Good afternoon. Good evening, everyone. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for your attendance tonight on our regular board meeting. Tonight is Tuesday, 12/09/2025. The time is 05:35. Miss Moore, if you would do the roll call. Bishop Colette Vaughn. Here. Latrice McClendon. Present doctor Ida Short. Short. Doctor Iris Taylor. Reverend Steve Glenn, Monique Bryant, Betsy Harris. Madam chair, you have a quorum. Thank you so much. Miss Moore, would you please also read our meeting norms?
We respect the rights of all persons to participate in this public meeting of the board and kindly request that everyone engage in behavior that supports the same. In the event, anyone engages in behavior that is not in support of the good, we request that you refrain from that behavior. Thank you. Would you also read public comment public comment? Members of the public are welcome to address the board and its committee during public comment. Individuals wishing to address the board must register. Once the agenda is adopted, public comment registration will close.
The chair will call on individuals to address the board during the agenda item public comment. Please remain seated until your name is called. All comments will be limited to three minutes for one hour. The board has final discretion to waive the one hour limit and reduce the speaking time to two minutes or one minute if the hour is waived. The superintendent will respond to questions or concerns raised today that do not violate ethical or legal standards, confidentiality, the privacy of others, or require additional information to respond.
If you need more information regarding policy and governance matters, please email the secretary of the board, Vania Moore, at Vania.Moore@Detroitk12.org. For administrative and operational issues, please email the superintendent at nicholai.bitty@detroitk12.org. Thank you. Thank you. Item 1.04, moment of silence silence. During this time, we will remember remember Carter Brewster, a second grader at Moses Field,
Willie Tucker Tucker, dean of students at Chrysler Elementary Elementary, And Willie Vale Gibson, a teacher at Bates Academy Bates Academy Bates Academy. Thank you. We will now stand for for the celebration of our colors colors, Star Spangled Banner. Tonight, we have the Renaissance High School Color Guard. Star Spangled Banner and Lift Every Voice and sing, performance by the velvet ensemble of Cass Technical High School. Amazing. Thank you so much to both Renaissance High School color guard and the velvet ensemble
of Cass Technical High School. Can we give them another hand, please? I'll entertain a motion for the approval of the agenda. So moved, madam chair. Thank you, doctor Iris Taylor. My support. Thank you, doctor Bland. Is there any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposes? Thank you. Public comment registration is now closed. I'll entertain a motion now for number five, the approval of minutes. That would be five zero one, regular board meeting minutes from 11/11/2025.
Five zero two, the policy ad hoc committee, minutes from 11/18/2025. Finance committee meeting, minutes from 11/19/2025. Special board meeting minutes from 11/21/2025, special board meeting minutes from 11/22/2025, and academic committee meeting minutes from 11/24/2025. What's their date? Madam chair, I I move that we type our 501506.
Is there support? Support. Thank you. Is there any discussion? It has been moved and supported that we would type our your proof of the minutes, items one 5.01 to 5.06. All in favor? Aye. Are there any opposes? We'll now entertain a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Sidebar. Thank you. Support. Thank you. Is there any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposes? None noted. Motion carries. At this point, we have chair remarks. And I do want to
share certain announcements with us. But before I do, doctor Ida Short, I'm going to defer to you for your announcement. I've given each board member a packet, regarding the workshop I went to up at up in Lansing at the, on the behest of the, State of Michigan Department of Education. And, this was a workshop specifically supporting Governor Whitmer's initiative, which is to increase the number of males getting a post secondary education. And, they're emphasizing that.
In fact, they have, a sixtythirty plan. Say what? 60,000 males, through the system by 2030. And anyway, part of this part of this discussion is that I put the packet there so you guys can see everything that I was given. I made sure we got copies for every board member, one for Doctor. Veedy and, one for Vania and Kia Drake. The point is this. There is a strong initiative to increase the number of males in the State of
Michigan. Part of that initiative is that they do have the FAFSA plan. And I understand from doctor Beatty that, in the past, the board, whatever board it was, did not support a policy for FAFSA. And so before I knew that, however, I sent everybody on the board copies of other school districts' policy for FAFSA. I think there are two there. And sample samples of what we can use, what activities we can use in the grant. This grant is over $1,000,000
It's specifically for helping our students to actually it's like a bridge program, to move from high school to college. And it will pay for the staff that we need to do this, and their benefits. It will pay for any activities related to getting these students into college, such as, transporting them to the college campuses. And you know we have several state several state colleges around around the, the State Of Michigan as well as the private ones. It will also pay for incentives for our students to to fill out that FAFSA
form. So in the packet that I sent out earlier today, and I regret that it took me this time period to get it out, but in dealing with the State of Michigan, I had a bunch of questions. I had to get those answered and provide all of the board members and doctor Bea with all the information that I thought we needed. So at this point, the state is waiting on us. That's where we are. The state of Michigan is waiting on us to apply for this money. And so, they want to know, are we going to apply for it? And we do have to have, a FAFSA policy.
That is there are two samples in the packet that I sent out today. Even though I know it was sent out today, I'm fully aware everybody didn't get it, haven't had a chance to read it. But my point in bringing this up is that this is an ideal situation where we can have money to pay for our students to visit these college campuses, to to meet with the staff, the different departments, fill out the FAFSA form, which they have to have for any federal financial aid. Also, we should know that for some private funding,
you have to have the FAFSA filled out. So I just need our board support for us to work on this and to give doctor Beatty the go ahead to get started and contact doctor Walker Griffea, that's her name, to let her know that we're going to work on this. That's what I need. Thank you, doctor Short. Wait. Wait. Wait. One more thing. Alright. I also, last week, went to the Parent Network annual meeting. And, you all have that in your packet too. Parent Network has really grown,
but I'm not sure if my board members know that Parent Network came out of our parents here at DPS. It did. And, Parent Network is now has now reached as far north as Flint. Parent Network has a lot of activities. What caught my eye, since we're really interested in literacy, is they have a preschool literacy program partnership with the parents. That was my main thing. But if you turn keep turning the page, you'll see they're in Dearborn, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Pontiac, all over Wayne County and Ypsilanti.
When I made copies for you all, what struck me, the second thing that struck me, all these partnerships here, I read this four times as I told the board secretary because I'm looking for DPS. It's not there. Flint Public Schools is there, though. And some of the colleges are there, but not us. And this started from from us. So these are the things that I have been doing and working on. And because I am the kind of person that I am, everything that I do in on behalf of my parents and my students,
I always let everybody know. Once I get it going or get it started, I'll let you know. So I just want to bring this to your attention, but I right now, I need some help. Pursuit this. Do you have any information? And how can we move this forward if this is a possibility? Through the chair. Through through the chair, before doctor Vidi, adds provides the answer, I know doctor Vidi, last month, we discussed another opportunity for FAFSA. So I wanted to know if this possibly is the same thing. And that deadline was December 1, if I'm correct.
Yeah. Through the chair. Yes. The conversation we had at last month's academic committee meeting relates to the same grant that Doctor. Short brought up this evening. The challenge with submitting the grant is that it does require a policy that requires our high school graduating seniors to complete the FAFSA. This came up as a legislative initiative about two years ago and there was significant concerns in the community about requiring our students to complete the FAFSA,
in order to graduate. Now transparently, there are exceptions that can be put into policy, but the main concern, there were a couple of concerns from the community. One, with the concerns with the ICE raids and, monitoring of the immigrant community, there was concerns about requiring the FAFSA, which could move into a direction of using that as a vehicle to understanding students' status. The second issue was a lot of families are concerned about revealing their income
and the and submitting the FAFSA or requiring the FAFSA to be submitted, was a concern. Now, I agree with doctor Short that there is an advantage of requiring the FAFSA to be completed because there is a lot of money that is left on the table for students as they apply to college. But when we, dealt with this, at least the makeup of the Board two years ago, there was an overall opposition to requiring it as a condition to graduation for the reasons that I just named. So in order to apply for the grant, the Board would have to agree to a policy change to make the FAFSA requirement
to graduate from high school through DPSED. And at the time, two years ago and even going into this year, we didn't pursue the grant for that reason, assuming that the board would feel the same. And that's how I addressed the issue at the last academic committee meeting. Madam chair, doctor Short, board member Brian. Through the chair. So, doctor Vidi, did you follow-up? Because, forgive me. I don't have, the person's name that spoke, gave public comment. But there was an opportunity that students could waive. There was a waiver if you did not wanna complete the FAFSA that still would
allow the district to take part in this? No. The policy would have to the policy would have to name what were the exemptions that would be granted, in order for the student not to submit this FAFSA in order to graduate. So some exemptions would be, for example, they're going to the military or they're going to a trade school, or they just want to be exempt. I mean, you can create the policy to state that, but I just want to I want to say it again. Although we didn't necessarily have the board level conversation about this grant for this year,
beyond the board, there were concerns in the community about requiring DPSCD students to complete the FAFSA to graduate the, time frame for application. May I speak? Yes. The application deadline has passed. The email I sent out today is from the lady, miss doctor Griffea. She is waiting on us to apply for this money. She's waiting. If you can read between the lines, she's waiting on us. Secondly, the policies there are two policies that are attached to your emails that other school
districts have done. These policies have those exceptions because there are people who don't want the FAFSA filled out. I am a child of a parent who didn't want the FAFSA filled out, so I am fully aware of this and did not fill it out. So and and as it relates to our students who are concerned about ICE, and that's pretty much anybody of color, I would suggest that we do it by Zoom or whatever. We have other ways of doing it. And then finally, I wanna say that,
when it comes to the staffing, part of the email I sent out today tells you that that $1,000,000 will pay for whatever staff we want, full time, part time, and their benefits. So the the documents that you got today are not from Ida Shore. They're from the state. So I'm really hoping that we do this because it will benefit all of our students. And in those two policies that you have attached, it has the exceptions because you cannot make a person fill out a form for
financial aid or any other type of form. So I just want us to at least agree to look into it because whatever hurdles we have, for me, is how do we get around the hurdles, not let the hurdles stop us from helping our students. Chair acknowledges vice chair. Thank you, madam chair. Doctor Short, I think, this is an important program, and I just wanna recognize your efforts in getting this information to us. I think, that is really important. As a policy chair, I think my only concern is I don't and based on doctor Taylor's question and
your answer of, like, the deadline, we typically typically go through a first read and a second read. Will they wait for us to get through those three reads? And if the answer is yes, then we can maybe talk about next steps. If not, to, to board member Bryant's point, I think that we make this an an initiative for 2026 to ensure that we are a part of this grant. And so I think we need to figure out what what we can actually move quick enough. I think through the chair, as I said, they're waiting for us to respond, to tell them that we're going to apply for the grant.
The timeline, I wasn't given one. And you have the email where she says she doesn't hasn't given us a timeline. Okay. So I think the discussion, there has to be something discussed, not in paper, not in emails, with her so that you will know I can't do it. Doctor Beattie has to do it. The board has to allow him to do it. Through this chair. Doctor Short, I am willing to bring this to our policy meeting in January. And if it coincides with the timeline of your contact, we will do what we need to do to look at the policy to ensure
that we are ready to pursue such a grant. Well, can I can I respond to you? Excuse me, madam. Can I respond? We can't wait till January. I'm not I'm not saying about the policy. I'm just saying let her know that we're looking into it, and we're gonna try. That's all I'm asking. My point, doctor Short, is that that's the operation. That's correct. The the top the the Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy. Recognize this. Doctor. Bland. Yes. I do believe, and especially in due respect to procedure and process, the policy committee needs to have the right opportunity to weigh in on so we
can do this in a particular way. I know opportunities will come in many ways, but I do think it's important that policy precedes any one of those functions that we deal with. And secondly, when we do, I'd like for us to make sure we give deference to those students who choose not to go the track that Bapsack generally requires such as military, such as those persons who may do, voltech and other things. I think this can be a bothand piece, and I've and I'm fully in favor of what the integrity and spirit of that grant is.
But I do think that we're setting precedent when we do these pieces, and I do believe, in deference to what I'm hearing from the policy chair, that they need to weigh in on that before the full board will have the opportunity to to be able to vote this year. I didn't say anything. Thank you. Thank you. The chair acknowledges, and this will be, the last comment on this. Doctor Taylor? Given that there is a consensus to support the, application conceptually, I move that I'd like to make a motion. I move that, we explore an opportunity to engage in such program,
whether it is currently now or whether we strategize to complete it for '26, whichever is appropriate for which our, superintendent can make that decision of application time. Is there support? I do support that, ma'am. I support it. Thank you. Doctor Short. I wanna make a friend I wanna I wanna make a friend Short. Make a friend. Just a minute. Is there discussion? Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. All all Yes. I wanna make a friendly amendment that, we ask doctor Beattie to say that he's exploring the opportunity.
