening to share a little bit more about these purchases. So I'm gonna begin by telling you a little bit about the volume of reading
texts that we are purchasing for great minds. These texts are a collection of both literary and informational titles, and they are books that teachers can use for additional classroom instruction and also books that students will be selecting for independent reading during our differentiated instruction block within literacy. These volume of reading texts have been carefully curated, to help students really build and expand their knowledge, and they are directly connected to the module topics studied in arts and letters,
which is our new reading and writing curriculum. The texts that will be purchased for each grade level vary in genre and level of complexity, and they provide students this balance between getting extra knowledge and extra practice with vocabulary as well as, most importantly, really having time to develop their love of reason. Uh-oh. Oh, you're back. Okay. The next set of materials that we are purchasing are called geode, and these are set of books, that were written for emerging and developing readers, and they systematically weave foundational skills practice together with knowledge building content so that students
can work on their phonetic skills and build fluency all while acquiring new background knowledge. Each of the texts written for geodes as as part of these collection help reinforce students' phonetic knowledge and continue to support their growth of content knowledge. Geodes' titles reflect a broad range of identities and diverse experiences so that all of our students can see themselves and others and learn about worlds that are both familiar
and distant. Geodes are informational rich, and they are organized into connected text sets and connect directly to our arts and letters instruction. This resource would be used by teachers to support differentiation within the small group time within our literacy block. One of the key features of GEODS is also their direct connection to the scope and sequence of our phonics program, UFLI Foundations. These books are written to help students expand their decoding practice, and also for them to gain knowledge about the same topics being studied in reading
and writing. The example on the screen for level k shows this overlap between what students are learning in arts and letters and then the phonics skills that they're practicing, within UFLI. So the scope and sequence of UFLI connects to the module topics in arts and letters. So this is a just kind of an overview of the level k guide. And then on the following slide, you'll see first grade. Let me advance the slide. So you'll see first grade, and then you'll also see on the slide,
second grade. And then on the final slide, that I'll share with you tonight, we just wanna, again, emphasize the overlap of this tool, GEODS, which provides differentiation, which supports, foundational skills and phonetic development, and its alignment with arts and letters. So truly, this resource, builds a connection between decoding practice and building knowledge, which is just a really exciting opportunity for our k through three learners. Alright. Thank you very much, miss Smith. So here's the breakdown of in more detail what we'll be receiving.
It's, I can't tell you how exciting this is. We're going to have Geode's level clay level k classroom kits with teacher guides that will give us 384 color copy books and 240 black and white copy books. Those can be used in class and at home, and I've got samples I'm gonna pass around in just a second. We have, 384 again and 320 black and whites for classroom, level one kits and the same for level two, level three kits and the teacher guides with 96 color copy books.
And they also get warm up cards, which there are samples of in here. And then for Great Minds volume of reading text, there are three copies of each applicable text for the modules one one through four at each grade level. So there are sets of six to be used in small group. You can picture our teachers, delivering uFLY, understanding where students are in their acquisition of early literacy skills, being able to walk over to GEODS, pick up a kit and a set that's gonna help them practice the thing they just learned, and sit with them in small group, do that work, and then the child actually takes the book home,
reads it with family members. I mean, it is it is The wrap around incredible thing that we are able to do with these grant monies. So the professional learning is there. Miss Smith will share more detail if you need to, but, essentially, we're building a train the trainer model with our building literacy coaches becoming trainers. So they are on-site in the buildings. They'll be able to provide all the training that our educators need both embedded and, you know, in those staff meeting situations or curriculum design days. And then we're testing out a year of digital licensing. We're not sure it's going to be necessary,
but we'll we'll give it a go since we have the grant dollars to try it out, and we'll keep you posted on that. So that is essentially what we're asking for tonight. And yet again on the last slide is that recommendation for you one last time to approve $1,532,296 of geodes and volume of reading, with professional learning and one year of digital licensing, all coming from 35 m grant funding. Right. And I'll pass some some kids. Celebrate this big. And I'm looking at trusty Wilt, who is taught reading.
