starting early oh got to give time for people at home to log on actually we have 21 seconds hundreds of people thousands probably I'll give you my thoughts it was cold on Saturday [Music]
maybe that's my issue yeah I've just been feeling really crummy for like a week but but two negative covid deaths I tell people that so I'm still trying y all right it's 7 o'clock let's go ahead and get started uh I'll call to order
the regularly scheduled meeting of the East ltic School Board um Miss hore can we have a roll call Mr Martin here Dr Lions here Dr Edsel here miss Ferris Highland here Dr
Chambers present Mr Holbrook here Dr Torres here student representative um Stella FR fredson student representative Howen Walsh and Miss Leo
here thank you uh trusty Torres can you read our mission statement yes our mission statement is nurturing e child educating all students and building World citizens thank you Joy Torres can I get a motion for the approval of the agenda I think there may
be an amendment yes so I move to amend the agenda you got you got to approve the agenda first then we can I would like to make a motion that the Board of Education approves the agenda of the September 9th 2024 regular meeting as
presented second move to amend the agenda to include under the consent agenda item five and Item B the hiring of Robert Richards pending clean background check at 1.0 FTE Spanish
teacher at McDonald Middle School at ba step three effective September 11th 2024 second so uh trusty fais you accept the friendly Amendment from Dr lion did okay so we have
no you have to you made the original motion so you can accept our our motion is friendly we don't have to vote on this yes I accept it okay so I think what we have here and I'm not trying to cut Mr Holbrook out of the the circuit here but we have a a motion by trusty
edil by trusty Ferris Highland seconded by or amended by trusty edil seconded by trusty Torres no lions lions and we're just out of the mix over here yeah it's just coming down the line actually we have a motion made and
seconded and then my motion didn't necessarily have to be seconded if she accepts it as a friendly Mo Amendment okay so I messed oh no mess it up originally though I like trusty edel's explanation so that this doesn't have to get voted on if she accepts it then it just the original motion has to get
voted on so so it was the M the motion was made by trusty Ferris highin seconded by trustee Holbrook and it's been it's been a friendly Amendment uh added by trustee edel that I believe everyone's on board with so all in favor of the agenda as amended please say I I
I any opposition the motion carries unanimously all right it's only taking me 12 years but I sort of have these rules now I think uh you should write edel's Rules of Order I would 's interpretation rules may or may not be right all right can I
get a motion for the approval of the minutes move the Board of Ed education approves the following minutes as presented August 26 2024 regular meeting second was moved by trusty lions seconded by trusty Chambers all in favor
of the motion as presented please say I any opposition the motion carries unanimously the next item on our agenda is recognition trusty Affairs Highland do you have any recognition for I have nothing yet but I'm so happy to see our students are back and we have welcoming a new student but I have nothing as of
tonight for tonight excellent well let's invite up uh Miss Walsh and Miss alfredson uh for the student representative report hi uh girls swim and dive placed first at their opening season Invitational uh the boys tennis competed this past weekend at Gross Point and
also they beat Hol last week at home and they're playing oakus at home tomorrow uh varsity volleyball is 4-2 right now uh and undefeated in the conference and we play Waverly away tomorrow and football is currently 1 to one we won at home on the 29th but we lost last
Friday hi everyone hi Helen so obviously first full week of school to ease that pain it's homecoming week so that means Spirit Week um the homecoming theme this year is here comes the son to go along with the marching bands halftime show
which is themed All the Lonely People um the homecoming Court voting results were announced last week um there are 21 people on the court this year east landing students have spirit week this week and last week Club Rush took place on Wednesday and Thursday so leaders of
new and existing Club set up booths to attract new members during early and late lunch I ran the ma un booth and we had two full sign up sheets that was very exciting and the student Spirit committee Grew From only five members to
around 30 members this year and this committee was created by math teacher mine zinc to ensure that all athletic events are attended and every athlete feels supported that's all I have thank you guys thank you thank you both and
Happy Spirit Week do any other uh board members wish to recognize anything happening in the district all right let's move on to our superintendent report all right I'm going to start with sharing U about our US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona
visiting Glen Karen elementary school last week as part of his backto school bus tour US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona made a stop at Glen Karen Elementary School last Thursday this year's tour began last Tuesday in Wisconsin made its way through Illinois and Indiana made three stops in Michigan
