Good evening, everyone, and happy New Year. This is the Dearborn Board of Education School District of the City Of Dearborn, board study session meeting. Today is Monday, 01/05/2025. It is 06:03 twenty twenty six. There you go. Happy New Year again. I call this meeting to order. Roll call, please. Sure. Trustee Eljeamy? Here. Trustee Bezze? Here. Trustee D'Ambrosjuk? Here. Vice President Petlichkoff? Here. Trustee Subhash? Here. Trustee Zahir? Here. President Mozart?
Here. Thank you. Next item. Next item is the pledge of allegiance. Please stand if you're able to. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Alright. So today's study session is to study the infrastructure of our district and study an upcoming suggested bond. So, we will begin our agenda as posted with citizen participation if any citizens would
like to address us. We will also open the floor to citizens at the end of the meeting to address us if they have any questions because I do understand that sometimes things come up and Citizens wants to address us after. We'll we'll give them that chance as well. So do do we have any blue cards? We don't have any blue cards at this point, mister president. Okay. We can go to the next item. The next item is a discussion. Item one, infrastructure needs. So at this point, I'll turn it to superintendent Surore, who will do the introduction
of our panels. Good evening, board. Before I begin, I wanted to, make a little note about trustee Petlichkoff. I think today is the first day that you are the only locally voted elected female in our city. Correct? It is. Congratulate. So if I told you earlier, if they were to pick one female, they picked the right one. Thank you. Allow me to introduce our guests today. In front of you, you have representatives from Byram Fisk. We have Mark Fisk and Jacqueline Wayne Geit.
And from Quinn Evans, we have Denise Close and Anne Dilcher. And from Gilbane, we have Stephanie Corona and Amra Amra. Along with them is Tom Wall and David Mustonen, and, they're here to, provide clarity, provide information, answer any questions. And, really, hopefully, the outcome is that all board members have a better understanding to make sound decisions moving forward. Thank you. So we will begin with mister Wall and mister Mastoni.
Good evening, board. Thank you so much, for putting this, together today so that we can have an opportunity to begin this very important discussion. Tonight, here at this side of the table, we thought we'd start off with, just a little bit, from, I will turn it over to mister Wall and he will, can introduce the folks from, Quinn Evans and give you a little bit of, just an up overview and bring us all back up to speed. We we know there's been a lot of information shared quite a bit of information,
a whole folder full of information as well. And I know there is a lot to digest there, so hopefully, we'll be able to give just a little overview. Also joining me on this side of the table, representatives from Byram and Fisk, who will be able to provide a little bit of an overview too on some of the work that's been done just over the past several months in regards to, facilitating some community input and feedback. So I'll turn it over to mister Wall first, and then we can then when they wrap up, we can come back over to this side of the table.
Good evening, board. Just for your, you know, review and for people that are listening, we had our building international report that was done and completed. But we felt that with the ESSER funds and some of the wrap around general fund that we did a lot of construction, that we engage in RFP, and Quinn Evans was the selected vendor to kind of update our numbers and also look at the historical aspects in our buildings. So they completed books one, two, and three for the board. And it kinda summarizes what they did along with the help of Gilbane to kinda
put a financial number to it all to kinda review what building did and give us an update on our numbers. So with that, I'll turn it over to miss Dilcher and miss Close to kinda give you a quick update about their engagement. Good evening. We were here about six months ago, and there are new faces and, new ideas we know. So we're interested in listening tonight and answering questions. Denise and I are here from Quinn Evans, a firm that's been in Michigan for over forty years with offices in both Ann Arbor and Detroit.
And we were brought here to the team for our work on K-twelve projects but also for our work with existing buildings and historic buildings and understanding the costs of renovation and the value of those buildings. So we've teamed with Gilbane. We have, as introduced before, Stephanie Corona and Amro Amro behind us. We are working in Detroit and Ann Arbor with Gilbane on several projects. And we felt they were the right partner to come in also to help really
understand the numbers, for a project like this. Wanna oh, he is flipping. Sorry. Flipping to see where we are in the on the slides. So the goals of this assessment were to understand the historic context of these buildings, and going and understand the building conditions both from a overview of the site perspective and from a building adaptability perspective. The information had done previously very specifically on building systems, but this to look and
understand, much like the work we are doing for other districts, what does it take to adapt a building for the new model of twenty first century schools? What are the new demands being asked of schools that were not there in the '20s, '30s, '50s when these schools were built? Where are the pressure points, the pain points? And what's the opportunities in these buildings? And for each case we looked at to understand a perspective and a cost on the buildings of what if there was a new building, a new building on the
site. Is there even enough space on some of these sites to put a new building or Sorry. Chair Moza, can you see if they can get this on Yeah. Can we get the screen shared on both TVs? Same screen that's Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Alright. And then what's involved in a major renovation or expansion of a historic building? And then a level of renovation, some buildings may not need as extensive work. And what's the cost and what's projected for the schools in terms of a renovation? So based on all of that cumulative research, the priorities that we were able to
define, again, based on the building conditions and, projected enrollments and such, priorities that came about from talking with principals and teachers and building engineers, safety and security, restrooms, student support spaces, infrastructure, and a lot of things on the site, things with traffic control, playgrounds. And so that's that's kind of where we landed. And then we put together, a map, and we prioritized all of the buildings in the district and which ones we thought were a critical priority based on the conditions
we found or projected conditions, in the future. And then and we ranked all of the buildings. So we have four that are at a critical priority, some that are high, moderate, low. And I think also within that, the critical priority is not necessarily we think these need to be a new building, but we think they need attention. And that attention might be a new building. It might be a study to understand if that's really the right path forward. And all of that is laid out in the volume one as a summary and then more detail in the other two volumes, which I know you have all seen.
Okay. So now, we will share some information. I'll turn this over to, Mark and he can just change presentations here. Sounds good. Happy New Year to the board. Happy New Year. Great to be here in Dearborn. I I grew up in Dearborn Heights. I hope you won't hold it against me, Chargers, but my mother was an English teacher at Fordson for several years, so great to be back here. We we are Byron Memphis Communications. We are a strategic communications firm, and we we've helped numerous school districts, big and
small, to, research, plan, and implement successful bond efforts. So we are glad to be here. And these are these are districts, you know, large like Dearborn, the Detroit Public School District, Utica, but also very small districts. Baldwin, Community Caledonia. And we've done a lot of work in the public education space, working with My LEAP on the, Pre K for All program, the student collaborative research program. So we've got a deep, deep history in public education. We're glad to be here. And, I do want to stress that the research we're going to give an overview
on, I believe, is one of the most comprehensive research programs we have done for a district. It's very comprehensive. And we started very broad and got less broad and got very, very specific. So I applaud you for reaching out and really listening to the community. The the information we have, I think, will allow you to say that you have a broad based, wide range, series of perceptions and opinions, about the district and about about what they want to do in the future of the school district there.
It was also very unique in one other regard. This really is special. We did not test a specific bond proposal. We did not give numbers. We did not say these are the specific improvements. This is not how much it's going to cost you a month. We actually intentionally left out those specifics because we wanted to let the research go where it may go. We wanted to really listen to the community, and just bring you that information so that there was no sense that this is some way preordained or there was a
foregone conclusion or any of our assumptions. We let the research, pretty much go where it would, and no surprise to you, the community was very blunt and very forthright about their opinions about things. So with this research, if you choose, to pursue a bond and infrastructure improvement proposal, I think you'll have, confidence that the research behind it is quite solid and that you have gathered a wide cross section of perceptions. Let me give you kind of the key takeaways from the research.
One, I believe, without a doubt that there is an openness to a bond proposal, a school improvement proposal. Folks feel good about Dearborn Public Schools. They view it as a pillar of the community. They see it as attracting new families and new opportunities here. People are very positive about that. They see it as increasing property value. So they they see the work you're doing, matters and it improves their quality of life. However, there is a real tension that you're going to have to reckon with as you assemble this proposal, which is the financial squeeze that residents are feeling in Dearborn,
especially the younger residents. This came through loud and clear. And that's a tension that really cannot be ignored as you begin to wrangle through and assemble the scope of the bond and which projects you pick and how much you want the voters to pay for this because the younger folks are feeling quite squeezed on housing. They're feeling it on utility bills, and they just can't afford a whole lot more. So that's that's attention there. I also think the third takeaway is that we need, if you do decide to pursue a bond, that factual, accurate communication would be critical.
Informing the community of what you're doing, how the money's going to be spent, and what transparency measures will be in place to ensure that that taxpayer dollars, which is very precious, is spent wisely, I think is just critical, for success. And so with that, next slide. Yes. So we talked about comprehensive. We did three pieces of research, here, and again, this is very unique and very comprehensive. We started off with what we call in-depth, interviews. These were nineteen forty five minute, interviews, almost 300 pages of transcriptions, largely with government
officials, education experts, and community leaders. So very, very high level. And these interviews kind of set up the basis for the rest of the research, the focus groups and the polling. Here's some things that in those in-depth interviews we were told very directly. One, Dearborn is a special community. People are very proud to be in Dearborn. And, they're optimistic about the future of Dearborn. And that the schools are very highly regarded, despite a lot of the challenges. And that could be multilingual challenges, income equality challenges.
Folks really do hold the school in high regard. Again, despite the optimism, there are divides in the community. I think you're all aware of them. There's East versus West versus South, Muslim and Christian, Yemeni, Lebanese, parents and non parents. A lot of folks said you have to get to the non parents. The parents know the situation, but we have to get out the word to people who are not parents in the community. They don't have the information. But the biggest divide again was on property taxes and the reluctance to pay more, And this is really an age gap.
We saw that some of the older residents we talked to were much more open to paying a little bit more. And those younger folks are much more reluctant to paying more. Couple of things: modernization and HVAC upgrades no brainers. They see those as necessary. Just like you have to fix a roof on your house, you have to fix a roof on a school. And but they in the in-depth interviews, folks wanted to see something with a little more, I guess you'd say, a little more pizzazz, career tech, something future oriented, something that looks to the future as well to get folks excited about it.
But across those interviews, the infrastructure upgrades were no brainers. And again, this came through. We need to be accurate, we need to be factual, we need to be transparent, and make sure that we're giving folks the information they need and answering the questions they have. And if we don't, folks who oppose this bond will exploit that. And that's just a fact. That came out of those in-depth interviews. We then moved to focus groups. We did four focus groups, and they were comprised of one group of younger Arabic women, younger Arabic men was another group, white seniors, and then we had white non
parents of varying ages and education. And again, we started to see some similar patterns emerging in these focus groups as well. Optimism about Dearborn and about the future of the city, schools being worthy of tax dollars. They want their tax dollars going to the schools. They see the schools as a pillar of the community, higher property values, secure neighborhoods. They get it. They understand if strong schools make strong communities. But again, we see younger voters much more reluctant to pay more, much more negative
actually on infrastructure, roads, the services they get, the value for the dollars they're putting in, a lot more questions from the younger voters. This really is something different that we're seeing in research. There was a time where it was actually the older voters who were much more pessimistic, much more resistant to tax questions. That has changed really since COVID over the last five, six years. And it's actually the younger voters who are feeling like, I just don't know if I can afford, an extra $100 $200 another thing, they are vaguely aware that the
district's facilities are old, but they don't have a lot of specifics on that. There's not an awareness of the specifics. The one exception that we found in the focus groups is air conditioning. People are really wakening up awakening to the fact that these schools get very, very hot, they're uncomfortable, and if we want them to be healthy, we need a proper HVAC system. So that did come out of those groups. And last but not least well, two things, I should say. Traffic around the schools. Universally, we've got traffic issues. Either some people see it as a safety issue or an annoyance, but it did
come up organically. And last but not least, in the focus groups and this was across all four groups of mental health The growing awareness of mental health strains on students came through loud and clear in these focus groups. So they were very open to, new spaces for counselors and helping to support our young people who are feeling stress like never before. We then moved into the survey the polling survey where we surveyed 400 registered voters across the city, and here's what they told us.
Just click it. Okay. So and here you can see by the slide, 61% say Dearborn is going in the right direction. That's pretty good feeling given everything that's going on in the economy. This is largely driven by Arab resident optimism. They believe the community is headed in the right direction. And, a lot of concerns still about groceries, about insurance, and cost of living. But generally, people are feeling good about Dearborn. And we have seen that as a nice backdrop if you decide to pursue a
bond proposal. People are feeling good about the city. Next slide, please. They rate Dearborn schools higher than surrounding districts. You know, a majority of them said that Dearborn schools are doing better than surrounding districts. They're very supportive of the teachers. If you decide to pursue a bond, you know, teachers are great messengers. They're great validators. They're trusted. They're viewed as non biased and on the ground. And so they are very, very good messengers. And they also said repeatedly that having good schools helps everybody.
It helps us have stable neighborhoods, higher property values, attracts new families to the communities. Next next slide, please. So voters generally view the conditions of the school as good. And you can see the numbers there. 70% to 28% overall view the facilities as either excellent or good. So what does that tell us? It says we probably have some work to do in terms of public education to give to show people, the dire needs that some of these facilities have because it's
not immediately aware to them. And we saw that in the focus group. Financial management as a district is about fiftyfifty. Okay? Financial management as a district is about fiftyfifty. Okay? That might everybody, of course, wants that score to be higher. But that, in terms of other schools we've worked with, is pretty good, especially given the skepticism that people have in terms of how our taxpayer dollars are being spent. Next slide, please. So we simulated again using a theoretical millage we didn't use a specific millage But we said, okay, would you support or oppose a hypothetical millage?
And you can see we did three different exercises. So the first two, pillars are the initial vote. We gave them no information. We just said, would you theoretically support a millage? And you can see 61 to 34 yes to no. Again, these are with no specifics, nothing. Just would you support one to help do updates and improve. And your opposition is about 34%. Not not a bad place to begin with. Again, some of that support with that light blue is soft, but it is a
good place to start. Then we give them a series of pieces of positive information. Here are some things that we might consider addressing, with a bond like that. And you can see that those numbers then go up to $74.23 So this is after some positive information real basic stuff about infrastructure and career tech and different things that you might fund. In fairness and balance, you always like to do a little what we call a stress test. Because if you just give positive information, you get kind of a glass is half
full, look at what's happening with the proposal. So we did test, I guess you'd call it a negative message against the bond, which talked about the high taxes in the city, that we've been taxed enough already, the school should live within its means. After that, you do see some support shift away 69 to 29. But still, even after that negative information, it shows an openness for some kind of school improvement proposal. Next slide. So here's where that tension we talked about comes. These are just supporters.