Because once we say that, then it puts puts us on a track a time track with them so that you have time. The policy committee will have time. She's gotta know that we're trying to put proceed with this. That's all I'm saying, is to let him look into it and see if he can let him know. Ma'am, I'm saying here. It's not to skip the policy. I don't want you to think that. That's not my point. Two policies We understand. We do. We do. But let me finish. Two sample policies are there with all the exceptions. And if we wanna add more, we can add more. So,
doctor Short, thank you for giving me the floor, madam chair. Doctor Short, we are in agreement with you, and I think there's a motion on the floor. I think your friendly amendment actually goes to what doctor Taylor said, that we explore those options. I don't think we have to make a friendly amendment because it was stated that he would Okay. I will draw. Options. And so and and all apologies. Favor of the motion that is on the floor? Aye. Are there any opposes? Motion carries. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. For the announcements, I would like to notify the public
that the Detroit Public Library Commission will have an open seat 01/01/2026, and we are now accepting letters of interest. And if you would like to be interviewed for this seat, you will send a resume to fanya.moore@detroitkingtwelfth.org. The deadline is Friday, December 12. The Michigan secretary of state, and I know that, board member, Brian has been very active in this.
Yeah. We'll continue to visit the following high schools. Which request is it to be true? Davis Aerospace on December 11, Southeastern on December 16, Martin Luther King on December 18, Frederick Douglass on January 8, and Central on January 13. This is from 10AM to 3PM, offering voter registration, first time license, or state ID. This is very important for our students. Also, we want as board to congratulate our scholar athletes.
We'd like to recognize the following champions, Denbigh High School football team on winning the PSL Gold Division City championship. Can we give them a hand? Note that we have note that we have five hubs open. They are Central High School, Denbigh High School, East English Village Prep Academy, Mumford High School, and Western High School. Again, that's Central, Denbigh, EEV, Mumford, and Western. Our students and family can receive support for shelf stable food,
basic needs, physical and behavioral health services at these health centers. Please, please take advantage of these opportunities. Monday, December 22, nine to four Tuesday, December 23, nine to four Wednesday, December 24, Christmas Eve, 10AM to 2PM, Monday, December 29, nine to four, Tuesday, December 30, nine to four, and Friday, January 2, 9AM to 4PM.
Upcoming parent listening session is Wednesday, December 10. Finance meeting is Monday, December 16 at 3PM. Academic meeting, Wednesday, December 17 at 04:30PM. Board members, a special note from our board executive secretary, please do not forget to make your headshot appointments with q 11. This concludes the board chair's remarks and announcements. At this time, we will call for mister Vedido with our finance report.
Good evening, Board members and community. We begin, the finance Alright. We'll begin the finance report for the month of October. The District continued to receive our, 13 mill and 18 mill tax collections. You can see there we received approximately $10,000,000 in the 13 mills of capital debt revenue, bringing our year to date total to $64,000,000 All debt payments were made in October. The District received $2,100,000 in our operating millage, bringing our year to date balance to $112,000,000 And to remind everyone, the emergency loan will be fully repaid in September 2026.
Overall, revenue is coming in ahead of forecast, primarily due to two areas. We received the final Ballmer payment related to summer school. They pay in two increments, one at the beginning of the program and then one once you complete all the reporting. We received those funds as well as federal revenue came in ahead of forecast as we were completing all the final expenditure reports to draw down available federal dollars. Expenditures are continuing to run ahead, although primarily due to one time investments in equipment and capital and earlier receipt of supply and textbook based on just timing of payments.
Overall, we ended the month with approximately eleven weeks of available cash. We did receive stated in October and we are on track for maintaining a healthy cash balance for the remainder of the year. That concludes my report for the month. Thank you. Are there any questions? No? Then Mr. Vedito, we thank you You do yeah. I'm sorry. You do. Doctor. Taylor. I'm sorry. Not a question. I have a comment. The finance committee, along with the entire board itself, has been looking at opportunities or options that we might explore, if certain, cuts were to be imposed upon us unexpectedly,
title one, title two, title three, title four, and exact etcetera, based upon the comments. And that will be coming from door number one. At this time, we will hear from our student report, mister Alan Carlisle of Cass Technical High School. Hello, everyone. My name is Alan Carlisle from the Cass Technical High School, and I serve as a student board, student representative along with Ali Anderson from Pershing High School and Anthony Pete from Henry Ford High School, which we cannot be with us today. Today, we'll be sharing our updates regarding our recent DEYC meeting and some high school updates.
At our recent meeting, we were visited by superintendent doctor Vidi and board member Bryant. Together, we discussed the issue of student addiction, especially vaping. We talked about the differences between having more security guards versus more school officers Mhmm. And what each option would look like in our schools. Doctor Viddy and miss Bryant took time to sit with us and listen, which you really appreciated. We also talked about treating students caught with vapes with more concern, recognizing it as an addiction. As a next step, we plan to begin hosting vaping workshops with our schools to address the issue directly. Now I will introduce policing to prosperity being held this week.
Policing to prosperity is designed to create a supportive space for young men to examine the impact of policing, build conflict resolution, and emotional regulation skills, and strengthen their sense of identity and purpose. Students will participate in workshops, guided conversations, and large group sessions designed to improve decision making and further understand and further their understanding of how to navigate systems. Communication and Media Arts High School recently hosted its annual Farrell Fall Festival. The festival had a ton of mini games and activities like musical chairs, pie eating contests, Thanksgiving trivia, board games, and more.
The students were highly engaged, and the event was filled with laughter and school spirit. CMA also celebrated its academic success. Over 180 students earned a quarter one honor roll award. And outside the classroom Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Yes. Yes. Yes. CMA is proud of its students and their commitment to achievement both inside and outside the classroom. Northwestern High School has held its annual winter concert recently under the direction of band director, mister Vale Gura. The event had performances from all the schools, bands bringing together students,
families, and staff for a festive musical experience. The concert highlighted the hard work and talent of Northwestern's musicians. Northwestern also reported to have a positive trend in academic performance and attendance. There has been an increase in the number of students earning honor roll status as well as a rise in attendance award. Detroit students continue to prove that they are driven, thoughtful, and full of potential. Thank you for your time and continuing to believe in Detroit students. Wow. Can we get him a louder hand than that? Fantastic. Thank you, mister Carlisle. Did you recognize as the vice chair? I just would also like to give recognition to Allen.
For those of you who don't know him board, Allen was chosen to sit on the transition team for the mayor, mayor Sheffield's education and youth. I I had the privilege of, listening to him give, very important feedback. And I was wondering, Allen, if you share a little bit about your experience with Mary Sheffield's, transition team. And, again, kudos to you for being such an excellent student. Uh-huh. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for the comment. With the, board committee with Mary Sheffield, we were talking we were talking about a lot of things within students who are underprivileged, students who need more opportunity, and we've been able to really, capitalize on that,
especially with giving my own 2¢ from my history with being within the Detroit community. Thank you for your service. Oh, well. Well done, sir. Doctor. Veedy, we have come to, item number nine in your report. Thank you so much. Thank you, Madam Chair. We have two recognitions before I start the superintendent report. One and our first, focuses on some recent On the Rise Academy graduates. As you recall or I hopefully recall, several years ago, we received permission through the Michigan Department of Education to certify our own teachers.
This has come a long way. We were the first district to receive that opportunity and this has allowed us to grow our own talent, mainly our academic interventionists, but also some para professionals and others. If individuals have a college degree, a certain GPA and apply, then we work with them to gain their certification. We have now developed well over 200 new teachers through this program and, not only excited about the new teachers we're developing, but excited that 80 of these graduates are former DPS,
DPSED graduates and 80% are teachers of color. In fact, DPSCD is developing more teachers of color, than all the, major universities in Michigan at large, for DPSCD. Wow. So tonight we're going to recognize, some of our most recent graduates, and then our second recognition will focus on teachers who earned the literacy lawsuit literacy bonus. These are teachers whose 75% or more of their students showed at least one year of growth, in reading, or 60% or more showed two or more years of growth in reading.
So we'll recognize those teachers as well. I know Miss Wilson is out tonight, so we have someone stepping in for her. There we go. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you, Doctor. Beatty. Today's first recognition is for the core value of excellence, which states, be relentless in your pursuit of greatness, be bold and innovative. Learn from your mistakes, hold yourself and others to high standards. Tonight, we are proud to recognize a group of educators who have completed on the Rise Academy, the first and only district led alternative teaching certification program in Michigan.
Through this rigorous program, aspiring educators receive intensive field experience, in class coaching, and real world coursework from day one. Their hard work, resilience, and passion for teaching has prepared them to step confidently into a classroom across the district and positively impact student achievement. We recognize this evening, Micah Bolden, Rishta Despresio, DeSanda Olifier, Monique Johnson, Elizabeth Jones, Marsha Kelly, Elijah Lovelace,
Audrey Puggle, and Jordan Ranson. At this time, we honor those teachers for their hard work and outstanding commitment to excellence. Congratulations on your well deserved recognition. Let's give them another round of applause. Our second recognition is also for the core value of excellence, which states to be relentless in your pursuit of greatness, be bold and innovative, learn from your mistakes, hold yourself and others to high standards. Tonight, we recognize a group of outstanding grade through eight three through eight educators whose students show strong academic growth in ELA for the twenty twenty four,
twenty five school year. These are some of the most effective ELA teachers who have demonstrated exceptional skills and dedication in in supporting their students' progress throughout the year. We are proud to honor their achievement and celebrate the difference they make every day. There's quite a few of you, so if you could begin to stand, we'd appreciate that. We recognize Cynthia Priya Russell, Kimberly Kerr, Leticia Rice, Susan Atkins, Carolyn Kennedy, Dawn Carter Champion,
Michelle Van Tegu, Leslie Parks, Sarita Davis, Kyla Parker, Leticia Edmonson, Kimberly Pearson, Charmaine Edwards, Christy Foreman, Tracy Marino, Almond Pringle, Sentira Hendon, Dorian Griffin, Jessica Russell, Robert Benin, James Taylor, Janelle Artis, Kimberly Morrison, Benita Banford, Sarah Swartz, Carsten Carrot Sarah Walker, Michelle McMurray Melly, Tamara Johnson, Melvin McConnell, Shavonna Johnson, Erman Aubrey,
Tisha Franks Franklin, Lakisha Riggs, Curry X, Lisa Van Lanshu, Angela Nesli, Nathan Burrow, At this time, we honor those teachers for their hard work and outstanding achievement. Give them a round of applause. Our photographer is centered right in the middle, so if you follow his directions, we wanna make sure we get a good group photo of everyone. For our educators for our educators that are on the stage, please meet us in the lobby so that we can hand out your plaque to you at that time. Thank you again, and please meet us in the lobby for your certificates.
Congratulations to all of our teachers and recipients. Can we give them all another hand, please? Yes. Yep. Alright. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, teachers, for all that you do. I know, it's a lot to come out and be recognized, but it was a great turnout and, really made our night. So thank you. And, again, some of our best teachers, all of our teachers are working hard, but there's certainly some that are really moving the needle. And we wanted to recognize those teachers that have dramatically increased student achievement as far as last year in literacy.
With that said, I'll quickly go through our blueprint 20 '27 metrics. Currently our enrollment stands at 49,777 students. If you recall, this fall, our FTE was at 49,006 or 262. So we've actually increased enrollment by over 500 students, since the fall count. The state eventually reconciles the difference between the FTE count and actual enrollment, but that has to come with spring count later this year. Right now 41% of our students are fall to fall reenrollment,
which is consistent with where we've been over the years outside the pandemic. Right now, our average daily attendance is at 85%. That's trending about one percentage point higher, than last year. Right now, 50% of our students are trending to be chronically absent. That's about 11 percentage points lower than where we ended last year. We're trending about three percentage points below where we were last year at the same time, with overall chronic absenteeism. Our students right now are completing their mid year assessments,
so that last column, can be populated, likely over winter break, and I should be able to talk about the last column from a student achievement point of view mid year, at the January board meeting, February board meeting at the latest. Based on our 2027 strategic plan metrics, Our goals are outlined on the left, the far left as far as the target. These goals are very ambitious. They seek to either exceed the state average by the end of 2027, the city charter average or the Wayne County average for traditional public schools.