and completed the tour Friday in Pennsylvania secretary Cardona visited Mrs forner and Miss El cabor kindergarten class where he taught them how to do a microwave very specifically that way he had them put their hands like this in a
little fist okay this all learn okay and then he said put up only your middle finger sorry only your really said that wow really rewind rewind put up only a
pinky finger okay that was just a slip little pinky finger and then you wave with it that is the micro yes not the way is not the other
way oh goodness there we go we needed that laugh I guess so okay um yes no you did not teach them how to do that yes cut that out you did not yes so if you're a kidney Gardener I'm going to get
Dr Cardona in trouble um he spent a majority of the visit and conversation with five staff members and myself about the talent together teacher apprenticeship program and its potential impact on the teacher shortage secretary Cardona spoke with last year's first Mentor teacher Jamie Harbin and LPS's
first teacher Apprentice Kelvin Smothers who is now a teacher at Donley Elementary School the conversation also included current Mentor teacher Jennifer forner and her Apprentice Sarah El cabore as well as future Apprentice teacher Tia Johnson Who currently serves as a building pair professional at Red
Cedar Elementary School their stories and input were invaluable as dozens of legislators Talent together leaders education organization leaders our state superintendent Dr Rice and other invitees listened to the conversation finally secretary Cardona spent some
time talking with four of our glenaran students about their school experiences and advice they'd give to other students about what to do in school and what not to do in school uh we app we are appreciative of this opportunity and thankful for the Glen Ken staff and everyone who pitched in to make this a
successful and productive visit and I have a few photos of his visit um up on the screen the first one was his visit in the classroom right before he taught them the microwave with pinky [Laughter] finger uh the second one is a group of
uh us who were part of the about half hour long conversation about the impact and the barriers removed with our Talent together teacher apprenticeship program and then the bottom one is his conversation with uh four of our Glen Karan students and then uh the last one
on the next page is a picture of his tour bus which was really huge and wrapped in really cool fighting for public education that he actually took you know from Wisconsin to Illinois to Indiana to here to Pennsylvania so uh he
made a stop before us in Grand Rapids at Grand Rapids Community College to talk with folks there about the student loan forgiveness program and then uh from East Lancing went to ctech down in Detroit to talk to students um on a mental health panel and their um just
experiences and input Insight on student mental health so um it was a great opportunity for us um one thing that I saw just came out today um he shared little Clips um of some quotes from each of the visits and so I think uh I think
we hit the mark in sharing with him the importance of this Talent together and the importance of the ongoing funding for it because of the barriers it does remove for candidates and he says uh US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona stopped by Glen Karen Elementary to
learn more about the talent together program which mentors non-teachers to become part of the field and eliminate barriers like cost and access to training programs quote if you think about the pedagogy of how you learn and become a teacher you Lear learn by doing
and having a and by having a mentor teacher secretary Cardona said so that's what we saw here today and I was really pleased at the Federal Department of Education we can Embrace this lift it up fund it because it makes a
difference yes so that was yes wonderful it was a great um great experience um and had lots of uh other folks who have some impact on potential impact on state funding and federal funding in the room to hear about it as well people did a great job telling their stories you know
that's really what they did they didn't you know rattle off stats about Talent together they told their stories about what made them want to join and kind of their why they were sitting there today part of the program so we have um a number of future Apprentice teachers already taking cours work who uh work in
the district as parent professionals or other positions and uh we currently this year have three Apprentice teachers in the district great yeah so it's a great um pipeline for us too and they experience the entire year with that um
teacher while earning an income and while the mentor teacher gets Aspen and gets paid for doing this as well so it's really valuing the time on both parts yeah um it's homecoming week as Helen mentioned and uh let's see here elhs and
other buildings are joining in on the celebration there's Spirit Week the parade um football game versus Grand Ledge and the homecoming dance Saturday are just some of the ways homecoming is recognized this week Friday's parade will depart elhs down Old Hickory at
