##VIDEO ID:9QC-F9d36wk## order for the regularly scheduled December 9th 2024 meeting of the East Lancing Board of Education Miss hore can we get a roll call please the pan was transplanted and they just decided to get totally illegal totally jumped the line andus didn't get the K here so they're doing a story here here Dr Chambers Mr hook here Dr Torres here St represent and Miss L here thank you Mr Holbrook can you read the mission statement of our of our school district gladly nurturing each child educating all students and building World citizens thank you can I get a motion for the approval of tonight's agenda I move to approve the December 9th 2024 regular meeting agenda as presented second move by trusty Ferris Highland seconded by trustee Chambers all in favor of the motion please say I I in the opposition the motion carries unanimously can I get a motion for the approval of our minutes from our most recent meeting I'm move to approve the agenda of the minutes of the November 11th regular meeting it's moveed by trusty Chambers seconded by trusty Torres all in favor please say I I any opposition the motion carries unanimously excuse me me uh the next item on the agenda is recognition trusty Ferris Highland is there any recognition yeah I have one um the East Lancing Science Olympiad Club went to sine High School to compete against 50 schools on Saturday November 17th they had a varsity and JV team up against several Powerhouse teams from Michigan and Ohio and this was an early competition season test for them of the 23 different events covering biology chemistry physics geology and Engineering the East Lancing High School White got the fifth place team trophy notable notable individual scores were first in helicopter Gan young and Newman Lao second in entomology a Howard and Jolina Fawn um second in experimental design was ya Howard Elanor Hamlin and Tristan Lee second in helicopter was Rosemary cha and Sophia Scott fourth in forensics was Addie schnecker and Alex Paddock fourth in micro mission was Alex Paddock and Juliana Bon fourth in Tower was Eddie schneer schnecker and Newman laau and eighth in bungee drop was Sabrina grens and Joe Barger the team will compete next at Haslet on January 25th against teams from Iran Michigan and that's what I have very impressive thank you do any other members of the board wish to uh offer any recognition all right I'll turn over to miss alfredson hi well um we had a busy weekend we had collage uh on Saturday so that was super fun we have like over 300 kids from band and Orchestra and the art program all performed together and that was really cool in theater um so that was really fun I went to go and see my sister so that was a good time uh we had Cask so one of our model un conferences happened in Lancing this week uh on Saturday and Friday so I got to miss some school for that um and they want they took home three Awards I think so that's pretty cool for them um it's the start of winter sports so that's pretty exciting I think that gymnastics wrestling basketball girls basketball has all had a pretty good start to their season so far so that's all going according to plan and um yeah I don't know it's pretty busy time of year with school about to end for the break but just keep rolling I guess that's all you can ask for you thank you Miss the next item on the agenda is the superintendent report thank you um so we have nine school days left before winter break winter break uh the last day of school before winter break is Friday December 20th and school will resume Monday January 6 um once again we are going to be holding our holiday winter break giving opportunity to support elps families last year elps was able to provide almost $4,000 directly to our fam through donations from community members we'd like to offer this support to our families once again this season every dollar collected is redistributed directly to elps families so one way to make a donation is straight to my VMO and then I just cash it in and we distribute it to the buildings and principals distribute it to families um we can also make a check to East Lancing public schools and send it to the address below um we only have about a week to do this because we need to get the money back to principal to be able to distribute to families so the deadline will be the end of the day next Monday um snow day decisions and communication this is just uh some information I share every winter usually I get it I do it before we've had a snow day but our last board meeting um we didn't have um any action or uh consent items on the agenda so we didn't have the meeting so snow day snuck up on us last week but just for uh information um I just want to share how the decision is made whether or not to cancel school and how a school closing is communicated so many weather factors are considered when determining whether or not to cancel school including the amount of snow both current and predicted the timing of the snow the temperature and W wind chill sustained wind chills of 20° below zero or lower will result in school closing or delay Road and sidewalk conditions including conditions for our buses and our young drivers and other factors such as blowing and drifting ice or freezing rain visibility or power outages and I do a road check um throughout the district beginning around 4:15 a.m. those are my favorite mornings and communicate with other local superintendents and often with the city of East Lancing or the East Lancing Police Department as well when possible we'll make the call the night before in order to give families as much time as possible to prepare if a decision to close schools is made the night before it will be communicated no later than 10 p.m. if the decision to close schools is made in the morning we do our best to communicate by 5:30 a.m. but it'll be no later than 6 but we really try to get to 5:30 because we have bus people who are heading out to drive our buses quite early if a decision is made to close school the closing is communicated to staff and families via the following methods so ever uh families and staff will get a robo call and if you have the text feature turned on on in power school you'll also get a text um so make sure your phone number is current in power school if you didn't get any communication last Thursday morning um we probably don't have an upto-date phone number or if you didn't get a text and would like to you can go in and uh turn on that feature in power school we also put it on our elps Facebook page and our other official eops social media So Others May share it or copy it um on their um Community Council pages but we'll post it on our official eops um Facebook and other social media our website main page will have it and then our local TV stations WLX LNS and FOX 47 and information about other events later in the day like practices games concerts Etc will be made later in the morning and communicated through coaches and advisors Andor the district website so we try to make those decisions by um 1:00 and communicate them by 1 um and sometimes we uh weather conditions and the roads change and we're able to hold um some of our events and sometimes not um and we also know that Transportation can be um a barrier for some families so even if events uh like practices are held they are um they're uh not mandatory they're recommended but we understand if um some kids can't get to school because their families may work um moving on from there I just want to formally thank Mr trusty Holbrook um Mr hook uh for