Right now we've exceeded our target, for I Ready growth, so overall one year of growth. We've also exceeded our target for social studies proficiency in fifth and eighth grade and science proficiency in fifth and eighth grade and our family engagement numbers based on our survey of parents. We don't have our high school graduation rate yet for the twenty four-twenty five. Internally, it would exceed our 2027 blueprint metric and exceed the state's graduation rate,
but that's not official yet. We're waiting for the state to officially announce that, but it's definitely trending in the right direction. That's the 24, 25 grad rate. Right now, sixty four percent of our juniors and seniors are either enrolled in advanced placement, dual enrollment, or career tech course, that it would be, where we were last year. But, again, that number usually increases by the end of the year. We don't know, how they're doing yet because we gotta wait till the end of the semester grades. And we did take an interim love challenge and prepared assessment,
that we'll be sharing with schools shortly, but that's just an interim assessment. Our staff engagement numbers based on our Panorama survey last year exceeded our strategic plan metric. And as you can see, there is the highest it's been, since we started as a district. Currently, we have 26 teacher vacancies. That is usually, we have a spike as we get into December, because of retirements and, resignations at the end of, the, the calendar year. We have two assistant principal vacancies, six counselor or social studies vacancies, seven academic interventionist vacancies,
no clerical vacancies, only one security guard vacancy, two pair of vacancies, eight ESE pair of vacancies, only one psychologist vacancy now when you combine full time staff and contracted staff. We've come a long way in that area. We ideally want all of our psychologists to be full time, but we do rely now on contracted services to fill the gap that's helping us complete evaluations faster for those students, that need an IEP, evaluation or a reevaluation. We have 12 occupational therapist vacancies. That's including contracted services.
That remains too high. Six, physical therapy, vacancies, only four speech language pathologist vacancies. When you combine full time staff and contractor staff, that is much improved, versus previous year. We're fully staffed. We, in fact, have an, a surplus of ESE social workers for the first time, in years. We have seven, custodian, contracted vacancies and 26, cafeteria vacancies. That 26 number is a bit high because we overstaff, but we do count, those vacancies as vacancies. We are monitoring the weather. I know someone's gonna ask about that.
My email is certainly blowing up with students advocating to close school tomorrow. We the weather is forecasting rain, and snow, starting at about 11:00, continuing throughout the morning. If you don't know, I do drive the streets at about three or 04:00 in the morning, to just see what the road looks like. We also have crews that that do the same. We're probably not going to make a decision on closing school until the morning, unless we see, quite a few, districts, closed in addition to us, but most districts wait wait for us. Lastly, I do want to,
sadly acknowledge, that four of our students have been detained, by ICE. This is continuing to be troubling times, for the district, and our, immigrant population. We do, advocate that the federal government uses its time and its resources to attack the real problems that we have in our society, not, focus simply on immigration. That's one of the few issues that we believe we have in this country when you look at, the concentration of poverty in this country and the lack of opportunity for more for many of our families. We have not had any contact with ICE,
over the years, including this year since a new federal administration started in January. We continue, to require a warrant or a subpoena in order to enter our buildings. To this point, we have had no ICE agents or or any immigration enforcement, officials try to enter our properties or our buildings. We as a board and superintendent, will be submitting a letter, in order for the release of the students that we are aware of that have been detained. We continue, we continue, to work with our community organizations, partners, and individuals to provide extra support,
to those families that have been detained. We continue to provide, education and information around families' and students' individual rights. We'll continue to do that, and most importantly, we'll do as much as we can as a district to advocate, for the right, leaders in this country, that will support all of our families, all of our students, and all of their rights, now and in the future. I think the most important election is the midterm election, and there is a dramatic need to flip the congress in order to create a better check and balances in this country. Thank you.
Wow. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any, madam, board member Brian? I'm sorry. Through the chair. Doctor Vidi, can you just, announce, about our, January 5 date for our students with the having a brain freeze, our perfect attendant. Thank you, through the chair. We will be continuing our high school perfect attendance incentive. Starting January 5, which is the first day back from winter break. We pick that date and that time because that's when attendance tends to fall after the midwinter break after the winter break and with the,
colder weather, that comes, after midwinter break or after winter break. The incentive will work a bit differently this year. It will be offered to students every week rather than every two weeks. That was feedback from students, to provide the initiative faster and the awards faster. Obviously, with technology today, instant gratification is more important, and so is the incentive. So it'll be provided weekly. A student has to be present for every period of every day, unless they're on a school sponsored field trip, or school sponsored activity.
So every period throughout the day, if school is closed, for a boiler being broken or bad weather, then that does not count against them. It actually counts in favor of the day being present. So don't we we don't extend the time period based on a a closure day. It's just included in the overall analysis. It'll be important, as always, for teachers to stay on top of attendance, because students become very demanding, as they should, about right attendants and advocating for that. We have designated administrator at each building, to problem solve with teachers and students around making sure that the attendance is accurate.
Students will get, be paid every week, electronically as we did last year. We'll have a, phone number and an email to send any complaints, around attendance issues so we can turn around and clean up, those issues. And and will you just remind us of the the cycle and the the, closing date? So I I did send an email, through the district email to all families, at least with their students' district email. I know I sent something out to all staff as well. I believe something has been placed on the hub. I know it was put on the parents' newsletter.
The incentive will go from January 5 to, April. I'll give the exact date. I don't have it off the top of my head. But it's I think it's mid to late April. But by the end of the meeting, I'll announce the the ending date of the in incentive. Through the chair. Question. Yes, ma'am. Point of, because I'm not familiar with this, I heard you say present every period throughout the day. So if I'm a student and I missed the missed a class that first week, does that knock me out the next week,
or I can catch back up? Through the chair. So the incentive is specific to each week. So Okay. In your example, yes. If you missed the first period of, let's say, Monday, then it disqualifies you for the rest of that week. But whether you obtain the incentive, or not one week, you're eligible for the next. Thank you. And so we structured it that way so that if something does happen, illness, you know, doctor's, appointment that can't be moved, etcetera, then you qualify for the next week. And we abide by the state guidelines around student attendance.
So even if, a student is sick, at a doctor, you know, goes on vacation with the family, that might be an excused or unexcused absence. Either way, it's an absence and accounts towards chronic absenteeism combined by the state. So those are the rules we're using for the incentive. Thank you for that clarification. Any other questions for the superintendent? Alright. Moving forward. Thank you, doctor Vidi. So the January 5, through March 20. Madam chair? Mark, did you recognize doctor Bland? Can we, have superintendent to speak to,
the persons on the 68 schools that was taken off the state list, this past week that we might be able to at least, highlight where we are in that particular issue, if you don't mind. Speak just one more time, doctor Blanton. I'll repeat I'll repeat asking if the superintendent would speak to the, number of persons in the Detroit Public School District who was on the 68 schools that were taken off the state, enrollment list. And if you would speak to that, if you would do so. Through the chair. So the the state, identifies low performing schools based on,
students schools being in the what's called the lowest 5%. That's based on, M STEP, scores, PSAT, SAT, and graduation rates. When we started this work, nine years ago, by memory the board inherited about 55 schools that were identified as lowest performing. And then the partnership schools, over the years, we have narrowed that list, to only 25. And so the state announced, about two weeks ago, the exiting, of about 20 additional schools off that list. So we are down to 25 schools.
I do plan at the next academic committee meeting, which is next week, just to review again what schools have exited, what schools remain, and what is the, goal that has to be met for those schools to exit. As I've said to the Board a number of times and I've said to the community, it is clear and we have been recognized by the Mission Department of Education, as being one of the districts that are definitely improving systems and processes to improve student achievement. We have been a model for other districts in Michigan in how they're supporting the
low performing schools. The work remains, but the challenge also remains that you will always have a low of 5%. And that's why, you know, we're beginning a conversation, with the legislature to try to change the law so that we do not use a a lowest 5% capture structure because you're always guaranteed 5% of low performing school. You know, the best practices may be defining school identifying schools that continually don't improve, rather than just the lowest 5%,
because it's a self fulfilling prophecy that you will always have a lowest, performing set of schools, even if you're improving theoretically. And that's certainly happening with some of the schools that remain on the list. They're improving, but not at the same pace as other schools within our district, mainly because, of our size, but other districts other schools throughout, the state. So, look forward to continuing to advocate the change at law, but I'll break down the the schools that remain and when what target will be for those schools and, define the strategies that we're using to continue and improve those schools at next week's
academic committee. For those who are removed from the list, I just believe that's a very significant accomplishment. So Extremely significant. Thank you for raising that, doctor Bland. Thank you so much. Chair recognizes doctor Short. Thank you, member Bland. I am glad you brought that up because I think that these school principals should be recognized at our January meeting, for bringing the school the students up and the staff. So is it possible for us to, like we did today, recognize those 68 principals who brought those school schools up in our January meeting?
Absolutely, doctor Meade. Would that be something that you would like? Certainly do that for the January meeting. Thank you. I appreciate it. Is there additional discussion? Alright. Then I'll entertain a motion to accept the superintendent's report. So moved. So moved for support. Thank you so much. Any additional discussion? If not, all in favor? Aye. Any opposition? Nay. The motion carries. Item number 10 is our consent agenda items. There is no need to tie bar here. We just need a motion to accept the consent agenda items. Is there a motion for that?
Thank you, madam vice chair. Support. Support, madam, Monique Bryant. Is there discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any in opposes? Motion carries. As we move to, the policies, they are all first read policies. So no vote, on these policies will be needed tonight. However, we do just encourage each of us to read and review the policies, submit questions and concerns, comments to, the policy chair vice president McClendon. However, item 11.11 is a board resolution approving the technical corrections for policy fourteen twenty two,
sixteen sixty two excuse me, twenty two sixteen, thirty one twenty three, and fifty one twenty. I'll entertain a motion to accept the resolution. Thank you, doctor McClendon. Is there support? Support. Board member Schwartz. Doctor Schwartz. Is there any discussion? Yes. Doctor Schwartz. I would like to know, since, we've been talking about Neola, if we're going to send the policies to Neola for a read? Through the chair. She's asking if we're gonna send the policies through Neola for a read. I just would like to sorry.
That's not on this particular motion. This motion is for the resolution, not for a policy. Oh, I thought we're on the policies. No. Okay. This policy. But this particular motion is to accept the issue on the policies. Yeah. Thank you. Is there any additional discussion? Policies. All in favor of accepting the resolution? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Are there any oppositions? Mm-mm. Thank you so much. November. To answer your question, doctor Short, we actually have Neola, scheduled to come in in January. We're working on a date now where they will kinda walk us through some changes, and we'll have a study session around different policies.
And so and so, I will have those dates as soon as our executive secretaries. And we do partner with Meola as well as our legal, counsel to ensure that we are, following the right procedure for our policy. I just noticed in some of the policies, it'll say legal counsel and it'll say MEOLA or some just say legal counsel. That's why I'm asking, will these go through MEOLA? Yes. The answer is we will we can we have a partnership with them. And, again, they'll be here for a study session so we can understand a little bit more about how, laws and and and policies are changing throughout Michigan.
We're fine. Okay. Thanks. Thank you so much. It is now time for public comment. And we will now call the names according to the way in which they arrived. And, again, please, if there are, public comments, that reference the same concerns, we would like for the board the board would like for you to, come together and to choose a spokesperson that would represent that particular public comment if it is the a matter of a group. And,
of course, because of that, your time would go from three minutes to a little longer because you would be the spokesperson for the group. Doctor. Ingrid Draper and Lindsey Maton Mason Maton, you will come to the mic at this time. The next two people would be Carlotta Taylor and Steve Khan. Just want to say to the board thank you for the opportunity to bring some comments tonight. I particularly want to bring my thanks and my appreciation to the faith based council
of the Detroit Community District. I have been on the council for now about ten years. I did work for the school district for thirty two years. I've been retired for thirty years, almost the number of years that I worked. And when I retired, I wanted an opportunity to stay connected with a district that I loved. And I found that the faith based council was the best opportunity for me on a smaller scale and on a doable level for me. I've been very active with my church, so it was a way of getting our members
connected to the Faith Based Council. I just want to thank you for the way that it's organized. I have to say a word of thanks to Assistant Superintendent Buckner Buckner, and as well to the support from Bishop Vaughn. Every meeting is like a a revelation to me because I learn so much information about what's happening in the school district, how the churches and faith based organizations can make an impact. It's really like being in a church service for me.