5:30 sorry I got to change that time I thought it was 6 but got a text a little while ago it's 5:30 and the football game begins at 700 and i' also this will go out to families and staff tomorrow so I've linked our spectator expectations in this as well um a little bit of
update on our school-based health clinic uh as most of you know this part due to a budget deficit the Ingam County Health Department is no longer to part with elps to stay off the school-based health CL clinic however the construction funding is still being held for us and we are meeting with one or two potential
new partners one of them being U ofm Sparrow who runs the Grand Ledge high school health clinic we are in conversations to determine the feasibility of continuing the project and we'll be following up with the elhs community advisory Council to gain their input as well before making a final decision on how to move forward I'll be
scheduling a visit to the Grand Ledge clinic and actually since I wrote this this morning I have that scheduled for this Wednesday Wednesday and discussing the project with their superintendent as well and our next meeting is 2 weeks from tonight September 23rd at
7M uh thank you superintendent Leo are there any questions for our superintendent or comments about the reports I just how did Glenn Karen get picked I mean how did D Lansing get picked sure um well I was uh asked by our I think they had the US Department
of Ed had identified that they wanted to do a stop in the Grand Rapids area a staff in the Lancing area and a staff in the Detroit area and so our um State um masasa Michigan Association of superintendents and administrators our
executive director um of the state organization uh approached me because she was connected to someone at aasa the um National Association for superintendents and administrators and through the department of Ed and they were really looking to lift this teacher
apprenticeship program so they were looking at districts who were um participating we were one of them Lancing area uh they reached out and I responded quickly um that we'd be in and so um and then I would say of the three
classrooms that we have these Apprentice teachers in two of them are in self-contain special education rooms so instead and just to not bring the cameras in there um we chose the other classroom um to have the media and
others in there and to feature The Apprentice teacher great cool thank you yeah you're welcome I think they know that we've done some events like this before too so we uh have a little experience um hosting some um folks high-profile folks
yeah well and I was fortunate enough to be in the audience and I'll just Echo everything the superintendent said um the district is so fortunate to have uh Miss Harbin Mr Smothers Miss forner Miss
Al B and uh Miss Johnson they were great they they were great in the round table like you said they weren't robotic at all they were just telling what was going on in their classrooms what was going on in their lives how the program made a difference and one thing that the
superintendent did not say is that she did an excellent job in the round table she was a great Ambassador for the district uh she represented us well and um you know she's a real Pro up there with dignitaries from the federal government so uh thank you for doing that and thank you to everybody who
participated in that um event last week thank you super cool all right is there anything else for me all right we will move on to the consent agenda and um can we get a
motion on the consent agenda this one has been amended I'll just I can read it uh I move that uh the Board of Education approves the consent agenda to include the following a hiring of Allison Vinton 1.0 FTE School social
worker at Robert L green Elementary at maep 12 effective September 23rd 2024 and B hiring of Robert Richards pending clean background check at 1.0 FTE Spanish teacher at McDonald Middle School at ba step 3 effective September
11th 2024 second the motion was made by trustee edil seconded by trustee Chambers there's no discussion on the consent agenda all in favor please say I I any opposition the motion carries unanimously and I think we might have Mr
Richards and Miss Venton with us tonight uh do we have Miss Venton with us oh maybe we just have Mr Richards uh it is our custom to invite new hires to come introduce themselves at the podium you don't have to do it it's optional but you're welcome to come up and say a few
words ESP yeah thank you so much for the opportunity to to be here and and and share a little bit about me but then also dive into a classroom and uh and yeah get to know East Lancing a little bit more right like in in an academic
sense and so uh as we shared my name is Robert Richards uh originally from Chicago so I should be completely transparent I'm big Cubs and Bears fan oh wait a and I do have ties to prove it so uh
but but but no I actually I graduated uh from Xavier University in 2017 with the degree in finance so kind of started my career in Commercial Banking for two years there uh before making a pivot and and kind of finding my passion in education uh and and so I did a year of
