Please. Trustee Baskett? President Feaster? Trustee Mohammed? Here. Trustee Schmidt? Present. Trustee Wilkerson? Present. Trustee Wilkins? Here. Trustee Wilks? Present. We have a quorum. Thank you. And, our I'd like to introduce, our non voting member. I just put the link. Miss Langford. Excuse me. Too many new people here in this audience. I was taking in all these names. She will be covering for our superintendent who is ill this evening. Good evening. Colleagues, I need a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. It was moved by Wilkes, second by Wilkeson. Second by Wilkeson?
Correct. Alright. Any discussion? All right. Let's take a vote. Trustee Mohammed? Yes. Trustee Schmidt? Yes. Trustee Wilkes? Yes. Trustee Wilkes? Yes. Motion carries. We're now at a section of our agenda where we're going to have two guest speakers. The first person I'd like to introduce, is Senator Jeff Erwin. I personally am honored to introduce Senator Erwin. He and I worked a long time on bills to help children in the state get better instruction for literacy. So he is a champion for us and for our kids.
And he's here to talk about, give us a legislative update. And we also have Representative Morgan Forman that will fill us in from the House perspective, the House of Representatives. Welcome. Thank you, trustee Schmidt. Thank you all for being here tonight. Appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you about what's happening in Lansing. I'm Jeff Erwin. I'm your state senator. I represent, probably about half of the families that are in the AAPI zone. I share the area with senator Sue Schenck. I'm gonna give some highlights on the various budget proposals that are bouncing around in Lansing and try to give just some update on what the timing seems to be
to the extent I can. But I wanna also start by just thanking all of you. The role of being on a school board is, incredibly important, and I think it's very, very difficult. I think people, often might not, fully appreciate all of the challenging decisions that you have to make, and these are decisions that affect our kids and our families. And just as an AAPS parent, I thank you for, you know, coming to these meetings, continue to give your skills and insight, apply your judgment, to make the hard decisions that that you have to make. Because as I tell people all the time, you know, I get to go up to Lansing and,
you know, fight for issues where it often seems, you know, very much to come down, at least in my mind, to good and evil. Whereas, I think a lot of times you're being asked to choose you know, you can pick two out of 10, and they're all good programs. And so, that's a hard job. I wanna give a couple moments of respect for the fact that school board members have to make tough decisions. And and, hopefully, what we're doing in Lansing can support that work and make it easier. So a little bit on the timing. I mean, here we are. School has already started. I know my kids have already attended some school, and we don't have a school aid budget for the state of Michigan. It's embarrassing.
You know, I apologize on behalf of the state of Michigan even though, I think it's important to note that the senate passed a budget months ago Mhmm. Months ago back in early June. And, we still don't have a budget and there haven't been serious enough budget conversations about getting k 12 done. Now we have a law in Michigan that says that the full budget has to be done by July 1, a law that a lot of my house counterparts voted for. But, unfortunately, this year, they blew right past that deadline, and they refused to pass a general fund budget until just yesterday.
Maybe representative Forman can update you more about that. I'm gonna not focus so much on the general fund budget except for to say that because of the way that higher ed has invaded the school aid fund, the the general fund budget and the school aid budget are inextricably linked. So it's very, very challenging to pass just the school aid budget without knowing at least a little bit about where the general fund budget is going because of the linkage through higher education. So I think that's one of the reasons why, it is late. Another reason why the budget is late is just because it divided government. We we went through a couple years where Dems controlled the house and the senate
and the governor's office, and that created some alignment in Lansing. And now that that alignment has been perturbed, we're back to a divided government situation. That's always harder, but it's particularly harder when we have a group of Republican leaders like we have now who are completely focused on the politics and have totally left behind the public service mission of being a legislator. Their leaders are focusing on chaos and doing anything they can to drive their name into the headline. And this chaos and this lack of a school aid budget and the fact that schools already started with schools not knowing how much money they're gonna get keeps him
and them in the headlines. And I think they're trying to take a page out of Trump's book where it's sort of like no press is bad press. And I think that's another reason another big reason why we don't have a school aid bond budget yet because the House Republican leadership thinks it serves their interest politically to create this problem that we're all in the middle of. I'll also mention another piece that has really been a piece that's made it difficult to get the school aid budget done this year, and that is the insistence by many that we have to have a Rhodes deal
linked to a school aid budget. Now, this conversation about how do we fix roads in Michigan has been going on for a long, long time. Last time we raised revenue for roads was in 2016 under Snyder. And here we are nine years later, and the roads are still in bad shape. And they're particularly bad in Southeast Michigan on local roads, and that's because of the way the formula works. But leaving all that road stuff aside, there have been forces in Lansing who've put it clearly on the table who've said, we can't get a deal. We can't get a budget deal done until we fix roads.
And they're looking for 3,000,000,000 additional dollars in revenue for roads. They wanna take the roads budget from roughly 6,000,000,000 to 9,000,000,000, and that's a big jump. And it makes it hard to find those dollars in the budget without making draconian cuts. And I'll mention that a centerpiece of both the governor's proposal and the house republicans proposal on roads is to shift a billion dollars, a little bit less than a billion, out of the school aid fund, take it away from k 12, and put it permanently into roads. Now they promised to replace that revenue, but that whole shifting around and those promises and how they're positioned is very important
to me. It's very important to our schools, and it makes it more difficult to get a deal done when, once again, you don't have a general fund budget. School aid budget is conditioned on roads, there's linkages. So, hopefully, now the fact that the house, Republicans have finally passed the general fund budget hopefully, the fact that that's done means that we can start making faster steps towards it. And so I just wanna go through some of the major differences between the budgets, because now that now now that, hopefully, we're at the negotiation table, these differences are gonna be what, the house and the senate and the governor's team negotiate to try to come to
something that we can all agree on. Now the senate budget is focused on trying to maintain our, you know, our current momentum towards a more weighted formula, towards a formula that respects that cost more to educate certain kids than others and, towards increases in certain key areas that we think are critical to driving success in Michigan. So the senate bill, senate bill one six six, the s four version, is the one that was passed, and it increases the foundation allowance 4.2% up to $10,008 And it also increases at risk funding by 25%.