Bishop Vaughn keeps us so on target, so inspired, so motivated, and along with Charlanda, so that you leave knowing that anything is possible if we can come together, talk about it, and get the right connections of people who can help. So I just wanna thank them, and I wanna thank the organization of the support to pastors, to members who are part of the volunteer corps from the churches because
every member counts and there's no contribution that is too small. Someone may just want to read an hour to a child and can manage that. But my purpose here tonight was to tell you how pleased I am with the Faith Based Council for your support, for the work of, assistant superintendent Buckman, and especially to Bishop Vaughn for keeping us on task and motivated and knowing that all things are possible.
Thank you. Thank you, Doctor. Draper. Lindsay Majan? Mason? Would you pronounce that for me? Sure. Lindsay Mattson. Mattson. Thank you. Thanks, Trisha Phan, Doctor. Veedy, members of the board. My name is Lindsey Matson. I am an organizer with four eighty two Ford and also a member of the People's Assembly and My Student's Dream. And, we are here, several of us are here today to talk about, the four students who are asylum seekers who are now being detained. And so I think we have some questions. I know, Doctor. Veedy, you just said that there is a plan to write a letter.
I guess, like, the question is when would that go out, who's that letter to, and will it be public? And I know you usually answer these questions at the end of all public comment, but it might help for other people who are planning to speak to, to know the answer to that. Additionally, you know, I work with students and parents. They're scared right now. We they're not sure if their parents are gonna be there when they get home from school. And now they're worried about themselves getting picked up even if they're doing things so called the right way, right? These were asylum seekers, these four students. Anthony, Carley, Moore,
and Santiago. And those are the ones we know about. We're really grateful for you standing in solidarity and saying that you're going to, share a letter. That is one of our asks tonight. We want that letter to be public. We want it to be demanding the release of these students and their families so that they can come back to Detroit, do their schooling, and wait for their court dates. They are trying to get asylum. In addition to this urgent matter, we really have some suggestions on how you can, strengthen the experiences and the safety of immigrant students. We need to strengthen the sanctuary policy that was passed in 2019.
We want to make sure that all schools are able to share know your rights information. We've been hearing conflicting information from students and teachers who try to share the red cards. Some schools are, like, very openly sharing the red cards that have know your rights information. Some schools aren't sharing them at all or telling teachers that they're not allowed to. And so I think as part of that sanctuary policy, that should be allowed. It's someone's rights already. It's not legal advice. And so we'd really like if those red cards could be shared and if know your rights training can be put on for families and for educators and staff.
We wanna increase safety and accessibility for kids getting to school. We know that, we've been getting a lot of calls and supporting families with getting their young people to school. And we would love to see how the district can step up to help with that as well. Board members, Doctor. Veedy, anyone who's here in the audience, feel free to grab myself or one of the other representatives from 4824 to the People's Assembly tonight. We'd love to talk more about how we can partner together. And audience members, please stand with us and our students. We have a petition you can find demanding their release. And we have flyers, the little yellow ones that some of you got when you came in,
that has a QR code on it. If you didn't already get one, come see us. Thanks, y'all. Great. Thank you, miss Hanson. Thank you. Thank you so much. Please stand. Can we give them a hand, please, one more time? Thank you, students. Thank you. Carlotta Taylor and Steve Khan. Graham, miss Taylor. Hi. Doctor V. Leaderboard. My question more is for, autistic kids, sometime being put back into the classroom. But what it is is that you don't train your teachers. You have your general teachers that they don't have the support that they need with
the kids. If you have a ESE parent, it should be there with these kids. They can have more help in understanding how to level out with the kids. But what it is is that it's not being done in a correct way that the kids end up feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes they can't do anything. They it can't be handled in the correct way for them, so they become frustrated. Then it becomes a bigger issue. They want they go back to their disabled their their disability that they have,
but they're not getting the help that they need. They're just in the classroom. So then that makes the teacher have to try to teach her the other class, the other part of the class that's here, and you don't have the help that they need. So how is it that we can get anything done? Because what they need to be where they're supposed to be. The kids need to be helped. They can be brought back, but they need the help. And if they don't get the help that they need, someone that knows how to deal with an artistic kid or someone knows how to
put the efforts for it, then it can't you can't get anything done. So my thing is that why aren't the proper people put in place to help the teacher? Why is the teacher getting any training? So it becomes an issue. We didn't go to school for that. They went for general ed. But if they don't have the the qualifications for that, how can they serve the kids the way they're supposed to be if they're not getting it? So I'm just saying that what should we do,
and what can y'all do to help the teacher to get these things in place for what y'all try to do to put the kids back into the regular classroom. There needs to be something done better for the kid and the teacher too. Because if not, then they have an issue. It's becoming a big problem. And then the people say they come in to take notes on the kid, but if the kid does not react at that particular time, then there's a problem still. Because as soon as they leave, this is when the kid starts showing the disabilities that they have.
And so it's just it is I think it's too much for you to put off on a teacher and just say, okay. Now you settle to do this. It should be helped all the way around. Thank you. Mister Khan, mama Redmond, you would be up next. Steve Khan. I taught for many years in Detroit Public Schools at Cass Tech and also at Western International High School. I was, form I'm a former Detroit Federation of Teachers, the teacher union president. I am now a friend to support of the Detroit Committee to Stop ICE.
Clearly clearly throughout the country and including or maybe especially in Detroit, the attacks by ICE are increasing. The threats against our community and, above all, the young people and their families are increasing. It is Trump desperate. He is playing that racism hard, hard as he can. The the the the talk last week, refresh your memory, about the Somalis, grotesque, And he's not going to stop. He's not gonna stop until we organize, organize, mobilize, and we are gonna have to, as a people,
drive him out. We've got to get Trump out. That really is the answer. Right now, immediately, what we can do here is join the wave of protests that are happening around the country in response to the increased ICE attacks. From coast to coast, if you read the newspapers and listen to media, there's walkouts by students, There's community marches and mobilizations. We need that here in Detroit. We've begun. But we've got to build, build in the streets with the walkouts, the strikes, the mobilizations. That is the only way to stop ICE.
The board should not obstruct the organizing of community activists and students who want to defend the young people against these attacks. We demand no obstruction. How can school function with people being kidnapped with students, being kidnapped. The board also should agree that if ICE does enter any school, that it will use the robocall immediately to urge the families to come down to the school, and we need to surround the school and block ICE from ever getting out of the school.
They need to learn, and the only thing they'll respect is our power as a community to stop and block ICE from doing their kidnapping work. I urge also that we stop Detroit police from cooperating with ICE. Clearly, as people in our group have reported, ICE and Detroit police are meeting almost daily to coordinate attacks in this city. We cannot duck this. We must demand of the new mayor that she come on board with this and
stop the Detroit Detroit police from coordinating with ICE. Take away that support from the police, and you take away much of ICE's power. In the end, this is not just about the immigrant. In the end, this is about all of us. We can't have these people here with rights and those people over there with no right. This country's learned the hard way. Thank you, mister Khan. Mama Redmond. And coming up next is Ireland Summers. Thank you. Good evening,
board members. First, I would like to give a shout out to Paul Robeson of Malcolm X Academy, very own Alan Carlisle. Great job on what you're doing in sitting on the board as well as. In regards I do have a question for the board. In regards of the parent outreach coordinate position, I would like to say when cuts start coming, I hope you take the time and look at the positions and make sure that our positions is are secure. We are the face. Let me say this again.
We are the face. We deal with the families on a day to day basis. When I have our rate families coming in, I'm the person that can calm them down and help them with their needs. So I do wanna remind you of that. It's a lot of POCs on board. We appreciate you guys for even having that position. I would like to also give a shout out to Shalanda Buckman's team, the whole FACE department, because when there was no EBT cards, they made sure that our children had food on their tables at night.
They worked long hours to make sure of that. Anything I have asked that face department for, in the midst for our kids, they make it happen. So I appreciate that. I really, really appreciate that. Last but not least, I do wanna give a shout out to my principal, doctor Jeffrey Robinson, for even giving me the opportunity to get a job with DPS. I started volunteering first and then start loving it and start working for them. Shout out to all the all the people that always pour into our students because
it means a lot. I ain't gonna talk about the schools closing, but I only got five phone calls asking, are we closed because districts have already closed? Y'all driving around. Our kids walk. Some of them don't have boots. Some of them don't have proper shoes. Some of them don't have socks. The one thing I did not hear you guys mention tonight, and, of course, it's gonna be on mama red, miss Hart, Will there be any type of resource for these two weeks when we're out for mental health assistance? I'm not talking about picking up calling the hotline.
Some services for these kids because the reason why I say that, some of them, Christmas time is hard for some families. It's a blueprint Christmas. So please, let's take into consideration our babies. I yield my time. Thank you. Thank you. Arly Summers. And coming next would be Chris Hatton. Hi. Thank you. I want to start by saying that, it's obviously, devastating to be back here again after Michael with more students being detained. I want to ask the board and Doctor.
Beatty to please consider a teacher forum to discuss immigration issues and issues affecting our students. I think having direct conversation with us and us being able to express the need that we are hearing from our students daily would be incredibly beneficial to making future decisions and to helping, focus on problem solving together some of these challenges our students are facing. Obviously, these are very sensitive topics. There is a lot of, privacy and personal information going around.
And having a more direct, whether that's a Q and A, whether it's a conference, some sort of forum where those who work with students who are affected can express directly to the board, in person, the needs of our students would be greatly beneficial. I think that there has been a lot of, like, just, indirect conversation. And I think that sometimes that makes finding solutions difficult. Teachers and school support staff know a lot of things about students that the board may not yet be privy to, but we would like to make sure that we can work together and share that
information to create well rounded solutions to make sure all our students are successful. My students want to attend school, my students want to learn, and they are very excited to do so. And I think that through working together, we could find solutions to make sure they have quality access to the education they rightfully deserve. I yield my time. Thank you. Thank you. Chris Hatton. Thank you. I'm reading a message from a staff member at Western. At DPSCD, we roar aloud, we lead proud. Right? The community has been out here roaring. Doctor Vidi and the board, we certainly recognize you joining us in roaring tonight,
and we appreciate your commitment to make a public statement calling for the release of our students. Now it's time to lead proud. You as a superintendent, as a school board, have the power to implement real changes. According to the blueprint 2027, the first core value of DPSCD is students first. Putting students first would mean having an immigration legal team in a district with an available attorney for our students who need it. DPSCD's DPSCD's mission statement says students will thrive, and yet Western High School has one Spanish speaking social worker for almost 2,000 students. Helping students thrive means hiring more bilingual therapists and social workers.
DPSCD's number one goal is to improve attendance, and yet more and more students say they can't come to school because they don't have safe transportation. What the district already provides is not enough. Fund more transportation for our immigrant students. I assure you they want to be in school. Give them a safe, feasible way to get there and watch the effect it'll have on attendance. We need to be proactive, not reactive, to protect our students before they find themselves stripped from their education. I yield my time. Thank you. Thank you. Kenneth Russell and Shonda Islam. Kenneth Russell and Shonda Islam Islam.
And then next after those two would be George Washington and Ulysses Sanchez. I can speak now? Yes. Okay. Hi. My name is Kenneth Russell. I attend Southeastern Technical High School, and I'm here with four eight two Ford. So my key takeaways here, I want to first thank y'all for, getting our students try to get our students here, back here to Detroit from Texas. I really wanna thank y'all for that. And then I wanna bring some ideas to the table for you guys to assure the safety for our immigrant students and to prevent any of this happening again.
First, we'll strengthen our safety for the DPS students. Basically, like, students who live further from the school, like Westside or, like, Deep Westside or Eastside, we ensure that we bring them to schools, safe with the yellow school buses like we do with the elementary and middles, just for a while until our current president's out of office to ensure their safety getting to school and to improve our attendance rates. Then, our quote, when students rise, we rise. I really appreciate that y'all are putting forth an effort getting our students back from
Texas and bring them back here to their families safely. So I really wanna thank y'all for that. And then alternative education options for our immigrant students just in case if ICE are patrolling them areas often or y'all feel or they feel as if their safety is at risk with ICE being in the area or them going to school in general, provide them with online education while still being enrolled at their home school and try and assuring teachers who go there in their prep hours to, give education and the students their work on a day to day basis and allowing
them to graduate from their home school of choice. And I give up my thought. Thank you, sir. Thank you, mister Russell. Shanda Islam? Good evening. My name is Shanda, and I'm currently a sophomore at Cass Tech. I'm also here to talk about the four students who were detained, and I wanted to give more of a student perspective on it. Although I'm not an immigrant myself, I'm current I'm always surrounded by them throughout my community and in my school. And I always hear stories about students not feeling safe and not feeling like they belong, especially in this current political climate.