service with a Amore up in Milwaukee Wisconsin um which then kind of led to that next step of of Peace Corp and which which brought me to Colombia um and it's right each both step have been incredible uh and I've loved every every
second of getting to be in the classroom uh and so really really excited to kind of uh be able to take what I've learned in in the classroom whether as a student or as an educator uh and get to apply it here here at at McDonald middle school so so yeah absolutely welcome to take
any questions if if I haven't covered anything but also just really really excited to get to dive in thanks thank you welcome thank you for thank you for being here good luck thanks no no I'm not that wasn't like I know next you're going to give him the original
microwave our superintend teach you like how to do a microwave when you're driving down the road no I'm kidding they but East Lancing welcome yeah east landing salute um stop it no U yeah thank you for being
here um I think you're going to love the district we love it and um obviously you know it's first year teaching is going to be what it is but I think you'll find that McDonald's a supportive place and the district is a a great place to grow
as a teacher so we're really fortunate to have you thank you thank you so much again really appreciate it thank you so much and you don't have to stick around for the whole meeting you're free to leave after got a classroom to set up I mean exactly thank you two
days all right um I shouldn't have said the thing about the East ltic salute um like I'm being I'm not the one being the most inappropriate go down he's gonna say I don't feel good that's why yeah it's it's my it's
allergies um all right the next item on our agenda is public comment so do we have any slips thank you all right before uh I uh before I invite up our public commenters I'd like to just read the statement that
we read before every public comment it says this is the opportunity to address the board speakers are to confine their remarks to five minutes if the speaker requires more than five minutes after all other persons who have requested to speak during this part of the meeting of spoken the speaker will be allowed
additional time the superintendent or other District staff may comment to clear up or avoid significant misunderstandings and with that um I'll invite inv uh Miss Plank up Betsy plank uh subject is accountability
so come on up good evening do public speaking in all forms so bear with me I wrote down what I wanted to say like six times and I just felt like it fell short every time um I'm just going to wing it and
hopefully the grace of God is here um just to give you a backstory we did School a choice um probably about seven years ago now and absolutely fell in love with this District I have seen
so many good things um Mrs wear amazing I don't think we could have made the transition without her um during Co Mr finger literally busted out puppets on his Zoom meetings to engage his students and made kids laugh when there really wasn't a whole lot laugh about um I pick
my daughter up at Red Cedar and Miss fanda gives her a hug and tells her I love you every time and I see the same thing with her first grade teacher um Miss Pang ganis as well so I'm not here to point out just negative things or to bash anybody I really want to see change
come to the areas where I don't see accountability in teachers and staff and administration and students and parents because it falls in all categories when we're dealing with students um my kids time at McDonald Middle School I have seen a
culture that has been cultivated and fertilized that teaches our students that accountability is optional um examples of that um this Friday Miss Lori the bus driver that my kids ride on turned around and dropped
them off um her parent pickup at McDonald middle school and I do not blame her for this I think it should have happened a long time ago um disrupt these parents' days wake them up a little bit make them realize that what their kids are doing has impact what I don't understand is why
did it take the bus driver to get hit in the head with a pencil for something to be done throughout the years that my kids have rolled this bus my daughter has had people stand up she's by racial um black and super white
obviously um stand up and say things like hail Hitler or expired Parmesan cheese on her hair that took hours to wash out my son has been verbally harassed for his weight for three years and nothing was done until he turned around and punched the kid should my son
have done that absolutely not he was held accountable for that I will never say that it's okay to put your hands on somebody in any situation that was wrong of him we've discussed that but he was then continued to be punished by having to sit up front while the other kid who
verbally abused him for three years was allowed to sit anywhere he wanted on the bus I I don't understand that like after reviewing the videos the parents offered for their child to apologize to my kid because they could understand why he hit
him who didn't apologize was the bus driver Dean Transportation Miss Martin Mr ainson there's no accountability in that realm my daughter was was told every day by a student last year to go kill
herself every day by the same person and she actually tried to to the point to where we had to have her in Outpatient Therapy driving her to Grand Rapids every day and I feel like there's no actual