It has a, sizable investment in, funding the needs of our new literacy law that, trustee Schmidt mentioned, mainly in funding, literacy coaches and tutors, high quality literacy materials that then, those would be grants to districts to to pay for those and also grants to districts to pay for the teacher training that is necessary to support that. So that's a $74,200,000 investment that the senate thought was important. We wanna preserve the mental health and school safety grants. That was another important piece that the senate included. And we also wanna preserve the commitment that we made the k 12 schools in
Michigan around the MPSERS. So last year, I don't wanna take too much of a tangent on this, but last year, we made changes to MPSERS so that the state was taking on more of that responsibility, and that meant about $500 more per pupil in the classroom. Because, of course, when Lansing sends money to you all, you will have to send money back for the pension costs for those NPSR's costs. So the change we made last year, frees up about 500 more dollars per pupil that can go into the classroom, and we think that's a good thing. So we included that in our senate budget. We also included universal breakfast and lunch. We also include school based health centers, and some increases for CTE funding.
And finally, we included grants for small class sizes in early grades. We know that the research says that small class sizes matter in early grades. We wanna make it easier for districts to make that choice, so we include 85, $85,000,000 in grants for small class sizes. Couple other pieces. We proposed reducing the allocation to cyber schools. All along, cyber schools have gotten a 100% of a per per people allocation. That was one of the differences. The senate budget proposed reducing that to 80%. We also included, so I think some important investments in building the the pair pro to teacher pipeline
and trying to recruit new educators, deal with some of the workforce issues, and also some initiatives around transportation infrastructure funding. So in contrast, the Republican budget, which is house bill forty five seventy seven, the h two version, was when they passed. Their bill includes a per pupil foundation allowance of $10,025. And then what they did is they chose to eliminate all those line items I just talked about. Eliminate support for the literacy program, eliminate school meals that are universal, eliminate the CTE enhancements,
eliminate school safety and mental health money, school based health clinics, infrastructure support, English language learners, STEM programs. They've they've wanted to eliminate all of that and roll it all up into a, nineteen hundred and seventy five dollar per pupil boost that districts will have to make certain conditions in order to be eligible for. And the conditions that you'd have to meet are largely, based on sort of, like, political identity politics issues that are really important to the right wing. They wanna make sure that no schools have multi stall unisex bathrooms.
That's literally in their budget. They wanna prevent transgender youth from participating in sports. They wanna require that districts have police officers in school. They want to require schools to, end any diversity programs and to comply with Trump's anti diversity and inclusion executive order. And these are the kind of conditions that they're putting on all those dollars. So what the senate's plan is is to give a per pupil allotment and then to have certain key investments in areas that matter to schools and that matter to kids and that matter to education. And the Republicans are over here saying,
we wanna take all that money off the table, and you get it with no strings attached if and only if you do what we like politically around sports and unisex bathrooms and diversity. Also, they, wanna keep a full allotment for our charter charter schools and move away from a weighted funding formula, a funding formula that it seeks to see and attend to equity in any way. They've tried to get rid of all of those grants. And so those are the differences. As you can tell, there's a pretty big gap between where the senate Democrats and where the House Republicans
are coming from. I'm hoping that the governor will help us tip that balance towards our kids and towards our schools and away from some of these silly political goals that I, once again, think are just all about headlines in politics and driving wedges, to gain political advantage. Hopefully, some of those things, fall by the wayside and we can move closer to the senate budget. And I just wanna say that one of the things that gives me hope is that, you know, schools are the most important thing in state government. Most people know that. Schools are the heart of our communities all over Michigan.
And in a lot of these more conservative areas and more of these rural areas, a little more, you know, areas that maybe don't have as big a population as Ann Arbor, for instance, the schools are even more a center of community life in those kinds of communities. And so I'm hopeful that, the school community around the state can help us get towards a better, more kids focused budget because we need a budget that's focused on education, not politics. Absolutely. And I'll just close by saying the one thing that really gives me additional hope that I think we can get there on this is that when you look at the bottom line, even though our budget looks very different than theirs,
we're focused on literacy and and, you know, school safety and they're focused on bathrooms. At the very bottom line, they're actually pretty close. The total amount of money that we're talking about spending is actually pretty close. And so that gives me some hope that, we can get past the point we're at now where we seem to be stuck in the mud and get towards something that both sides can vote yes on. Just for my part, I wanna let you know that, I wanna get a school aid budget done. I wanted to get a school aid budget done in June. I think we should have separated it from everything else and moved it forward and gotten it done. But I don't want a bad budget.
And, you know, I would rather be in the moment we are now where we're still at loggerheads fighting over these important principles like literacy and safety and school based health clinics and those kinds of things rather than, you know, capitulate in favor of a budget that, leaves our schools in a worse position, and it makes it harder for schools to invest in ways that are gonna help kids. So I feel like I've prattled on a little bit, but I appreciate your time. And I don't know how you wanna handle it, but maybe I'll wait for after the representative. Yes. I think it would be helpful if, Representative Foreman speaks and then we'd like to ask questions.
Absolutely. No, that sounds good. If Representative Foreman brings up NPSERS, just as a reminder, that's the Teachers Retirement System for people that listen when NPSERS is mentioned. It's m p e r s. That's Michigan Public Employees Retirement System. Right. Which I am a beneficiary of because I was a public school employee for many years. And so I when I'm able to retire, which I'm a millennial will probably be never, I want to be able to, take advantage of the thing the the money the fruits of my labor.
So, good evening again, and thank you for having me here. I'm representative Morgan Foreman of the 30 Third House District, so that's Southern Washtenaw County, so the Big House South. So I have a couple of schools in, Ann Arbor Public Schools, and then I have Celine and other outlying, so a couple other outlying areas. So, Senator Erwin gave you a very comprehensive update about what's going on in Lansing. Lansing has been so before I was elected, I worked for, former representative Brabec. And we worked in the minority, and we worked in the majority, but never a minority like this.
This minority, of course, is divided, and, we are in divided government, and the house is under Republican control. But I also feel like we're under a dictatorship and we're under tyranny when we're work trying to work with Matt Hall. There is no working with Matt Hall. I don't even acknowledge that he exists when I'm in the elevator with him, because I don't have the energy to acknowledge someone that doesn't think that children should eat and that people should have health care. And all of that is less important than roads. Okay? Like, it takes me two hours to get to work.