I believe that is the job of this board and the city to ensure that these students feel safe. No student should have to worry about being detained, and no parent should have to worry about their children not making it home safe. I appreciate the board's recognition of the students detained. However, I advocate for DPSCD to continue making sure their sanctuary policy is stronger to ensure that every student is protected regardless of legal status. I also hope that the board clearly communicates the presence of immigration officials in the
area with language translations provided as needed. Cases similar to those of Anthony, Curley, Moore, and Santiago should not happen again, and we hope that this board continues to acknowledge that their safety is pivotal. I yield my the rest of my time. Thank you. Thank you, young lady. Thank you. George Washington? Yes. Thank you. My name is George Washington. It really is. I, am with the Detroit Committee to Stop Ice and also Santiago Perez's attorney. I wanna say something about his case because I think it's very relevant to this
discussion. Last Sunday night, his he and his mother were driving in Roseville. And according to the Roseville police, they were going too slow, so they were stopped. And as soon as the Roseville police saw who they were, they called customs and border patrol who arrived and took the Perez family into custody. They were transported downtown to Detroit. Within about fifteen hours of the time they were detained for driving too slow, they were forcibly put on a plane to Texas where they're now in a rural
detention camp with several other students from DPS and, frankly, students and their families from all over the country. Now I went through that because this is the pattern. It's the pattern of the other cases that you've had in Detroit. It's the pattern all over the country. And what's happening is Santiago and his mother have actually a very good legal case, and we filed it today at 02:00 yesterday at 02:00. But the problem is that the way the law works is if they're not in
this state at the time we file that case, it's the court doesn't have jurisdiction, and it goes to Texas. What the government is doing is arresting people and putting them on planes immediately so that people like me all over this country don't file suits. In all candor, this is kidnapping on an industrial scale. It's thousands of people are being kidnapped and sent to camps in Texas and other places. And I yeah. This is quite terrible. And I would say with regard to the board,
doctor Vidi's statement I heard, frankly, it needs to be publicized. You need to tell every student and teacher that this board is against this policy. You need to get the mayor to be doing it in Chicago. The mayor and the city council and so forth are taking very strong statements. That's very helpful. Above all, we need a movement. As other people have said, we've got to stop this. This is a catastrophe happening on our watch, and it's going to get worse. There will be more students who are treated in the same way,
denied of their rights, and sent to a concentration camp in Texas. It's got to stop. And please do not try to interfere with students who will be organizing on this because they have a right to fight it because of their future. Thank you very much. Thank you, mister Washington. And this is Sanchez. And then following mister Sanchez, mama Moore and Tamaya Johnson. Mister Sanchez. Good evening, Board. My name is Alicia Sanchez. I'm standing here to introduce myself and speaking to the integrity of my company. I am the soleowner of J and J Construction.
We are a minority construction company. And throughout our Iron Dunvers and here at DPS, we've been awarded a couple of contracts within the DPS. And the way of the bidding procedure is very competitive in today's market. There's a lot of procedures and very complex strategies that are done in order for one to be awarded a contract. Right now, we've recently been affected by a very large firm, a very powerful entity
that is trying to discriminate against a small business like ourselves. We ask I would like to thank the board for their support in everything they've done and the opportunity they have giving a minority business to succeed within the district. Thank you very much. Thank you for your service, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much. Aliyah Moore and Tamaya Johnson. Okay. Good evening, board and doctor Vidi in his temporary absence.
Just a few questions before I go into my public comment. Do we still have over 400 pre k seats open? If we do have a large amount still, what is the strategy of getting them in? How successful is the five day, for pre k? And, is everyone properly supported as far as staffing and, with this potty training thing? How is that going? I like the fact that CMA's, attendance agent, I got a letter in the mail stating how can we help if attendance is a problem. CMA is also one of the schools that has the,
bus system. So I'm just asking as far as high schools, what is the enrollment amount for a school to have an attendance agent? And do they practice the same throughout all high schools, really sending a letter in the mail asking parents for support in what can the school do, especially with the pilot, schools. Thank you for both board members riding those buses to experience it. But, those do those schools high those two high schools have, attendance agents? And like I said,
how are they handling, communication with parents? As far as my child, I know four eight two forward or maybe another organization was here last month concerning that initiative. What is the language? Because if we're gonna tax the rich or tax the people that are making a lot of money, how is that ultimately gonna end up down to us as a district? Because it it it sounds good, but what is the true language, and how will that money come down to us? It's kinda like the lottery money to us. We always talk about the lottery, but and the disbursements.
But as far as this my child and how does the board feel about this initiative, or do you have a voice on it? Do you plan on promoting it moving forward as it gets closed? What's the issue with that? But with my last seconds, just to hear the conversations and the demeanor of this board, this is a a board of very discord. I don't know if the clergy really thinks that this is a clergy establishment. You all work for us. You all are the heads of this, district, but, ultimately, you work for us. That's the bottom line.
You are servants. It's about getting respect and giving respect. So for doctor Bishop, the president, to tell me I heard her tell y'all so she don't discriminate. But this is her final answer. Do you tell doctor Nikolai Vidi that's my final answer? Because you all work for us. And like I told you in that email, that's very disrespectful. You get praise in the clergy world, and that's good. But you work for us. And it's just simple things. But thank you. Tamia Johnson. Tamia Johnson.
Okay. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Kristen Schoettle and Maderia Rogers. And coming after miss Rogers is Owen Cowgill and Noelle Ballinger. Hi, members of the board. Good evening. Okay. My name is Kristen Shuttle. Thank you. I am a teacher at Western International High School, where I teach newcomer English to eleventh and twelfth graders. I have had the pleasure of knowing three of the four detained children personally. It's been bad. I've lost about 20 students this year due to immigration reasons.
They fled. I had about eight more tell me today that they want to leave. It's the hardest, heaviest, most taxing thing that I've ever experienced. It's hard to teach a class when my students are grieving the deportation of their parents, when they're worried sick about their friends sitting in prison, when I have empty chairs in my classroom where these students should be sitting. Every day at Western, we have at least one new crisis, only one if we're lucky, fully based on immigration policy changes of the past year. And we need the school district to more tangibly reflect this. I appreciate the letter that you guys are sending to ICE,
but we would like to see it public. We need help. We need the district to offer a connection, a hotline ideally to legal support. We need safe transportation, and we need you to be stronger in your stance, publicly stronger. And let it be heard that the school district of Detroit is a welcoming place. It is a sanctuary and that we belong here. Has anyone from the district reached out to teachers at Western asking what we need regarding these four students? Because nobody reached out to me. My kids are devastated. They're terrified. They think they're next. And we know that you can't do everything.
We know that you can't alone in your statement stop ice, But every little bit of pressure counts, and every little bit of love and support that my kids get counts. What we're asking of you is to tell our community the same thing that I tell my students every day, that I care about you, that I want you here, that the fear and the pain you feel is unfair and you deserve to be here and you deserve to be allowed to follow your dreams, that you deserve the same access as everybody else, that I will do everything in my power to protect to protect you from unjust state violence or at least do everything in my power to give you the knowledge
and the resources to protect yourself and your family because that's the right thing to do. So I urge you to do everything in your power to condemn the detention of our students publicly, to seek their release publicly, to show concern about their well-being, and to offer support. And furthermore, I urge you to do more to stand up for and to protect the rest of our students, to ensure our community is informed, to help kids get to school, to do everything in your power for Detroit, for our students, for your constituency, just like teachers and community members do for each other every day.
Thank you. Thank you. Kristen. Go ahead. Okay. Good evening. I'm Maderia Rogers. It's three of us here. We all have the same concern because we're all academic introductions, so she'll speak on our behalf. Alright. Thank you. Hello. My name is Queen Watkins. I'm the academic interventionist chair. Good evening, school board members and superintendents, doctor Beatty. I wanna thank you for considering the academic interventionist bargaining proposal, which addresses the central concerns of interventionists in our district.
The key requests include, key one, a designated preparation period, increased pay for after school work, more steps on the salary scale, higher starting salaries, and stipends for substitute coverage, and performance bonus to ensure fair compensation. We will also have like to have equal access to bonuses, stipends, supply budgets, and role clarity, recognizing interventionists' advanced education and contributions. We need more resources,
including supply stipends, which I mentioned before, and updated technology and instruction materials, and a suitable space for small groups. Okay. We also will like to have expanded training that includes certification options. And lastly, academic interventionists are dedicated professionals, vital to student achievement. We strongly recommend giving these suggestions top priority so that proper support and acknowledgment are provided.
Thank you for your attention. Good afternoon, school board. My name is Lisa Canty, and I work with two of those teachers that were honored up here today. I work doing a mirror with them. I pull in and pull out. So we work as a team, and I support them. I take nothing from them, but we are a team. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Owen Caro and Noel Bellinger. And coming after you would be Marcus Walton and Rodney Fresh. Hi. Good evening, board. My name is Owen Carroll. I'm a teacher at Western High School,
and I'm our DFT building rep. I'm speaking for myself today in solidarity with my students. One of the students abducted this week, Santiago, was my student last year, and we still always fist bump in the hallway. We call each other nicknames. Santiago, I call El Tiburon, and I am mister Toro. Today, his friends were just telling me that they just felt so sad. They were trying not to cry in front of their classmates, which is not great for the learning environment. I've also been getting messages from students that are too afraid to leave the house for fear of police and ice encounters. One of my top students messaged me to apologize that they are not able to
come to class until this ice raid crisis simmers down. If they hadn't been brave enough to trust their teachers with that information and come to an accommodation, their grades would have plummeted from A to failing. Our students other students simply remain silent and fall through the cracks. As schools are evaluated on attendance and teachers are evaluated on students that can't safely make it to school, we are currently granting ICE the power to manipulate our district's standings through this climate of fear. For those who may not be aware, Michigan has not granted driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants since 2008 despite the necessity of
motor transportation in our state. That fact alone leads students and families to make the difficult choice to drive without a license, opening them up to high risk traffic stops as we have seen. Public schools have a mandate to educate everyone since we want everyone in our society to have a common level of education. I'm grateful to hear that the district is joining the call for our abducted students release, as Doctor. Vidi said. I would like to urgently ask the Board if our district has done everything it can do to bridge this transportation gap, including third party transportation solutions like HopSkipDrive.
Have we done everything we can? Have we done everything we can think of? Thank you. Good evening, board, and good evening, everybody in the audience. My name is Noelle. I am an organizer with the People's Assembly. I'm also a resident of Southwest Detroit. I've come out to, some of these, DPSCD school board meetings all throughout this year. And so I want to thank you already for the, for the support that you have shown us and especially, when we are here for Michael over the summer, issuing a statement, that night on his behalf to try to advocate for him to come home.
And we continue being here because we don't want to see the youth, the children, the teens in our community to be continuously abducted by ICE. We get news of this happening, not from the news or from outside sources, but we get it directly from the families impacted. We get news of this from our teachers who have been working tirelessly over and over every single day and night. That Yeah, that deserves a round of applause, honestly. That that is where we hear this from and that number keeps increasing, where we heard about,
Curley, we heard about Anthony, we heard about Moore, we heard about Santiago. That's four students. We even heard of, continue to increase. And I I don't believe that four is the four or five is the only number of high school students that are taken. We see so much of this happening just not only in Southwest Detroit, but so many immigrant communities being impacted by this. We see this happening to the black migrant community, Latinos, to, to the Arab community, and it just it needs to stop. That's why we continue to show out to, to plead with you that there is so much more that we can do just
even as a school board, but also just extending that, higher to the mayor, to Governor Whitmer, to actually ensure more protections that can be, instated, to make sure that this number doesn't Keep increasing. I yield my time. Thank you. Marcus Walton Yes, sir. And then Rodney Fresh. Good afternoon. My name is Marcus Walton, and I'm a proud DFT member and a thirty year veteran of, ESE programs at Jerry O'White. Okay. Now as a classroom teacher, we all know what you have to do to stand up to a bully.