And nothing more frustrating than teaching a concept, and you don't have a book that allows them to use that skill and practice the skill. And you're over at the copier trying to come up with passages and all kinds of stuff. So this is, this is all that training, and it all comes together with now we need the materials so teachers can do what they're trying to accomplish. So Yeah. This is, wonderful. Yeah. Okay. To to be a second grade teacher again. I mean, really, this would be a lifesaver. So I just wanna say that I'm impressed with the overlap,
how the reading materials align with UFLI instructions, with the phonics instruction, and with the module topics, within arts and letters. I just think that's just that's amazing. And it's really gonna be beneficial for our teachers and our students. So, bravo to that. So the professional development is included in the cost. This includes in person instruction, virtual, and on demand. Correct? That's correct. And I know we addressed this during our committee meeting, but I'm just gonna bring it up again. But so do we know approximately how many teachers will be participating in the in
person instruction opportunities and how many teachers overall will receive this training? Yeah. Great question. And miss Smith can correct me, if I say this inaccurately, but each of our building literacy coaches, and there's one in each building in our district, we're really blessed to have that resource, we'll be taking part in that face to face in person learning. And that's part of that train to trainer model. Yes. And then we would use, our building literacy coaches to help lead the professional learning for all of our k three teachers and then probably another round of training for our support staff as we'll
have extra kits available for our OSE providers, and then some training also for our fourth and fifth grade teachers who might use some of the extra materials with their striving readers as well. The virtual sessions are kind of meant to be check ins for the trainers so that we have other opportunities to kind of continue to advance our knowledge as we continue to support teachers. K. Good to know. And will the professional development take place this year? And will these materials be in the classroom soon now that we have a state
budget? That's what we were waiting for. And then with your approval, we will place that order and get going just as soon as everything arrives. Okay. Alright. You know, I, I know that, what's going on at Scarlet with a classroom there. I mean, these would even be appropriate Absolutely. For those very, challenged readers. Yep. And yeah. I agree. Very beautiful. Aren't they beautiful? Trustee Wilkins? I have a not as a not, English teacher, not reading teacher. How does can you explain more about how the arts and letters is this like
frosting? Like, we have the arts and letters thing, and this is just like extra great stuff we get to spend more money on. And, or is it something that arts and letters was lacking that we are fortunate enough to be able to supplement? Can you just address where it fits into that curriculum? I I think Kristen will be better able to explain, but I will say it's both of what you're sharing. But go ahead, Kristen. Yes. I done or miss Linden. Yes. Definitely both. Each of those curriculum resources that you mentioned sort of address different parts of a
skilled reader. So our arts and letters curriculum really addresses language comprehension needs. So it teaches students, how to develop vocabulary and background knowledge. They're really working on comprehension, whereas YouFLY and what these GEODS text will support, is their ability to actually decode words and actually read, print on the page. But the really beautiful piece is that the content in both overlaps. So as students are practicing their decoding, they're gaining knowledge about the very same topic they're reading and writing about,
during arts and letters instruction. So kind of these pieces together, address all of the strands needed to develop skilled readers. Thank you. Great question. Yeah. Thank you. I was not a a reading teacher, but but I was slow to learn to read. And I just think these are just beautiful materials. I mean, not only culturally, you've got names that are are native to the cultures. I mean, this is pretty very cool. And as a student, I would be thrilled with the colors and, again, the representation. Just wanna step back, though. This 8,700
87,000,000, we got 1,500,000.0. For those who don't understand state funding, and God knows a lot of us don't, can you explain to to our community how we were awarded this money? What was the criteria? What did we have to do? What are the expectations of getting such a large amount? Yeah. Absolutely. So, again, I have to thank miss Smith for working with her building literacy coaches and helping to identify what would be the best fit for us. It is a per pupil allocation grant,
but you have to apply for it, and you have to submit a very detailed budget, and you have to select from the list of approved materials. So, we're very lucky that we used previous grant materials to purchase arts and letters. Many other districts were not in that same position, so they're using these monies to purchase curriculum, and and they've had to make those decisions very quickly, in order to get their applications in. We had the luxury of being very well planned and being able to do that very extensive pilot using other grant dollars last year to do that.
