the regularly scheduled September 23rd 2024 meeting of the East Lancing Board of Education to order uh Miss hore can we get a roll call Mr Martin here Dr Lions here Dr
edel here miss Ferris Highland here Dr Chambers present Mr Holbrook here Dr Torres here student representative Walsh in Miss Leo
here uh trusty Lions can you read our mission statement yes our mission is nurturing each child educating all students and building World citizens thank you uh can I get a motion for approval of tonight's agenda move the Board of Education approve the agenda of the September 23rd
2024 regular meeting as presented second it's moved by trusty lions seconded by Chambers all in favor of the motion please say I I any opposition the motion carries unanimously uh can I get a motion for the approval of the minutes
of our last meeting Mo the Board of Education approved the following minutes from the September 9th 2024 regular meeting second second moved by trusty Chambers seconded by trusty Holbrook all in favor of the motion as presented please say I I any opposition the motion
carries unanimously the next item on the agenda is recognition trustee uh beis Highland do you have any recognition for us tonight n submitted all right very good so I bet we'll have some from our student Representatives uh the next item is the student representative report Miss
Walsh hi everyone Hi hen hello so starting off with sports senior night celebrations have been starting so boy soccer theirs on Thursday last week and boys tennis had theirs today and also today girls golf CAC girls golf had
their CAC open tournament um the payot football game is this Friday so this is the second year that this event is going to take place at school Powderpuff the Powderpuff fundraiser practices start on October 2nd um students for environmental action Club have their can
drive on September 29th and the band and Orchestra Night Out is this weekend which is a fundraising event where they go around to neighborhoods and they like play at houses give everyone their little own personal concert um for fundraising and fun that's all I have thank you you you miss Walsh is the can
drive where they where you bring your cans to the parking lot or they come to your house and get the cans how does that work you know I'm not really sure I think ever I know I've I've participated in the past and it's a huge benefit to to
the things that accumulate in my garage so um I'll have to remember that thank you for the for that information the next item on the agenda is the superintendent report Miss Leo thank you I am going to start with a big thank you
to the quanas Club of East Lancing um The quanas Club of East Lancing and the huge efforts and advocacy of elps parent Diane tubs there are now four book vending machines in East Lancing public schools with more to come uh WX featured
elps and the book vending machines on their Schools rule segment last week to encourage reading and good behavior with a new kind of tool as news Taylor Katon explains in this week's school's rule Kids Cedar Elementary
schools are excited to use their new book vending love books in a few mid- Michigan elementary schools vending machines are now helping feed students mind but not with food to eat instead Food For Thoughts as in books
I'm mostly excited about the like the comic books cuz I've already read all of the books in the library that are comic and graphic novels from picture books to novels a variety of books are available in the machine for students to read yeah I'll probably um try to get uh any books
that looks interesting it works just like any vending machine and helps fuel students excitement to read seeing the kids faces light up when we unveil that book vending machine and to know that hopefully this will spur a lifelong on uh love of learning and reading to go
along with the great work that the schools already do to Foster that love each book inside is the only one of its kind inside the machine so if students see a book They're eager to read they need to get it quick by using a token I like chapter books and comic books so I
would like to see the new book I really want to read it some books are different than others and if you read a book that I don't really like you could try a different series [Music] students can be rewarded with tokens which they can put in the machine for a
book it's a way to reward behavior that we're looking for and promote that not with food or candy or you know that kind of thing it's is to reward it with a book a reward for good behavior and a way to encourage students to be kind in
class and keep reading I read um every day cuz reading helps me fall asleep at night cuz it's like stepping into like a new world and you're in it but you're not giving students new and different
perspectives as they also continue to learn about the world around them in E Lancing Taylor gon news 10 the schools will be restocking the book vending machines when the supply gets low more book vending machines will be installed into East Lancing elementary schools by
the end of the calendar year I can tell you I have a kid who got to to use the vending machine and he was super psyched he was so excited so yeah that's fun yeah um let's see your next I want to because we won't have another board meeting before the
October 11th date but there is no school for students Friday October 11th due to staff professional learning um that will be the first of five professional learning Fridays for Els staff students do not have classes on these days and for planning purposes here is a list
list of the five no school for students Friday um October 11th November 1st um so quick turn around there it happens to be the morning after Halloween uh February 14th March 7th and April 25th so again these notes will go out to all of our families tomorrow so they'll have access to this
through our eblast a few annual reminders and information for staff and Families First is the be smart secure gun storage Firearms are the leading cause of death among children in the United States the Board of Education passed a safe gun storage resolution at