We are fixing the damn roads, as the governor says. Before I left, home this evening, I did hear the governor say, on on channel four that she will not be supporting a budget that cuts these things. So, I just got, about 13 items that are the most egregious cuts to our budget, and I'll share a few of them with you and we'll be happy to share more. But Senator Irwin touched on a whole lot. So, $3,800,000,000 cut to to Medicaid and behavioral health with no backfill.
Dems, we proposed an amendment. Now let me just tell you what happened yesterday. Actually, let me backtrack a little bit. This is what happened yesterday. We get to, work. We get to the floor. We get ready to go to caucus. We're getting ready to discuss what's on the agenda for the week. We spent a lot of time, and I'll talk about this a little bit, on the bathroom bill that is out of that representative Fox has introduced. We got message at that point, we got a message that there was going to be a budget bill taken up that day. We didn't know what that would look like. We didn't know if it was gonna be school aid,
department budgets, individual committee, anything like that. We didn't know. And then we got an 800 page omnibus and forty five minutes to read it. I'm not I can't even do my own personal budget in forty five minutes. What makes you think that I have forty five minutes to read an entire budget that benefits everyone in the state of Michigan, which it's my it's the oath that I took is to support the state of Michigan. And I think that my colleagues forget that. Over a $333,000,000
cut to SNAP, first responders, a $66,300,000 cut, the state police, and about $2,500,000 cut for first responders mental health services. Something that I'm very passionate about is water and air quality. And so $6,000,000 was cut from the executive recommendation and $3,000,000 from the Senate. Water quality programs, $17,400,000 $11,300,000 out of the general fund reductions for current programs.
There were reductions in the program. I don't remember how much, but there were reductions in the programs that keep our milk safe. Our food safety, agriculture, maternal infant health, dollars 3,500,000.0 reduction to net zero after the big, beautiful, I wanna say something else, bill eliminated the federal component to which this was largely federal dollars. Centering pregnancy, dollars 5,000,000 cut. Hospital maternal health initiatives, 10,000,000 cut. Consumer protection, 900,000 cut for price gouging.
Sexual assault testing boilerplate deleted. So that police agencies can test their backfilled sexual assault kits to solve sexual assaults that haven't been solved in sometimes decades. Dollars 10,000,000 cut for water affordability. Dollars $315,000,000 cut from direct care workers. And a lot of this isn't backfilled. It's just cut. And our appropriations chair, I'm gonna misquote her and I'm probably gonna give her too much credit. She said, they're looking the Democrats are looking at this as cuts,
and we're looking at it as adjustments. And I was like, are those alternative facts? Wasn't it alternative facts that that Donald Trump said alternative facts? I call them lies. Yeah. So oh, awesome. $40,000,000 cut from revenue sharing from cities, villages, and townships and $35,000,000 from counties. That means less funding to support schools, libraries, and community programs. Dollars 50,000,000 cut from housing and Michigan has a housing and affordable housing crisis. When I talk to people today, this is what they were saying to me. We're disappointed. This is irresponsible.
This makes harmful cuts. This budget is being balanced on the back of workers. So many workforce development programs were cut. What kind of economy and what kind of life do they want Michiganders to have is my biggest question. And I'll ask that when we go back on September 3. We were supposed to be in session today and tomorrow, but they dropped this budget, did that, and they are getting chewed up by the media. So tomorrow, but they dropped this budget, did that, and they are getting chewed up by the media. So I'm happy about that. But this budget may add money for the roads, and I am not gonna argue.
There are roads that need to be fixed, especially our local roads, but it takes away from our kids and our families. It's dangerous, deadly, and deliberate. And I voted no, and I'll continue to vote no until it makes sense. Our legislatively directed spending items that Democrats did not have our stakeholders and our people come and capitulate in the capital and beg for the money, none of those were included in our budgets, just their their pet projects. And they always want to talk about pork projects and pet projects,
but they put those in there when part of my community needs a wastewater treatment plant. They want to argue about who can use a bathroom. It's a toilet. And the most undesirable things that come out of our bodies go in it. They want to make every school or educational I think the bill says see, let me pull it here. The bill says, including two educational institution means a public educational institution or a separate school. That's a carve out for private schools as well. Or Department of Public Education institution,
including but not limited to an academy, college, elementary or secondary school, extension course, kindergarten, nursery, local school system or university, a business, nursing professional, secretarial, technical or vocational school, and any educational institution that receives funds from the state or an agent of an educational institution. Multiple occupancy restrooms are changing areas have to have to align with sex, meaning the biological identification of male or female as listed on an individual's original birth
certificate that was issued at or near of the time of an individual's birth. But we still don't have a budget passed. Some schools have decided that they are not going to be able to give their kids breakfast and lunch, which is so vitally important, especially to the students that I used to serve. I have colleagues in the reddest parts of the state and the poorest parts of the state who wanna cut school transportation. So I asked I walked over to that person on the floor the other day. I said, are you gonna put all those children in your pickup truck and drop them off before you come to session and then pick them back up after school when you
pay for their YMCA program? I'm not playing with these people. Lives are at stake. So that's my update. Senator Irwin you're on Appropriations. Right? He's on Appropriations. I'm not on Appropriations, so I get, like, clued in at the last minute with money and stuff. I'm on health policy and natural resources and tourism, which I'm thankful to be on health policy and natural resources and tourism. I did really wanna be on Appropriations. I'm not gonna lie. I was a little disappointed because I had supported appropriations budgets. But so that's where we're at right now in the house. We have done nothing.
We took a really weird summer break, and now we're we came back at a really weird time. We were in three days last week. We're in one day this week, and then we'll go back in September, which is usually the which is not the cadence. We usually are done at the June, and we can go back to our communities and spend the summer with our families and our communities and and then come back to Lansing and finish up some things and and move forward to start the second part of our session because the session is two years. And so we can do that, but we haven't been able to do that. And I do still fear that we will have a government shutdown because I have
no good faith in Matt Hall or Anne Bolen that they will actually negotiate with the senate and the governor, to make sure that a budget is passed by October 1. And so I will just as I warned everybody, prepare yourselves for that. We don't not quite know what that looks like yet. Our policy team, and our HR team are working to let us know because that's gonna affect my staff's pay, my pay. And that goes back to last week's debacle when they were like, oh, they wanna vote. They don't want any accountability.