So we have the ability now to round out all of our k five literacy with this next thing, the geodes and the volume of reading. So we're pretty I just have to congratulate Kristen and the BLCs and everybody who worked together on this transformation toward where we are right now because this is the cherry on top. And Well, I would also say miss Linden too. I I appreciate the the leadership and the subject matter expertise that I know other districts don't have, and we're very fortunate that,
you know, we have you ladies and there may be some guys out there too. Forgive me. Because, again, you know, this doesn't happen overnight. We have heard a lot of criticism about central administration. Well, without you guys going to get the money to provide the detailed applications. I mean, I've done state applications professionally. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Right? It takes time. And so, again, thank you for this. But talk to the expectations. Okay. We've got this money. Mhmm. This is onetime funding. Correct. Okay. And then do we I'm assuming there's a report of something that has to be
submitted. I mean, tell us what we what else has to be done behind after spending the money. We do have to abide by the budget that we put forward. So what you're seeing here in the memo is what we applied for in the budget. It's fully aligned. I have to thank miss Joanna Johnson for making sure all those i's are dotted and t's are crossed because she's a genius when it comes to grants. Yes. Good. And so from here on out, we complete the ordering. We submit the records that we have spent the money according to,
what we said we would. And from there, I believe, Kristen, unless there's more to it, I think we're good. There isn't a requirement that we evaluate the impact, although we will. Yeah. Some grants, we do have to have to share impact data. But Thank you. Not with this one. Thank you. And so we hope to a pending approval, we'll have these in the hands of our students when? Kristen, when do you think after approval I know second briefing is coming up the end of this month. And if we could turn that PO around pretty quickly, when do you think we could get started?
We've been speaking with great minds about trying to get them there before the winter break. Alright. So that I think that's the goal. That's great. Excellent. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate the information and you guys, again, the good work. Thank you. We appreciate your support. Another question about the professional development piece. How does that, how would that fit with the arts and letters? You said that that's, pretty intensive and it's a lot. So this is gonna be one more thing that they're gonna have to learn about.
How does that work? I I think it will be a welcome one more thing because the differentiation block has always been a real challenge for educators. So this is one element of of the training that our teachers will receive in professional learning throughout the course of this year, and it will happen during our curriculum design days, which are once a month. But I don't know. Miss Smith, if you wanna share more detail. I think the only thing I would add is I appreciate you bringing that up because we always wanna think about the capacity of teachers. And this was sort of the beauty of being able to use grant money for
something that sort of tucks right into what we're already doing. But in particular, geodes geodes were also designed to be a light lift for teachers in terms of also providing, which you can see in the samples, some teaching materials that accompany the text to help teachers plan small group instruction. So we're hopeful that this will be a welcome addition to classrooms and also will be a much lighter lift for teachers to begin using than something like arts and letters, which will have, you know, multiple sessions over the course of this year and the next few years to make
sure that we are implementing in the best way possible. Okay, you guys. Okay. Well, I'm lobbying over here. So we have had other meetings where, for instance, the risers for the music room, which was like, we need them now. And I know that teachers are already in these units working in the arts and letters. And I'm seeing, okay, so we wait two weeks to have a meeting, and then we have a PO that has you know, this is grant money. I what I've I would like to move that we take this up tonight so
that we can vote this. Hopefully, I would have somebody second it, and we would vote to have this go forward so you can get that order made, and we can get these into the classroom Thank you. Because they're already teaching those skills, and they the kids don't have these books. So I added to the consent agenda that way. Sure. And I see miss Osinski. Yes. But I would need a second to support. On that motion. I don't know if you made the motion. If you make the motion, I will certainly second it. I made the motion. Yeah. Let me not need a second. Oh, I don't have to oh, do we have general consent to move it to the consent agenda?
I'm looking at your heads. Or president. I I I'm I will be asking to pull it out if it's if it's added. So Oh. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let's just go straight to board action. So no motion is needed? I'm sorry? No. So no No motion. The motion is needed to move it to action? Okay. So it'll go there, and then we'll see what we come up with when we get there. You don't think that's right? No. I don't. But, hey, I'm going with the flow. Well, I don't either. It seems like we need a motion and a second to move it to board action. I would think so.
Why don't we go that route then? It's been moved by trustee Schmidt to add this 35 m grant purchases to your account? You can actually act on it right now. Okay. Right. You can move to approve it and then have your discussion. Okay. If you move it to consent, though, you you're not supposed to discuss it. That's the issue. Oh, okay. So if you if you want to, act on approving it now, you can make a motion to approve it, get a second, have your discussion, and then vote. So it's a move to approve by trustee Smith. Second. Support by trustee Wilkes.
Okay. Now we can Now we can have discussion. I think it's cleaner to put it. I'm sorry. But trustee Wilkes. I have a quick question on the professional development that accompanies this. If these books or materials would arrive before the winter break, when would that professional development be executed? This isn't a terribly busy time for professional development. The the busy time for our publishers is usually August. But, Kristen, feel free. We've been in close contact with Great Minds knowing that, hopefully, this purchase was coming, and I know they're ready to support whenever we ask.