his service on the East Lancing Public Schools Board of Education Mr holber was appointed to fill a vacancy in August of 2023 and has served on the policy committee the finance committee and is currently the board's representative at the Ingam school officials Association meetings with other County Board of Education members we appreciate your time and dedication to the the students and staff of East laning Public Schools so thank you trusty Holbrook and this is our only meeting in December we only hold one meeting in December so our next board meeting will be January 13 2025 which is an organizational meeting for the board to elect its officers and approve um board meeting dates for 2025 right are there any uh questions or comments for the superintendent I do have a couple um under snow day decisions under other factors I think you forgot size of the bribe well it's interesting and I I got to be careful with this one I have uh uh kids like to communicate still with me and I have a number of um uh emails that I received I even received a really clever video that someone made um but I do want to say it doesn't influence a decision so don't bog by on my email please um but but they are clever and creative so um yeah they're fun um but if you send me an email about it and I don't respond it's just because sometimes I get a lot of them um but that does not influence the decision okay but they're really cute they and the reasons are very colorful I'm sure they are you should you should make a collage I think that would be really fun we could um yes by the end of the season share some of the best ones with you yeah anonymously and I my second is I wore my shirt thinking we would get some sort of update gosh you know what it seems like it was so far so long ago since we didn't have our last meeting but yeah I should mention that we held a very um successful MCN student conference um in November November uh 13th through 16th we had um about 200 students and their advisers here in town um they arrived on that Wednesday um started the conference that evening with our um first keynote keynote speaker who was Little Miss Flint um my Mar copy and she was um tremendous so well received by the kids I don't know how I think her time uh doing photos with the students at the conference afterwards uh may have exceeded her time up on stage because everyone wanted photos with her um but she was really really great um to kick off our conference and then um thanks to some very key helpers at Michigan State University one of them over two down from my left and uh some others uh our kids had some a really some unique experiences in their college um tour at the University so not your typical track of okay medical track and arts track it was um organized much differently and I know uh um Dr Chambers and her colleagues were interested to hear back from the kids too about their how they felt about it even though some of them would have received a college tour at um or they would have been W Madison the year before so some would have had something to compare it to and for some it was their first conference so that was a bulk of Tuesday um between the University tour um panel uh Pan um entrepreneur panel that was also that day um that evening they also did a uh MCN Got Talent so a little talent show of students that was the one night um and then Friday um they had a kind of a l last minute Subs speaker who came in um as uh Senator Anthony was unable to make it he was uh he is a miles Johnson yeah is a county commissioner and uh spoke to the kids and again um kids he really his comments really resonated with kids and they really seem to connect with him as well uh lots of action planning that Friday and Saturday and when our um when our team our student team is uh ready I'll have we'll kind of schedule to come to the board meeting because they love to come share too and um it's really exciting to hear about their action plans and what they're doing and how we can support them and then um Friday night to end the conference uh they had a nice little dance and a DJ and uh think uh because by then they've spent a lot of time together where they've really uh you know made some new friendships relationships so they had a dance the last night and then uh Saturday morning was kind of a get up and uh summarize is uh do little you know final activities in the morning together some some groups have to leave right away Friday morning to catch or Saturday morning to catch flights but um by about Saturday at 10:00 everyone was uh on their on their way somewhere um some had later flights they had time to you know uh kill during the day but uh very successful don't think we'll do it again in the next few years it's somebody else's turn but it was uh very rewarding all the work that got put in that was put into it and uh she's not here tonight but uh Claudia Burton deserves a lot of uh credit and kudos for the time and work that she put in um organize and uh organize this conference for the students so um yes and we got cool t-shirts our our students or um they uh designed the logo and they came up with the um theme this year leaving our Legacy so that's kind of what uh the keynote speakers spoke to is you know ways uh to leave their legacy and how to think about leaving your legacy and and you're not too young to leave your legacy as um Mari explained I think she started her work with the Flint Water Crisis at eight years old um so and has really yes become a a national uh you know phenomena in that area and and she's really branched out to do um uh philanthropic work in other ways in Flint now too which is really exciting to hear and kids were wanting to know like how they can you know be part of it you know and so um hopefully that will that will spread but great great um you know four days of events and uh really excited that we were able to host it here in East Lancing so thank you for the reminder it feels like it was so long ago but this the young woman you know what was her name Sarah who did the oh the oh acknowledgement land acknowledgement but went much further than just a land acknowledgement was very was from Lancing Everett I believe yeah so a local kid um young adult was also pretty phenomenal she was really amazing yes she uh she when uh principal schwarzbeck was there for that evening too and uh Sarah said to me she was sitting beside me and said hold it that's Mrs shortz Speck I need to go talk to her cuz her husband was my favorite teacher at ever at High School I need to go connect with uh her so it was a cool little connection that we made but she was really awesome MH well I can't wait to hear from our students and teachers who participated that will be that' be great to to hear how what their experience was and what's coming next for them that's great now um I do want to pay tribute to trusty Holbrook but I think we should do that at the end of the meeting um are there any other questions or comments for the superintendent all right so let's move on to our next agenda item which is the consent agenda there's no discussion on the consent agenda so uh can I get a motion on the consent agenda I move to approve the consent agenda to include the following item hiring of Embry Wilson as a conditional hire pending obtainment of certification 1.0 FTE kindergarten teacher at Robert L green Elementary School at ba step 3 effective January 6 2025 the individual will will be paid at a daily rate of $200 until certification is received second it's moveed by trusty Ferris Highland