They wanna get paid. It had it was gonna have to be a ballot initiative, and then it wouldn't go into effect until 2028. Why would I punish another future legislature? It's like compressing it's it's push it's putting pressure on them to pass bad budgets so that they can keep the food on their table. And you're they're they're beginning to get more and more working class legislators on both sides. So people depend on there are some people on that other side that could probably never take a paycheck from the state of Michigan, but that's not me. That's not my colleague.
That's not senator Erwin. I don't really know that, but I'm assuming. So you just nothing, Jah. Nothing. We were supposed to be a team. So there's my update. Again, thank you for having me. And, again, I wanna echo the sentiments of senator Erwin. School boards do such an important job. So thank you so much for, your work, and I am always available to any of you. So I guess right now, I'm gonna have senator Erwin to come back, and then we can take questions. Thank you very much. Colleagues, let's be try to be specific in what what you need here. Go ahead.
Okay. First of all, I just want to thank you, Representative Forman and Senator Erwin for coming out tonight. So, we're not really sure if we're going to be able to fund school lunches. And after September 30, I think we just received a letter indicating something along those lines. So what concrete steps can the public take, can we take as a school board, as school boards across the state because we're all in this boat together to make sure that our lawmakers are listening, and we need to add teeth to this July 1 deadline that really means nothing
at this point, because they've missed it several different on several different occasions. So what steps concrete steps can we take as a school board, as members of the public to really get our lawmakers moving? Yeah. I just, credulously agree with your question and how you posed it. I mean, there are all sorts of school districts that are having to make these choices of do we continue these programs. We think they might still be here when the budget's done, but if they're not, we can't promise the community. And so it forces folks like you all to make decisions about hiring educators for small class sizes or keeping meals going,
they're very, very challenging. And I think there are some districts that are making a choice that I would prefer they didn't, because of that uncertainty. And so there's real harm that is happening in Michigan to schools and kids simply as a result of the delay. And so we've been trying to make that point as strenuously as we can in Lansing. I would say that for yourselves or for any, you know, resident who, wants to help with this, I think there are ways for you to work through the organizations that you're a part of. I think that's one thing I would stress is that, certainly getting, the school boards to be as strenuous as possible up in Lansing,
but also to lock arms with the other groups that are interested in schools. There's the administrators, the superintendents, the secondary school principals. There's all these groups in Lansing And getting everybody to speak with one voice, this is what we need and we need it yesterday, I think would make a difference. And then I think, you know, residents in general, just need to speak out. I mean, one of the things that I'm constantly battling against is just that everybody's busy, everybody's got their own full program, and then it's hard for them to pay attention to everything that's happening in Lansing. So it's my job and everybody's job and other people's jobs and all of our
jobs to, you know, be active citizens and to communicate what's happening and to try to get our friends, relatives, frenemies, folks that we know that live in some of these other districts to contact their representatives and and and senators as well and the governor saying, this is what we want, and we want it yesterday. So those are my people. Absolutely. I would say, again, working through your organizations. I've had plenty of organizations that I worked through, and I was doing, organizing for school board races back in it it was 2020. K? Very weird time. But, working with, like,
the Michigan Education Justice Coalition and, some of the new ballot initiatives and stuff that are getting out, that networking and connection, but building coalition. Right? Like senator Erwin said, every week or so, I have a meeting with another education, group. You know? Detroit Action works really well with education. And I know that's Detroit, but they have some of the resources that you may not have or the thoughts that you may not have. So I think right now, what we have to do is a lot of coalition building. We gotta do it underground, and we gotta do it really fast.
Okay. Yep. So if I can just add, and I'll get your take on this. But just from my work in the legislature as a staff person, I think people many times will look at their representative or their senator and say, well, they already stand for what I stand for, so I don't need to call them because they already are doing what I'm asking. But I think that people in the community can contact chairs of the Appropriations Committee, whether it's somebody that's not your particular legislator. Sometimes it's hard to get into those offices to talk to somebody,
but you can leave a voicemail, you can send an email to still let them feel the heat Exactly. From the community. So don't just stop at your representative or senator. Go on the site for the house, see who's in charge. You've got Hall, who's the speaker of the house. You've got the Appropriations Committee, which holds the purse strings. And look who's head of that big committee and then the subcommittee on education. So, yeah, I I just think that that a lot of people don't realize you can do that. Yeah. You can. And I have encouraged people to do that, in my coffee hours and town halls.
I'm like, you don't gotta tell me. I know. Tell them. Put the pressure on them. When you come to Lansing, if you're with an advocacy group, you don't have to meet with me. I'd love to see you. You're always welcome to come to my office. But meet with them. Meet with their staff. And as a former staffer as well, staff holds a lot of power with their member if they have a member that is kind and and decent. And I I do feel like some of our other, colleagues on the other side, I've seen how they treat their staff and they treat their staff well and they listen to their staff.
We're trusted thought partners. And so that staff can be like, listen. This advocacy group came in and they really felt a way about, you know, x, y, and z, and you can talk through that. So that is also an option. But I will always say, call Matt Hall. You may not call me. Call him. Or his poor staff will call him. Trust you, Mohammed? So, I'm hearing a lot from the community, parents, students. There's a lot of concern about mental health and chronic absenteeism. How are the budgets addressing that? Obviously, the house I think there's nothing in for that.
But how are the budgets addressing that? Because it is becoming a major problem. So I wanna let you know that I right now, I don't know. I think that you're absolutely correct. There is nothing in the budget for it. I have been combing through all 800 pages in house fiscal, analyses of the, budget, and that's something that you all can do as well. You can go on to our websites, and you can pull up that budget information. It's on the the 800 page budget is on my, it's on my personal social media, which which some of you follow, which is public, and my state rep social media.
And then you can find other documents there as well, and that will help you, like, begin to break down, like, this is removed and this is added or this is concurred and, you know, all the things. So but I we don't have anything in there for that or at least I haven't gotten to it yet. I'm probably about 325 pages through, and I'm gonna spend some more time this evening and tomorrow and this weekend going through the rest of that budget with the finest tooth of a comb that I can, and continuously working with policy.
Our policy team has been working around the clock since this drop to try to get all of us the information, and then members will get updated. And then I will gladly send out a a update or report if there's anything that is there or changes. I also recommend, back to the the first question, coming to some of these committees, entering cards, putting in cards, asking to speak, showing up at the capitol when they're having education committees, when they're having appropriations committees come speak, you have that right.