So I think that we could have the professional learning done, you know, as soon as possible. They have also shared with us that, you know, even if there's, like, a little bit of a lag between the books arriving and the time teachers receive professional learning, there's no harm in having the books ready to explore in the classroom, and then we can always build in professional learning at the first opportunity we have during curriculum design. Thank you. Thanks. Trustee Muhammad? And you were saying earlier there is a plan to evaluate this because, obviously, this is from, you know, this is from grant funding. So if we wanna approve it in the future and and things like that,
it would be helpful. Yes. And part of the evaluation, is it also getting input from the teachers that are using this? Yeah. We we will our plans and and miss Smith can share more about it, but our plans this year are to survey our teachers, our students, our caregivers about all aspects of our literacy experience. So this will be a part of that. Yeah. Because the I think one of the again, thinking of the teacher's time because they're already taking a big, undertaking with the literacy literacy program. Now we're adding this,
which seems like a light lift, but it would be important to just make sure I mean, this is grant funding. It's a no brainer, you know, to to support this. But at the same time, we wanna make sure that it's not adding more. They're already, you know, more load onto the teachers. It's part of the, I think, the benefit of having building literacy coaches in every building because they have their finger on the pulse of what's happening. You know, they're they're in communication all the time with with classroom teachers, and they really do inform the speed with which we can move and what our
educators need in terms of support. So if they need more or less to slow down or speed up, those are things that we can be nimble enough to do. Something like this, when you teach a concept, let's say, the final silent e, you need then passages and things to read to practice what you just taught. Uh-huh. YouFly has a passage. Mhmm. That's one. You it's fun. And I know just from doing my own private tutoring, when I say we're gonna get the book, it's like, oh, the book. That's, like, special. Because now you get to use it in a book.
And I I hear that you're doing professional learning with this, but there's not to me, there's not a whole lot of professional learning in this aspect. I mean, this is a library that basically the teacher that can go and tap this and use it. So that's why I see it's like, I already know they're learning certain things, and some of these books would really be great. I agree. You know? So that's why I think the timeliness is is good. And not only that, correct me if I'm wrong, but students will be able to take some of these books take these books home. That's right. So, you know, not only just doing the learning in the classroom and the independent reading during reading
time, but taking books home and actually Uh-huh. Practicing. That's right. So that that's that's wonderful. Reading to their caregivers Right. Siblings, their pets. Right. Absolutely. So, I'll make my comment now. Okay. So as I I'm sorry. It it was second by Trustee Wilkes. It was some Wilks. Yep. So as I said in previous meetings, and maybe it's the attorney in me. But I feel like we have rules for a reason. And I think we have first and second briefing for a reason. And I would not be comfortable moving this forward unless it was an emergency.
It's a nonemergency situation. Two weeks isn't going to kill anyone. So I I would not be, in favor of bypassing our rules. Even though I love the materials, and I thank you for doing all the work you all have done. But I think we have a a policy for a reason. This is the first time that the public has heard us have this discussion. It gives teachers, parents, and other people an opportunity to weigh in on these books and these materials. And so I don't feel comfortable taking that away from them. And so I would not be supporting this today. No. Because I wanna work together as a board,
I can pull back my, motion, and we can wait two weeks. So I'm gonna do that. President Feaster, thank you for sharing that. Because we do need to be mindful of parents, teachers, you know, allowing folks time to really look at this as opposed to rushing it through. And two weeks is two weeks. It's not that long. We can handle that. So yeah. We can handle that. Okay. Well, thank you all for hearing my concerns, but whatever you are too will be fine with me to thank you for your time. Yes.
Thank you for that discussion. Yes. Appreciate it. I just wanna point out, I think we just Okay. So the public knows we have a good governance thing in front of us just to remind us so that we're working well together as a result of our retreat, which that's the point, right? Yes. Is there anything further on $35,000,000 No, that's it. Okay. Then thank you very much. Appreciate the presentation. Thank you, Ms. Linda. Thank you, Ms. Smith. Thank you, Ms. Smith. Thank you. Have a good night. Great work. I believe that brings us down to number 10 on the consent agenda. We are now at the consent agenda. Miss Ozinski,
would, will you please read the consent agenda? Approve the minutes of the 09/17/2025 regular meeting, approve the minutes of the 09/28/2025 board retreat, and approve a closed session for the purpose of negotiations and attorney client privilege at 6PM on 10/22/2025. Thank you, miss Otinski. Would anyone like to remove an item from the consent agenda? Saying none. Do I have a motion for the consent agenda? So move. Moved by trustee, Wilkes. Second. Supported by trustee Schmidt.