But I'm gonna give you two corporations and one educational institution and how they dealt with a bully. First, you have Costco. Costco said, you know what, Trump? We're gonna see you in court. You gonna give us tariffs, we'll meet you in court. Then you have another company like Target. Oh, bully. We're gonna cave in to DIA. That's not important to us. And then you have, doctor Veedy, your alumni school, Harvard. We'll meet you in court, Trump. When you're dealing with a bully, that's the only thing he understands. Not a letter,
a lawsuit. So when you say, you know what? If you do this to our students, you're doing this to us. We'll meet you in court. That's the only thing that he understands. Let's take that from the, I think the attorney general in New York. She took him to court, and she won. That's what we have to do. Our children like fighters. So when we stand up for them, they respect that. And as a teacher, we are and it's particularly in the ESE department, because this is the contract year, we need to recruit the best teachers we have, and we're not gonna get that because that bully in in DC,
he also said that, you know what? Education, nurses, OTPTs, speech therapists, they're no longer professionals. That's what a bully does. You give them a inch, and they take the yard. So how many people are gonna go into education? Young children. That's not gonna happen. And I gotta send a shout out to my my former instructor at Wayne State, doctor Draper. I know she doesn't remember me, but she was so dynamic as an instructor. She motivated me to become a teacher when I was at Wayne State. She was so dynamic as an ESE professor. I used to carry her books to her car just so I can get that
little extra information from her. I just wanted to thank you. Thank you, doctor Draper, so much. And that those are the type of instructors that we need to motivate people to go into schools, because we're at war right now. We have a bully in DC, and he's not gonna do anything to encourage us to go into school. And he's scaring the few kids we have from going to school with ICE. So lawyers, step up. If you gotta do things pro bono, take them to court. Support the district. We need your help, and we need the help of the community.
Thank you. Thank you. Rodney Fresh. Sir? Good evening, Rodney Fresh, DFT, CMA. To Marcus' point, Mike Tyson once said everybody got a plan until you punch them in the face, And we have yet to punch anywhere. I stood here last month when I was back, and I didn't say anything then. But I'm a say it now because this is the second board meeting where Jeremy Bledito got up and gave the financial report. Doctor Beatty gave his report. And I haven't really heard a real question from a board member about either report. So I'm just wondering where's the accountability?
Where are the checks and balances? I do wanna send this shout out to board member Brian because she came to the building the very day after my last public comment and met with me. So I do wanna say thank you for that. I do wanna follow-up, however, because I have some time on my hands. And so I went through the high school curriculum. I'm not sure if the board has audited our curriculum. Social studies, there are some not even high school standards on the EOI,
MOI. They are middle school standards. So my students in eleventh grade are being tested on something that they got in sixth and seventh grade. Same thing with math. Some of our standards in social studies don't match state curriculum. And so I'm wondering, when was the last time any of the curriculum was audited? Whether social studies, math, science, because it's a disservice. We're testing kids on standards that our curriculum's not even set up for. To everybody's point here, when it comes to ICE and when it comes to the current administration,
everybody can write a strongly worded letter. Strongly worded letters don't get results. Action gets results. Lawsuit gets results. Actually, showing up in Lansing, showing up at the Capitol, We have to be unapologetically unafraid of the consequences. There was a time where Detroit was the epic center for the civil rights movement. Malcolm x Malcolm x gave his most important speeches here. Martin Luther King gave his I Have a Dream speech here in Cobo Hall. Detroit has a long history of standing up for civil rights.
Whether it's black, brown, Latino, whoever, Detroit is that epicenter, and we have taken a back seat. And I'm still wondering when we are as a staff because it's just not Southwest. I have an undocumented student. I have actually two. And one of them, they were like, oh, they're old enough to vote. I'm not about to take them to vote. They're undocumented. So we need to do a better job as a district of training teachers because I still have staff members don't know what to do if they encounter ICE. Kevin Tellez and doctor Sidi Saar.
After that would be, president Lakia Lumpkin Wilson and then Jason Posey. Miss Moore. Miss Moore. Miss Moore. Miss Moore. Miss someone at the mic. Can I get a what up, though? Hello, everyone. Thank you all for being here. I'd like to echo a lot of what I heard from my neighbors. And just to speak on what was on the agenda today about the FAFSA, I would say that since I was attending college, you know, the tuition rates have been increasing, you know, each year. So I definitely protested against that. You know, it is okay to apply for the FAFSA even though you take a different track
of a career. I think that's excellent, and I support that. And in this great city, we also have the Detroit Promise where, you know, we fund folks' tuition. So I want to know how that may, correlate with the decision to choose, to apply for the FAFSA for our students to graduate. So a little bit about myself. I was an AmeriCorps volunteer. If you all know about AmeriCorps, you know, folks do do not get paid very much to volunteer, but I supported schools in k through six as a literacy tutor and also as a mentor, you know, through after school programs and and outdoor,
education. So I strongly support AmeriCorps programs for our schools, and I'm not sure the state of things, how this is funded currently and under the current administration. But I definitely know personally what it is like to be an English as a second single language tutor and to work as a translator for the, the parents of our youth. And so this is very vital, and that's that's what I wanna advocate for. And I also wanna advocate for us to work with the city of Detroit because, we can't depend directly on this young man right here.
I'm not sure the connection each of you all have to the city to be able to advocate for certain things, but, you know, the city has power and capacity. We want to support the sanctuary district policy and expand that, you know, beyond the property lines. I support, you know, the the public parks to to expand that to the public parks. I want to know more about the safe routes to school, and I wanna support that that these safe routes to school should not be, you know, target for for ICE, especially as as we've heard with folks having to drive and not being able to
obtain a license. So, more about myself, I took the bus to school, but not the yellow bus that was part of school transportation. I took the public bus. And so I just definitely wanna advocate for safe routes to school, especially because, in Spanish, she would say for me, It looks like I have a a cactus on my forehead because I definitely appear as Hispanic or Mexican Latino. You know, my father before me was subject to sundown towns, and even folks that are legal immigrants or applying for illegal immigrant status are being
subject to this enforcement's, you know, illegal enforcement, I would say. Finally, I wish to yield my time to just know about the Detroit Public Library's Commission application on what email I can send that to you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Doctor Sadie Saar. Salaam alaikum, everyone. My name is doctor Sadie Saar, and I am standing here as a former parent bilingual engagement coordinator for this district. Twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, I was part of the bilingual department when we had to revive the sanctuary district.
At the time, doctor Vidhi, I remember your stand and the stand of the board was stronger. At the time, we had school that had town hall. We sit down and did trainings. We talked to parents, and we talked to families, and we ensured that our teachers understood what that central district was policy was. We were sure to train our people to know how to react and what to do. I remember we helped bring Merck here. We have a town hall at Western, and we answered to the question of the community.
I am standing here today on the other side of the fence, four years later, five years later. I did not worry too much when this man became president again because I was sure that DPS knew that they are one of the biggest district that have the highest population of bilingual students, 7,000 students. I also know that DPS know that they have a 180 school to serve. So I did not worry. In my house, there is two undocumented students that live with me, one go to CAS, one go to the impact program. Moore's brother was picked up is actually my nephew.
And when Moore came to this country, we got him to school in April 2024, and two weeks before he was picked up, Moore was slated for graduation. He had finished his coursework thanks to the teachers at the Impact program, and we were celebrating. The night before he would pick up by ice, he was at my house. He brought his FAFSA application, and we sat and was talking about what the future gonna look like. For us to wake up in the morning that he was picked up for on his call to tell me, hey, auntie. I am at the ICE detention. So you heard it, not one time,
not two times. But we also know that doctor Vidhi and this board have connections. We know that you guys have the power to be in the rooms. And what we are asking you guys, first of all, I need you guys to meet with me and all the other parents that are going through this because it's nice. Nobody called me. But we also know that you can get us in spaces where we can advocate for our families. We also have answers that you guys might have to understand what the difference between asylum, an immigrant, an undocumented, and somebody else. What's going on with our families and the cases where we are?
So we want you to yield the power that you have to make sure that we have a real impact. Put us in front of those that make the decision. Put on people on DPD, bring us in front of the mayor of Detroit. Put us in front of whoever in Lansing so we can have this con conversation, so we can make sure that you guys are really standing with us. If we're all gonna rise, we all have to rise together. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Madam President. Good evening, doctor Vidi, honorable school board members.
I am Lakia Wilson Lumpkin, with just a little under two hundred days left in this collective bargaining agreement, it is imperative that we negotiate early. These next two years are critical for our students and families and for the members of the mighty Detroit Federation of Teachers. As we inch ever closer to the year 2030, we must think ahead. We all can see the writing on the wall. Teacher vacancies are just the tip of the iceberg that we are facing. Every student support service that is critical to our students' success is on life support.
Special education teachers, speech and language pathology, psychology, counseling, school social work, paraprofessionals, food services, and noon hour aids are just a few of the positions that need to grow exponentially. And we cannot place that additional work on the back of our educators. The last contract scratched the surface. This contract must be progressive, creative, and innovative so that there is no question about this district and this union's expectations about what we have as a union and a district.
I appreciate the work that is being done to address issues affecting facilities, climate, and culture in schools. In the words of LL Cool J, because I'm an eighties baby, this contract's almost over, but my asks are not done. Not only are our students important, their health and their mental health, so is ours. Our members' working conditions are our students' learning conditions. There is much work to be done, and I have faith that we will tentatively agree on an agreement before the expiration
of this current contract. We've done it before in 2024, and we can do it again. Our students, families, city, the state, and national president, Randy Weingarten, and the mighty members of the Detroit Federation of Teachers are watching and students that we serve. Please check your email with the remaining thirty seconds that I have. The formal demand to bargain has been served. Jason Posey, Heidi West. Good evening. Thank you, president Wilson Lutgens, for setting the table for the news round of collective bargaining with the school district.
And kudos to this members that received accolades today, but I want everyone to remember, it was DFT who initiated the literacy lawsuit. Yeah. Those are funds that we fought for and we won. I am Jason Posey, executive vice president of Detroit Federation of Teachers. To my fellow DFT members, new and old alike, I want to ask you I want you to ask yourselves, what do I deserve as a professional? Do you deserve opportunities for a better life? Do you deserve to be treated with dignity? Do you deserve to be a collaborative force within your school?
Do you deserve the professional autonomy to practice your craft? Do you deserve the proper tools and resources to effectively educate your students? Do you deserve access to effective to effective strategies to do your part to manage the numerous challenging behaviors that are crossing your threshold daily? Do you deserve clear boundaries around duties outside of your area of expertise? Do you deserve to be valued as change agents in the same manner as the administrators that are routine routinely paraded across this stage when it is you that are doing the work with your students?
To the community, I want you to ask yourselves, what do we deserve in a public school system? Do our children deserve opportunities for a better life? Do we deserve a voice in our school level leaders? Do we do do our children deserve clean, self excuse me, safe, welcoming, climate controlled schools? Do children deserve time to play, to grow, to breathe? Do students deserve an engaging, curiosity capturing, confidence building curriculum? Do they deserve access to social and emotional learning, character education, and strategies on effective and sustainable conflict resolution?
Do our children deserve educators that know without question that they are valued so they can, in turn, pour that value into them? To the school board, what do you deserve? Do you deserve a staff that conduct themselves with integrity and do not weaponize the term student first to mean damn everybody else? Do you deserve to be viewed as knowledgeable, proactive, and visionary? Do you deserve to be accountable to the community, students, and staff? Do you deserve to be a piece of the puzzle that returns this district to its zenith by providing your constituents access to a better life?
Oh, we all recognize that we do deserve these things because no city, state, or federal entity is gonna get it for us. It is up to us to determine where we move from here. Thank you for your time, and I'll see you at the bargaining table. Hi. Heidi West. Thank you, miss Posey. Heidi West and James Spalding. Hello. Heidi West, proud DPSCD, Cass Tech alum, DFT, and now fifteen year teacher at Academy of Americas. I wanna thank you for saying you will be writing a letter for the four students kidnapped by ICE. But as we've heard tonight, it's the least you can do.
I like the, suing and going to Lansing ideas we've heard tonight now. But we need to know exactly when and how this will be made public. Last month, we came here and asked for mandatory trainings, and it was said it was being looked into. And a month has gone by, and nothing has been communicated on when these are happening. I was part of the community trainings, town halls that doctor Sadie had back in 2019. And it's shameful that we're not doing more than we were doing back then when in these times right now.
We also know that this district has told reporters that you want to, quote, fly under the radar. Well, these four students do not have the privilege of flying under the radar. They are in a jail cell, scared and separated from their families while you go home to yours tonight. It's time to stop being scared. Stand on the right side of history and speak up strongly and publicly. Email the schools and staff every time this happens and tell them you are doing something and it is not okay and you care.