So I'll add that as well. And then senator Erwin has that Yeah. Other part. No. No. I have something to add. But I will mention that if you don't wanna read the whole 800 page bill, which can sometimes be inscrutable, I highly recommend the analysis from the House Fiscal Agency or the Senate Fiscal Agency, which also breaks down on a district by district basis how some of these things play out. So that will, I think be a good place to start. As far as the chronic absenteeism, I don't think there's anything in the senate budget that is directly focused on that per se. But I do think that the school mental health grants and the school based health clinics are,
you know, operating in that space of trying to support schools to do what they think is right on mental health, and that could be something directly attuned to addressing chronic absenteeism. But beyond that, I I haven't seen things. I will mention that one thing that is also, I think, a big issue that there's a lot of conversation about in terms of school mental health, even though I don't think it's directly related to absenteeism, is this whole conversation about cell phones. And so if members, trustees, others wanna school professionals wanna weigh in about, you know, how you see that because there are competing proposals about how do we address that
issue, which, once again, I see it as a connecting it as a mental health issue, but maybe not as an absenteeism. So we're as a board, we're we're waiting to see a report of a a project that was done last year at Skyline. They've had a certain policy on cell phones, and I think there's an interest across our board to be looking at a cell phone policy. Okay. Yeah. I I got yelled at by a couple of constituents for voting no on the cell phone bill that came, across us, but it it's fine. I was ready to take that heat because I know what people hear, but they hadn't gotten a chance to,
like, really read the bill. And there's a much better proposal for if we're going to do a cell phone bill, which I feel like I would rather leave that in the hands of the of the school boards. And I think I've reached out to trustee Mohammed about this and, and trustee, Feaster about this as well. I'd rather leave it in the hands of the school board to make decisions for their students instead of blanket policies across the state because some things are gonna work in different school districts than are not gonna work in other school districts and work
in other places. You know, if you live in a city and you your kids gotta take the bus and and do two or three buses to get to school, and they need to do certain things that may not work. Kids with medical devices, that may you know, there are so many other caveats to that bill that I just didn't like, and so that's why I voted no on it. So that just as a clear explanation, there is a companion bill in the senate, by senator Paul Henke, which I like much better if we're going to vote on a cell phone bill.
But I'd rather leave it in the hands of the experts on that and not make the decision to blanket the state with a law, that may not fit every place that it needs to. So, may I ask you to repeat again? The senate bill is it's S4 is what's the Senate bill number for the budget? Yes. Okay. You said 166. 166, Senate bill, and it's sub-four. S4 means it's the fourth substitute one. Yeah. One substitute. Alright. And then how how can we obtain a copy of that analysis that you referenced?
It's kind of the legislature's website. So you should be able to find it easily. Just Google Michigan legislature. It'll come up with the bill number in the little search bar, and it'll pop up a page. Okay. With the bill itself, the bill history in the middle, it will say analysis, and there'll be a few different analysis. You'd wanna pick the one that's most up to date. Got it. Okay. Thank you. So that website is legislature.mi.gov. As a staffer, we have that memorized, don't we? Listen. We have to tell a lot of constituents, but every It's different when you were in jail. It's Yeah. You're right. And we just updated it. It's, like, completely new.
And for a minute, I really didn't like it. Like, I left as a staffer, and it was one way. And then I came back in January. I was like, well, what did you do? But I've gotten used to it. I like it now. There's just so it's It's my I'm sure it holds the same information. It's just a wonderful place to go. You can see the history of where the bill is, where it's next. It's just a great thing to use that and they're all different analyses. And if it's been heard in a committee, you can click on that committee, you can get a hold of minutes. I mean, it's just tons of information. And there's video I'm sorry. There's video there too.
So if you ever wanna watch committee hearings that you've got maybe missed, or sessions that you missed, you can also go and watch those. And they're also on YouTube as well. And that's just a good way to kinda stay informed, kinda up to date because we do so much that some days I leave Lansing, and my brain is like, what did what just even happened? Right? Like and then I have community and constituent issues to take care of. And the policy right now, of course, is my focus, but the community is what is really important to me,
especially while we're in the minority, and making sure that I'm serving all the constituents the best way that I can, especially while we're our hands are tied with policy. Sorry, go ahead. All right. We have no more questions. Thank you for the time you've given us and for enlightening us. And now we watch the negotiations with the House and Senate and the governor as they come to, hopefully, a final thing before October 1 so we don't have a shutdown. Right? Yes. Fingers crossed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. Let's move on to item four,
public commentary. Public stakeholders have the opportunity to address the Board. As per Board policy, each speaker will be granted up to four minutes with no more than forty five minutes allowed for public commentary period. Do we have anyone signed up? I have one signed up this evening, Rachel Young. Okay. If I can before you start, Rachel, I've got to read the disclaimer here. The Board would like to remind everyone that individuals who signed up for public commentary will have have their name called and given an opportunity to speak. Commenters will receive up to four minutes with a total of no more than forty five minutes for total public commentary period.
I suspect you're doing four or less. Got you. When your name is called, please come forward. To help manage your time, we have a clock placed on the screen in front of you. We'd like to remind everyone that public comments generally pertain to Ann Arbor Public Schools district matters. Comments about any individual or individuals are expressly prohibited. Also, please understand that board members do not respond to public comments. We are listening carefully and will follow-up as appropriate. All right, welcome. Okay. Good evening. My name is Rachel. I have three kids in the public school systems. My youngest is six,
and he is a first grader at STEAM. And I want to talk to you tonight about aftercare. We are the only neighborhood school in the district that does not have aftercare. I we are the only we're at my kids are districted for steam. They're not districted for anywhere else. I know that for the middle school, you get a choice. For elementary school, they're districted for steam. We're the only people, me and my neighbors, are the only people who if we needed aftercare and that was a deal breaker for us, we would have to do schools of choice. We're the only people who aren't served by a school aftercare program.