seconded by trusty Lions there's no discussion on the consent agenda so move straight to a vote all in favor of the motion as presented please say I I I any opposition motion carries unanimously welcome Miss Wilson um now it's our custom to invite new hirers up to the podium to introduce themselves say a few words uh just so that we know where you're coming from but you don't have to it's optional so if you'd like to you're welcome to come up and say a few words no pressure oh hey from high school can put it down well hi I'm Ember Wilson um yeah kindergarten is my favorite favorite grade so I was really excited that this position opened up and yeah I graduate Saturday so that's the next step wonderful congratulations welcome welcome on the team big week for you yeah big week we're very lucky to have you and you're joining a great team at uh at Robert Del Green so I think you'll find it to be a great place to work and the other thing is you don't have to stay for the whole meeting you you can you can excuse yourself all right so um the next item on our agenda is public comment before we go into public comment I'll read this statement that we read before public comment says this is the opportunity to address the board speakers are to confine their remarks to five minutes if a speaker requires more than five minutes after all other persons who have requested to speak during this part of the media spoken that speaker will be allowed additional time the Super attendant or other staff may comment to clear up or avoid significant misunderstandings so um if you'd like to make uh to make a comment I I'd encourage you to fill out a blue slip um I have one right now this is from Amanda Schneider from Ela thank you I am Amanda Schneider I'm just here to represent the ELA the Educators Association uh as our Elementary vice president and I wanted to give a few updates I just met today with some teachers from each of the buildings so in high school we uh had the Trails program the social emotional program rolled out last week with the first lesson and uh moving on into the next lesson next week and staff have um found Administration to be supportive with previewing the content and um making them feel successful in that Journey our ele our Middle School staff um have been hosting staff vers student events and have found that to be really engaging and lots of fun so they wanted to share that out um they had one just before Thanksgiving break and are looking forward to another one before winter break and our elementaries are finding different ways to engage in Winter celebrations with their own you know um considerations and uh providing a lot of thoughtful Joy this winter and um we wanted to say congratulations to our new kindergarten teacher at Green we're a great group um there so not to brag um and we as a union are looking forward to negotiations we know it'll be a laborious Endeavor but uh we anticipate collaboration with Administration and we look forward to supporting our Educators all right thank you thank you thank youa and uh as I've said to the other folks from Ela speak it's so so great to hear from the people who are in our buildings every day it's um we don't have that perspective so it it means a lot for you to show up and and and tell us what you need and how we can support you so thank you all right the next item on the agenda is a presentation from Heather Finley no oh I'm sorry oh I'm sorry is uh from the we have a big check presentation from the foundation I'm so sorry I I almost missed the most important part want to miss Mo that is a big it's a big check and a big check hi my name is Julie Thomas Beckett I'm the president of the East Lancing Educational Foundation uh you've seen me up here before and it's that time of year so uh East Lancing Educational Foundation is really proud to announce that we're um deliver ing 6 thou [Music] $3,985 graders across the district to sponsor a poet Baba Bulman um they did that last year year is kind of a little bit of a um a teaser for just one of the fifth graders uh classes but this year we got all of them so it was an $8,000 Grant so um so we're just really uh striving to Foster excellence and innovation in educating education by supporting our teachers and students this year's grants highlight the creativity and dedication of our incredible teachers the the grants that we get are so creative and Innovative it's really impressive it's hard to turn any down this year we didn't have to turn any down we had to tweak a little bit they didn't always get everything they asked for but we we granted almost everything so um it's just really great to support our students in this way and we're really proud to be able to do that so I'd like to invite Sarah uh up she's on the board you want to hold check with me we have a great board a lot of really dedicated people U so we're continuing to grow and uh really appreciate all the support of of business partners our donors uh and definitely uh the administration you guys really helpful this year with our grants helping us to kind of fine-tune everything but it was an exciting Grant process so congratulations East Lancing Educational Foundation and students and teachers can I ask a quick question yeah um you said K12 do can our preschool programs right yeah they do too okay including Early Childhood special ed and preschool okay specialr all I just want to make sure it went all the way down uh yeah it is going to preschool okay and definitely our um we have a whole endowment that's very specifically targeted towards uh special ed oh good yeah awesome thank you for sharing that sorry to I I love I always love hearing about the grants and what they're going for um and the attendance support sounds like a like a good use yeah it's a high for the high schoolers yeah right uh any other comments before we take a photograph no you got to take a picture you got to take a picture right all right let's do it picture position oh really this is all from selling burgers at the thank you so cold okay I got a latebreaking score alert from the East Lancing eighth grade A Team game biter to The Nail to the end whatever but east laning pulled it out 5450 there we go eth grade late breaking score alert that's what I meant to say I don't know where are they who it Haslet oh that help that would be helpful hasl they played against themselves they scrimmaged B team one and the blue and white game okay so now the next uh item on the agenda is a presentation from Heather Finley so please come up hi uh thank you superintendent Leo thank you board for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight um I'm here to just kind of give a little update about um as the me I serve as the mental health coordinator for the district in the office of health and safety and I'm here to kind of give a little update a reflection on some things that we did last year kind of where we are this year and where we're hoping to continue to move forward with both some programming and some initiatives and I also have some data available because I like data so um uh if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask um so I just wanted to share that the office of health and safety um is composed of myself as the mental health coordinator Paul Shanks is our Behavior systems specialist and we are are under Matt Morales who serves as the Director of health and safety our office has been this is the second year of our office being around and uh it was excellent to come back here uh last year to kind of