It is not okay that these students' teachers are the first to know about this and for her to be the first to do something. As community leaders, it is your responsibility to speak up for your students. These students are artists, baseball stars at Western, top students, not criminals. And right now, it seems like no one cares. We have to do better. We have to lead the way. Thank you, and I yield the rest of my time. Thank you. James Spalding. Hello. My name is James Spalding. I'm an organizer with General Strike US Detroit chapter.
I'm here also because of the, four students who were detained by ICE. But let me no. Fuck. The four students who were kidnapped by ICE. What I think Mark has said really pointed out the the real problem that's that we just these are bullies. And let's go a step further and call out ICE for what they really are, and that's they're bigots with badges. And I have a lot of experience in taking on bigots and fighting them head on, and the truth is is that they're gonna take on every avenue they can to attack everybody that they can in this community, and there's gonna be only one answer to this,
and that is us standing up together. So while people's assemblies, their demands, I support all of them, the real factor is, the real truth is, is that what we need of you, the members of this council, isn't just to listen to us in this one meeting and then go away and and work on whatever you're thinking is. You have to keep meeting with us. You have to keep organizing with us, and we have to keep working together because they will keep coming. And a lot of people are really hopeful that we're gonna get an election come in and Democrats will change things, but the truth is the Democrats voted to expand ICE's budget and to give them
more power. The real truth is, is that even if they do try and take some action against them, all they're gonna do is put a muzzle on them, and they'll do what they're doing quieter. And even if I'm wrong, do we wanna put the safety of our community on a bet that the entirety of this state or this country is gonna vote right? I don't think that's a safe bet. What we need to do is we need to work together, and we need to organize, and we need to organize on every front. That means we need to work together, and we need to fight this in our in our workplace. We need to fight this in the schools. We need to fight this in the streets.
We need to fight this in the courts. We need to fight this in Lansing. We need to fight this in DC. So the real question is, are you gonna step up, and are you gonna continue to work with us? Or are you guys gonna sign a little letter and say that's it? I yield my time. Thank you. Brooke Have you skipped over me? Brooke? I think you skipped over me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Your name? Audrey Boyard. I'm sorry. Would you give that to me one more time? Audrey Boyard. I haven't gotten to you yet, but Oh, really? Because I I'm sorry. No problem. Brooke Fern
and Quentin Watkins, then Paul Chenault, and then Audrey. Hi. I'm Brooke Byrne. I'm a teacher at Western International High School. And I have at least six newcomers in my seventh hour class. I have more throughout the day. And every afternoon, when my students leave my class, I'm worried about whether they'll make it home. Because I talk to them. If they wanna talk about it or on days where ICE is out in force in Southwest, I talk to them about reminding them what their rights are,
reminding them that they need to have a plan for how to get home, that they're in contact with their folks. I give them time, to message their families if they need to sort out transportation plans, but I am scared for them every time they leave my classroom for the day of whether they are going to go home and get a good night's sleep or whether they're going to be sitting in a jail cell detained by federal agents. I appreciate that you're writing a letter, but a letter is not going to a letter is not effective opposition to the secret police of a fascist regime.
We need to take action on every level that we can locally. We call ourselves a sanctuary district, but where is the sanctuary when students can be kidnapped right outside the school? Where is the sanctuary when students can be kidnapped when ice just waltzes onto the yellow buses? Where is the sanctuary where when students have to walk a long distance to their house and are at risk of being kidnapped by DPD officers who cooperate with the
Peaker Police? We need for the district to figure out how is it going to get every student to school in a way that is safe for them. We need the district to not contract with a bus company that just rolls over when I've asked them to. We need to urge the city of Detroit to stop cooperation between DPP and ICE. We need more mental health support for students. We need legal support for students.
We need a lawyer, an immigration lawyer on retainer for the district. We need more EFE training in school so that our teachers can support the students. I mean, sorry. Not ESE. MLL training. We need ESE training too. We need MLL training, so that teachers can support these students who need support so critically right now. And that happens at the local level. Thank you. Board members, we are at the one hour mark. What is your pleasure? What is your pleasure? Would you want to continue, to receive the public comments,
or would you like to to waive the one hour mark? Madam chair, how many, in person and online do we have? Oh, board member Bryant, we have 11 more in person and seven online. Can can we Well, in light of the bad weather and I know this may be unpopular to some some, but yes. So we're we're we're at our our hour mark. Correct? Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. It it if it if it is the pleasure of the court.
Madam chair, I'd like to make a motion that we go thirty more minutes. This will take us to the 08:30 mark. I'd like to do your support. Support. Question. I'm sorry. That's it. Discussion? Yes. Discussion. Now that we, board member Brian said thirty minutes, is it possible just to reduce the time Yes, ma'am. So that everybody still can speak? Yes, ma'am. If we do this, as you've said, we can reduce, to continue for the thirty minutes. That would give each person two minutes. Is that the will of the board? Yes. Alright. All in favor?
Aye. Aye. It is so ordered. Thank you so much. We will continue for another thirty minutes. We ask that you would adjust the clock to two minutes, please, so that we can get everyone on. Thank you. We will continue. Thank you moving forward. Thank you, board members. Paul Chenault and Audrey. Audrey Moran. Come on now. I'm Audrey Monod. Go ahead. Yes, ma'am. I am a member of Wiedem for dissent, a indivisible chapter. I'm also a teacher. While we are here celebrating students and teachers or discussing ways to improve the education
of students in Detroit, Anthony, Curley, Moore, and Santiago are detailed by ICE. I'm pausing here so that we can all think about what those words truly mean. Some words are repeated so many times, especially those days, that they lose their true meaning. The school board is taking the well-being of Detroit students very seriously. Thank you. And I hope it pushes itself hard to meet the political and historic moment we are in. I hope it pushes back against the racist tide that we are
facing. I hope it ensures all the students it is trusted with remain safe, including those said illegal immigrants, those said legal immigrants, and those who are U. S. Citizens profiled for the color of their skin. I am here with many others tonight to demand the release of Anthony, Curley, Moore, and Santiago, and to demand the full proactive support of the school board. Thank you for the letter. A letter is very nice,
but it's not enough. We have ton of ideas. Talk to Thank you. Thank you, miss Audrey. Dorian Evans Marsh and Jasmine Guderan. Good evening. My name is Paul Chenault. Okay. I wanna cut straight to the chase. I didn't hear. Now I'm just doing the thing. My mic isn't working right now. Can I please have my time back? My mic is going in and I'm not here. Oh, sorry about that. Well, my name is Paul Chenault. I'm a resident of district six school in my neighborhood in Sanford Weber,
myself as well as other residents, city council, school board members, and staff members have all gotten together to do some things to increase the enrollment at our local school, seeing that our neighborhood once held four schools, now it's down to one. And we're doing everything that it takes to keep that school open and populated so we can continue to educate the neighbors excuse me, the, children in our neighborhood. In lieu of today, I don't wanna ruffle anyone's feathers, but I always seem to. Tuesdays are a pretty busy day seeing that city council has their meetings in the
morning and, you know, waiting for public comment then sometimes can take forever. You're only granted one minute, sometimes a little more. I took notice to the three minutes earlier today, and I think that the board should consider, the quantity of people that signed up for public comment and kind of give a little rationale to how much time that people receive in the beginning. Also, I do think that it's a shame what's going on with ICE invading our schools' grounds and apprehending the students.
I don't know the full story, but I yield the rest of my time. Y'all have a good night. Alright. Thank you, mister Chenault. Thank you. Dorian Evans Marsh. Marsh and Jasmine Marcel do the rest. Good afternoon. Thank you, doctor Abidi and the board for being here and the audience. You guys are looking at a product of Nynas Elementary School, Clifford Academy, and Western International High School, class of 2014. And I am a proud civics teacher at Western International High School, and I have shown my students what a search warrant legally looks like.
Curly, Anthony, Moore, Santiago, I don't know if you'll ever see this, but I want to start off by saying Anthony, Curly, Moore, Santiago, I don't know if you will see this, but you are with us. We miss you, and your absence is felt in our hallways. I was them. I'm a proud daughter of Mexican immigrants who entered this country thirty years ago, and now they have four student four children who, one, graduated from Cass, two from Western, both graduates from Wayne State University, and my brother's currently at U of M. I want to say you all don't understand the fear that we have,
myself and my my siblings, knowing that our parents won't come home, and now it's our students not coming back home. I want to make it clear that our students did not enter illegally, they enter it with the right way. Can you imagine your door being barged in and you being taken in the middle of the night? Because that's what happened to two of our students. I appreciate the letter because I, again, I wish that was something that we had when I was a student sitting in the sixth grade wondering if my parents would come back. And I appreciate everyone's suggestions,
but I think we also need to have more mental health resources, therapists in school. I have students crying every single day. My boyfriend was detained and deported over the summer, and it was hard for me to come back to school and to teach our students, and it's something that I still deal with. We need to have therapists in our schools, not only for our students, but also for the teachers. This is also impacting us in our daily education. So, please, we need therapists the same way we have them with when we have school shootings. We also need them for this situation. Thank you. Thank you. We have Ben Wolf.
I'm sorry. Paula s and Shyla Zimmerman. Paula s and Shyla Zimmerman. And following them would be Jack Kyle Quincy Smith. Hello. My name is Jack Kyle, and I am a nonformal educator. I work extensively with CPSCEDD Schools. And I just wanna share a little bit about I work extensively with Western. And as we've seen today, these teachers are remarkable. The staff there are remarkable, and I appreciate their policies and their protocol in dealing with ICE and federal agents.
It's a very clear thing of we're not letting anyone in and they have to talk to certain people. And I'm just asking for the district to have that at every school, to really come forward top down to share what we need to do to protect, to know your rights, the as people were saying, transportation to school. I do a lot of field trips and, once again, making sure that we have enough staff that know what to do when officers are there, so the training, and then the support for the students themselves. And just once again,
DPSCD has a large role in this city, and I think you can use your voice and your leadership to encourage other city institutions to also stand up and create safer spaces for all of our community members. So once again, we're just asking you to kind of take the lead and to really show where you can put resources to create those actual changes. So thank you. Thank you. Hello? Okay. My name is Shayla Zimmerman. I'm a community organizer and resident on the East Side Of Detroit.
I actually work with Team Pursuit, which you're about to hear from Quincy in just a minute, but I'm gonna talk about the, students that were kidnapped by ICE. We do community violence intervention. We serve the 48205 ZIP code, and we're in Denbigh High School every week. So when I found out that an entire family, including two students, Anthony and Curly, were taken by ICE right across the street from Denbigh. I encourage my team that we need to do something. We need to act. These are all of our kids. They're not just Western students. They're also Eastside students.
Protecting our zone means protecting our neighbors from state violence as well. I have firsthand experience of what it's like to witness someone getting arrested, and I can't imagine what it would be like to also be arrested at the same time and in a traumatic way. I just found out today that Curley was held at gunpoint with her cousin, while her cousin was thrown to the ground. We are ready to wrap our arms around these students with resources, and we need to get them back home. That is the most important thing right now, is to bring them back home. These are all of our students,
and so I thank you for the actions that you're taking. But as we saw with Mikel, we need we need quicker actions and we need preventative actions. And that's it. I think if we are not doing an if we feel like we're not doing enough, we're not doing enough. Thank you. Thank you. Quincy Smith. Hey, pastor. Blessings, Bishop. Good to be here. My name is Quincy Smith, executive director of Team Pursuit, part of the City Shotstopper Initiative community violence intervention. Team Pursuit stands against all violence, not just community violence, but state violence as well. I wanna I wanna just extend our support to the People's Assembly.
Shout out to Sheila for your work and your commitment. We stand behind you, and we are committing our resources, to bring our kids back home and to protect them against all state violence. I am actually here to really speak about the movement that is currently happening, in the district out of the face office, under the leadership of, mister Bulger and our assistant superintendent. It is a movement that is going to make sure that we put mentorship programs in every single school in the district.
There is a lot of intentionality that is going on right now out of that office where CVI groups are working with the office to make sure that we have a very robust and focused mentorship program. What we do is we we bring students together who are impacting school culture. So you have students who are leaders. You got students who are challengers. We're putting them in a room together. We're having restorative conversations. We're teaching them about conflict resolution. Right?