their March 13th 2023 meeting which includes annual notice to families about the importance of secure gun storage to protect miners from accessing unsecured guns the B smart website includes numerous handouts and other resources on best practices for gun storage types of
storage and guidance for talking to your children about guns the handouts can be accessed using the link included here and new this year um elps is proud to offer free gun safety lock for distribution to students families and staff this opportunity is made possible
through the Michigan State Police Grant and Community Services Division and if you email director of health and safety Matt Morales and His email is included if you would like to pick up a free gun safety lock um also okay to say annual reminder
this year Michigan is celebrating the 10year anniversary of okay toay okay toay is the student safety program which allows students to confidentially report tips on potential harm or criminal activities directed at students School Employees and schools it uses a
comprehensive communication system to facilitate facilitate tip sharing among students parents School Personnel Community Health Mental Health Services programs the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and law enforcement officials about harmful behaviors that threaten to disrupt the
learning environment anyone can report tips confident confidentially 24 hours a day s days a week by phone by text by email or by downloading the okay to say app and there's also a link here for the 2023 okay to say annual report and
finally um I've linked here uh our elps anti-bullying policy policy 527 elps is committed to providing a safe learning environment for all students policy 5207 includes relevant definitions as well as reporting and
investigation procedures in addition all Els staff members complete annual bullying training as part of their professional development uh also a reminder to families please complete the education benefits form we used to call this the free and reduced lunch form it has a new name and we are thankful to Michigan
lawmakers who include funding for free breakfast and lunch meals for all prek through high school students again this school year however we still need families to complete the education benefits form certain fundings such as 31a at risk and Title One are based on data from these forms uh there's a link
to the parent portal of the elps website and completing these will help ensure constant funding for the coming years and our next school board meeting is October 24th sorry October 14th 2024 at 7 pm here in this room thank you thank
you are there any questions or comments for the superintendent all right very good we can move on to the rest of the business on the agenda um the next item is public comment if you'd like to make public comment I ask
that you fill out one of the blue forms there's some in the back on that table while we're uh doing that I will take a look and read this statement that we read before public comment it says this is the opportunity to address the board speakers are to confine their remarks to
5 minutes minutes if a speaker requires more than 5 minutes after all the persons who have requested to speak during this part of the meeting have spoken speaker will be allowed additional time the superintendent and other District staff may comment or clear up uh or avoid significant
misunderstandings so as of right now I have one form it's from Heather Mueller of ela the topic is beginning of the school year and the 8020 Insurance C good evening my name is Heather Mueller I'm a science
teacher here at the high school and this is your 27 that I'm starting I've had some of your children before it's nice to uh come up here I I just want you to know I have worked my entire career at East Lancing I love my job I love this
District I'm coming to you tonight also in my uh additional role of secretary as the East Lancing Education Association and we've had a great beginning of the school year so again thank you for your support we have lots of positive com comments coming from all of our
buildings and so we've started off the Year great and we'd like to continue to do that the reason I'm also in addition uh to talk to you about is the ad20 uh health insurance uh or hard cap that you may be discussing I understand salary and
benefits are one of the greatest expenditures in the yearly budget as in personal financing saving money is Paramount and you might consider moving to a hard cap instead of the current 8020 option for health insurance but I implore you to please keep the 8020
option our district is unique in maintaining that 8020 option Thank You by keeping the 8020 option our staffing positions are highly sought after we are able to attract and retain
highly qualified Educators although hard caps may seem like a Financial savings to the district I ask you to consider the personal toll of paying any cost above the hard cap to the people charged with educating our
most most important students or most important clients are students each year this discussion comes up it fills me with anxiety and worry how will the district's choice for
paying for health insurance affect me well I need to get an additional job will I need to work more hours in the summer paying for insurance beyond the hard cap would likely be difficult for all employee groups but especially for
newer employees par par professionals and administrative assistance in closing I ask that the district maintain the current 8020 alternative to the hard cap option to meet pa uh Public Act
152 thank you for your time time thank you thank you Miss Mueller is there any other public comment all right I will close out public comment the next item on the
agenda is board discussion I haven't heard from any board members that wish to discuss sorry did I miss the presentation all right try we're not going to let you do that the best part I know all right we have Mr neelon here