Yes, there is an aftercare program with Gretchen's house, but they're not allowed to actually physically be located in the school. So they're across the street operating at the church. And as a result of that, they don't have a lot of space and they can't, accept that many kids. So there's a very long wait list for Gretchen's house. Most parents who have their kids at steam just don't have any options. You either hire a private babysitter or you come home early from work or you try to get an older sibling to watch your kids, but you don't have good options. I know that Rekonet is trying to get something off the ground,
and I would really reiterate we need it. And I think it's not right to have one school left out and not be served when everybody else has aftercare. This it's just not fair. So I would, I'm here tonight. I'm alone, but I'm not just speaking for myself. We had a big discussion on our PTO Facebook page. Like, they all agree with you. They just weren't able to, like, sign up and go through the process and get approved on time. So please please please get us aftercare. We need it. We deserve it. We would love to have it. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have anyone else? That concludes public commentary.
We thank you very much for coming and sharing your concerns with us. Ms. Langford, I always tell you my first name. Would you like to have any points of clarification with our comments? Yes. I believe Ms. Bacalur has some points of clarity on this for us. Ms. Baccalore, could you give your position so that people understand who you are? Sure. My name is Jenna Baccalore. I'm the Executive Director of the Community Division, which includes Rec and Ed, strategic partnerships, volunteers and also, student health and well-being. So I can, respond from Rec and Ed.
And I forgot my glasses at home, but I'm gonna attempt to read a couple things, to you. You can't hold it far enough away for me, but thank you. I appreciate that. So, ReconyD is aware that there is a parent concern and need for aftercare and we are committed to moving forward and opening an aftercare at Steam. The staff at Reconad did a survey of A2 Steam staff to make sure or families to make sure that there was sufficient interest and there is sufficient interest.
And, they are now working with the school administration to determine the space, and we'll be opening registration as soon as they have worked out some of those details and hired the appropriate staff. So, I'm anticipating they're anticipating it should be this fall and we are committed to doing it. Thank you. I think I got it all. Thank you. Okay. Any other clarifications? No. Okay. All right. So I know that, if we check your packet,
colleagues, you'll find there are some remarks and community feedback that you want to read that are written comments. Do we have let's go to item number six, reports of associations. Do we have anyone speaking this evening? I have no one here from the EA Okay. For a report. Yeah. Oh, we'll come on out. Okay. I guess we do. Greetings. I've addressed you before, but I wanted to introduce myself in this new capacity. My name is Claire Arthurs. Effective August 1, I am the new president of AEAP. This is a change for the first time in about thirty years. We're so grateful for Percy Brown's leadership and the many stages that he got us
throughout this process. I'm humbled and excited to support this outstanding group of individuals who help support our students in countless ways. For those who don't know, AEAP covers jobs such as the community assistants who keep our building safe and often are able to diffuse a situation with just a tiny eyebrow raise. Our teaching assistants who do a variety of positions to support within the special ed community to support our students. Preschool staff and head start teachers who safely take care of APS' youngest students. They're completing their home visits this week and getting to know the families of their
students. After school child care support professionals are in AAAP, as well as child care staff who work during the school day supporting young parents' ability to finish their high school diploma. Our members are enjoying interactions with their students. Because it's often less class wide and more student specific, We can't really discuss amazing stories because that would break FERPA. But trust us, they're happening. We are excited to be greeting our new students. We are excited to be welcoming back new students. We find joy in their success. The beginning of the school year is an exciting time for any student. An AAP member is always right by their side.
Something that's unique about our positions is that many of our members actually follow these students over the course of several years, developing very strong relationships and foundations of trust within our learners. While we're excited for all the activity in our building, morale amongst our members is fairly low at the moment. It's hard to come back each year to fewer coworkers and increased responsibilities. For the majority of our unit, our wages have remained at or slightly above the poverty line for years now. I was speaking to a member recently with ten years seniority, and they're making $26,000 a year. It's hard each year to come back and see fewer and fewer members in our
positions. Just with the teacher shortage and the nursing shortages post COVID, we've seen a strong decrease in special education teachers as well as teaching assistants nationally. The community assistants were reduced during the budget layoffs, and those numbers have not rebounded. Unfortunately, that combined with the discontinuation of intervention specialists has created more challenging school communities. Members have expressed feeling unsafe in their working conditions. Several teaching assistants, particularly those in self contained classrooms who serve as one on one teaching assistants, regularly assist dysregulated children. When a child is dysregulated,
it is not their fault. They are amazing. They are having a moment. In doing so, these members are often kicked, scratched, bit, punched, spit upon and a host of other behaviors. As insurance costs increased last year, many staff's take home pay went down significantly. Or even if their take home pay did not go down, we were paying a $3,000 deductible, so the net effect is kind of the same. Many of our members are on food stamps just to make ends meet, and at least one member was evicted last year due to not being able to pay their rent. Besides feeling financial insecurity, many have felt over the years somewhat taken for granted by the school system and
treated with disrespect. I have heard from numerous individuals repeated tales of last minute information sent to us. Unfortunately, to cover staff shortages, we did have some involuntary transfers this year. I know those members miss their work families that they loved being a part of. They also understand the difference between a job and a duty, and they take their new assignment seriously. At the end of the day, we are here for our students. Challenges were highlighted this week when the decision was made to switch all teaching decisions all teaching assistants from MacBooks to Chromebooks. We were sort of told the day of. This was not Consenta Lewis' fault, who's amazing and we love her.
Members were unable to print and have multiple screens open at once because the CPU speed is just lower on a Chromebook. So a lot of what we actually do in our day to day and secondary, we're not able to do at this time. What further complicated it was that members found out that a lot of students had just gotten MacBook errors, which is fine. This was grant funded. This makes sense. These are two unfortunate things that happened at the same time. A result of which was that the IT department was slightly overwhelmed by this and has been unable to attend to the needs of the teaching assistants and a lot of teaching assistants are currently left without working computers. They're unable to assistants and a lot of teaching assistants are currently left without working computers.
They're unable to log the data that we need. They're unable to check their work email. And they're unable to do the CEC modules that we were assigned to do by the special education department. I'm confident the district is on top of the situation. I understand why we were switched for financial needs and to increase and boost cybersecurity within our district. And I'm grateful that IT ITD is taking that cybersecurity so so safe so safely, so seriously. I've almost done, I promise. Being the president of the union, I now see the numbers that I've been feeling in my gut for about seven years, but I now see them.