So when we asked them how much would you be willing to spend, 71% picked the lowest funding option, or they refused all options entirely. And we gave it to them two different ways. We said we did it as a yearly amount and we did it as a monthly amount. And in both cases, there are some marginal difference. They're probably a little better to frame it as a monthly cost than a yearly cost, but you can see that even the strong supporters gravitate to the lowest cost option of $300 a year or $25 a month.
So that to me speaks to that, again, financial tension that is in the community. Among the most important priorities for updates, we see infrastructure as number one. This is your roofs, this is your bathrooms, this is your floors, Kind of your meat and potato upgrades. No one disagrees with that. That's a kind of a no brainer in terms of the research part of it. And then the second piece, which left out, is the skilled trades. If we can give young people use the bond to give people skills, hands on
education, skilled trades, certifications, again, preparing them for the jobs of the future, this really was a winner too in terms of priorities there. And third would be, again, your HVAC. There's other priorities there we tested special ed, security STEM. Those are all good too, but in terms of your top three or four, it's really your infrastructure, your career tech and skilled trades, and then it's your HVAC. Next slide. We tested several what we call messages or convincing statements on why you would support
a theoretical proposal. And most of them really centered around the economy, jobs in our community. By far, the the two top messages, the most convincing reasons to support the bond, was that it was preparing kids for the jobs of the future, giving them skills that they need to go out there and compete and get jobs. And that includes hands on education in the skilled trades. And the second most compelling message was it's for everyone. That if you improve the schools, it helps everybody in the community. It helps us with higher property values.
So those are definitely good messages. And I think you have a suite of possible messages if you choose to pursue a bond. So a couple key takeaways. Finally, just to wrap up: make it about classrooms, make it about the kids and the impact on kids. People understand kids are our future and they want this to be about the kids and the impact on kids as opposed to, administrators. And that whatever actions you choose, let's make them tangible, let's make them measurable, let's make them understandable. Folks are very skeptical about how their tax dollars are being spent, so the more
transparent it could be. Several people suggested, for example, could we put just factual information on a government website, like the city website, for example, came up as an idea. They just want factual information on the bond, and I think that's going to be, very helpful. In addition, we did ask them, would you prefer a smaller bond, even if we had to come back to you later to do the rest of the improvements now and build on that success? Or would you prefer to a big bond?
And most people did say, we would prefer a smaller millage, come back to us later for the rest of the urgent repairs. So Do you have specific numbers on that or as far as big versus small bond? We did not test that. We tested theoretically a bigger kinda do it all approach I see. Versus break up the bond into pieces, and they they clearly wanted to break it up into pieces. And that was upon our direction.
We did not want to, as Mark pointed out, we did not want to imply that there was a done deal out there already Right. That the board had already decided on a dollar amount. So that's why we instructed that this survey be very open ended to make sure that everyone knew there was no preconceived plans. Sir. Sir. And just just to wrap, last thing. There is an openness to pass a bond. You have the tough work of deciding, do we do a bond? What does that bond look like? Just be aware of the financial squeeze that people are feeling.
That's very real in Dearborn. And it is across the state, but it's very, very pronounced in Dearborn. And last but not least, communications, accurate, transparent, consistent, making the case for it, using the best messengers, I think, is a possible path to win. So with that, we'll take any questions. Alright. I'll Trustee Pasczlaff and then Trustee Zart. Okay. Couple things. Because I've been through this many times over the years. The mess the one thing to be able to message more easily, I guess, to
the community at large who is not necessarily very well, and ensconced in district finances is, when the the difference I think when people are saying we would rather rather than trying to explain a large, all one and done bond that may expand over a thirty year period, but trying to explain to them how it would be divvied up as we progress through.
And you're not all gonna be hit with it at one time, but you're not all gonna see results at one time. Is hard for people to, the concept of it is. I also understand people maybe are more comfortable with the smaller bond because they can see whether we're actually gonna do what we say we're gonna do. And and it can have some value and trust in it. Yes. They that we asked for this amount. They said they were gonna use it for this. They did. Now let's move on and and get and get to the next phase.
And it might be a different group of voters, more than likely it would, come a a ten or fifteen year, passage of time. And you'd have to go through that effort again, but you might have more success in in passing it. So that's just my 2¢ worth of understanding how people view, those large dollar figures. So that's number one. Number two, I was kinda surprised to to see the skilled trades, piece for one
reason. We are a p 14 district, and we have Henry Ford College that does a lot of skilled trades training. We also have a, have a an absolutely phenomenal opportunity for our students during their high school experience to take advantage of that for free. So they're getting opportunities to get a lot of that skilled training already. And we are doing a major expansion over at Henry Ford College right now, to help, support that also. So I'm wondering whether we just need to do a better job of explaining to
community of what's already out there and that that's already available to them so that when we do put forward a proposal of what we would do with that money, they can see that we've already got an investment in this community that we don't have to take our resources to recommit to at our p 12 buildings, but rather that we can use it for other, efforts in the infrastructure, realm. So that might be something that we can would have to work on in the
communication part that a lot of people are just unaware that of that, opportunity already exists for the most part and that we are giving it. Or they're looking for something where the kids don't have to move out of the building, but get and I'm not exactly sure what they mean by skilled trades. Are they talking about they want shop classes and auto shop and that back in, or are they talking more in the IT arena or something? I it would be interesting to find out what they're conceiving of because a lot
of the kids in this community don't seem to be trending that way anyhow. They seem to want to go on to a four year college experience and go into, a a more not a manual labor type of environment anyhow. I'm I'm kind I was a little surprised to see that. Trustee Zahar. I have a few questions. First, thank you. A a little correction on one of the slides in the beginning when you were talking about, one of your first ones. I don't know if you have to go back to it.
Anyway, you said you interviewed Arabic people. Please, it's Arab, not Arabic. Okay? Arabic's a language. Did you I I have a few questions just so I understand how people understood this. Did you explain and and sorry if you said any of these things, did you explain to the respondents in your surveys or your polls how long it might take before they see results? Like, if we pass a bond, how long all this stuff is gonna take? We did not get into that part of the discussion. Okay. And, to build on, president Mosef's question, at the at the very end, you said
you had you said that people more preferred a small bond and then come back to us later rather than a big bond. How did you come to that? Did you he asked for, like, a number. I mean, how did you come to that conclusion? Did you Well, we did, it's a great question, if I could. We did pairing statements. I could share those with you. We said, here's two possible positions. And I'm I'll I could give you the exact wording if you want. But we said, which one is closer to your opinion? Do the larger bond and sort of get it all out of the way or
to break it up into pieces, which one's closer to your opinion? And we let them score that. So we kind of we gave them mutually exclusive statements, and we said, which one is closer to your point of view? That's how we asked it. What does that mean we let them score that? I don't know what that means. Well, we said which one is closer to your point of view? So you didn't it wasn't a yes or no question? No. Statement one or statement two? Which one is closer to your point of view? And then what does that mean, they score sorry. I don't know what that means. They said they chose which of those two statements Right. Were closer to their point. So it was binary.
Yes. So they so they would say, I like this statement. Okay. So you don't have numbers for that? Well, we do we do have numbers for the scores. If you want me to look them up, I could get those. Yeah. I think that's what president Yeah. That's what president Moses was like. Just to see if there's a huge You know, like, if whether it was, like, 75% of them said we want a smaller bond or it's, like, 55%. I can read it to you. Okay. Great. So it's a, now I'm gonna read you the following pairs of statements. For each one, please tell me which comes closer to your point of view even if neither is exactly right. So statement one. It would be best to fund a larger millage for twenty years to address all
the critical issues in the district. Statement two: It would be best to fund a smaller millage for ten years even if a later second millage would be necessary to finish addressing the critical issues in the district. And so it was 38 for the first statement, 56 for the second statement. Does that make sense? So 38% said yes to the first one, fifty six percent said yes to the second one. Okay. Fifty six thirty eight. That's my math. Okay. So just very few didn't answer. Very few said yes to the first one. Oh, some didn't answer.
Or didn't know. I mean, sometimes people say we don't know. I can't tell you. In your experience in talking to people, did they seem and I think you said this earlier, but I'm I'm just wanna double, check. Did excuse me. Did, did the residents seem to understand pretty well the infrastructure crisis that's going on in the schools? I think there's a perception gap. In one of the slides we showed, we asked people to rate the quality of the facilities, and many of them said it was either in excellent or good condition.
In fact, most people did, I think 70%, said it's either good or excellent. So I don't think they're aware of the crisis you're facing. Okay. At least based on this research. So okay. So they might not so a lot of residents might not be fully aware of the infrastructure crisis yet they were still kind of in favor of a of a bond? Correct. Okay. When you one of the, statistics or questions you show was that and I forget how you asked it or what it looked like, but something like people really wanna
stay in Dearborn. They they like living here. Did you get into any of the factors of why did or was any you know, did you get any deeper in, like, why do they wanna live here? Anecdotally, people The diversity, they like, you know, access. People talked about coffee shops and restaurants, and they like they like being in a diverse community. They see, Dearborn as a growing community. They see a lot of their neighboring communities losing residents and hollowing out in terms of schools.
So those were some of the reasons that were cited in terms of why they're feeling good about it. Did they cite the schools? Like, did a lot of people cite the schools and the quality of the schools? Most most people were very positive on the schools. Yes. It was city services was I would say was a mixed bag in terms of, you know, roads, infrastructure, water. Talk to the mayor about that. Okay? We got nothing to do with that. It's a fair problem. Exactly. But, the school I mean, the schools came through as very positive. K. We'll come back to you. Yes. That's Other questions? Thank you. Great questions. And then Trustee Baz.
Trustee O'Jem? Well, thank you for the presentation. A couple of things I want to ask. The first question is focused on our executive team. Has there been any enrollment study forecasted? I know, several years ago, there was some done. And the only reason I bring that up is there's, there there's something going on with virtual schools and which would impact the the number of students in our district
or out of outside the buildings. There's, a common factor right now that we are losing kids to virtual, whether it's within our school, whether it's outside of our school, such as Penn Foster. And I wanna make sure that's that's a part of the, assessment, that there is a forecast to tell us, you know, how many kids we have in virtual schools, how many kids are we losing kids to virtual schools outside of our district. This is something that we brought up and I don't think, we really need, to
gauge. Because when we do a bond for ten years, for twenty years, for thirty years, you have to take that into consideration as you build new buildings or, renovate or do. The capacity is really we used to be at 23,000. I think maybe I'm wrong. I think right now we're at 19,000. Of enrollment over the years. Yeah. David, if we can get that on the screen. But go ahead. But we're at 19,000. Yeah. And we're continuing to lose kids. So this is really important to make the right decision is to be able to
see the trend, of of kids attending school, physically attending the schools. That that's really important. And and like I said, whether it's our schools and whether it's other schools, or charter schools for that matter, if it's a brick and mortar. So that's really important to be able to do that. As far as the capital improvement and the time line, I think the challenge with doing a thirty years bond and and doing the big bang is when are you
gonna realize and I say you, I mean us. The the actual if a built in is gonna be built in twenty years as a taxpayer, you're not seeing the value. So this is going back to pick picking the smaller bond because people wanna see values in their lifetime or, you know, they might not be in Dearborn. So it's it's really, really important to show value for anything that we propose. And and, like, trustees are mentioned in infrastructure, and you mentioned the the perception gap.
I mean, we do have really some schools who are in really, really bad shape, and and those need to be addressed. And those are the the values you're gonna get right away. You're gonna it's gonna be, you're gonna see it. It's it's a realistic, impact or value. You're gonna see the value right away. So I wanna make sure that the, capital improvement time line, we show what we're gonna do and when and not to say we're gonna build a school. If it's the bottom of thirty years, we're gonna build it in twenty five years.
That's not gonna sell. Last item I wanna make sure is, regarding the skill trades. I know we have Henry Ford College, and it's a it's a great institution. But parents wanna see the the skill trade and the technical focus on technology at the high school level. Unless they're going to early college, that's a that's a different situation. But we wanna be able to to kinda abide by the time and show, that we're able to provide the skill trade, the technology at the high school level, not
when they get to college or when they do dual enrollment. So I think that's the that's the the need versus what's being offered at Henry Ford. Last question. I said last. You you mentioned in the poll the poll, you said something about Arabs and optimism. So I I wanna distinguish, is the optimism throughout the throughout the city, or is it just throughout one group of people? I thought I heard that was said earlier.
The optimism just clarify for me. Is the optimism, optimism from all or from a certain group? It is from all. 61% say the city is heading in the right direction. Okay. That's a pretty good number. And that is being driven by Arab optimism. When you look at the subgroups under there, they're more optimistic than even the general population because we wanted to look at different groups there. But it's, you know, I think that's very striking and I think it's a positive backdrop for for a possible bond.
Yeah. And I I you know, my wish is that the optimism is across, not through a certain group. But I just wanted to get the clarification because I heard it and that was kinda like stuck in my head. Okay. Thank you. Trustee Bazzi? Thank you guys for this this has been great information. I've been, over a lot of it over our our winter break. So I appreciate all the hard work that's been put into it and for you guys coming here today. Question. When you had asked a question about conditions of our schools, and there was a lot of positivity around that, was there any, deviation between, who was answering it as
a parent versus a non parent? I could I could look that up. It would take me a minute to look at that, but it it seemed when you're at 70%, it would suggest that there's a that's a pretty broad perception, but I could look at parents specifically on there. It just would take me I don't know if we have that slide. Yeah. Going back to it. I just wanna make sure I'm quoting it. Yes. Overall, seventytwenty eight. We divided the voters into areas, just for better or for worse, Northeast, center, Southeast, and West.