accountability like it's shifted to well now your daughter has depression now she has anxiety she has all these other things well she didn't have that until she started coming to your school and was told to kill herself every day I I don't understand like my daughter is worthy of more every
child at McDonald Middle School is worthy of more our future is worthy of more and we have to hold each other accountable all of you have to hold each other accountable all of you hold me accountable as a mom as a community member I I don't know what needs to be
done but I'm willing to get dirty to get into the leads to help you guys I know that when policies and procedures don't work you roll up your sleeves bust out your computer and write ones that do because I've done it we we have to do better these kids are worthy of more they're worthy of better than what we
are providing for them our future is worthy of more um I think that's what I have to say I'm willing to work with you please reach out to me um Miss Leos I emailed you last year at the end of the school year with everything that was going on I
didn't get a micro wave didn't get a response at all so someone should also be accountable for that thank you thank you uh Miss Plank move on to our next public comment
uh it's uh Brad loots uh the subject say Dei good evening thank you for your time um I'm an East Lancing resident because I valued the diversity this community brought specifically the district and bringing my children here but as a
district we're continuing to struggle with inclusiveness in the concept of that having kids of different races genders identity in a classroom is not inclusiveness as we post it on our social media that's
diversity and the reason I'm here about inclusiveness is actually about homecoming and spirit week and particularly twin day that's othering we have no right to do that additionally it makes children outcasts who don't have
that friend to partner with and dress alike with we place a financial burden on families when they have to purchase clothing to participate in something with their friends all those things are not inclusive they're not nurturing each
child as our state statement says and so we really struggle with that you as a board struggle to demonstrate inclusiveness I sat in here last October on indigenous people day you know what I didn't hear a land acknowledgement I have never heard a land acknowledgement
out of this District at any event at a minimum it should be done at every board meeting and it should be done at graduation we've never done that how shame on us shame on us as a community for not bringing this up it demonstrates
what we expect out of our children and we we've got to change that we've got to change how we use our social media celebrating Hawaiian day during summer school on our social media is not appropriate that is not
inclusiveness it's us othering someone else's culture for our benefit of feeling good it has to stop we've eliminated other things in the district because it isn't inclusive we have to do the same thing I I don't understand how we
have a director of Dei and our people aren't leveraging this person for the lens of what we're posting on our social media or what we're developing for Spirit Week ours got changed to add mismatch sock day out of my suggestion I really appreciate Mr Atkinson taking
that step but we have to look at all these things through the lens before it goes out to the public you know I saw summer the great post about our teachers and Educators I saw about asking for people to come in and speak about their
diverse backgrounds and you know that's what I want but do you think people want to come to our district when when they see those things posted like do you think we're going to get someone of Asian Pacific Islander descent wanting to come
speak about their diverse background when we post Hawaiian day on our social media I I don't think so I don't think we're going to attract the teachers we want and in turn we're not going to model what we want for our children to see in our district and so I just
implore you as a board one to start doing a land acknowledgement I think that's bare minimum at this day and age I have children at other schools in the state and they all do that as far as universities I don't see why a public uh system like this can't be modeling the
same thing so you know my my wife is a Elementary kindergarten teacher here in the district at marble and her students start each day with a land acknowledgement and modeling it so I think as a board you should be demonstrating the same thing and then we need to watch the lens at what we do
activity wise and it needs to be inclusive it needs to be things people can participate in and particularly not other people or cost resources thank you right thank you Mr loots all right is there any other
public comment before we move on to to the next items on our agenda all right I don't think there is so I'll close public comment for today uh the next item on the agenda is board discussion is there anything that board members would like to bring up for
discussion no I'm good all right all right so let's I'm wiping move on to the action item section of the agenda can I get a motion on item a I move the Board of Education approved