continue these efforts um so we're we kind of broke down what we're doing as um for our students with mental health and wellness kind of into two buckets we talk a little bit I would like to talk a little bit about the programs we have available for our students to access as well as some initiatives that we offer either through the district um or specifically to our students um I believe that um I know Amanda mentioned Trails is now offered at the that at the high school it has been offered before as well for the last couple years but we are excited that uh we're continuing to offer our Trails tier one which means it's a cognitive behavioral therapy based uh social emotional learning program and we are offering that throughout um throughout the high school we're offering Five Lessons at the high school and five lessons at the middle school um and so far we're uh pleased with the implementation and the response by a lot of our students um have actually come by to student services at the high school and said that you know this was powerful and you know they want to continue to have have that kind of support so that's pretty exciting for us in addition to our tier one programming um at our secondary level again McDonald and East Lancing high school we offer a targeted Trails small group at both McDonald and the high school where 10 to 12 students who have been identified or identify them M themselves to have potentially a mental health challenge such as anxiety and depression are able to participate in these small groups it's a 10-week program where they develop some coping strategies and some kind of um skills to help navigate some challenges when maybe we have some automatic negative thoughts that are really hard to overcome and may prohibit us from being able to see that either we have some hope or resilience or that we can accomplish more than what we originally suspect um they learn uh qualities and skills such as mindfulness relaxation and kind of some concrete ways to interrupt some negative thought processes and we do offer that um at 6 7th and 8th at McDonald and we offer at 9 through 12 at the high school as well um at our secondary level or at our elementary level with uh Paul Shanks our Behavior system specialist he uh is really spearheading our emphasis of including so Second Step uh education into our social emotional learning for our students K through five and uh he is working with our staff to kind of really uh embed that into their classroom experiences so that we know that the classroom is not just for academics right like we're and at both levels we're really understanding and appreciating the impact of how School connects with the whole child our students come in with a lot of stuff that is you know out of their purview or out of their control and we want to appreciate that and honor that experience for them that they are not just just here as Learners they are here as people first um the last thing I wanted to mention as kind of a program and connection we have is our 31n program therapy that is provided through the Ingam ISD we are fortunate this year to have two uh uh interns Master's level interns there who have worked with our students the last couple months as our primary person Jess Wallace um has uh has been away for a couple months and she's coming back so we are fortunate we were just told this past week that all three providers are going to continue for the rest of the school year what I think is really wonderful that for that is that this year thus far we've had 47 referrals from the district for this service and 37 students are actually being provided the service right now which is in in school therapy so we are primarily targeting providing this support for students who may have transportation or financial barriers or some other limitations that might make it more challenging to access therapy itic resources in the community um and we have had referrals from every building and most grades so we are again emphasizing that mental health needs and wellness and support it's not just high schoolers it doesn't just start at Middle School even our younger folks and our younger Learners can really benefit from some access to some of those resources last year we ended up with over 80 referrals and I they uh expect us to exceed 90 this year so again we're really utilizing um this free service to our community and we're very grateful um for everybody at the ISD who's providing that for us um some initiatives we've continued to use and then I'll mention a couple new ones is we offer youth Mental Health First aidid training to our staff members we're also going to be offering it to community members this summer um in collaboration with our inam ISD and youth mental healthare state it's an opportunity to learn um some signs and symptoms of some pretty traditional um mental health challenges or substance abuse issues and what we're hoping our staff and community members can learn is that noticing signs and symptoms can be the first step to helping somebody access resources um whether it be in the school or in the community so uh it's one of my favorite trainings to put on uh my colleague shalanda at the inam ISD thankful to her um because we collaborate on that process um I do I'm just going to go out of order for just a second I just came out of our mental health advisory committee which started in 200 16 um it's a our committee is comprised of Staff uh high school students um as well as community members most of whom are parents and or also have some mental health experience knowledge and background um we were really intentional about the stakeholders who would come to the table because we know that all of those voices are important as we continue to move and uh explore what is what works and maybe opportunities that we can continue to to expand the services we offer our communi so I'm pretty excited about that and one of the main things uh is is that we are we just solidified our plan to offer our second annual mental health Summit in April uh which we'll share more information about another initiative that is actually new this year is our mys saers um facilitation mys saers is a universal screener that uh focuses on students being able to reflect on their social emotion um and academic um experience this is how they see themselves in the classroom they see themselves with their peers and and they the way they see themselves with with how they feel about themselves um this this is offered second grade through 12th grade and so we did offer it to all of those students which is over 3,000 um almost 3,000 students who were able to take take the survey we actually as a district had 77% of available students participate which we thought was very good for our first first Go Round right this is a it's a huge project and a huge Endeavor and we are excited to be able to see what happens with our next run of it in February and be able to compare some of our data um from where our kids are in February and where they were at the beginning of the year um part of this is that we were able to identify students who were considered maybe having some elevated needs for social and emotional support and we had our we're very grateful to all of our mental health professionals in the district as well as some additional support from the ISD to reach out to those students and ask them what was going on a little bit and see if there's a way we can help them see what kind of supports they may already have and supports that we would like to offer them