A little bit better in the center, Southeast 70 Four-twenty 5. But it does look when you ask the questions, how do you rate the conditions of the schools, buildings, athletic facilities, property, and grounds owned and operated by Dearborn Public Schools, most folks are pretty I mean, their perception is they're either good or excellent. Was it do you know if it was divided by, you know, elementary parents, middle and high? And the reason I make that point is because from my research looking into this,
you know, some of the older facilities that have quite a bigger need and I look at, you know, in the quinnadventure port here, it's all of the elementary schools. Is there a divide in that answer between Parents and non parents? Parents and non parents, but even more specific, you know, do you have elementary kids? Do you have middle school kids? Do you have high school kids? I could look at that. But again, when I see seven I've and again, I will get you that information follow-up, but when I see 70%, there there is a broad perception that they're in pretty good shape. You have to also understand that probably outside of the, you know, parents and teachers
and things like that, most people in the community, they don't have the intricate knowledge. The one area that I think I said, I hope I did, that where that changed was on HVAC. They're just people are really getting aware of air conditioning and heating issues and plumbing issues. There's just a growing awareness. There was a time where you you didn't want to talk about air conditioning. People thought that was, some kind of a a luxury item. It's not. It's necessary for health and safety. But I can follow-up and get you those numbers. Okay. You had mentioned before that a lot of the comments you were receiving, the city's
heading in the right direction. When we say that we're talking about the city of Dearborn or the or the school district, or was it more of a broad question? The city? Yeah. We asked about the city. As opposed to the state or the country, you know, you ask how are things going in Dearborn. And generally speaking, folks are pretty pretty upbeat, pretty positive. Any other questions? So we had questions for Quinn Evans. It's an attempt to ask now. Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. I have some questions for you guys. Sure. So So, again, going back to the elementary schools, let me look here. Yeah. It's mainly the elementary schools. You know, some of the recommendations assessment recommendations for the elementary is, you know, I
see here, a new facility not feasible, additional study needed. Just kinda eyeballing that about half of them fall into one of those two categories. Can you elaborate a little bit on, why a building would get a, conclusion of new facility not feasible or additional study needed? What are the reasons for that is the, size of the site? That the, that the school is located on. And so that would lead into a bigger discussion on if the if the plan
went forward and it was decided that you were building and building to have swing space and moving students to another neighborhood for a certain amount while you demolish the school that was there to build a new school. So for those and then looking at the the cost of and the need for the renovation work versus putting in a new school on there. That's where we we looked at it and from from our numbers opinion felt that,
it was, you know, not feasible to to do that at that site. On other sites, you could build on a second elementary school and then you could demolish or reuse or you could use the school there for staging if that was a if that was a discussion or something there. But I think in in those, it had to do with the site, and then it had to do with looking at, what really were the needs and did it
make sense to to, from a feasibility dollar standpoint, demolish a school and build new. Was trying to, you know, sort of bring some of those dollars in versus, sort of earlier studies that said from, from only looking at the, sort of educational twenty first century educational, we feel we would want a brand new school. And that that study looked at having a lot of new schools.
But where is the property for these new schools and the dollars for for new schools? So if a building was, the conclusion was, you know, new facility not feasible, are we supposed to interpret with that we should build a new building there, we just don't have the land for it? Or, the cost is not advantageous for us to work on this building? It's probably a combination of both, and we could go into that more detail for which specific schools that we have that, The ones that say study are more so
that there might be room on the site for a new building. The projected enrollment data that we were given might say that, you know, ideally, you would add 20,000 square feet. Is that possible to fit on the existing site or not? And so those and then another one with the high school is kind of referring to what we just talked about. We know the current enrollment, but because a lot of students are taking classes off-site, do you really have that many students in the building at one time? And so that would be an additional study that we would recommend to understand if
an addition is really needed or not, and is there space on the site to make that work. So the ones that say study kind of have a lot of factors that a lot of more possibilities available to them. We just weren't ready to say what the best approach would be without additional research. And I I grow concerned with with some of these schools, you know, looking at the aging and their infrastructure and the priority assignment on them based on what's high. And we still need, you know, we still need answers to that so that we can make an informed, you know, decision about what to do moving forward.
I trustee Pilzka, but I do have a question right on trustee Bassey's point. On the schools that are on the screen here that are slated for critical priority, are those the four of them, Howe, Whitmore, Salina, Intermediate, and Lowery, Are those slated for replacements in in the report, or do we have ones where we say we cannot do a replacement because of constraints? A little of both.
K. Do you want me to go through the four? If you can, please. Yeah. Yeah. So, for example, at how we know I mean, the building is in fine shape as far as the building goes, but it's not meeting the needs of the current program there. So it's overcrowded. The, the special needs population at that building has a lot of equipment that's causing fire hazards in the hallways and things with just storage space lacking. And so there's infrastructure in that regard that we would say maybe that population we
would recommend has a new facility that's catered just to them, and that's why Howe is labeled as a critical priority. Lowry, a beautiful building, but we found a lot of structural concerns, that and it's oversized for the projected enrollment numbers that we got. So that's one where it has a large site. There is a possibility of building a right sized facility, as a replacement school because of the cost of repair of that large square footage that's not needed, you know,
is a balancing act of would you rather repair a lot of space, put a lot of work into this building, or build a new building that's right sized? The the the costs were not much different for that. But it does need some attention quickly. So that's why it's critical. Whitmore Bowles is a similar situation where it's just a series of additions put on. There's some infrastructure concerns as far as, structural issues and I believe it has a pool that's also, or wait.
I don't remember. The pool. Yeah. No. Sorry. That one does not. We have other elementary schools and pools and pool issues. But there are some concerns that we noticed some structural, needs. So that again, I don't think that one needs a new facility, but I think, you know, it needs some updating more rapidly than some of the others. And Celina in a similar situation. Celina is a similar situation as Wilmore. Wilmore. Yep. We're not recommending a new building for that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that.
Trustee Pascall? Okay. We're here tonight because we know that if we want to have any ballot proposal in the near future, we we have to make some decisions. Right now, I'm hearing there's still gonna be a lot of questions because part of the problem is is that and this is nothing against the study done with with asking, the community what they wanted because you were giving a set of parameters to go by. A lot of people are not aware of a dollar figure until we put it
on that ballot and start moving forward with the proposal of what we're going to do with that money at basically about the same time. So it it's kind of a hypothetical at this moment, those questions that were asked, that they were sharing their thoughts on. Because they're probably looking at what they've seen going on in surrounding communities and what their bond proposals have looked like, which may not be the reality of what we
want to try to present moving forward necessarily. I'm not making any statement, so nobody please walk away thinking otherwise. But that being said, there's still a lot of questions we need to answer because we've got a couple of issues. One, people want facts. They want clarity. They wanna know, okay. You're asking for this amount of money. What am I gonna see for it? And right now, we're kind of at an impasse as to, we as a board,
how far we wanna take this and where we wanna go. And that's the conversation we're about to, embark on. But the problem is is that once we start going down a path, it's going to kind of steer that number that we're going to present and what we can do with it. And I'm a little bit concerned that we still don't have a real good do we do we know that people understand that they want everybody wants to see something
happen at the building in their neighborhood, or they don't care and they're willing to invest in a neighborhood across the city because it really has the needs and they're willing to invest in it without maybe having that kind of investment done in their neighborhood. Do we know that? And are we prepared to try to sell that? And do we have any idea about, because I've been following the bonds that have been out there in the recent, elections.
And it's kind of a fifty fifty hit or miss An expense. You know, of of what people are willing. And I do know for a fact, because I've been following what was going on, because Ann Arbor had a billion dollar bond. And when they actually started to do the work, everybody was like, I didn't know that's what it was gonna look like. I didn't think. And what happened was a lot of people were unaware of of the disruption to their neighborhood, to their school community, that their kids were gonna have boundary changes or
this or that. So we need to get all of that information out there in order to also have a dollar figure attached to it that we know will be supported by the community. And I just wanna you know, whatever conversation we have, I think we still have a few pieces here that we are not real clear on as to whether, at the end of the day, when we say, we're we're honoring what you're we heard you say, but this is what it's gonna cost.
And now you're gonna have them pull back. So that that's just my cautionary tale. Okay. Doctor Cesar? Yeah. Can can you go back to the, the map of the schools for a second? Yes. I can. Thank you so much. I just wanna because I wanna decipher for myself and for anybody watching. Okay. So when you say just so that we could just put this into, like, regular language for, people. If if you say something is critical, then that means at least from what I heard you say when you were talking to president Mozart.
When you say something's critical, is that also safe to say that that means, like, you might be recommending that it needs to be torn down? The the two projects on it that we're recommending that would be Lowry would be replaced, and there's space to build anew and then move then move the students over in terms of talking about that disruption, right, and what are the added costs. So that was our recommendation on that one. And then as well, for how in terms of creating a facility because that, that
current facility just doesn't work for that population. And, it wasn't it wasn't built to to house those kids. Okay. So Lori and Howard are the only two that you're talking about you. Tear downs. On that one. Okay. And so is then and then, obviously, a high priority means they need a lot of work. Yes. Well, I'm sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Trustees are how would be repurposed, not replaced? Right. The building itself would still be usable. Correct. That's not Is that what you're saying?
Doesn't need to be demoed. Is that what you're saying? Program Yeah. The program should we're recommending it as a new facility, but the building of the house repurposed for another repurposed. Purpose. Is the land the property, just like with salon or Lowry, is there enough property at the house, location to build on? I can look and double check. I mean, there is significant property there. I know that there's been work and there's work for addition to to Berry, and
so there's that ongoing work. Okay. So Lourdes is the only one that you're talking about? Demoing. Demoing. Yes. Correct? Okay. And Or demoing all of some of the ones that are saying in high priority, we might recommend that a piece of the building is Sure. Is demolished. Most of these buildings have two or three or four additions onto them. And to have a cohesive project that really makes the needed improvements. It may be some of those are recommended to get a small amount demolished and
then an addition, but not that the whole building would be Okay. So That's only for Lowry. Okay. Keep saying Lowry and Lori. Lori. What Lourie. Lourie. Lourie. Okay. Thanks. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. It's okay. So, Lori Lane went to see. You see Lowry? She says Lowry. Okay. Then it's Lori. No. My my husband She said Lowry, but I think she said because they were saying Yeah. I was spelling her. I I Mary said Lowry, but it's probably was said because you probably said it because they were saying it was Laurie.
Right? Laur well, my husband's 76 years old, and he he went to Maples and to fourth he he they called it Laurie. Yeah. No. It is I I It is Laurie. It's Laurie. Right? Okay. I just wanna make sure I'm not I'm not wrong. Okay. Alright. So then at the end of the day then, just in, like, plain English, what what is the difference between these levels of priority? Is it because you're saying, okay. Some you're you're told me the critical priority might mean you're tearing down some of it, might mean not. High priority means you might be tearing down some of it. It might so is it just a matter of money in these different priorities?
Like, what is the metric that makes these different, Especially between, like, high and critical. Like, what is the metric? Some of it some of it has to do with, the size of the building and projected enrollments, and is there space available within No. I'm not I'm not sorry. I'm not asking how you got to it. I'm saying, what is the if something if in other words, if is it enough for me to tell a taxpayer, hey. The difference between critical and high means the critical is gonna cost a lot more
money. Like, what is the is the metric what is the thing that makes something high or critical, the difference between the two or moderate or whatever? There's not one thing. Well, yeah. It's probably infrastructural. It's a combination of the factors that we assess. So I do think I do think size is part of it as we talked about how because they just need more space. And so that was that kind of led it to the top. I think, you know, at Lowry, it's, like, more of, the condition of the building,
the infrastructure. So they're all kind of ranks all the factors that we looked at. It's not just one piece. It's kind of the picture of the building, of the story of the school. I know that's not as helpful as you might know. No. It's not that. And this is done as a ranking before and looking really sort of at the building and potential, not taking in the feedback from the community. Right? So this wasn't a ranking done in conjunction with those. These were This was a ranking done No.
This is just you guys. You Yes. Right. Right. That there's layers on top of it as we tried to note on there. Yeah. I still sorry. It's maybe it's a me problem. I still don't fully understand. So No. It would be nice if there was a simple to say. Can I is it a me problem? Can I interject? Yeah. So what are the factors that you use to prioritize, these, schools, you know, with the urgency. So I heard you say structure. I heard you say capacity. What else is there that put your ranking or the priority?
With the age of the building as well came into play. It's the amount of infrastructure that Infrastructure. In the building. Yeah. But I guess what I'm what I'm asking is may maybe I'm not asking it right. I understand the different metrics that you guys use. Okay. Infrastructure, is it is the building, to Yeah. Too many kids. We need more whatever. But I'm saying, once you come to all of that, okay, and you've now you've ranked it critical or, I don't So the This I get it.
This is this right. I get that. But, I mean, once you've ranked it I if I'm gonna go talk to people about it, and I said, okay. These guys told me that this one's critical and this one's high. Means okay. So critical means, like, if I'm just the layperson, it's got a lot more problems than the high priority one, which has less problems. Broken. In the critical ones, my in the in the critical priority, I don't have a window. It's fallen out of my house. In the high priority, my window is broken, but it's still there in my house.
It does something. In the moderate priority, it really leaks cold air around my window. It's coming in. It's not it really should be insulated or replaced, but my window is there and and and functions. And then the low priority is I got new windows ten years ago. I'm good for another, you know So is it fair to say for the low help, Says a sure. Is it fair to say for the low priority ones that we might be recommending
at the end of the day to do very little or nothing to those buildings? Yes. Okay. Yes. And, again, back to my first question. Is it fair to say that the critical priority buildings are just, I get it that they're the most in need, but does that also mean that they're gonna need the most money, that particular building, let's per square foot or per per whatever? Or not necessarily? Okay. Can I can I interject a little bit? Yeah. Because I agree. It's the language can be confusing. Yes. Sometimes if you see critical, does it mean infrastructurally speaking, it it has a lower
time line, a a shorter time line Mhmm. To be sustained the way it is? Or is it that it's critical because the amount of needs is just higher than the other buildings? So how are we defining critical? Is it that if you're gonna get to these building first, that's what makes them critical because their their lifespan isn't much longer. Is it that? How are we how does something fit in a category? I think For like, Celina Intermediate is considered critical. Right? But, new facility is not recommended.
So what's critical about it? I think we need to differentiate so we can make a sound plan moving forward. Is that kind of summing up a little confusion here? Yeah. I mean, I wanna know, like And I think the difference between Lowery and Salina, a lot of that has to do with structural Okay. So questions. Right? And so that's where that that when we look at the dollars on them, that to build to to to renovate Salina would make sense because the bones of the
building are still good. Whereas in Lowry, we're concerned that the bones of the building are not good and you're gonna spend so much with fixes and repairs to adjust the structure of it, then to renovate the inside and to have a facility that is bigger than you need and you're heating and cooling more area over the long term because you have all this space. You do not necessarily need a building that big for the projected from the 2022
numbers was the projections that we were using in our study. And so that's I I it's hard because you want what's the clear message. I understand that. Yeah. We need clear how the critical is that it's it's no good for the population of students that are there. And so it's it is a different So is there a way for us to get more clarity as to why buildings are in each category? Yes. Why they're feasible? Why they're not feasible?