you know how Chris feels we have Mr neelson here from mayor c cerian one of our favorite uh me uh events every year the audited financial statements so let's uh back let's uh let's get into it uh
welcome Mr neelson I can tell you're very excited uh in all serious no thank you seriousness thank you for having us here tonight we certainly appreciate the opportunity uh to be your Auditors again this year um I took last year off from
the presentation I believe so I'm coming back this year I'm excited to be back presenting to you all um do you have looks like you have a copy of the bound report perfect okay uh that's the report on the financial statements for the year end of June 30 2024 so we'll go through
some of the highlights here tonight um couple of things I wanted to mention before we get into it overall it's a pretty quiet year on the account counting front accounting and auditing per se um no new gbes yeah yeah no significant gbes at least so that's a
nice thing um you know we start our preliminary audit work back in June had a governance call with Kath and August we did our final fieldwork in August um so it's a long process to go from start to finish in the audit and I just want to say thanks to Rich and his team um
they're always very they respond very quickly and accurately with our requests and um we do ask for a lot as part of the audit so I appreciate that uh page one of the packet it's actually like the third page in but it is numbered page
one is our independent Auditors report so it starts at the top with our opinions um notes that we have audited the accompanying financial statements of the governmental activities each major fund and the aggregate remaining fund information of school school district of
the city of East Lancing as of and for the year-ended June 30 2024 our opinion is actually in that second paragraph down there in our opinion the financial statements referred to above present fairly in all material respects the respective
financial position of the governmental activities each major fund and the aggregate remaining fund information of the school district of the city of East Lancing as of June 30 2024 that's a a clean opinion if you will unmodified it's the highest level
of assurance that we can give as Auditors so Kudos is there a lot of hard work goes into that so well done our basis for the opinion is described in the paragraph below we do conduct our audits in accordance with generally accepted auditing
standards as well as the standards that are applicable under government auditing standards so a couple different sets of auditing standards are being applied here uh the responsibilities of management for the financial statements are described below that management is responsible for the preparation of the financial statements in accordance with
gap or generally accepted accounting principles and then our responsibility as the auditor is on page two I'll just mention the five bullet points there in the middle of the page um we do exercise professional judgment we identify and we assess the
risk of material misstatement that's present in the financial statements we obtain an understanding of internal control that's relevant to the audit or the audit in order to help us design our audit procedures we evaluate the appropriateness of the accounting
policies used and any uh significant estimates that are present in the financial statements and then we conclude whether in our judgment there are conditions or events when considered in the aggregate that would raise a substantial doubt about school district the city of East
Lancing ability to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time we have no concerns there the required supplementary information that's included in this packet that's your budget to actual page that's your pension and OPB schedules that are further in the back and then on page
three uh we talk about supplementary information that's included in this packet that is the combining schedules in the back the debt schedules in the back and then the schedule of expenditures of federal Awards okay let's jump to page
six we are this section of the report is called Management's discussion and Analysis um put together by Rich and his team uh it's it's a nice way to add some context and some narrative to the financial statements themselves the information we're looking
at on page six I'm not going to dwell on very long it is the the government-wide or the full acrel basis method of accounting um for your financial statements we'll we'll talk more about the actual governmental fund financial statements but just to give you an overview
this that information is summarized here on page six total assets were approximately 168 million that includes all of your Capital assets as well total liabilities approximately 187 million that includes your long-term
debt there's some deferred outflows and inflows that are listed there as well related to pension and other post-employment benefits and then the section at the bottom is called net position uh you have a net investment in capital assets meaning the value of your Capital assets is more than the debt
that's associated with them and that's approximately 37 million a couple of other various categories that are restricted within net position and then I always like to mention total net position here uh is actually a negative 10.6 million uh as a result of recording
the net pension and net opab liability or asset that's what causes that number to be negative it's common across the state very few do not have negative okay that's enough on page six let's go to page eight page eight shows the results of
the operations uh in other words the revenues and the expenses of the district uh at June 30 20124 and 2023 uh total revenues across districtwide approximately 72.2 million