moving forward so that was a lot of work and a lot of fun fun is a strong word but I think it was a rewarding experience and I'm really glad that we were able to offer it um oh thank you oh and uh I did also just want to mention another collaboration that is new this year is we are partnering with um DHHS theam ISD and um a colleague from Harvard actually to explore um what kind of services we offer we also are being very mindful that we don't want students to access Mental Health Source resources only when it's at crisis level we know that prevention and um care as you know before it gets to that uh crisis level is really imperative so we are partnering with them to have some focused groups and talk about uh various stakeholders about what works well what are things that parents students and other community members may feel like we can continue to expand on maybe adjust or what are some things we might not be noticing so that is a very new partnership I appreciate superintendent Leo's uh advocacy for it and they will also be this team will also be working at some of our data from our my saers to explore some opportunities and limitations and what we learned from the my savings sorry the end um and I I know I mentioned this at the beginning because I'm just excited um our mental health advisory committee is off the ground we appreciate um one of your incoming board members also serves on this committee and this committee again is made up various stakeholders um and we are we are actually taking a look at how we can impact each building uh with various activities and initiatives throughout the year and that is our logo that I was very proud to make um oh I already talked about this I apologize so this is just the title of uh the two new initiatives I mentioned from working with Harvard and DHHS and inam ISD how we're using our my my saers data to inform new opportunities as well as building increased capacity for mental health programming Prevention Services and less reactionary servic um for professional development we had a lot of opport we've had a lot of opportunity this year uh we've worked with um the resiliency Center Program of common ground which I don't know if everybody knows um established here in East Lancing after the incident on February 14th two years ago so there it's a direct uh collaboration with MSU and they came and provided uh training for our staff about vicarious trauma secondary stress and how when we support other people it is hard to take care of ourselves and how that is still a priority we've also connected with national or uh Nami the National Association of mental illness um and for end the silence which was a um training that people with lived experiences of mental health challenges came and shared their experience and how the impact of getting help in the community was really impactful so I won't go through all of these but I also wanted to inform everyone that we reflected a lot on our responses from staff about last year about what they wanted to see this year and two of the main areas of emphasis were how can we continue to support marginalized communities with you know who may experience more mental health challenges or not be as supported particularly with the lgbtqia plus community and we also had a pretty significant focus on having more PD opportunities based on trauma and responding to the fact that many of our students responses may look negative or P you know require punitive responses but really it is them expressing some part of their trauma we will continue to have um many trainings over the next few months I'm excited about them but I just wanted to mention a few of them um oh and I just the first slide here thanks everybody I've worked with in the district and the second slide here thanks uh all the Community Partnerships that I mentioned ear earlier so you're welcome to go to that thank you oh Wonder this is I'm just looking at some of the names here it's a great team that you that you have um are there any questions about the presentation I I do have one um so you sort of touched upon it at the end there um talking about uh trauma being confused for uh potentially behavioral issues um and and talked about minority stress and mental health we're still a predominantly white uh staffed um district and uh have lots of black and brown kids and um what training are we doing or how are we helping the staff to recognize what might be mental health issues instead of just behavioral issues that may not be trauma related that may simply are that may look different in a black child or or a Hispanic child or an indigenous child um than it would in a white child or that the biases of the uh White staff member May jump to it being Behavior instead of implicit or explicit bias exact right so there's a little I think to answer your question thank you for that I believe that um a couple of our trainings kind of overlap some of those things in our minority stress training there is conversation about being reflective of our own experience um and and what we the privilege we bear that may not reflect what our student experience is so we actually were able to break out I was able to go to that training was very exciting to have some breakouts to have some further conversation about that you know I know that um uh Claudia Burton she's great and she has a lot of training about you know diversity and being mindful about how we're responding to students for a variety of reasons but keeping those lenses constantly um at the Forefront so I think we touch on some of that with her trainings and some of this with my trainings uh or the trainings that I'm sorry that I try to put together of of recognizing that the responses that we have require a level of culturally responsive lenses um and taking a step back to kind of um before we you know to be less reactionary and be more mindful of how those biases May negatively impact our students or might not give them the benefit that a doubt of understanding where they're truly coming from thank you um I have a couple question questions too um so at the beginning of the presentation you were talking about um I'm sorry I can't hear oh sorry yeah it's not at the beginning of your presentation you were talking about some students are identified for I'm not sure which program and some students self- select in I was curious um how many students are self- selecting in are there is it a handful of students is it so I think it depends on which program you're talking about and I think I mentioned a couple so I'll try to clarify as best I can just C I mean it doesn't not specifically absolutely the 31n referral which is uh our connection with in inhouse therapy from the inam ISD those are referred by teachers by staff and by parents we've had a couple students uh who self- selected they know about the program or have done it before and they've requested but the large majority I would say at least 80% are referrals from um not not the student um for our Trails program when you're talking about the TI 2 program which is our 10 to 12 they can they can uh self say hey I want to do but 95% of those are from staff and parents right now it is being offered at McDonald Middle School we have 12 participants total amongst the grades we have a smaller one smaller group for our sixth graders and our seventh graders has is about double so it's four and eight uh we will be doing the trails tier 2 at the high school in the in the spring which will be led by Kristen cesy wonderful general education social