If we can get clarity on that, because if we if this is open for our interpretation, we cannot then be transparent when we're telling our constituents this is what is needed and this is why if we're unclear about it. Yeah. We can work on it. Trustee Angeli Patel, let's get trustee Bazley's question first. Oh, shit. So I just wanted to, you know, we're talking about how, and the special needs population that's there. Just give me one second here. We got 14 classrooms that are there. We're talking about a new facility.
I just wanna be clear on something, and maybe this is just my opinion at this point. It doesn't necessarily have to be a new facility. It could be something that is added on to an existing facility. I know many parents that prefer their kids go to how because of the social, emotional empathy that they learn there, working with that population. So I just wanna be clear here as we talk about how when we say new facility, maybe that's not the best course of action. Maybe it would be something where we build on to that building or we move
those programs, appropriately, so that they are interacting with the general ed population as well. I think it's a benefit for the general ed population and for the special ed population. Certainly. We would agree with you 100% that it could be an addition. It could be looking at a school that has, in our report, we comment on a school that's new that has existing space and perhaps that can be studied and that program can go to a different location with a renovation space of it.
So, Trustee Bazzi, we agree. A standalone facility is not what we envision either. There needs to be in inclusive spaces for all of our students. So a separate stand alone facility is not in our vision either. Okay. And we have several properties that can be added on to have enough land around them still. I mean, it it's not like we have nothing, available. It's just that we're limited. And if you can me? Sorry. Absolutely. So these are good questions that we're hearing.
And if we, and if there is any confusions among us as the board members, then definitely we need clarification. Just lessons learned from the past bond that we were trying to pass, there was a lot of questions. And the reason it failed because people we were not able to be clear on what we want to do and why. And even though it lost in a small number, but the trust was not there to be able to sell the bond to the community and say, this is what
we're going to do. Lorry is is an easy sell because it's an old school. It's falling apart. But, you know, with other schools, we have to be able to say why. Is it the HVAC system? Is it this? Is it that? Because those are the, factors that, you put into the how critical it is and why. So we need to make sure the information is there so we, as the board, can be sold on it because it's hard to sell something if we're not sold on it and why. So it's it's really critical. And and, David was in the last, you know, the VIP the previous bond.
Those are lessons learned for all of us and and most people are here. We're a part of it. We wanna make sure we understand why so that we could sell the community on it. And and it has to be factual, you know. It it's it's like I'm not a salesperson. So even that I'm not a salesperson, I have to sell it based on facts. Absolutely. Trustee Thank you. I know this was, briefly discussed earlier, but I'm not sure that it was resolved or concluded. We mentioned the, facilities that are listed as, additional studies needed.
And I know you mentioned some questions as examples. Were those questions ever presented to us? Do we have access to those? Have we been working to get you those answers so we can finish these studies? I guess I just wanna learn more about that process. No. You have not been asked those questions. Okay. We're not expecting answers. I think it's more so it's a bigger picture conversation, so this is a great place to start having that. Great. I'll give an example, or another example. Let's say, Henry Ford Elementary. We all know that school is a lot of schools pushed into one.
It has two cafeterias. There's a lot of, day to day challenges with how it's set up. There's a lot of room on the site. It also has a very historic building that, you know, we don't wanna tear down. It has a pool, which is so there's a lot of factors involved in the conversation before we would say for sure, yes, we're gonna lop off part of the building and we're gonna right size it and and do this and that because we don't we don't think that that is an easy straightforward answer there.
Sure. There's a lot of factors involved. And so the additional study is really a lot of conversations in that case. Sure. And I guess I'm just alluding to, you know, how can we kick off those conversations if it's here? If you already have prepped, questions for each part, I just want to, you know, be more proactive to get that going because, we you know, the rest of this is great and we're moving along, but I don't think without that information that we can make any decision at all. So, I would appreciate that. Thank you. And a piece of the additional study is, understanding priorities, from the from the school
from the school board in terms of, and the community itself. You and your community really want to do a drastic change to how the schools are laid out for, what in our report we call a twenty first century learning, which was something that came out of the Fielding International Report, right. They have one system and pedagogy on how new schools should look and be constructed.
And is that a priority in Dearborn or not, right? And then that would change the change the study on some of these in terms of what how much square footage is required, how much new we would build if we were building new. So a piece of it is looking to understand those priorities that are put in for all of the buildings. Trustee Zarin and then trustee O'Brien.
I had a quick question for Byron Fisk. Do you do you guys would you recommend, listening sessions, like, public well, I don't Whatever. Listening sessions or town halls to be conducted by us within the rules of how we do meetings and all that kind of stuff. But, I mean, would you, do you think that would be effective in lobbying the community, to to learn more about this and get more on board? Maybe once after we're all on board. I think I think that could be very helpful.
I think community engagement, you you can't do too much. In some communities we work with, you have, you know, superintendents and board members. They do dozens of those forums out there so that there is no mistaking that here are the facts. We create multiple venues for that. So I I see that as an asset once you have a proposal in mind, certainly. And if you felt like you needed to do additional listening to get to that point, I think that you would, you know, build additional goodwill and probably get more community buy in once you move into the the sales part of the effort.
Okay. Thanks. I do have a question on preservation, in in relation to twenty first century type of setup. And I'll use an example of my, the school that I went to, Salina. Given the the the structure, the walls, would you be able to make that school a twenty first century? Because because one of the the reason I mentioned that is even though I believe in preservation, but I also believe in practical use and what's best for the kids.
It just you know, some some schools could be preserved and not all of them could be. I mean, the fortune of the world, yes. But the mindset should not be, to sacrifice what's best as we move forward. So the question on the Celina is an example. Yeah. We would say that, yes, you can take Salina and that's why it's not and it's not recommended there as a as a new building because especially with buildings, it's
actually easier with the older buildings in terms of how they are built and how their structure is to take those and to do some exciting transformations of those in terms of, say, a major renovation. And you can carve out and find the spaces that you need for student collaboration, which is a big part of creating these twenty first century schools is getting more space in there for student breakout and student collaboration, areas.
And we've been doing that on several projects in the Washington, D. C. Area, doing that with a project with Ann Arbor Public Schools right now. And so we're very optimistic about, those buildings and the transformation that you can do so that you are not giving up on saying, Yeah, we're keeping the building and we aren't we can't create great learning environments. We can keep those buildings and create great learning environments.
Most of them, we can keep and create great learning environments for the kids. Is it possible to see schools in Ann Arbor? And I asked that question the last time. And as far as the salina of the world, the walls are very thick. Yeah. They're really and and to open them up and to make them, twenty first century, you know, I I just and and I'm not a construction guy, but I see that being an issue. But if it's done in Ann Arbor, would we be able to see a school that was renovated in Ann Arbor to the twenty first century?
We have one under construction in Ann in the Washington, D. C. Area. I don't know if Gilbane has. Yeah. And the Baltimore area. Yes. Speak. Sorry. In Ann Arbor, we've actually, taken already many schools that, and created support spaces, have created collaborative learning spaces, in existing schools that were historic and non historic. So it's very feasible and and can be done.
It's not going to look like the traditional, maybe, plan that Fielding was look looking at, but it's very close to it. And it achieves the same thing. Because Fielding was more focused on new schools. And my understanding, your, you know, company was came in with preservation in mind, and I just don't want I really wanna do what's best versus focus on one versus the other and not to push something that's not necessary.
So that's that's just my statement. As far as a question on the focus group, I heard two focus groups. Right? Did I hear the number two focus group? Four. Four of them. Where were they held? And and maybe there's an announcement and I just wanna know where They were these were virtual. Okay. Virtual focus groups. Yes. We kind of called people together in a Zoom style and there's a moderator there and we asked them we kind of ran them through a guide in that way. But they were all virtual. Okay. Alright. I thought it was an in person. Sorry. Thank you.
Was any of this done in person? The direct interviews were done by telephone. So the stakeholder interviews, the in-depth interviews were done, by telephone. Those were the 45 interviews. The focus groups were done virtually. And, of course, the poll was done also by telephone. Half of them were telephone. Half of the response, more or less, were done by text, which is which is pretty typical. Go ahead. You know, piggybacking on trustee Eljani's point about, you know, taking existing buildings and making them, adequate for twenty first century.
You know, one thing I've noticed going to other schools, especially again, I'm gonna focus on elementary schools here, maybe because I have three elementary school children and I've been in those schools and other ones as well. You know, the classrooms are small, you know, compared to what you see now. And again, to trustee Ajahnimi's point, you know, those structures are built in a particular way. I would love to be able to see how they've taken, you know, a building with small classrooms and really expanded that. In the same breath, you have so many classrooms that are in there, and you're
still gonna have the same population. Were those buildings just kept the way they were? Were additions added to them because they're gonna need more classrooms? Understanding how that process, works and actually being able to see it, I think, would be very valuable. I would say well, in terms of the middle school that we're working on in in in Ann Arbor, we could repurpose space that was underutilized. That's what we find in a lot of these buildings. There's a lot of underutilized space, and so part of it is finding underutilized space.
The classroom size is a question or concern in where we can take those classrooms and that some of the work Stephanie was talking about. Where can we fit a suite for, student support services, people who need separate offices. That's one of the big needs that came up on what we were looking at versus, you know, psychologists who work on a corner in a stage. Right? Like, I think as as they said that there's really not the, information out about
the fantastic make do that your principals and your teachers are doing within these school buildings to make the spaces that they need and, you know, how can you give them really good spaces to work and educate. But the so a lot of it is looking for reorganization or underutilized spaces. You know, I think discussions on on, cafeteria and auditorium spaces, discussions on pools and
what is the policy and the priority for pools within the elementary schools. Or are those spaces that, are are costly from a maintenance point of view and and difficult? And are those spaces that could be captured for, for, you know, a tech use, STEM space, robotics space. You know, I think so that's from us to understand, some priorities on places that are within the in the existing schools.
Well, I think, you know, there may be schools that have underutilization, but I'm just gonna use two examples here. Lindbergh Elementary and Henry Ford, you know, Henry Ford's predicting the ten years to have 99%, utilization with no capital improvements. And right now, it's at 89%, and Lindbergh is at 83 and going to a 100%. And that's why, you know, I I go to my point there. If we're gonna go into a school like Lindbergh and make those classrooms bigger, one, we still need the same amount of classrooms, and two, utilization is gonna grow. You know? And Lindbergh, I believe, is one of the, you know, additional study needed.
And and to trustee, Soga's point, you know, I think we still have questions, you know, to to answer, so that we can formulate, you know, a district plan. And I think it may be being clear, which they were factored in in our numbers in terms of highlighting, schools like those where we are recommending additions. Right? We're not recommending a new school, but we would be recommending based on the square footage and the population, we're recommending an addition.
Or in the case of Henry Ford, that's understanding use and priorities and doesn't make sense to do more of a new new school and repurpose the existing for another use? I do think that we need to start answering you know, being able to to to have an understanding and answer those questions. Again, those two schools, you know, we're looking at additional study needed, high priority. Oh, we need if we're gonna take action, we need to know what we need to do. So I think I think being able to flush out the rest of these buildings and understand, you know, have recommendations with priority, as you say, I think is an
important next step. Trustee, professor Speth? Would it be at all helpful for us in order to move forward and and, visualize better, a side by side comparison of a building that needs an assessment of needs, and the cost differential it would be to be the renovation and whatever you're proposing versus some other option.
I I'm not sure what trustee Al Jammy is considering when he's talking, about the modernization thing. If he's talking about demoing in a new building as opposed to preserving the building and renovating it to make it a modern twenty first infrastructure interior wise? So we've done a lot of that groundwork already. I think the more we're waiting to see what the report came from, Byrum and
Fisk to understand where the dollars are at or could be at. I think one of the things that might be helpful is to do an option one, two, three, four type of thing. Mhmm. One that is if a certain dollar value is acceptable, what do you get if another dollar value is acceptable, vice versa. But see, this is where a little bit of the issue becomes into play. And this is where we need feedback is where is the priority. Because, you know, a a bond at a lower amount is far different than a
bond at a higher amount. And so all the things that you would love to have may not be feasible in a lower, and I think these are things that this is why we wanted to start this. Right? To start having these conversations and to talk about where is the priority depending on the school. This is probably the first of a a few conversations that we have. And and this is what we did with the last bond proposal. And we had some town halls. And we had one, two, and three options. And what are you willing to accept when we were trying to figure out the
dollar amount? And it's always because people are always caught off guard when they actually see it, in in real time, what what they thought it was going to cost and what it actually is going to cost is is a is a lot different. It's like going out and buying a new car now as opposed to a new and you bought a car ten years ago, and you're like, my god. How could it possibly be this amount? So we need to in order to give direction as to what we wanna start
preparing for, I think that's our next phase is trying to figure out then if peep if if the numbers you got without having any numbers and people were saying, I'm willing to pay $25 a month as opposed to and that and that's what they could stomach, so to speak, then we got a lot a a law a large gap of reality to fill in here about what we can accomplish and what we should be focused on and what people really want us at the end of
the day. Do they I'm still kind of perplexed as to whether the community is willing to accept, okay. We're just going to focus on the critical and the high priority right now, and we'll we'll just not worry about these other, except for HVAC, which which we've already been dedicating a lot of, effort with the, expert funds over the last thank goodness we were able to whittle away at that to some extent.
I you know, that we're gonna have to find out when the boots hit the ground whether they're really willing to, invest in everything or what it is that they're willing to really, pay pay their, dollars towards. You know, I I think, a few thoughts on on on what trustee is saying. You know, I think, a couple of things.
One, I wanna commend our district and our Center administration. I think they've done a good job with the buildings and the infrastructure that they have because we produce excellent students. Soon as they go to Harvard, I would do schools, University of Michigan, they stay local, and they do excellent things. And I think that's part of the perception. Our kids are doing great. Right? And I think it's it's it's, you know, part of that falls into we're doing what we can with what we have. But what we're also saying is what we have, we're getting to a critical point
and we need to make some decisions. And I think getting out into the community and educating our district on that. Things may be great. We're doing great with what we have because we're a great district and because we have great teachers and because we have great principals and we have all of that and we're making sure we meet our kids' needs. But we have an infrastructure problem, and we need to fix it because we're gonna get to a point where we're gonna it's going to start affecting what we can do for these kids. And I think that's a campaign that we need to do to make sure that people understand why we're saying what we're saying.