We see a sharp drop off in staffing immediately following the choice not to continue to pay the higher pay rate for one on one TAs and self contained TAs. We lost over a third of those individuals. You see another sharp decline right after health care costs. We've gone down from approximately 80 people since two years ago after holding it around 400 for very long time, many years holding around 400. That's almost a fourth of our unit. I'm curious as we look at suspension data of students with special needs, how many of those suspensions resulted on days when students were supported by a rotating
substitute versus being rotated by their regular staff member. Staff members are expressing being stretched too thin and in these positions, I'm just curious as we look at that data, are they receiving support from a trained individual vested with years in the system or are they being supported by a substitute on that day? At the end of the day, sorry, there's so much optimism here, one moment. The significant thing is that we still come back to work every day. We do this because we love helping our students. All of our members assist them in really different ways. Maybe they're learning toileting at some new facility or maybe they're understanding reinforcers of social
emotional learning. We're the safe adult that you drop your student off with, and we're often the safe adult that you it's that you pick your child up from. We love our jobs. We love the students at APS and we love the staff that we get to work with. I'm hopeful that the district will look at I'm sorry. Wait. Apologies, I will get more used to this. I'm confident both HR and OSC are trying to fill these positions that we're short from. Unfortunately, it's a tough sell to have a position where you earn less than Costco and are potentially repeatedly physically attacked.
I'm hopeful that the district besides looking at competitive ways to recruit more members in the AEAP unit in all of these positions also look at ways to retain the high quality staff they already have. Each retirement or time an AEAP member quits for a better job, it's a loss of that child's safe space. We know that every child deserves a champion and often the AAP members are that champion. We are looking forward to supporting your students this coming year. We hope everyone has a wonderful school year and I thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Okay. Yes. Can we have do we have a copy of what you read or can we
have a copy of what you read? Can you send it to Ms. Ozinski so we thank you. Okay. Item seven, community group reports. Do we have any groups that requested? No groups signed up tonight. Okay. Board committee reports, item eight. Trustee Wilkerson, would you like to give a quick run through on the executive committee? It was appreciated. Yeah. The executive committee met on Monday, August 18 at 9AM. We rolled through agenda items for this meeting. It was a very quick and efficient meeting.
I believe it was about fifteen. Okay. Alright. Let's move to number nine, information. I'm excited to hear from miss Langford about the superintendent, update with some new people that we all need to meet. Yes. So we have a couple of things before we get to the new wonderful people that we're meeting. We just want to give a report on this week. We have had a great start to the new year. Cabinet has been out all week, making sure that we're present at each and every building that we have here, where we've had an opportunity to engage with our staff, with our students, with our families,
and make sure that, they have what they need to be successful. And I must say, we truly have rock star staff here in AAPS, and I know that we all know that. They are an exceptional and go above and beyond every day, and it has been great to witness that this week, from seeing our young fives and kindergartners going from tears to smiles when they walk in the classroom and saw their teachers, our middle schoolers who had anxiety about opening lockers and then being successful at doing it and seeing the smiles on their faces,
and then our high schoolers, who are just glad to be back and see some of their friends who maybe they haven't seen all summer. You could truly feel the excitement in the air. We are very happy and hopeful, to have a safe and successful school year, and what we we plan to engage, to energize, to educate, and elevate, this year. That's sort of our theme. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Clueley, who is going to give you just a glimpse of what we, have been able to witness this week. All right. I'm back on. There we go. All right. Speaking of rock star staff,
we have some new principals that we would like to introduce to you this evening, some of which I think all of which are familiar probably to some of you as they've served in the district, in some capacity for a while, but are now stepping up into their principal roles and then one brand new individual here. So if when I call your name, if you'll stand up and I believe Ms. Hayward has something that she do you have that here or is that later that she'd like to present to you? All right. So we have Crystal Fluker, who is our new principal at Clegg Middle School.
Miss Pflueckert, could you walk over to where the camera is in front of you? The back. Alright. Joining you will be doctor Matthew Jones, who is our new principal at Byle Elementary. We have Veliska Bass, who is our new principal at Pattingell Elementary. Mister Stefan Hogan, who is at Abbott Elementary. And last but most certainly not least, we have Samantha Cuckoo. He's our principal at Mitchell Elementary. Welcome to you all. We are excited to have you. We're gonna have you folks come on to the front. Alright. All right. That concludes the superintendent's update.
Great. Thank you very much. All right. Let's move to Item 10. We have second briefing. Ms. Langford, is there anything changed in 2.1, with the A2 Open Eberweig Elementary building envelope repairs? No. No changes. Okay. 10.2, AN2235 with the new Mitchell Elementary check contracts. Anything changed there? No changes. Okay. And 10.3, A N2236, Slauson Middle School major renovation trade contracts Part three? No changes there either. Okay. Then we will move down.
Ms. Lesinski, did you want to add anything there? Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I have a question. I wasn't here for first briefing last two weeks ago. So I did have a question about in the new Mitchell Elementary, the, acoustic acoustical ceilings? Sure. We can get Stephanie to come up, and can you address that? I think that question was asked. Did I ask that question? It was asked, and we discussed it. I mean, it it was asked and it was answered in the last meeting. Okay. If you can refresh my memory of exactly the question. Just with the,
was the acoustical ceilings discussed with the music teachers or that music teacher advisory group that we have? No. The acoustic ceilings in particular were not discussed with that group. That is a topic of discussion that is still up for discussion and can be revised based on future discussions on the music rooms. The acoustic ceiling package is what you see here above you. Okay. If there is something special or particular that they're looking for,
that can definitely be addressed at any time. So We heard plenty of time to do that. We heard in the presentation about the, performance spaces that the gym at Mitchell was gonna have special acoustic ceilings. Is that what this is talking about? Okay. Yeah. Alright. Thank you. Those are acoustic panels. Okay. This is acoustic ceilings, like what what we have in here. Very good. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Any other questions on any of those items? Well, we have lady in the know here. Okay. Let's move to the consent agenda.