We're teaching them about how to make better choices and how to be positive and strong young men in standing up in our community. We were just at Denbigh High School today. And shout out to miss, the principal at Denbigh High School. Shout out to miss Q for really supporting this work. But there is a real movement, and I don't I just wanna make sure the board understands that. And please give your support to that movement. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Mel Melazetta Davis. Melazetta Davis, you are our last in person spokesperson, and then we will be ready to go to virtual.
Is Helen Moore mother Moore, I hear your voice. Yeah. Okay. Then you will come after miss Davis. Thank you. Alright. I had this time for three minutes, so let me try to talk a little fast. Alright. I would like to discuss the disconnect with ensuring that teachers have parents, especially when they're waiting to get tested. I have a family member who had to pull her child out of the district because of constant calls asking her to leave work to come leave her job to change her son's diaper. I spoke with the SME union's president. I do understand their position for the ESE,
parents not to touch a student without a IEP. However, I feel there's a great disservice, that we have and no one to change the student's diapers and stuff like that. So, one thing I do know that, you need to pay the ESE pairs more money, because some of them are working twenty five years and only make $18. And I'm speaking on this because I work directly with ESE Paris, and it's a partnership. So I need them, and they need me. So I really need support, with,
ensuring that students are receiving the services that they need. Alright. Also, I would like to speak on the topic of teacher pay. We are coming up to the a contract year, and I'm appreciative of all the strides that DFT has been making has made so far. But we are a long way way where we we should be. I passed through several school districts on my way to work, and, well, I choose to teach in the d DPS school system. Where I live at, the teacher on the same, with a master plus 15, they make a $101,000, and we make 93,000.
We need to tighten up this gap. There's no way I should be making 8 to $10,000 more on my way to work, when I could just work in the district where I live at. So if we can really, really focus on increasing teachers' pay, I would greatly appreciate that. I got twelve seconds. Okay. Well, that's it for right now. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Well done. Mother Moore Thank you very much. Ma'am Welcome. On your new, announcement to our city and to the value that you are now bringing.
Congratulations. Thank you very much. I'm I came today. I've been in the bed for two weeks because I got the cold when I kissed all the people that came. Over 700 folks showed up at the Yeah. At the contribution to our community for this. Hell Helen Moore Center. It's now Helen Moore Center. Come on, you all. Let's celebrate that. So The Helen Moore Center. Now I'm depressed because after this meeting, I'm seeing something that I've been fighting against all my life.
My grandfather was a slave in Newport, Tennessee. My family has fought for our freedom all these years. And then we get to this time in our life and we find that we're back in slavery worse than ever. If you don't believe it, it's slavery what we're going through. White folks are getting up here talking against it, black folks and everything. But I want you to know that in this time and day, I'm looking at everybody here. And as you speak, nobody wanted to say slavery. But when you take a person from their home and you put them in a
prison situation and they haven't done anything wrong, you are back in slavery. Now some of you don't like the way I talk because I tell the truth, but we have a lot of hard work to do. Now I gotta go back home. You heard the telephone ringing like crazy. Everybody's wondering where I am. I gotta go back home and organize and try to get involved with this community and get our people together. Our group has joined the National Action Network that meets on Saturday. If you haven't gone belonging do you if you don't belong to any organization,
Saturday at 10:00, you're welcome. Keep the boat. No takeover. National Action Network. We're all working together for our freedom. And Thank you. Miss Kia, we have, seven online. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Perez, please go ahead with your public comment. I am the research and policy program manager at the Detroit Food Policy Council. And Amy? The Go ahead with your public comment. Okay. Thank you. Hello. My name is Amy Curaff, and I am the research and policy program manager for the Detroit Food Policy Council. I am also we are one of the six founding organizations of the Detroit Community
Composting Collective. And as such, we are bringing a bill before the state asking them to create a fund of $3,000,000 that would allow students or schools to begin a start up composting organization. And we also are working with DPSCD schools to launch one. We already are getting started in these recharters, and we would like to, of course, bring this to DPSCD as well. So we're asking for the board's support on that. And I yield the rest of my time. Thank you. Thank you. Donna Stern. Donna Stern, please go ahead with your public comment.
Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. Hi. My name is Donna Stern, and I'm the parent of a CasTech, graduate, and I'm also a member of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights, and fight for equality by any means necessary ban. And I just want to reiterate what other people are saying and say we have to stop, block and drive out ICE. They are the gestapo of our time and we have to react accordingly. We need our schools to become hubs of the neighborhood in terms of organizing to
protect both our students and their parents. That means having procedures in place that everybody in our school knows about for lockdowns, if ICE is noted in the neighborhood. We need patrols around our schools. We need people with whistles, letting people know that if, ICE has been spotted. We need transportation, as others have set up, both official in terms of buses, but also we need to set up networks where people where other parents or other neighborhood people will take children home if if ICE is spotted by our schools. We need to build a movement.
As others have said, you can't you can't negotiate with bullies. You definitely can't negotiate with fascists. Keeping your head down will not stop the attacks. What we need is affirmative action to defend our immigrant students. Thank you. Nicole Conway. Thank you. Nicole Conway. Please go ahead with your public comment. Thank you. My name is Nicole Conway. I'm a proud detritor and teacher for over twenty years and also an organizer with BAM. Our students belong in school, not in detention. We must organize as a community direct militant mass action to defend them and their
families. Maybe that means we march to the ICE office. Maybe it means no one goes to school until all of our kidnapped students are returned to school, but we must take action and we must do it now. The district must have a clear policy to provide safety for our immigrant students in and around the schools and virtual schools for those who don't feel safe coming in. But the only way we can really protect them is through militant direct mass action like we've seen in cities all over the country as communities come together to defend their neighbors. ICE agents are nothing more than modern day slave catchers,
as Mother Morris said. They are thugs trying to carry out Trump's policy of ethnic cleansing, and we have to fight these ice thugs the same way the Northern abolitionists fought to defend their neighbors from the Southern slave catchers. As educators, we play a critical role as leaders in the community. We need to stand with our students who are ready to act and not hold back or fear their righteous anger, and we need to use the power of the union as an organization can have lead direct action. The DFT needs to hold trainings to have these workplace committees to keep our students,
their parents, and our our coworkers who are at risk also safe. And the d s DFT must make a statement in support of these students as the school board and doctor Vidi said they are going to. Multiple union leaders spoke tonight and not one said a word about these students. That is unacceptable. If you can't defend these students, how are you gonna defend yourselves when Trump comes for the union? We have to show Trump the strength and power of Detroit, Like we said tonight, as the center of the civil rights movement of this country, we need to build and grow that movement now to stop Trump and his fascist
movement of white supremacists. There are far more of us, and we are far more powerful than them When we stand and fight together, we must do that now. Thank you. Thank you to Tay Joe. Tay. Hello? My name is Taybren Joe, a Detroit resident, member of BAM. I'm speaking tonight to advocate for two particular issues. One being ICE deportations and immigrant rights student of immigrant rights students of Detroit DPS CD. And the second is transportation during the academic school year and especially during these winter
months. More or less, address ICE deportation of DPS students. We talk about enrollment decline. One of many reasons is that we are not we are protect one of many reasons is that we are we must protect all students. ICE itself is responsible for four students who are not in the district. We if we really care about students coming to school, we would be demand be defending our immigrant student population against ICE deportations.
Policy changes are needed now to make the sanctuary campus policy even stronger, which would include a common sense plan that teaches students and community members to follow and enact when ICE is on campus or in the neighborhood and and when they are harassing our students across the city. The board must ask. Now the second item that I wish to speak on is transportation. We need to get in together just recently. There was a six year old young girl walking to school alone to a DPS
school 10 blocks or more into the colors. Until a young man saw her and decided to walk with her for her own safety. We need buses to get our students to and from school safely. There have been many meetings where we have talked about this or you've talked about it, but transportation is a necessity in the in the schools in Detroit a school district like Detroit. I yield my time. Thank you. Zoom user. Hi. Please go ahead with your public comment. Hello. This is Michael.
Hello. This is Michael Mulholland. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. I spoke to the board a few months ago on this issue, but it needs to it's more crucial that we understand it now. Every elected official at any level in this country who stands for decency has got to take a stand against fascism. That is not a word I throw around just because it sounds good. I use the word fascism. I use the word Gestapo like tactics and abductions.
I use the word concentration camp, because those are the things that are happening. We can try to stay under the radar and pretend that those things are not happening, but these are the things that we have to do. We have to fight or we're in effect normalizing fascism by staying under the radar, which is what essentially the Democratic leadership of that party have done. We have got to arrange for people to become a for the schools to become a center of organizing against the
ICE rates. We need to block, we need to stop, we need to drive ICE out of our communities. We've got to make sure that the new mayor makes sure that the police are told they are not able anymore to organize with ICE. They cannot cooperate in the fascistization of this country. We can stop it if we stand up, but flying under the radar will get us nowhere. Alright. Thank you. 31339488529.
Good evening to the board. My name is mister Burnett, a tenant agent in the district. Mighty DFT Warrior. I'm going here tonight because, I'm asking, I saw something that was on the hub along with other agents as it relates to a bonus for reducing chronic absenteeism that we were not included in. I wanna know, who came up with the formula as it relates to allowing the administrators to receive this bonus, but the agents were not included. Agents, we work hard for, you know, our money. We work hard at what we do.
We do home visits. We go in neighborhoods alone, dangerous neighborhoods. We do intervention with, parents, students. We work with our homeless population, and a variety of other things that we do. I am asking that you all go back and look at that. I'm not so sure who came up with that formula, But we deserve, a part of the bonus as well. I do work closely with my administrators. Aye. Thank you so much. Fourteen zero two. I will entertain a motion to approve the recommendations from our superintendent. Is there a motion? Motion to support. Thank you so much.
Support. Support. Thank you. Is there any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you. And fourteen zero three, suspension for cause. Is there a motion to accept the superintendent's report? Motion to accept the superintendent's report. Thank you. Is there support? Is there any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Thank you so much. Any opposes? Motion carries. We have made our announcements. Now, doctor Beatty, would you like to respond to the public comment this time? Thank you, madam. Careful. Output. Activate his mic off page.
Through the through the chair. The health hubs will be open over winter break, as they were over Thanksgiving break. As a reminder, the health hubs offer, free access to any DPSCD family, medical support or basic medical support, health, vision screening, dental care, as long along with mental health services. Just a reminder, as a response to some of the public commenters, we do have mental health support in all of our schools. All of our students, do take an at risk survey at the beginning of the year. And at any point throughout the year,
whether it's a family member, a staff member can refer a student, in order to receive one on one or small group, therapy during the school day. We do allocate our attendance agents based on the number of students that are chronically absent at individual schools, with a focus on neighborhood schools, not necessarily our application and exam schools, because our neighborhood schools are the ones serving students typically, facing the greater concentrations of poverty and, more challenges that those families and individual students are facing.
We if if a school does not have a, attendance agent, which there are only about a dozen that don't, we have central office attendance agents that engage, families whose students are chronically absent, at those schools. Right now, we have 1,900 students enrolled in pre k. Pre k FTE count works a little bit different than K-twelve in that the FTE count is February 11, not in late October or not in early October, like it is in at the k two level. Our goal is to recruit about 200 more students.
We don't lose money if we don't reach that goal because our teachers are certified beyond pre k and they'll move up to a higher grade, where there's a vacancy. But obviously, we're continuing to recruit students and we usually we have a increase between the middle the beginning of the year and that February 11, timeline. There, the FAFSA is required to be eligible for the Detroit Promise. Also, a lot of some comments about, training, for, those teachers working with students that are newly arrived or English as a second language
students. We do offer, a full tuition reimbursement, for that endorsement for any of our DPSCD teachers. We offer, training at $45 an hour, for ESL, training as well. Any teacher that is at a school where 50% or more are English language learners, we offer a 5,000 bonus $5,000 bonus for them to stay at that school if they're already endorsed. And if they're newly endorsed, then we give them 2,500. Those are just ways that we're trying to incentivize more teachers to be trained,
to work with mainly newly arrived students. The the chronic absenteeism bonus that was referred to, was not collectively bargained with DFT, for this past this previous year. But as we move forward with collective bargaining for next year, we would be interested in talking about some kind of bonus for attendance agents around chronic absenteeism if, that's something that the union is interested in. Thank you, doctor Vidi. Thank you so much. Are there any additional announcements tonight? If not, we will entertain a motion for adjournment.
Support. Thank you so much. Please be safe, as you go out and have a very, merry Christmas. And, please remember the support that the district is offering during the holidays, both natural and emotional mental health. Have a great holiday. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. See you in 2026.