As I mentioned before, I have three kids in the district, and I've seen their schools. Since I've joined the board, I've gone to other schools, and I see firsthand some of these schools walking inside, seeing the classrooms, seeing the size of the classrooms, seeing you know, going through these reports and seeing how all of this was built out. I think over the past hundred plus years of where we've gone to to today, we've done the best that we can. You know, buildings built in the '9 in the nineteen tens, nineteen twenties after World War two, the nineteen forties and fifties building on to that.
And I have some things that I we we can go over so you can see. When you visualize it, when you see it, when you experience these schools, I think you start to realize, wow. You know, we have something that we need to really work on here. Additionally, a lot of times we compare ourselves to other districts. We're we're an older district. You know? A lot of our of of our buildings, I'll use Laurie as an example. Laurie was built for the city of Fortson before it was part of Dearborn. That's how old we're talking right now. Other districts are younger than us.
They have younger buildings. A lot of the buildings that we have here, they say critical are elementary schools which are older. We're not seeing that on our high schools. You know, Fortson is an older school and we know that, but the other two are younger schools. They don't have as much need because they're not a building that's a 100, a 105, a 109 years old. I think we're at an inflection point, and I think we have an opportunity to say, what do we wanna do moving forward into the twenty first century to best equip our students with the best infrastructure possible? Because, one, we're at a point where I don't know how much long this I'm looking at this infrastructure can handle what we want for it.
Right? And, two, I think our students deserve it. So, I mean, I think I think we have a real opportunity here. And I think I think if we educate our district, we educate the voters, and we educate the parents, and we educate the non parents about what's going on. And as we saw with some of the the the the findings, people do wanna support the schools. I think if we lay out the problems that we have and we show them the opportunity that comes, I think we can do something really great. Well said. I I totally agree, that, you know, the infrastructure state in our district is dire
and that it needs immediate attention. And from my experience ever since the 2019 bond is that folks, when they give up some of their tax dollars, they wanna see something. They wanna see something built. One of the major reasons 2019 didn't pass is because they felt it was just fixing up or putting Band Aids on older buildings that we cannot sustain. And it's very important that we, we lay down the foundation of saying, if we're
gonna do major renovations, this is a huge transformation to each building that's gonna bring it to a twenty first century standard. And if we're building a brand new building, whether it's for, I think, for for special education next to, regular education building, this is how much it's gonna cost. And I believe I asked maybe two years back of how much would it cost on average to build a middle school or an elementary right now.
And I'm not sure if if our experts have some numbers, especially from Galbaine. As far as to build a k eight school like Laurie, what what what are we looking as far as a a major figure? I hope I hope you're ready. Go ahead. Hit me. High schools are averaging 750 to $800 a square foot, and that's before athletic fields. That's building alone for new state of the art high schools.
Middle schools aren't too far off from that. Elementary schools are running about $550 $600 a square foot. So when we talk about new buildings and we talk about the replacement of lorry, lorry's in pretty bad shape. And it's almost the equivalent to build something new than to renovate. And renovate with a non efficient layout, non efficient twenty first century state of the
art school. If you're gonna spend that money, spend it on a brand new school. So when we talk about what the differences are for, critical, Laurie Laurie is critical infrastructure wise. So the rest of them, you know, you have I always say, historic buildings have great bones. They were here for a hundred years, they'll probably outlast all of us and our children and our children's children. That's how well they've been put together. But they need some love to maintain that. And so, you know, I think that's why you'll see with a lot of the
existing schools other than Lory, that, you know, a renovation probably makes more sense. And, yes, they can be they can be, done into twenty first century schools. Joshua Jeremy. The square foot number when I was looking at the previous bond, it seemed like and correct me if I'm wrong. The right now, it's around 700, and it was more around 400. Yeah. So almost doubled. Yes. So in saying that, in twenty years, if we allocate it if we did a
bond for thirty years and allocate it for a building to be done or completed in twenty years, Imagine the the square foot numbers. It's gonna be hard to forecast what that number is gonna be based on what we wanna do, just because the the the cost is increasing so high. When you mentioned the numbers, that kind of threw me back. I'm like, wow. But I understand. Things tripled nowadays. So the increase in our construction costs really occurred since 2020.
Actually, it occurred since 2021. We've seen a 32 increase. Well, it's actually a 45% increase in cost. 32% off of what the projections were, back in 2020. So in 2019. So in 2018, 2019, 2020, there was a projection of most schools had a projection of three to 4% inflation. We saw a 32% jump in inflation in two years. So will we see another 32%?
I can't I can't say that. But I would hope that we've leveled off for for a while. But part of our issue is, you know, we're we just don't have people going into the skilled trades. And it and skilled trades are high in demand. There's not as many out there. And materials and goods are are are increasingly more. Yeah. And I was gonna say material is also a good factor. But the reason I mentioned that is just to keep that in mind when we talk about, about a bond in long term is the cost and the forecasting for,
you know, for building. You know, sometimes it's easier or better to get things done early for the critical and the urgent. And because you don't know what you don't know. Which may make for the argument of what the community was more in preference of of a split bond and go back and tell them, look, we're gonna take care of the critical needs now, but we will need to address the others. But we don't know what the cost projections College where we went out and two
years later, what we thought we could do with the, money we had gotten put together wasn't gonna cover what we had wanted originally to, do and we had to scale back our plans. So Okay. Great. Trustee Benzie. You know, I would say to on that point, I think, you know, I think we're hypothetically throwing out, you know, you know, doing a smaller one and then coming back later. But I think we would need to do an assessment to say, what would that
small one look like? What is that amount? Right? There are needs that are so critical here, and I'm looking at, I guess, some estimates that were shared, that you start adding things up and you're like, maybe it's better just to to to go to go all out. I think we're entertaining those ideas, but I think we need we need to do that analysis to to understand, what you know, how how different is a small one versus something that's that takes takes into account everything. A question I do have, and I know it's on the agenda, and I don't know if we would we're gonna move to that next.
But I think on the agenda, we had talked about talking about costs here, associated costs. I know there's a is there a draft document from Gilbane about what some of these costs will would would be like for what we're talking about? We don't have those costs with us today because we wanted to have a better understanding of of how to structure. Okay. I mean, I we could slice and dice it 20 ways. I I wanted to make sure it was constructive. So I think that's probably a follow-up that we need to provide based on everything
we've heard today. I think it gives us a good idea of maybe what you're looking for and some information that you need to help make some better decisions. I do have one more question. Go ahead, Trustee. I heard Ann Arbor is being one district that you're working on. The the bond has been passed, obviously, and you're starting to work. What are some of the lessons learned that would be helpful for us from based on Ann Arbor? COVID. That bond was passed just before COVID. So the thoughts and ideas that happened pre COVID changed the thoughts and ideas of
moving forward. I think, you know, I think one of the things that they looked at is the need to reevaluate the program every, you know, three to five years. The importance in what was needed five years ago has shifted. Birth rates have shifted. Enrollment has shifted. CTE programs becoming a a more important part have shifted. You know, the city of pools where, you know, they had Olympic stars come from has shifted. Because pool operation is is so great, they have to look at the operational cost.
Things have just changed, though, and they will continue to change and evolve. The one thing I will say is that they made sure the buildings, had the ability to be flexible. So as changes happen, the spaces are flexible for the needs. And I think that's, you know, that's probably the one lesson learned. Not just in our book, but Detroit's seeing the same thing. All the districts in Michigan are looking to more flexible spaces. So as, programs change and needs change, the buildings can can change with it.
The need to be transparent, but also allowing for flexibility with friends if this bond is for a long period of time. So balancing that out. And earlier, you said you're waiting to know what our priorities are, and I think we are trying to figure out what those are based on the scales on that graph with what makes a building determined to be high or critical or not.
And I have one question. Were any of the buildings considered not feasible due to historical relevance? No. Okay. So it might have been a consideration, but not the main one. Yeah. The historic was a was nothing related to the historic that would affect the feasibility in these ones. K. It might, in terms of the final decision, affect the final decision on the priorities
that that, even though it's historic, flowery, or something, there's there's reason to to not keep it. And then you mentioned, for more study needed, you mentioned some indicators that you some indicators to consider. Could we have those listed per by building? What was your determination for more study? What should we be considering in that study before making the decision?
Yeah. We can put together sort of why that went into the more study needed, column. And then were any of the buildings that were older not feasible to be new due to the acreage that site was on? That was the main focus of not feasible because to build a new building for that population On that property. And the site that you would want for a new facility, and that code might
require you for no facility in terms of parking, and site circulation. So a current building like Duval, for example Yes. That's That's what comes to mind? Yes. Critical or high I can't keep them straight. The high it's high priority, but not feasible. Is that because of the land it's it's landlocked? Yeah. A new facility is not feasible, but we do think, based on the population projections
and the square footage required for this twenty first century learning that the building has enough space as is. It just needs some reorganization. So we don't need a new facility to make it work. We feel like we're confident we could that it could be possible, within the existing building. Or maybe I know that one, for example, has an interior space. Maybe that interior space has changed and some some windowed space is added for a, you know, a net zero. The net zero. It has 33,000 square feet. And the projections, we would say for a twenty first century school, you would want
to build 33,000 square feet. Right? So to take it down and put up the same square footage, one, the current building code in your site and the issues, you wouldn't want to do that there. But you would wanna look at reconfiguring that square footage. Thank you. So okay. No. Go ahead. I I just hit your mic. Oh, okay. So I'm just gonna kinda piggyback on that. We talked about Duval. And I'm gonna I'm looking at the report here. Duval has a 78% utilization going to 72.
I can understand we're utilizing space and all that. But another school that falls into this is Maples. Not, new new facility not feasible. 83% utilization jumping up to 89. And now when you look at the lot size, I mean, I can understand why you can't you can't it doesn't seem like you can build a new building on the same property while you do that or extend it or or such. But I I think that alludes to we still have questions about these, you know, and understanding, you know, what is what is new facility not feasible for one school mean as as it is for another one.
And I think that'll help, you know, inform the administration, you know, as we move forward with, you know, our suggestions about what plans a a board would want put together. You know? And and I think we have in our report, and I was probably in error earlier in saying that that not feasible has to do with the size of the site. So that's why it's not feasible to do with the size of the site. So that's why they're not they're not feasible because of the size of the site. And so if you were going to do a new Duval or a new Maples,
you really need to look for seven to 12 acres somewhere to So I know. In the executive summary, it it explains that. But then that makes me look at and that that's kind of my assumption. I'll look into this. Okay. Maples doesn't have the size, but Maples has needs. And the recommendation is to look at addition. Can is there a targeted small addition to take care of the growth in population? Again, what's the priority on the pool and that square footage at Maples?
And is that targeting something? And so that's where where we could delve in very deeply to a specific school, which I think your community may want as you start to to sort out the the bond numbers and and the direction. I'm sorry to interrupt president Mozart. I did promise, Mark Fisk here. They do have a prior they do have another commitment later this evening. So I did promise them that they would get out by eight. If the you or any other members of the board had a question for them,
I'd like wonder if we could address that at this time. Yeah. Any questions for this? Jeff? Question. In your experience with working with schools and helping them pass successful bonds, is the approach first typically to pick an amount and then see what you can do with that amount or more of a here's what the community wants. This is how much it's gonna cost and then working that way? I think you you could you could do it either way because those are linked. What you decide to pick is obviously gonna impact the cost. But the typical process is starting with either a couple of specific proposals.
We did not do that here. We were intentionally not specific. But to find a specific proposal and honestly to do additional research on that proposal to gauge public interest in it, to gauge how far you know, then you're getting into this really is going to cost you x number of dollars a month. It's not theoretical anymore. It's not if this then that. So starting with a specific proposal and then doing research on that piece of it is typically the path that we have taken before.
Okay. Thank you. Does that make sense? Mhmm. I would also say, just for what it is worth, that the residents, the voters you all know this because you all talk to them all the time. They're very busy and they're in a very cluttered environment. And so you wanna be accurate. You wanna be factual, of course. But simplicity is the key. A lot of districts, you know, they start getting into discussions about school finances and amortization tables and pie charts and you lost. It's this this is about two or three very important ideas.
You know, you you articulate it well, the vision for the future for our kids. It doesn't have to be you have to have a place where all the information is, but simplicity is the key because folks are just they're bombarded with information, and they are so busy right now. So my counsel to you, if you decide to go there, is keep it keep it very simple, keep it accurate, and be as transparent as possible. Thank you. Yeah. I'm only gonna ask these just in case, you know, Mark and his team have anything to do with these. Some of the asks that we talked about throughout the meeting, one of them is
the forecast enrollment. This is something that I I would like to see because of the impact of virtual and and loss of students. So in order for us to make a decision, and I'm not sure if, you know, your team does there or somebody else, I I would like to ask that we reach out to Ann Arbor and as a district and gain lessons learned from them. I think this is really important because they just did it. I know they're having a lot of challenges.
So, based on the changes, based on so many things, so that's also the capital improvement time line, which shows when we get to that, which shows the benefit to the taxpayer, because, you know, if we say and and I said that earlier, but I'm I'm repeating. If we say in twenty years, we're doing a new building, that's not a benefit to somebody that might not be in Dearborn in twenty years. They might be moving to Florida.
So we wanna show the time on the capital improvement time line with benefits, you know, for the taxpayers. The only reason I brought that up before you leave, especially for the forecast of enrollment, to me, that's important with regard to capacity, and and I think it impacts the high school only for the most part. But it's just something that we would wanna know. Thank you very much. Happy New Year. Appreciate it. Happy New Year. Just want to echo that too. Just remember, right now, everything is paid out of the general fund. The state does not give us any money for infrastructure.
They have just now started they just finished a study on the energy savings and infrastructures, and they came up to $1,300,000,000 need for DIRB. So just so you know, these numbers that we're talking about for a long term plan are not unheard of, but they've been kind of independently tested as they went through this process. They've only given a little bit of funding for this coming school year. Roughly, they would recommend maybe a million dollars for us. So just don't think the state's gonna solve our infrastructure project. So it's really a a district level decision of how they wanna handle this.