up from 23 where it was about 65 million uh total expenses were approximately 63 million uh so revenues are greater than expenses on the full acral uh method of accounting but that's because we capitalize the capital expenditures and we apply long-term debt payments to the
long-term debt liability right um you'll see here in a second how that differs when we get into the fund level financial statements but this just gives you a quick snapshot in the management discussion and Analysis page 11 is what I'll go to next
here on page 11 this is why I wanted to go to this page next is the expenditure comparison by function so this is the information you are used to seeing when you look at budgets at least at the top here the first section uh under number five here would be related to the
general fund um so you have total general fund expenditures for fiscal year 24 of 55.9 million out of that approximately 78% is instruction and support um I think that's a key metric to look at showing that majority of the
resources are going towards instruction and support and then below that total general fund of 55.9 million expenditures you can see the remaining funds listed there food service Student Activities Debt Service $9.4 million of
Debt Service during fiscal year 24 that's the required debt payments that are made syncing fund expenditures and then your capital projects expenditures so in total across all funds total expenditures were 69.4
million page 12 has a nice five-year snapshot of budget to actual for revenue and expenditures as you can see here district has done a very good job of budgeting over the years uh with a variance for fiscal year 24 on the
revenue side of 35% budget to actual and then on the expenditure side the variance was 1.41% budget to actual so excellent job budgeting there uh page 13 on page 13 and 14 there are factors
bearing on the district's future listed typically that's important to understand not only where we were in the financial statements that are historical basis but also where we're going and what could impact the the district as a whole so there are several factors listed student enrollment that's a big
one uh currently projecting an increase of 31 students Foundation allowance that impacts funding significantly on page 14 section 31 AA funding uh the most recent school budget
did reduce the funding in section 31aa that's the mental health Grant the retirement rate that will always have an impact um second to last one uh the Ingam ISD special ed funding distribution plan uh
changes to that plan would have an impact and then the last one is employee contracts I understand they are settled through June 30 2025 page 18 is what I'll go to next we'll actually get into the financial statements
here this would be the fund level or the governmental fund financial statements on page 18 and 19 it's the balance sheet that we're looking at the district has four major funds uh the first one being the general fund that's major second one being the
new capital projects fund related to the bond disant the third one is the 2020 capital projects fund that has been spent down to zero so that balance sheet is zero as of the end of the year and then the fourth one is the 2019 sing fund total assets across all funds for
the district were 30.1 million out of that total 23.6 million it's from the general fund um total assets in the general fund last year were 23 million as well so pretty consistent in the general fund in terms of total assets in terms of liabilities total
liabilities across all funds were 7.8 million uh of that general fund represented 7.5 million so again the majority of the activity flowing through there if we back off total liabilities and total assets you'll see on page 19
total fund balance at June 30 20124 was 23 million of that the general fund represents .96 million uh taking a look at the the unassigned general fund fund balance of
13.6 million uh that's about 24.3% of general fund Revenue uh it was 24.6% in the prior year in case you're interested and then total fund balance is 28.4% of Revenue but I will mention if you look up a
couple lines there's an amount that's assigned for subsequent year expenditures for 1.9 million what that means is the budget for fiscal year 25 is projecting expenditures more than revenues by 1.9
million all right let's go to page 20 Page 20 and 21 as the statement of revenues expenditures and changes in fund balances for the year end of June 30 2024 again we have four major funds total revenues across all funds
were 69.6 million out of that the general fund represents about 56 million and property taxes state aid and federal revenue represent about 88% of the total those are your three major funding sources probably not a surprise
there uh so we have total revenues of 69.6 million expenditure wise um again instruction and supporting services those totaled about 55 million out of the total 69 million so the majority of the funds or the expenditures are going
towards instruction and supporting services if you look on to page 21 on the right hand side of your page under that non- major funds header you'll see the principal repayment and and interest uh that were made during
the year so the district did repay approximately 9.3 million uh of the the long-term debt that's outstanding so those required payments were made during the year and then towards the about halfway down on page 21 would be the net change in
fund balance for the year so the general fund had a net increase to fund balance of 459,000 that's a slight increase capital projects fund about 4.5 million that's really the proceeds from that new Bond issuance uh and then across all
funds the increase was about 5 million let's go to page 26 we are into the notes to the financial statements here as I mentioned at the top it's a pretty quiet year in terms of accounting standards so not a lot has changed um in
terms of the format in the in the notes to the financial statements the numbers change obviously in some of the language but nothing significant in terms of new accounting standards what I want to call attention to on page 26 is the disclosure at the top that says section