We're now at this part of the meeting. Miss Osinski, would you please read the consent agenda? Sure. A NDash2238 Scarlet Middle School cafeteria table replacement. A n dash two two three nine, Ann Arbor Open and Eberweig Elementary Building envelope repairs. AN-two 235, New Mitchell Elementary Trade Contracts, part four, AN-two 236, Slauson Middle School major renovation trade contracts, part three, and approve minutes of the 08/13/2025 regular meeting,
and then approve a closed session on September 10 at 6PM for the purposes of negotiations and attorney client privilege. Yes. I do have a point of clarification real quick on the Scarlet cafeteria tables. I know that we approved this at the last meeting. However, there has been a change. So this item was approved on is it okay if I read the full briefing note? I just want to make sure that this is okay I can share this. So this item was approved the Scarlet Cafeteria tables was approved on 08/13/2025,
but it needs to be resubmitted for approval to indicate the correct funding source. So when we made the approval at the last meeting, it was being funded through the sinking fund and apparently that was incorrect. So the purchase of tables is not an allowable use of sinking funds. So the funding source has been changed to capital programs funds. So it's a part of the bond. So that's why we're revisiting it tonight. Thank you for pointing that out. I'd also like to make a small change to eleven point seven.
At this evening, we had a closed session scheduled for this evening that the superintendent requested dealing with the superintendent goals. I'd like that added to the list here. We will be coming out into the public meeting at our next meeting to discuss those and to present them to the public, but just to give her that courtesy to connect on that. She will be sending those to us in your email, so you can look at what those are. So I'll add superintendent evaluation to the Yeah. For the reasons of the call session next next time.
Thank you. Okay. Any other changes to the consent agenda that anybody wants to suggest? To remove an item. Or yes. Does anyone want to remove anything on the consent agenda? Okay. Do we have a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. Motion, Trustee Wilkerson's second was Wilks. Any discussion? All right. Let's take a vote. Trustee Mohammed? Yes. Trustee Schmidt? Yes. Trustee Wilkerson? Yes. Trustee Wilkins? Yes. And Trustee Wilks? Yes. Motion carries. Yes. Yes. Item 12, Board Action. We have nothing listed on that item. Number 13, items for agenda planning.
Does anyone want to present any items in this section? Okay. Hearing none, I'm actually go ahead. I wonder if you don't mind. I I think it would be nice to get a quick update on, childcare across the district. Not a comprehensive update. Just looking for a quick update on what those statistics look like. Is there a, with the rest of the board, is that your pleasure to have that? And the superintendent could include it in her update. I mean, it doesn't have to be anything extensive. Yes. Yeah. I think I think every year they do it, but, yeah, that would be it would make sense.
Okay. We'll make sure we take that with the executive committee. Uh-huh. Trustee Mohammed. So I wanted to ask I know I requested this, while when we were discussing, it before, but I would like to ask for the budget form from the bond. So just something maybe at the next finance update, including the bond budget as well. Can you be more specific? So just to see where we are in the bond when it comes to the budget. So where we are, like, how much we think that, how much we still have left, that sort of thing? Yes. Just because we're voting for things we don't know what we're we don't know how
much is left in the bond. We don't know So just to get an update of what's going on with the bond. Okay. Is, that something that the rest of the board would like to have? I think that would be helpful. In addition, I mean, why not the sinking fund as well? I mean Yeah. Okay. Alright. Our treasurer is hearing us. Yeah. Trustee Peterson, do you have this anything to add to that or any thoughts? No. I mean, I think it's something we should definitely have some considerations over as part of our governance. Okay. Yes. Yeah. One thing I would like for the board to possibly consider is,
having someone from the MASB. They usually they're, sort of on the forefront of legislative actions that are going on in Lansing. And I don't know if we could maybe get an update from them as well as to what on the educational front in terms of what's, what they're opposing, what they're supporting, what they're neutral on, just a thought. Okay. Board and McPhillip, what do you think? Would you like that? I've reached out to to find out if they would be willing to speak. I know there's a person, Brenda Pilgrim. Pilgrim. That's her name. Yeah. She would be willing to come at our next meeting at the beginning to give
us her, take on things. Things are gonna change between now and then, I know, as far as legislation. I don't think we're gonna see a budget by then, but she might be able to give us another update. Would you like to engage her? Yes? I thought what we heard tonight from, senator Erwin and representative Morgan was really helpful for me. So more of that would be Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. And and could you, trustee Schmidt, explain to the public what ex who MASB is? It's a lobbying branch, I do believe. Right. So there are professional organizations that exist across Michigan that represent groups of people.
MEA represents teachers, for instance. The Michigan Association of School Boards is a professional organization or school boards that have joined that organization. Not all school boards are covered by them. And they basically have lobbyists that are the ones that while the rest of us are going about our day jobs and aren't down there lobbying, they're meeting with legislators. They're trying to understand what's happening. They're trying to take our voice to things that matter to us. They have we have a representative on the MASB legislative group,
which is Trustee Baskett, and she will go and make sure our voices are heard and then bring back things occasionally she reports out. So, they should be on the cutting edge of what's happening because they're representing the voices of schools and what we're challenged with. Right. And I just think that the timing is perfect considering all the challenges that we're currently facing. And I think it wouldn't hurt to hear even more voices on the topic, on the issues. Well, I can confirm with, Ms. Pilgrim because I know she said she'd be willing to come. Okay.
That'd be great. Okay. So hearing no other agenda items, let's move to item 14, items from the Board. Does anybody have anything they'd like to add this evening? Okay. I have to add my experience. I spent the morning of the first day of school at Scarlet, my old haunt, and, it was just the energy was so wonderful. They run that place so well, and, it I think the most fun was seeing, and it was mentioned here, the sixth graders that come in, their eyes are really big and they're in the cafeteria. They don't know where their first class is and they were just so excited to
finally have a little group to head off to their classes and, but everything ran so beautifully. I was just really excited. So we're lucky to have such great staff and it was wonderful. I was really glad to get in my car and drive home. And think I retired now, it was kind of nice too. So it was a mixture of feelings. I just I love those little guys. Any other comments? Yes. Let me just say I'm just really excited, for our district and, and our rock star staff as, as as miss Langford said earlier. It was just exciting to see the school bus come down the road and,
you know, kids are waiting and, you know, the new backpacks that, you know, everything all shiny and new for the first day. And so, so the excitement is great, and this is is I'm anticipating an exciting year. Yes, absolutely. Okay. So if we have nothing more to say, I need a motion to adjourn. So move. Second. Okay. That's moved by Trustee Wilkes. Wilkes. Seconded by Wilkerson. And all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We are adjourned.