And, obviously, I don't have to mention the urgency because as things go on, anything that happens is gonna get funded from the general fund, which puts a pressure on our operational program. You know, you have staffing models and the more highly paid, the less staff you have, lower paid, the most staff. So it has to come from somewhere if we have a crisis. And as you see in all your board agenda items, there's always a contingency on most contracts because we don't know what's gonna happen. We gotta have that flexibility even if you make a decision that you were gonna just focus on the high priority items. We gotta have a contingency because something that's in a high priority and a low
priority, if the boiler disappears, not much is air conditioning, but even heat. It's a big issue for us. You know, some of our buildings are down. Normally, we have two boilers. One's already down. And we've been limping along on one, but we're just one crisis away. So I just wanna make sure you understand that some of these studies that you would like to have, it's just like the decisions we make all the time or limited information on how we can make our decision. Some of these studies may take three, six months to do to get the community involved, get an idea out there, get feedback, remodel it.
So you can't have it all planned out. And if you wait till you have it all planned out, we're a couple of years down the line. And then who knows, a couple of years down the line, maybe we have a large influx of students. You know, we never know all the decisions. So you can't be perfectly and have all decisions made knowing that we can only do so much construction in a given year. You know, some of these decisions, like, even on the high priority schools, we can't get to all of them. It's gonna have to be worked on and get to that decision of what to do with some of those, but we gotta make sure we're doing something to get this ball rolling. If if I could so we do believe in the bond, but we also want
to make sure we do it right. And and some of the things we have to consider, you know, we've been very negligent negligent with regard to the virtual and the Penn Foster. The district has not done anything to you know, we're losing kids. And if we don't take that into consideration, if we're trying to expand the building, if we're trying to, you know, add more classrooms, I know four kids that play in my basketball program that are in Penn Foster. So we have to consider those things and and take that into consideration.
We do believe in the bond. We are very supportive of the bond, and we know we need the bond. Now the question is how much do we need is is is the major question. And the the timeline of when those things can be done. If it's the urgent, the critical, and they could be done right away, you know, we're in support because we do wanna make sure the environment, the building that we provide for our kids are the right buildings. But I also if we're looking for a large bond, I wish we would go for the Cadillac. Like, what's the wow factor that we're trying to bring to the city?
What is it that we're are we you know, building a building to handle our special needs kids, you know, a central location to do that? What are we doing that is so different from just upkeep? You know? Like, Laurie, it it doesn't need to be replaced. But I just don't wanna go through the same process as Ann Arbor because if you talk to them, there's challenges. And so we do believe in the bond. So the question is the amount the last time we did, it was $244,000,000 or $240,000,000 This is going to be much, much bigger.
It's in the $1,000,000,000 range, you know, plus. So I want to make sure that we don't allocate something for twenty, twenty five years, you know, in the time line. I wanna address the needs that we need to have now and in ten years, you know, because we don't know what's gonna happen in twenty years, twenty five years. So I just don't want it to come across that we're being, asking all these questions because we don't believe in the bond because we do, and we're very supportive. But there are some things and I'll say this.
When we did the the 2009 I think 2019 or 2021, I was on the VIP committee, and I was one of the people pushing for forcing to be increased. Hindsight is twenty twenty, not forcing losing kids. It want it to 1,900 kids. And I project it in the future to be 1,500 kids. This is my own observation at this rate with virtual schools. So, you know, if you guys would have listened to me 2019, you woulda added,
to Fortson. So we need to make sure that we know what our enrollment is or it's gonna be. I don't know if it's gonna take six months, but we need to take that into consideration. Or maybe talk to our lobby to talk to the state about Penn Foster. Kids are graduating in three months. And and and that's probably it's not the only reason, but a four year degree, a three year degree can't compare with a three month degree. So there's some things out of our control. Is infrastructure one of the reasons students are leaving?
I would probably say no. So although it's it'll affect the trend in population with how much space we need, besides that, it's I I would say it's probably a separate conversation, a necessary one that's that's separate from an infrastructure conversation. But it's the count that we're talking about. The count. And also focus is not on the Sure. On virtual, and I'm not trying to sidetrack the mean. But what I'm saying is the number of kids we're losing. If Fortune is going to be eventually 1,500 kids, you know, at this rate with
virtual school, we need to consider that. Well, in in absolutely. And I I'm excited to share that, we're also looking at our CTE programs that we're adding because of that as well. We need to engage more students. We want we need to provide more programs that will keep more students in our system versus going to a virtual program, and that's another necessity of of of the bond of a potential bond. So not only is it students going full time to to virtual programs, we also
have students who are hybrid right now that we have to consider in addition to that, you know, that are, going from one building to another. And so that affects population, and that decreases it, in terms of what we need in our current building. So there's a lot of factors, that we're also weighing in as far as student trends and population. But yeah. So it's I understand Penn Foster is is, I won't even call it competition because I don't think it is, but it's a reality that students are choosing for whatever
reasons. I also am hopeful that and some students have come to me and said, I went that route, and I regret it. And now what do I do? So let's hope that that trend also reverses when they realize that it's not providing them a successful future? I I don't think the trend will reverse. Just my personal opinion, we disagree. But my focus is on the population loss to our you know, if we say Fortson is gonna be this number, then there's no re ticks reason to expand.
That's the justification of expanding. There's no reason to expand if the number of kids are gonna go down. Like you said, the the virtual schools discussion, that's a side item. But I don't want the district to be very dismissive of it No. And and say it's not a competition. Because if we're losing our kids to, an inferior product, we should care enough about doing something about it. Absolutely. To to trustee Ajahnjani's point, just looking through all the reports here, and I've kinda put them together in a spreadsheet, none of the reports recommend expanding Fortson.
Yeah. Just renovating. I'm I'm just giving an example that we have to consider the the population. School baseball. The the school population in order to be able to, we need to forecast. Because in order to build, it's based on the needs. You know? It's, you know, virtual schools and and charter schools and and what are we forecasting for? You know? If we're saying we're gonna expand the school, even a middle school, if if the forecast doesn't, say that we need that. Remember, during the the previous one, there was a forecast. There was numbers in there, but I don't see it for this one.
If you go into the the website, it shows you the 2019, the forecast, the also the population. There was a lot of information, even population growth and so on. So I don't know if we missed it this time. No. So the Quinn Evans report doesn't have projections for 2032. There was projections. We were given We used the study that had been done in 2022. So a study previous to us was done on the projections from 2022 to 2032.
So you had had projection study done in 2022. That's the number I saw. And those are the numbers that we used. So you're pointing that they're out of date, right? Yes. So what I saw is the 2022. So we saw the same thing, but, you know, things have changed a lot. Well They're changing a lot. But I'm looking at a at a report here that has, projections of student population up to twenty thirty that we were given. It it was in the file with all the other from Crocker.
What was that? I don't know. Yeah. Dearborn City School demographics. But the projection was on in 2022, and they projected twenty thirty at that time, which is so over the last three, four years, there's been a dramatic change in, you know, in a lot of things. So things have changed. So what they projected for 2020 is from 2020. It's like right now Well, yeah. And you're not gonna get much closer, data, probably.
Sorry. How difficult and and time wise, money wise is it to do another projection? We can do another Right. Our student service office does enrollment projections all the time. Alright. We also work with two other companies that can do enrollment projections, and we can have that done for the board again so that we can get more accurate numbers and more up to date numbers to see. Obviously, there has been changes in enrollment in the state over the since 2020. It is a statewide, a problem of less there are less students in the state
of Michigan. And for a district that has had over thirty years of enrollment growth, to see us finally stabilizing and, unfortunately, losing some students to an inferior program, is definitely a concern. It's something that that needs to be addressed and something that we can look at. So I think that, you know, having a, an up to date enrollment forecast done, we can do that. It's it's not it's not too difficult. Like I said, I will and hats off to mister Mashore, who has done them
in the past. His accuracy is incredible. So we can do that, but then we also do outside services, that do enrollment projections to verify those numbers. And and just so can I I I can say that for the most part, what we're talking with the infrastructure needs don't necessarily focus on student population in each building? It's focusing on actual physical maintenance issues of these buildings and survival of these buildings, as they stand today.
Not necessarily a lot of additions are being, included in those conversations. So I'm not as concerned about what the population is gonna look like for Fortson or Dearborn High because we're not talking about additions as much as we're talking about making sure we can renovate and sustain, healthy buildings. And that's where the, I think, our priorities and focus should be when we go, out to the community. One of the things I will say that I was, that I've been hearing once
again, and it was kind of what the problem was with the 2019 bond, to be quite frank, is that people are saying, you've had all this money all these years. What have you been doing with it? Why haven't you been maintaining these buildings or fixing them up and everything? You've you've got lots of money, and you're not utilizing it correctly. So we once again and, Byron just mentioned that there's a trust issue of how we spend the money. And people presume that if you've got a budget of yay big, that you should
have plenty of money to take care of, boilers and roofs and all these things. And they I think we need to start early before we even get the bond proposal of once again, exposing what we've already spent money on and what the structural needs are and start getting that information out, in in a manageable way so that people can start to see the reality. Because, clearly, they weren't seeing it.
And they think that either everything is fine and we're asking for money for, you know, TV sets and whatever and and not, real physical renovations and or that we've wasted a lot of money in the past, and we haven't done what we should have been doing with it then because they they're not there. They don't see the concrete realities inside these buildings. So if we have any way and any opportunity to start getting that message alongside
of the and this is why we need, it might help curtail, that what sunk the last bond, which was people who didn't believe that, we were being honest with with what we needed the money for and what we were gonna do with it. I wanna Please. One second. Bear with me. My gather my thoughts, or try to bring them. I think there's a disconnect here. There are a few disconnects here.
No disrespect to anybody. I think we're we're all making good points. But I've I'll start with I've heard a few asks from, let's say, each party, the board administration, and from our consultants. But, you know, where where are we where's our starting point, is a good place to start? Where what are our action items? And how do how do all of these reports, all of these considerations and factors tie into each other? I think the disconnect is when we talk about things like population or we talk about things like infrastructure, we talk about our future, or what the classroom look like,
I think these all connect with each other, and I think we are looking at and considering these all very individually. So I'll just not to refute, you know, your point right now, but just to say, you know, population could matter if we are looking to do twenty first century classrooms, which include larger classrooms, more breakout rooms, two cafeterias instead of one. I think population plays a factor in determining that as part of infrastructure. No? So I think all these things need to be connected and I think we are just not connecting them at some point or maybe we will eventually.
Like, you know, especially or additionally talking about schools or facilities that have additional studies needed, we talk about what our priorities are, what is our vision. If our vision and priority now change let's say, it might be changed from whenever this was last given, does that not change the outcome of all the other facilities as well? And and a lot of twenty first century, you know, renovation or or school, has been mentioned. But, what does that look like exactly? What does that entail? How do we then balance priority of I need AC versus I want twenty first
century, etcetera? And so, again, I just think at some point, we need to start connecting all these dots, to make the decision or to help move along, as to what mister Wall was saying earlier. I I do agree that, you know, we have some urgency, but, again, everything is happening in a silo, and I would like somebody to help start facilitating and connecting him. Thoughts? Is there a good time to go through this? We think it'd be a good time? Yeah. You wanna bring this up? Sure. So to to trustee, Sobeys' point, you know, over the over the past couple you
know, over this break, going over a lot of these documents, I've I've come to the same conclusion. What do we gotta do to move forward? Right? I think a lot of us are saying the same thing. What do we gotta do to move forward? So, I kinda just put together, you know, some of my thoughts into a presentation. You know, I'll go quickly in the beginning. We'll get to next steps, through it. But, you know, a lot of what we're doing is based on decisions that we've made, on these studies that we've been talking about. You know, where are we now? I don't know if we can Yep. We're getting it up there now. Okay. You know, right now we have 20 elementary and Yep.
K eight buildings, five middle schools, three high schools, three specialty buildings, three administrative buildings. You can see right now, 34 buildings, over 3,000,000 square feet, almost 400 acres, in the city of Dearborn. In three years, 12 of our buildings will be over a 100 years old. Not to the point, just because they're a 100 years old doesn't necessarily mean that we have to take all these buildings down, but we have work that we need to get done. 17, about 50% of them will be 80 years old and three nearly three quarters will be 70 years old. So, you know, again, I had mentioned earlier, Laurie, you know, was was built in
1927. If you look at the news article that came out with there, and I think it's a pride point for us in here in the city of Dearborn, meeting her kids' needs. They had a, I believe, an orthopedic, department, and they were, you know, doing work with special needs kids there and make sure they meet their needs there. And I think over a hundred years, Dearborn has done that, and we need to look forward about what we're gonna do to continue to to to do that. You know, moving on, you can see, you know, a lot of the spaces and I don't wanna, you know, you know, go over a lot of what we already said, but a lot of the spaces were were made for education delivering education in
the nineteen hundreds. You could see here as an example, if we can move a couple slides, the one that says Duval Elementary. You know, how, you know, piecemeal some of these buildings have been kind of doing what they need to do to meet those needs. Right? These spaces initially were for the boom that came to the area with the Rouge plant and all that. We're we're talking about that history. That's that's where we are today from those beginnings. If we move to the next slide, you can see, one more bowls. One of the, buildings that have critical needs, have been addressed as a critical priority. You could see it's piecemealed with, one, two, three, four, four renovations, additions after the
1927 build. You know, we we're doing what we need to do to meet our district's needs. Right? We move over to Salina, you'll see a similar thing there. 1921, 1927, 1951, and then most recently in 2003. So what do we do moving forward? Right? So if we can move over to there right there. A lot of what we have pulled together and questions that we've had and more questions that we have today kind of deal with the, foundational instructional needs. Right? So if we can move over one slide. Much of that analysis has been completed.
You have a note there at the bottom with questions today. Additional needs need to be done. But some type of priorities that we hear from residents, like we've already said, update safety and security, modernizing, mechanical and HVAC, equity of spaces and services provided as we grow these out, making sure that these spaces are equitable across the district, as we move on. You know, the next piece is that I think we need to start to address is, okay, we have these infrastructure needs. How are those infrastructure needs working? Are we doing you know, are we focusing on larger classrooms, and what are those
gonna look like? Are we having larger classrooms because we need more push in services? And all the times we think of a classroom and we have kids in there with a teacher, but you have adults in there now too. When I grew up, it was me and a teacher, and that's what it was. Now you go in there, you have pair of pros, you have coaches that come in, you have, you know, a lot that happens in that classroom. You need the space. When me and trustee Al Jahami went, to Laurie to to see how, coaching, was, being implemented, you know, you stand in there and the kids are right there. And I, you know, I kept step back. I want to give them that room.