worker um right now she's offering Ellie's place for griev I apologize for not mentioning this uh an eight-week program talking uh for grief and loss for our students and she indicated to me that they have 8 to 12 people participating on a weekly basis the first year we offered Ellie's place which was four years ago we had three people so I'm really excited to see that that has continued and uh expanded and we've had several students uh do some of these programs several times because of the benefit they received yeah I think it's even great that students are self- selecting in like how great that students are identifying that yeah I think I I am noticing that I might need some extra help and support so I think that's really fantastic even if the numbers are small small But Mighty right and I think there's a lot of value to that right because we've had a lot of students who've said I would never talk to these people outside of this group right but here I feel safe and here there's some commonality there and I think that's pretty powerful when you're talking about kids are really um aware of differences right and possible you know social ladder and all of those things but in those spaces it allows I think some for some authenticity and vulnerability that they might not traditionally uh share with other people yeah okay and then my other question is about the um I think you said it's a partnership with the ISD the Therapy Program the in school Therapy Program um how many I guess I was going to say school districts but it's at the ISD level is that something that a lot of isds or school districts are offering it seems like it's a pretty unique program but maybe it's not I'm curious how they're involved in most districts in in our County um I don't know so the 31n funding varies uh uh County to County and then ISD decides how to use those funds so this is one aspect that Ingam County has selected to use these funds is to offer this with mental health Specialists I can't say speak to other counties as much but yeah it's pretty robust in this area I know of at least six other districts who use it as well awesome that's great too yeah thanks are there other questions I appreciated Dr chambers's questions I had one of the same questions you did no you had it for me I was good well thank you so much for being here thank you and umate it thank you and yeah keep up the great work yeah thanks for your work you all right um the next item on our agenda is board discussion does anybody wish to offer anything for discussion um I I just want to share it publicly because we've kind of made had little conversations here in the um I think several people have raised concerns about the impact of the incoming uh um Administration nationally and the impact it may have on some of our students who uh may not be documented um we did pass a resolution in 2017 uh to protect that but at our most recent policy meeting we had discussion about tightening that up with some other policies working with the TR law firm and um uh uh uh australa brought forward another resolution from The Chicago School Board so I just wanted to put that out there that I'm pulling out those documents going to try to go through them summarize them um tally has also talked about uh having interest in working on that and coming up with the best we can can to uh protect any of our um uh undocumented students from whatever they may face with this incoming Administration so any ideas send me anything you got I'll work on summarizing it pulling it together and see what we can do well I know this has been something that um obviously has been on everybody's mind but thank you all for your work on it I know that uh I've gotten some messages and stuff about it I think it's a really important thing for us to address so I do too anything else for board discussion okay let's move on to our action items I think we only have one uh can I get a motion on item a to approve the remaining July 2024 through policy updates second motion was made by trustee Ferris Highland seconded by truste Chambers uh before we move to a vote uh trusty Chambers would you like to say anything about this as the chair of our policy committee yeah I knew you were going to say that to pull the I had pulled them up earlier and then I looked at something else most of these are um okay so there are the first one is about the acceptable use of generative artificial intelligence we had some back and forth conversation about this because um I don't know if my mic is try to talk loud um our district is in the in the process of looking at this issue it was a topic at some of our professional learning so there was and we'll be creating our own customized policy around the use of AI and we have a committee already established so some of this was like do we put something in place in the meantime knowing that we have something coming yes that's what we ultimately spoiler alert that's what we decided to do so this is uh we need something in place now that's what we decided and we'll probably have something else coming um as a result of that important work that's um that's happening so that's one of the policies um there's a policy about student rights but I think that one was pretty a lot of these changes are um very minor so I don't want to talk about most of these I'm trying to see if there are um we there is one policy in here that's around about student rights and specifically about the rights of transgender students and I just want to point out that truin may have borrowed some language from us in updating this policy that it sent out to other school boards but that's okay we know we're pretty amazing but they did borrow some language from us we think for this policy um and some work that we did a few years ago and sent a trune for approval and now it's showing up in the trune policy updates for other school board is school districts is what I'm trying which we should also um uh credit the students that worked on that policy as well that is absolutely true they were a big um push in putting this policy through um yeah those are unless I'm missing something and someone else from the policy committee can weigh in here I'm trying I'm scanning these to make sure that I'm not skipping any important ones but the rest of them seem as I'm recalling were fairly um minor in terms of the revisions the only um comment that I would make about the motion is that it says the remaining I know I thought about that because we are still missing yes 5710 which our director of mental health mental health coordinator is still working on and 5714 and 5714 so that's a threat assessment so we are so I don't know if we need to change that [Music] or are they're not in the list that is on board books um I'm did you send us the revisions to those in an email I thought I got something no made the revisions but I didn't send them back out to the group yet okay so we are still waiting on them but 5710 and 5714 yeah so one is the threat assessment and one is the I made all the changes from that meeting yeah we did okay send them back to the policy committee to review okay I don't know you bring that that was the amended yeah that was the the ones that were left out but she sent the email so your revisions came to us but they didn't make it to the agenda that that's what and I received them so they may not have made it into tonight's agenda yeah okay so do we need to change the word remaining on the motion since there are still two more remaining that we'll need to come forward so just