the July 2024 trune policy updates for Series 2000 through 4000 as presented second that was moved by trustee chamers seconded by trustee Ferris Highland
um would it be appropriate to just read all the items and the all just to make sure it's part of the record n no I I appreciate uh providing all the information to us and I know that Miss hore also emailed all the information out prior to the meeting
today uh Miss uh trusty trusty chamers would you like to make any statement about this yeah I can give a little bit of an overview so and I did last meeting as well um we get regular policy updates through
TR um who Serv is our policy manual the major updates come out in the summer but sometimes depending on times and set of things we'll get other things throughout the year so we did get a pretty significant um amount of policy revisions to consider um so the policy
committee has met twice we have a third meeting coming up in the first meeting we dealt specifically with one policy related to Title 9 that was fairly substantive and had a lot of pieces to it we went through that and approved it in the last
meeting these are pretty minor changes across the board with these um policies most of them are just minor as you all know but for the public these are minor um some of them are just grammatical or
like adding commas or some specific language updates things like that so the vast majority of them are in that minor update category um and then we still have the 5,000 series that the policy committee needs to commit this just a lot of things to go through even though many of them are minor
they require our specific attention so we'll be going through the 5,000 series at our next meeting next week um but the slate of items up tonight are fairly minor but that doesn't mean that you might not have questions so any one of us who are on the policy committee would be happy to answer questions if there
are any about any of the specific policy updates that are before you I have some questions um Miss hore uh because it wasn't there because it to be removed do
you know if uh policy 41101 was removed that was the religious holiday our old policy that would be replaced okay okay and then my second uh comment is policy 4105a um it is the very last paragraph
uh we caught this in a lot of things and actually trun had made a lot of updates but we missed it in this one uh the very last paragraph States an employ who believes he she has been discriminated against the he she should be changed to they this is in the just for those who
don't have it the pregnancy workplace accommodations for employees and applicants and that is true we've caught most of those 130 um and so I would amend the motion to read um policy
4105a last paragraph change he she to that and if you accept that as a friendly Amendment Tera um there's a 4105b has the same okay language in it yeah well first you should accept my Amendment and
then AC that friendly Amendment and I accept your friendly Amendment that's implied too and the next one which is religious workplace accommodations for employees and applicants 4105b it's the same last paragraph okay with HEI
catch you think you catch everything but there's so many there's a lot yeah great thank you for that all right so is there any other discussion before we move on to a vote all right so the motion was made by trusty chamers second by trusty Ferris
Highland we had the two friendly amendments with respect to 4 4105a and B all in favor of the motion as amended please say I I any opposition the motion carries unanimously the next item on our agenda
is committee reports uh trusty Lions do you have anything from the academic and Technology committee um so our we haven't had a meeting um since our last well at all this summer um we're coming
back though September 16th at 12 pm in this room agenda I believe is already up we're ready to roll great facilities committee trusty Paris Island we are working on a meeting for end of September early October so we'll have
that set soon I think I owe you an email on that so I'm sorry yeah no problem uh finance committee trust yet so we have not had a meeting we will meet in October in governmental relations truste tus we've not had a meeting Personnel
committee that's me no meetings uh policy committee trustee Chambers yeah so we have a meeting coming up again this coming Monday the 16th um it'll be a double header for anyone who has a free morning policy meets from 10:30 until noon and then academic Tech is
right after that in this room um we will be addressing the 5000s um in our policy manual truee updates we had sent two policies out for
additional review one went to our finance director the other is going to academic Tech which meets after us so we won't have the feedback from that um yet so who knows what else but right now that's all the on the agenda or the policy updates from the 5,000 series
from the trune summer updates thank you try Chambers the next item on the agenda is announcements uh our next regularly scheduled meeting is two weeks from today September 23rd are there any other announcements all right I don't think there are so I
will say we're adjourned at 7:37 p.m. thank you all for being here and uh enjoy the rest of your week