You know, a lot of these rooms are tight. You know, what are we gonna do now when we build out this infrastructure to meet all of those needs? As we move on to in the next slide, you know, our special populations, making sure these building layouts are. How part of the reason how is a problem is because you have wheelchairs in in in the hallways, and you have kids coming down that are in wheelchairs or other devices. You can't have two people coming down at the same time. Even if we move them to another school, are those buildings built to meet our current needs? You know, and I'm and I'm highlighting special needs here if we move on to
the next slide a little bit. I mean, we have 70 special specialized classrooms. We have made those specialized classrooms within the infrastructure of buildings that were built in the nineteen hundreds, the sizing of that. This is where my mind goes. Not only are we talking about basic infrastructure, but what are we doing to meet all of these needs for general ed and special ed? Modernized and expanding CTE, we keep hearing about that. Dedicated room for art and and and music. You know? We'll go to schools, you know, if we move to the to the next slide, art on a cart because there is no art room. Right? Or, you have, you know, the, a learning coach or, you know, a specialty, teacher
or personnel that was put into a closet room because that's the room that we have. You know? So I know we're talking about basic infrastructure needs and we're doing all this, but what are we envisioning for the future to make sure that we are meeting the needs of these kids? And if we go on to the next slide, the AI revolution is here. What skills do we need to make sure we we equip these kids with? We need to rethink what the careers of the future are going to be. You know? A lot of times, we'll look at what do we have and what are we gonna do. Let's open ourselves up. What is the future and then do we do it within what with what we
have? Or do we need to expand? Do we need to build out? Do we need to build new new buildings? Simulation labs, coding and robotics, audio, video, media resources, AI powered learning. These are just suggestions. Just a few things. Where I'm getting to this is and again, this is this is my suggestion and I I'd like to to discuss this. And it's it kind of piggybacks on what, what the Fielding study has, these four master plans. Fielding took an approach of, going from keeping all the infrastructure that we have to centralizing everything. Right? And there is something to be said about that.
And and this kind of as you see here with these four proposals, proposal a is we keep our footprint as it is 3,300,000 square feet over 400 acres. Proposal b is do we consolidate our high school and leave our, you know, neighborhood elementary and middle school, distribution? Or do we do some sort of consolidation or reconfiguration at the elementary and middle and keep our three high schools and specialty centers? But do we consolidate on both sides? You know, I think an approach to this, if we move to the next slide, taking those four plans, working with the administration with them to be able to put
those together, those times would have, what that new building footprint would look like, timelines, for those, budgets for those, if we wanted to move fast, slow. You know? Can we implement this in ten years? What would that look like from a cost perspective? Can we implement this in fifteen years? What would it look like from a cost perspective? That way we understand, number one, how these are laid out with the different options, what we think is best to deliver education, right, or what, you know, what we get from our experts in the administration.
And then we review that. We say your name, and we take that out to the community. We get the community's feedback on that. Do we wanna stay a 100% neighborhood school system? Do we wanna centralize our high school? Do we wanna do some consolidation or reconfiguration of elementary and middle school? What are the benefits, the pros and cons? You take all of those four plans and you boil that down to one plan. Board initial approval, take that back out to the community. Right? And I think we'll know when we're talking about selling a plan, we're taking their feedback. We're putting it into it. This is what the community wants. We don't have to sell them on something.
We're taking what the community wants and putting it forward and giving them a solution for those needs. I think there is an educational piece, so as we learned today, of making sure people understand what our infrastructure issues are, and I think that's gonna has to be part of this campaign. But as you go through these steps, and it's outlined here in 12 steps, we get to a point where the ballot is put out and and proposed. I think another thing we need to do, and to mister Wall's point here, we have to look at a timeline. We can move over to, the next slide. You know what? We can go over let's go over to two more slides proposed where well, the
one that has the vote, image on it. When we look at timelines, we look at when ballots can be presented to, voters. We have November 3 this year. We have May 27 of next I'm sorry. May 2027, November 2027, February 2028. I think those are time lines that we have to look at. Those are hard, dates that we have to consider. But going back to having those four plans, how do we look at a timeline and say, we're gonna develop four plans. We're gonna make sure that they're vetted as as much as they need to be. We're gonna bring that to the board for them to look at with these various
options. Right? Then we're gonna take that out to the community, have the community give their feedback on that, boil that down to one plan, have a definitive timeline of what we know we can do, how much it could cost to work and go. And it kinda gives direction and also informs the community as we go, why we're doing what we're doing, when we're doing it, how we're doing it. And I think and I don't know if we have to we would do that tonight or not, but I think I would like to discuss. You know, these are the dates that we have to look at. And what do we need to take out to the community budget wise, plan wise, and what the community wants and hit these one of these available valid dates?
Because we go beyond that, I mean, we our infrastructure is in in urgent need, and we need to we need to take action. So I I suggest, you know, having a conversation around that, you know, you know, the suggestion of master plan options or how we how we execute that and give direction to the administration so they can start getting to work on putting that together, answering questions that we still have, getting we have questions. We need to answer them. And then putting putting together a plan, you know, something where here you go. Here's plan a. Here's plan b. Here's plan c. Here's plan d. Here's what they look like. And then what are we taking from that if it's all of them or some
of them out to the community and boiling that down to one plan? You know, are we talking about, you know, there's doing something smaller and it could be maintenance related. Right? It's gonna be a much smaller thing. Or are we envisioning the future? Right? Are we envisioning the next fifty, seventy five, hundred years? If I were to say we have 400 acres and there's no buildings, what would we do for Dearborn Schools to make it the this district that we want? I know that's very ideal. We do have 38 buildings that are there, but sometimes we limit ourselves within what
we have because trying to accomplish what we need. What do we think is best for the future? And now what buildings can accomplish that? It's more of a Cadillac plan like, trustee Aljami had mentioned earlier. But I think, I think it's worth the discussion. I think it's worth the planning, and I think, I think we can do it. And I think we can I don't think we'll have to sell it to the residents? I think that we can put a plan together with their input and everybody will be on board. So I get off my soapbox now. Thank you, trustee Vasin, for putting that together.
Right. I'll open the questions for him on the suggestions. But I I I do believe that, you know, with those kind of timelines, we still have some, I believe, other time election times other than those that you put on. So, might be primaries in 2028. So that's the last one. 02/22/2028, a primary. Yeah. So, yeah, definitely. The question is we're at crossroads as far as if we want to go with
the smaller bond and and Just go attack the most highest priority items or whether we go for the grand idea of this is what we want to do and touch all of the buildings. And and that is something that we definitely need to decide on. Obviously, not tonight. I many of the questions that were posed today need to be answered as far as the questions about risk placements. There, needs to be more. Also, even if we present multiple options, I believe it it is worthwhile that we
present those to the community in some kind of form of getting the pulse of where can you afford because affordability is a huge thing. I mean, whether here or New York or anywhere else, we can dream of the best buildings possible for our students, best learnings spaces. That will bring us the twenty first century modern AI powered coding labs that you spoke of, but that will have to come with a price and a cost that
we would have to say, where is that middle point where we could say we could afford this? Mhmm. But at at the same time, we could deliver all of these things or deliver some of these things that the residents are asking. Mhmm. I would just also I hate to be cautioning again. But in 2019, we we had done a lot of town halls to try to explain and give options and get feedback, and it still failed because of, some misinformation,
some misinterpretations of information, whatever you wanna call it. You can do all the best you can in thinking that you're you're getting the pulse of the community, and you can still miss the mark. And I don't know how many times we can continue to go out to the community with a plan and have it miss the mark because at some point Well, that's not fair. Everybody to have the buy in. Right. For sure, you will have people who will oppose anything to you.
30% is a general rule. So any But it it has to be something that is within range that people are very comfortable with, and have a buy in. They feel like this is something that they actually But it's hard to it's you think you're hearing from people, and you don't you're not always hearing from people. You know, you think you've hit all the We do audience. We do what we can. Yeah. Right? What is in our place? What is in our power, in order to to put up a a bond like
this? So, superintendent Surore, do you have everything that you have? All down. Yes. And it's been recorded. Yes. But I'm saying as far as to move forward, I'd like to also Yeah. And this is someone who asked, and I'll open it up also for questions. You know, if we can get some kind of proposals together Mhmm. That we to the board to say, this is what we can do with a half billion. This is what we can do with a full billion. This is what we could do with 1,500,000,000.
And we gauge that priority chart as far as, you know, Lori will be replaced with this kind of plan. Mhmm. Or we can have a special ed facility with this plan. Some kind of options Right. With associated costs with numbers next to them. Obviously, we have already the the numbers there. And, also, how long that will take. Will it take ten years, fifteen years to get to that? I know we keep saying thirty years, but most of the work will happen in the next ten, fifteen years.
But we will be paying for this project for thirty years, similar to 2002 and previously. I actually went back to the historical aspect of how do these schools come to be about. And, former trustee Begaya told me that, you know, they at one point, they were doing one building at a time, what they can afford at the time. And it might be a good idea to also look at that if if we wanna say we wanna just replace Lory for now, and everybody in the city will
take that cost to replace that school. If that is the majority, let's go that route. But I I believe everybody wants to have a piece, at least to their neighborhood school, something that could be done, and, obviously, paying attention to the most dire needs Mhmm. In our schools. I think we are on our way to being prepared for that. Every department has a needs list. I think a driving question for us is going to be, what do we consider a want versus a need?
And does the community agree with us? Is innovation a want, or do they see it as a need? Is expanded CTE a want, or do they see it as a need? I would say they see it as a need now based on the feedback. So these are the questions we need to continue to ask the community. And, like, technology, special ed, early childhood, all of these departments have a needs list that includes district wide changes and then also individual building needs as well.
So that's categorized based on what you just said. What does everybody need and is getting? And then what do individual buildings need based on the recommendation of a new build or an improvement or an as is. So we we're ready after we get some clarity on some of that information that I know we'll get very soon. We're on our way to being prepared to propose these four proposals for you or create them. Joshi. So I don't know if this was implied, superintendent interim superintendent.
Will we be sending out or doing another survey type, I guess, to to get these answers I I want versus a need? I think okay. So I think based on the survey results Yeah. And the ranking of what they consider to be most important Yeah. I would interpret that as them seeing those as needs. Now I get it. That's my interpretation. Do we use that information to create these proposals? I think we're safe to do so. Sure. But then go back out to the community and say, this is what we believe we heard from you. Is it accurate? Mhmm. What changes do we make from here?
Mhmm. But I do feel confident we have enough information from the community to begin creating these proposals. Okay. And I I only ask because if if so, I would like to use that as an opportunity. I don't know, and and forgive me if it was there, if we had asked opinions on, you know, the neighborhood schools and and Yes. That's in the fielding. I believe there didn't and this is where maybe back to what you said, trustee. There's we thought we knew, but we didn't know. There were some very divisive questions that people felt strongly about.
And yeah. You know, it's it goes back to what are we proposing, how do we rationalize it, and how do we explain the why. Yep. Okay. And that goes back to some of my questions re regarding historical significance. How much does that play a role? How much should it? Yep. Are we to what trustee El Jahmi said, are we looking in the past to plan our future? Is that the responsible thing to do? Mhmm. How much should we weigh things like that moving forward? Yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you. I think we do have a lot of background information.
We have a lot of community input. And like our data and our plans, that's also changing. So, yes, going back out is important, but I would say after we create an initial proposal. Great. Thank you so much. Mhmm. We'll talk. Okay. So you few months, we're good? Well, I mean, on that point, we're talking about time well, we're talking about time line, though. Yeah. You know, there's November 3 up there, and Mhmm. I have I have in the presentation here kind of if if that's what we're gonna going to be doing. I don't know if we wanna back up a couple. I didn't number these.
Sorry. I don't know who's back there, but I mean, is it you? Right there. It's me. Let's go to let's go to time line one. Thank you, sir. Which one? Time line one. Okay. So the other time lines, I think, the way I've envisioned it, you have a lot of time for that community feedback. Right? But for this one, there's a there's a key point that we have to reach. The ballot language has to be submitted to the state of Michigan with the ballot amount. And I correct me if I'm wrong here, Tom. May is when we have to hit that for this year. Correct? If we want to have the state backing for their credit rating Yes.
Otherwise, we do encourage additional cost. We wanna bond it ourselves. Mhmm. It's not a large cost for us because we're a large district, but a smaller district, it might be cost prohibitive. But for a larger district, it's not. The the true deadline is mid July where we have to submit it to the county to put it on the balance. Okay. If we want state credit, it adds a level of, you know, clarification that state's gonna ask for all the detail, but it's not required. Okay. So then, I mean, I think that's an important another milestone that we need to take into consideration.
Okay. When we're putting this together, could we do what we what we think is best, you know, putting together, you know, plan options, getting those reviewed, getting the community input, boiling it down to one, and and, you know, coming down to to a budget amount, all in a time where it's it's adequate to be able to get it submitted appropriately. You know, if it's if it's something that's feasible within, you know, time line one, fantastic. If it's not, I think we have those other options. But I think sooner than later, I think being able to decide upon that or or see where that's pointing to would be good.
Trustee Ilja? I think, from a timeline perspective, keep in mind, trustee Bazzi, this was discussed last year and it was pushed till this year to be on the ballot. So we have pushed it from last year to this year, because of some of these questions that we have. And I think the preference is to do it this year, if possible, based on our discussions last year. Now if it's not practical, I would not want to push something that's not practical.
But just to give you a little historical background on the objective was to do it this year based on Voter turnout. I talked about it last year. Voter turnout, right? Yes. And I think we were just not ready at the time when we were discussing it at the end of the year. We were not ready. So, I think there's definite needs to have the bond. There's questions that needs to be addressed. And it really depend on the type of bond.
Is it a small bond? Is it a big bond? Correct. And what we want to do, if it's a smaller bond and I'm not saying we don't need a big bond, I just want to do a disclaimer. If it's not a big bond, then it's possible to do it, in my opinion, on the third. But if it's, you know, the big bang, you know, where we wanna do everything that we wanna because a lot of times, it's hard to go back and forth with bonds. And maybe the timing and I think Tom and David and Lomise, maybe the timing
based on where we are with the millages, that plays a factor on it. How does it impact the voters based on the millages and what we have right now versus so that it doesn't impact them greatly? Okay. Let me ask a question, Tom. And I don't mean to if you can't answer this now and we have to come back to it, I think it would be good. K. I'm sorry. Can we go to this one? Yeah. So you'll see here for each of the timelines, the second bullet point. You know, I think another thing we have to take into consideration, assuming a passage
at each one of those, when did the funds become available so we can start work? It usually takes about a month to make sure it's certified. Mhmm. And then about two months after that to develop a prospectus that we actually develop that talks about our current finance financial condition, what the bonds will be used for. That usually takes about sixty days to get through the legal process, and then you would actually collect the money. So about a ninety day window to collect the money. But now so wouldn't it be dependent on when this hits, summer tax bills? This would Normally, our construction period is this summer.