a friend amendment to say remaining policy updates with the exception yeah I move to to approve the attached I like that I like that who made the motion believe it was trust Ferris High right she made the motion you seconded it and then I made the friendly Amendment so you have to you have to accept my friendly amendment I accept your friendly Amendment excellent yeah all right are there any questions or additional discussion before we move to a vote all right all in favor of the amended motion please say I I I any opposition the motion carries unanimously and thank you for all the work the policy committee has done on bringing these agenda these policies up to date I know it's been quite a process oh man fun times anybody wants to come they're open everybody's going to be signing up for that committee next year all right uh um let's move on to our committee reports academic and Technology committee trusty Lions we have not had a meeting since um so our next meeting will be sometime in January 25 facilities committee justy Fair silent we were supposed to have a meeting on Thursday but there was a snow day so we canceled the meeting but I got updates from Billy and Nikki so um just quickly on facilities Billy mentioned a filter Grant award board from the state of Michigan um that's going to provide bottle fill stations in our schools um he reported that the first plow without the contractor went well so that's all inhouse now um he said the design phase for admin building and the high school continues as we know um his staff has been trained to do all wood floor surfacing inh housee again Billy's always looking to save money so that's awesome he's got an amazing staff and the tennis shed is completed so those are the good facilities updates and then as far as athletic and event updates from Nikki um our fallen review We hosted mhsaa State semi-final soccer on October 30th we hosted volleyball regionals November 12th and 14th and we hosted two mhsaa playoff football games um they've been we've been selected to host boys basketball districts February 24th 26th and 28th our facilities are full with winter sports we have over 200 student athletes and 14 Inc season teams and additional out of season teams utilizing the indoor track and wait room and the pool schedule is full with boy swim and Club Aquatics um and they have over 40 students on the wrestling teams both boys and girls so theyve purchased an additional wrestling mat so they can safely hold practices for all of them and those are my updates our updates terrific yeah thank you finance committee trusty ATO uh we met on December 2nd and discussed uh adjustments to the well first talked about the first semester class overages uh came out to about 19,000 which is a typical amount uh it's already been paid out to those teachers um overages at the elementary uh level were um very low uh I think only one class with two students overage and the rest that had overages or one students so um that's always desirable uh estimated enrollment was approximately 26 students more than what the revised number is uh this is an increase over previous year but a decrease over the budget and uh will impact it by about $200,000 uh prior year State a adjustments based on uh captured values will increase revenues by about 466,000 the projected increase in the original budget of $253 in per pupil funding that didn't happen because that isn't the way that state decided to uh divvy up the money but instead went into the 147 A4 amount that is approximately the same sort of making that a wash except that now the uh Foundation allowance you know is still at the same level so it it's not uh the higher level next year um and then lastly there's a large positive erance related to special education funding of about $500,000 increased to revenue so all told positive increases by a fair amount mine on math is you know 800,000 is um and I'm sure we'll get a budget presentation he's not even here at some point in time and she's oh she's here okay at some point in time thank you trusty edil in government relations met but we um hope to schedule a meeting early 2025 okay very good uh Personnel committee has not met policy committee trusty Chambers yeah we met um and as we discussed we had um a couple policies still to look at May okay so let me just back up longtime listeners might be surprised at all of the policies that we're reviewing um that in previous years we didn't seem to be spending so much time reviewing policy um and that's because we weren't subscribed to a policy service we were reviewing policies internally um but we weren't subscribed to a policy service so the work of the policy committee was really bogged down because we would go to review a policy and then realize like it was very out of date and so we would make the change we wanted to make but then have to go back and make significant changes um and so a few years ago we took on the task of converting our entire policy manual to the trun policy service um mainly to make sure we were in compliance with law um and so since then we are since we're subscribed we get these policy updates every year and it means that we have to update our individual policy so that's why we um go through this process and you'll see us review these policies and update them most of them are pretty insignificant changes they'll just be you know like changing like grammatical things very insignificant things um and we can handle those things or there are changes that we can handle within the committee pretty easily but sometimes they are policies that impact teachers or things that will have bearing on technology or finance and we don't necessarily have the expertise within our committee or we realize that we shouldn't have the expertise or we don't we you know we recognize we don't have the expertise so we'll send those policies out to um our Tech director or to our finance director or to a committee of of teachers to look at and give us feedback on um and so that's why sometimes we'll say like we're waiting for feedback on such and such policy some of those policies we just talked um with we heard back from mental health um committees from to get their feedback on what they thought the best thing language would be um and so that's why some of these things take a little longer because it's important to make sure that our policy aligns with our practice and what we really want to have happen in our district so it's important that we be in compliance but it's also important that we get things right so sometimes we just take a little break get the feedback that we need to bring it back to the committee um so that's my little maybe too long background um but in our last committee we reviewed our student suicide prevention policy that's one that we got back from the health and safety director and uh District mental health coordinator Finn um to inform the revisions that trun suggested our own policy committee suggestions but then obviously informed by their feedback um and then same thing we reviewed policy 5714 those are the two that we just mentioned like wait they're not all the remaining policies we had two outstanding ones 5710 student suicide prevention and then the other one 5714 is the threat assessment and response policy we also sent that one out to get um feedback from the behavioral threat assessment bam team um to also in inform what we were doing so we got those revisions back but not in time to get we not in time to make this agenda so that's coming um we also returned to a