We don't need discussion on on this on this, I believe. It's considered agenda. Right? Yes. You can't oh, no. I'm sorry. No. Okay. An open discussion. Alright. I believe that brings us down to board action. Do we have anything under board action tonight? Okay. And that moves it down to item for agenda planning. Trustees, are there any items for agenda planning? I know about the phones. I know. Just a moment. So I know this is I don't know if this is gonna be coming up, but I would love to see some more data about, the absenteeism, especially chronic absenteeism. You know,
I don't know if it was planned or or not, but something around that because we talk about it a lot. So just even having the numbers and what's going on would would be helpful. And then I know during our retreat, we talked about our board goals and us, like, actually taking some vote on it. That was what was recommended. So I would like to at least bring that up maybe at the next at the next meeting so we can get that get the board goals done. And then, again, this might be planned,
but talking about the bond. The bond, the the, just just things around when it comes to, like, projects. I know that we talked about they presented the budget, but just kinda follow-up around that. Mhmm. K. And that that may be planned. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to Thank you, though. So the bond portion, I think that's already, on the coming agenda. I do have the absenteeism, and I have the board goals. Yeah. K. Else? I have a fork. Trustee Wilkins. When will we be hearing and discussing the culture survey?
The No. The culture comments every comes the next meeting, the 20. Right. Yeah. K. There's nothing else. I believe that brings us down to items from the board. Would the trustees have anything they would like to share? Trustee Wilkes. Thank you, President Feaster. So an incident occurred last week on one of our school campuses. I won't go into details for the sake of protecting the privacy of those involved. But as we talk about student achievement data, we can't have this conversation without talking about the culture and climate on our campuses,
the climate from the parking lot to the front office, throughout the hallways and into our classrooms. Student achievement and climate go hand in hand. I know we'll be sharing the results of our annual culture and climate survey soon, but I just want to stress that the climate on our campuses also impacts our staff. That includes our teachers, our office professionals, our paraprofessionals, and the list goes on. One of our goals as a district is to ensure that everyone who steps foot on our campuses feels welcomed and that they feel a sense of belonging.
I just want to reiterate that our goal is to cultivate a warm welcoming atmosphere that helps instill a sense of belonging. And having said that, I just want to stress that no form of hatred has a place in this community or within this district. Thank you. Thank you very much, Trustee Wolf. Thank you for sharing that. I think those are very important words that we have to continue to know that's what we're all here for and to make sure that happens. Absolutely. Seeing nothing else? Yep. Oh. So no. Real quickly,
I may answer. Trustees, I know the superintendent has made us aware of about three weeks ago of upcoming events in our community of organizations that support us. And if, you know, you have the time, I really would encourage each of us to support the girls group. They do wonderful work in our our school community. Of course, you can go to the website for all the details. NAACP, the Freedom Fund dinner is November 2. It's a Sunday afternoon. And for those who don't know, the n the Ann Arbor branch of the NAACP,
we we spend our Freedom Fund dinners around our scholars, others and other communities, you know, politics or whatever. But it's for us in Ann Arbor, it's all about our scholars our scholars. And just to clarify, because we get this question every year, we honor African American students, students who identify, self identify as as being African American, at this particular dinner. It is a packed house. If you haven't already, spoke with the superintendent or her, support staff, please, let her know that you're interested in attending because tickets do go fast.
The second event, which I've I've come to love as well as, the peace neighborhoods. Thanks for giving. Again, November 6. It's and I I don't have to tell you about their great organization, but just wanna remind you. If you have the time, please plan to attend. They're there for our kids. We should make an effort to, be there and thank them in person for their work. So just wanted to make everyone aware of that. Thank you, President Feaster. Thank you, Trustee Basker. Seeing nothing else, I believe that brings us down to a motion to adjourn. The motion to adjourn by voice vote.
So moved. Moved by trustee Schmidt. Second. Forwarded by trustee Wilkerson. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor to adjourn, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Motion carries. We are adjourned at 09:18PM.