Okay. Now, obviously, anything we do of large scale, like, the plans to develop a new, like, say, a new middle school will take many months. And maybe they can answer better than that, but you have to actually develop the whole plans, you know, and get it through the state, which is very troublesome these days because they're very short staffed to get something approved. And so you're probably looking at least eighteen months before you can actually start construction on the middle school. Okay. So eighteen months from one of these dates of passage. Correct. Now it doesn't mean we couldn't do parking lots, roofs.
Those are much smaller and less complex, but a new school will take quite some time. So I think one of the questions he's kind of alluding to is, so when would the taxpayer see it show up on their tax bill? The tax bills are done. We submit our tax bills in May for both the summer levy and the the winter levy. Usually, the cities like to have it by June 1. Obviously, we push that a little bit, but mid June is when we submit the bills to this. So if they if they passed a bond in November, they would see it on
their summer tax bill of 2027. Yeah. It doesn't mean that for the May election, as an example, we could do a winter levy, but most people aren't planning for that. Right. Because, you know, obviously, a lot of people have mortgages and they have a tax escrow. It would comp it would cause a lot of cash flow issues for taxpayers if you did the larger bill on a In the winter levy because we don't only Which is in February. Year more. So I guess it's 5050. So the May so the May one, they wouldn't see it on their tax bill till the following The the other until May Well, we would have to one twenty
eight. Yeah. Right. And we would have to modify the tax bill. You're gonna pay more interest for the district because you're gonna wait another cycle to start paying. So increase the interest cost a little bit, but it's it's feasible. Yes. So can we safely assume timeline one, assuming passage, summer twenty seven, that's the first time taxpayers will see a a new tax November election. Yep. The other three would I'm assuming '28. Right. Obviously, it'd be more cost to the district, but we wouldn't wanna, you know, impair the cash flow over taxpayers because of the unexpected levy in the winter.
Right. Mhmm. Okay. Thank you. I need some clarification on the proposals. Like, the question you asked, how am I determining needs versus wants? Because that'll determine scale. Mhmm. And I responded to you. I'm gonna use the survey results as a needs assessment. Is that okay with you? Because that's gonna affect the price tags. I I need to know, are we looking at a needs proposal? But how are we defining needs? You mentioned the Cadillac model, but it's the Cadillac, the new Honda. So there's a lot of things that we need to really clarify, not to make
it a joke, but, some or do you want two options that are driven by price or amount? And maybe you don't wanna answer that today, But a little more clarification with, Well, as far as needs Yes. When you say needs, is that Beyond safety and infrastructure. Right. Yes. Is that from coming from school principals? Is that coming from school engineers?
We have because they they're gonna check needs for everybody. Well well, that's really if you can remind me, the way we did the feedback before was what's a need to have, what's a nice to have. So there it was categorized. Okay. We have things categorized. Alright. So what category am I looking at? Can we assume that the Quinn Evans assessments would be the needs category? Because they they didn't they're not living in those buildings, so they don't have a
want as opposed to what they thought. And then the wants would be anything outside of that? Yes. And if we look at trustee Bassey's pyramid, I think it helps with that. Although, I would consider the whole pyramid a need. Right. Some others may not. Some others may say, well, innovations and and all of that and expanded AI, that's not a need. Need is literacy and math. So just some clarification would be helpful.
Well, then that that's going really to the philosophy Mhmm. Of what you want your educational institution to provide Mhmm. As opposed to just the physicality of the building. Correct. You are now talking about, philosophically, do we think all these other things, our needs, or what? Right. And so that is a different question. Mhmm. I think it's I think it's a consideration. What vision do we have for the future? Mhmm. And at the same point, if we are just gonna look at maintaining our current
infrastructure, we wanna lower our costs. Physicality. Yeah. Although and I think I think there was an analysis that this the San Santech, document kinda went through and kind of gave us an idea. Look. If you're just looking at, you know, those minimums for the six years, and I know that needs to be updated because we've done already some HVAC work, I think. Santech was the ones that originally did the work in the fielding study. Mhmm. Gilbane looked at that and updated based upon the interviews with the principals and engineers. Mhmm. We kind of updated where we're at with the you know, some of the work we've done with EsterMoney. So Golbane is the most recent one that we'll use to kinda evaluate that.
But I I, you know, I I liked looking at that one because it looked like it's like, look. If you're gonna address the critical needs, one to two years, then up to six for, you know, secondary needs and you you have those amounts, it kinda gives you that. Okay. We're just gonna keep the buildings humming along with what they need. There's no there's no vision per se about what we're what we're doing moving forward. I I think I think there is something to be said about, okay. If we're looking at bare minimum, that's what that is. Right? Now we and I think I think it's worth the conversation. What vision do we have for the future? Because I'll say in my in my opinion, I think we need that.
I think we need to move forward with that. I think families will wanna come to Dearborn because of of that. I think, again, we're at a critical inflection point. Even if we did the work, you know, that that does that in ten, fifteen years, we're gonna be sitting here having this conversation again. Well, but then the question is, do the taxpayer or or the voters, do the taxpayers want that? Because what our vision might be is completely different potentially from the people who are gonna be at the ballot box.
And I think we start with And they might think, I'm only willing to pay for keeping the building standing. Yep. And I think we'll put it out there and we get that feedback, but I also think we give a starting we give a we give a starting point with some of that vision. And I think you you you you we literally mock ups, things like that, maybe the other things. This is what this could look like, and then this is what this could look like here in Dearborn. Right. Yeah. And I think your pyramid is a instead of saying needs and wants, really forget that language, your pyramid is comprehensive. Mhmm. It includes infrastructure, safety, security needs, and trending, educational movements.
So we all know the trend is learner centered environments, not teacher centered environments. That's where you get your flexible rooms. That's where you get your, learning designing spaces on how students learn and what they need to be able to learn. So that's something I think parents would understand and students would understand. And then, you know, beyond that, the expanded, not just college, track, but career track. And I think parents have said, give us that. We want that, or residents have said that. I want my and and you've said it, trustee Bazzi, can I graduate from high
school and ready ready to begin a career? What do we need to do to make that happen for our students? So those are needs. It's also a vision. And I think I guess our task is then to explain to the voters why these are needs. That's our job. Mhmm. They don't necessarily know why it's a need. And when I say they, I'm generalizing. Some may not realize the trends that, you know, that we're moving towards. Mhmm. You know? But that's our responsibility. So if you don't mind, I think using the pyramid as our backdrop for creating
these proposals would give us a nice balanced approach to, for to begin with and then moving to the community with that. Yeah. Sounds good. With the with the assist from trustee Bassi, now you are putting it all together, and and I see some dots getting connected. So, yes, full circle. Appreciate it. I did have one question. What does the tax when the taxpayer is paid have to do when we put the bond? I get it. It's impacting their pocketbook.
But what is there a reason for asking the question when would they be taxed to what's the dependency for choosing the date to have have on the ballot? Personally, I think twofold. One, when the funds start coming in and we make that decision, we can start getting to work work on that. And I know that even some of our mills are continuing to be reduced over the next few years. So it lessens the impact of what, People are paying.
What the people are paying. You know? So I think currently from, like, 2028 or 2029, there is a line item that will be paid. 2032, it wouldn't that '20 the 2,003 bond would come off the box. In 2032? 2032. 2032. '32. So it's a delay also city millage that will go off the books as well, like sewer. What year? Project. I believe 2028. 2028. So there is a reduction that's coming.
No. I thought it was '32, and we just had one and twenty three went away. So from a millage, I don't know if there's an impact whether it's this year or next year, and you could correct me. But if you're looking at it from when the taxpayer would be billed, I still I was trying to figure out the dependency that you're looking at it. Like what's driving the choice of 20 sorry, this year versus next year with regard to when are they being taxed? It's less about this year and next year and more about if it wasn't this
year, any of the other three plans, the first time somebody's taxed is 2020. I just wanted to understand. So there is no dependency to say this year versus next year if we're ready? If we're, I'm sorry? If the preparation is ready, the tax that you're asking for, when are they when are the tax breeder going to be taxed is not a dependency? I don't not necessarily, no. I do think there is an advantage of some tax reduction that's happening over the next few years that I think should be articulated.
But I don't think it's a dependency. Okay. I was trying to see if there's a millage expiring, if there's something. It doesn't sound like it. There's nothing that's driving the when are people going to be taxed. There's no millage expiring next year to say wait till next year so it would be lower. Correct. All right. Okay. I just want to make sure. I believe what's going to be driving the date is more of the amount and the amount of work that we will do. If it's going to be a bigger bond, as you mentioned, that might drive the
date further. And if that's right, I mean But if it is something that is smaller, then definitely within this year's range. I think and don't don't quote me on the numbers. I know that probably the 20 summer build, roughly 1.22, the mill that we have. And then looking here, it's gonna reduce, about 20% and then reduce even more for the next four years and then drop off. Just something to keep in mind, even the mills that are coming from the from the schools are are gonna be reduced and eventually that particular mill will be gone.
Correct. President Mosel? Yes. The one thing we didn't talk about that I'd like to talk about and I agree with Mr. Bassi is our high schools are sporting events. Our facilities are far below most high schools outside of our city. If you go to any of these high schools, their complexes are up to date and that draws the attention also. So as we go down the road, we need to think about our sporting facilities.
So we have That's also been something we've been working on already, and not just, high school and going back to CTE and then student retention. We are starting with middle school. When we think about students leaving us in high school, we need to capitalize on our middle school experience for these students, not just with making a choice when they become freshmen with where they wanna attend, whether in district or out, but also, using that middle school time to build the athletic facilities and programs there and then also
pre CTE at the middle school level. Mhmm. So that's also been something we're working on. We're excited about that. Thank you for that. Trustee D'Ambrosio. Anything else before we conclude, the session? Trustee Sobey. Sorry. One more thought I'm gonna throw out there. This might be a request, for the upcoming proposals or if it's a little far out, we can wait and discuss this after. But, if we do decide to do, or if we throw out a proposal for a smaller bond, can we also take into consideration, you know, when we would be able to take on the next phase or two phases or three phases to finish
the rest of the projects? Just so we know ahead of time, that might help factor in, timeline and and urgency. That's all. Something you want us to do now? No. I I think the the more I thought about it, I'm like, this might be a lot. So but when we get to that discussion, don't let me forget it, please. Yeah. I think definitely having those options later, like, disaggregate what we come up with now. Yep. Once we've made a First, let's do the big yep. Where where we're headed originally, we can then have forward that conversation on.
David? Yes. Thank you. I wanted to just kind of piggyback off of a comment that Trustee Bessie said earlier, and expand on it a little bit. Just acknowledging and appreciating, the teachers and principals for the work they do in the buildings that we have. I think that also that's why there's a disconnect between how serious the need is Mhmm. And what our buildings because of the non instructional, operational staff, engineers, and custodians, our
skilled trades people, our operations people, they are keeping these buildings together so that there is a seamless transition between every school day, between every seasonal change from fall to winter, winter to spring, spring to summer, and we don't see that. It's behind the scenes. All we see is schools functioning every day, open, ready for our students. And that is a credit to those non instructional people behind the scenes keeping it
going. But I'm telling you, they're reaching the breaking point. Mhmm. They the shoestrings, the duct tape, the whatever is being done to keep these things going, their innovative spirit and their innovative techniques to find parts for equipment that is no longer even made anymore, these folks are finding companies that will, manufacture and and
create parts that are needed for to keep our buildings running. That's not gonna go on much longer. And we are going to reach a point where schools stop functioning for weeks at a time and children are home for days at a time. And then people won't there won't be that disconnect then. Mhmm. Then for sure people go, oh my gosh. Yes. We have a critical need. And we are doing a great job of making sure that that doesn't happen. And, again, it's hats off to those folks on that other side who are making
that happen, but we're pushing them to the limits. We're pushing the equipment, the schools, and the people to their limits. And the further we put this off, the closer we get to reaching that critical point. Thank you. I think that's a great point. I, I remember when we went to, Lohrey Elementary, they were talking about the facilities there. And you have to be such a skilled person at Lohrey and develop such high skill that Ford Motor Company was people were leaving to go work at Ford because
they were they've learned so much, and they were poached because of the amount of skill that those, you know, people need to be able to help these schools continue to come along. And I think those stories need to be put out to the to the residents. You know? It's a it's a great thing that they can do that, but why are we in such a dire straits that that is needed? And I think, you know, I I I thank you for for bringing that up because without them, we would have significant issues. And I wanna thank Tom and David.
You know, a lot of what they put together, a lot of what we've talked about, a lot of what they've brought up, they've done a lot of lot of great work with that. So thank you. And thank you to our partners as well for for the work they've done and for the amount of information that they supplied us to make those critical and very important decisions. Okay. If there's nothing further, there's one last thing I'd like to do, and it's not related to infrastructure. But we are in the beginning stages of searching for a new superintendent.
But I'd like your availability, my colleagues. So the survey came, and we couldn't even find a date where all of us will Oh, we're healthy. Will be available. Unfortunately, you know, with the timelines that we have. So but there is one day where I'll ask trustee Petlichkoff maybe if she can be available. Maybe you wanna pull up your calendar, the eighth, this Thursday. You were the only trustee besides trustee czar, but trustee czar is not available on holidays.
So Okay. What time on the eighth? I I I Six. Okay. Yeah. I'll do it. Alright. Thank you for that. Appreciate that. So Thursday is another study session for the superintendent search, and we're gonna have what time? 06:00. Okay. I think that should be fine. We we have a Yes. Okay. No. I was gonna say we had a a school improvement, but that's at 04:15. So we should be fine. Okay. Perfect. Alright. So it is 6PM here, and it will be with our consultant from the Michigan
Leadership Institute. Okay. Great. Awesome. Well, thank you everybody for joining us today. The last things that I mentioned in the beginning, are there any Your last citizens wanting to address us or even staff members? Alright. There are none. This meeting is adjourned at 09:04. Have a good night.