couple other policies in that committee um hurry it up Tara couple of we returned to the um ice policy and the um protections for our undocumented students to make sure that our the we have this policy but it is aligned with a different policy and we need to make sure that the language in both policies is very clear to our intent so that is why we want to pull our language to make sure that um it's very very very clear so there is no misunderstanding if these policies end up being important which it's very likely that it could be we want the language to be very precise so we're going to pull those policies back and look at them um and then we also looked at uh potentially we have a curriculum adoption process and um we're looking at do we need a parallel process for books that come into our library that was an interesting conversation that we had um and so we're we had that conversation initiated in policy will'll probably send over to academic Tech um since really the academic Tech domain so that was the other thing we talked about I'm going to stop talking now our next meeting is January 6 at 10:30 anybody's welcome to come I'm making it sound very exciting uh at 10:30 in this room the end well thank you and that as I alluded to earlier the committee has done a tremendous amount of work it's a lot of work y'all we coup the last couple years have been remarkable so thank you for everybody who serves on that committee because it is um it's a lot all right uh last last but not least on our agenda today is Trusty holbrook's last meeting as a member of the board uh at least for now and um I just wanted to take a moment to thank Gary for the work he's done with the board um I've actually known Gary for a little while I've met Gary probably eight years ago seven eight years ago when um we all worked down we was in a group of men that work downtown and we'd meet on lunch breaks and go for a run um some physical fitness um and I met Gary through a mutual friend and um it was clear to me that Gary was the kind of person who was serious about putting in the work and whether it's physical fitness or his professional commitments or serving the children and families in this community um I've always known him as somebody who does go the extra mile and reads all the emails and does the things he supposed to do to represent the community and so that's really important for members of the board as we all know and um we will miss that um at least your particular uh spin on that um in the next term but uh it has been great to serve with you over the last year and a half um I was in touch with the other members of the board and it's our custom to get a small gift for uh off for people who are rotating off the board and um so we uh we have a couple different gift cards for you and um I hope that uh you'll find them useful I know that you love learning I know you're married to an educator so um who is a valued member of our district um so one of the gift cards is a gift card to hooked which is a wonderful bookstore and coffee shop um and there's tons of knowledge in that store um and I also know that you're a home improvement in Enthusiast so we got a great lakes uh Great Lakes Hardware gift card as well and as everybody on the everybody on the board contributed to that and um I hope that you're able to put those to good use so thank you for serving Gary and I can't wait to see what comes next well thank you um and I want to take a moment to think I'm uh unusual because I was appointed um and I want to thank everybody that's on the board was here uh for my appointment with the exception estrea so thank you for the opportunity for me to serve the community um to borrow from Finn it has been a rewarding experience um and I've uh learned a tremendous amount uh from being here and I appreciate uh how welcoming everybody has been uh I had an awful lot of questions I still have lots of questions and everybody has been fantastic about um answering my questions no matter how basic that they've been at times so um I feel so fortunate to have um students in East laning a spouse that works for e eops and you know I've had the opportunity to work with the board and um the administration and the teachers on a more personal level and I think uh one of the things that I see from everybody that's been on the board is that it's the it's seeing the students that gets everybody fired up and when you have the opportunity to go to the msan conference or you know to go get front row seats at graduation it's um it changes your perspective real dramatically so um thanks for uh giving me the experience I appreciate it thank you Gary thanks Gary thank you thank you Gary all right are there any other announcements before we conclude I do since we talked about MCN and I keep getting a lot of credit and I really should not be getting all of the credit and so I just in case I don't remember to do this when the students come back I just want to name a few people who also were instrumental and um supporting the effort on the MSU side so obviously Claudia Burton and I appreciate um superintendent Le Leo you mentioning her but we had a team well first of all I really do want to thank the students at I'm at the high school students here at East Lancing who had a vision for what they wanted MSU to provide for the conference they didn't want a regular tour and so we had to kind of think about what that would be uh and how to deliver what they were asking for because it's not typical what we usually do in terms of a tour but they taught us something and I think it might be something we we do moving forward but um there's a team of people and who and it's Delia Fernandez Jones who is the associate Dean for equity Justice in the College of Arts and letterss is the one who coordinated the tours um and was a point person for finding I mean probably 40 people were involved across campus in um various ways in supporting these seven or eight streams um that we put together um so Delia myself and Terry flau who's the associate Dean for Dei in the College of Education sort of spearheaded this effort across campus um and then on the on the actual day we had um BJ Abrams who's the associate vice president I hope that's right for institutional diversity and inclusion um came and spoke to the students Dave Weatherspoon who is the VP for strategic enrollment I think that's his title I'm going off the cuff so um he also came and spoke to the students um and then Glenn Chambers is the interim Dean um of honors the Honors College and the Residential College for arts and humanities also spoke um and then provided in some last minute um really key support was the executive director of admissions came through with a timely tour for some of the students uh John Ambrose um so I appreciate all of the folks at MSU who uh stepped up to make a really important contribution and um meet the needs of the students and what they wanted to have happen so appreciation to all of those people and I I just can't keep taking credit for um what really was a team effort the end I get the sense that you kind of know that world and how the pieces fit together and so we're still going to give you a lot of credit for it no I just tell people what to do yeah you yes I just boss people around youed it may be Glenn Chambers GL Chambers yeah Glen Chambers guy sounds guy that guy maybe you all right U our next regularly scheduled board meeting is in 2025 so January 13 2025 have a happy holiday season a good winter break and we'll see you next year w