1212 um so that's related to the syncing fund expenditures we audit a very high percentage of those to make sure that they are spent in accordance with Section 1212 of the revised school code uh no findings there so that's great and then a couple lines down from that
section 1351 a of the revised school code that governs the capital projects expenditures we we do audit a very high percentage of those expenditures as well to make sure those are spent accordingly and we had no findings there as
well page 38 is what I'll jump to next page 38 note number six is your detail of your long-term obligations so here you can see it's broken down by General obligation bonds compensated absences and then your direct borrowings and direct placements
majority of the long-term obligations are the general obligation bonds total outstanding as of the end of the year was about 10 3.5 million um but I did mention earlier the required debt payments were made during the year uh to
pay down some of that long-term debt page 51 is what I will jump to next I jumped past note seven that's the pension footnote I know Chris was excited about that one but I'll let him
read that one later uh any it's a lot of good information in there but um I'm going to jump to page 51 uh now there's a couple upcoming accounting pronouncements uh the first one gasby 101 is related to compensated absences uh that's effective for next fiscal year
so the district will need to work through uh and we can assist certainly with questions there um they'll need to work through that new standard because that will impact the compensated absences liability that's recorded on the government-wide financial statements doesn't have an impact at the general
fund level gby statement number 102 also effective for next year that's certain risk disclosures likely not a significant impact um deals with if you have let's say concentrations or anything related to risk uh in your financial statements
that would be potentially an extra disclosure page 52 uh gby 103 is effective for fiscal year 26 this could have a pretty significant impact on the format and layout of the financial statements
um still working through that standard we've got a little bit of time there but wanted to let you know some of the high level areas that could be be impacted by that standard they are listed on page 52 page 54 is our next
page likely the most important page um in this packet if I had to pick one it's the budgetary comparison schedule for the general fund for the year end of June 30 2024 uh The District in terms of the final budget budgeted
5615 million we'll call it rounding 56.1 5615 somewhere in there came in at just over 56.1 million in terms of actual revenue for 2024 uh the dollar variance there is $28,300 that's very small very
small well done there um in terms of total expenditures District budgeted final total expenditures of 56.7 million came in in in terms of actual expenditures at 55.9 million that's
about a 1.4% variance also very well done there um in terms of the net change in fund balance we did budget the district did budget a draw from fund balance of 536,000 came in a little bit of an add to fund balance of 458,000 again that's
a 1.7% variance so we're talking about a you know a small variance in terms of $56 million budget that's a pretty large uh Topline item so what this page says to me the district did a great job budgeting sticking to the budget and
maintaining fiscal accountability page 82 is what I will go to next page 82 is the schedule of expenditures of federal Awards for the year ended June 30 2024 the district does spend more than
750,000 in federal funds uh during the year or did spend more than 750,000 in federal funds during the year um what that means is that because you're over 750,000 you have to have a we call it a single audit think of it as a federal compliance audit um the program that we
selected to test uh as part of this uh single audit would be the Child Nutrition cluster that represented approximately 1.2 million or 60% of the total expenses total federal expenses um doesn't mean we tested every single one of the
expenses but that that's the program total um overall we did not have any findings as part of our single audit or our compliance audit procedures there um so I would say a very good job the district did a very good job in terms of documentation of controls and compliance um there's a lot of little details that
go into administering federal grants there's a lot of details that go into everything it seems like but specifically with federal grants District did a very nice job there page 86 is the first of two
reports we have at the end of our packet tonight the first report is the report on internal control over financial reporting uh this is specifically related to our auditing procedures done under government auditing standards if we had any material
weaknesses or significant deficiencies related to internal control or financial reporting those would be listed in this report uh we do not have any so it's a clean report from that standpoint and then page 88 is our last report that's included in
this packet this report is specific to the Child Nutrition cluster it's specific to the major federal program that we tested um related to internal control over compliance required by the uniform guidance it looks similar to the report
on financial statements that we saw at the beginning of the packet uh does give an opinion in the second paragraph down in our opinion the school district of the city of East Lancing complied in all material respects with the types of compliance requirements referred to above that could have a direct and
material effect on each of its not each of its major federal programs for the year end of June 30 2024 that's a clean or an unmodified opinion as well highest level of assurance we can give in this area so Kudos
there and then page 91 is the last page to touch on this is a summary of pretty much everything we've talked about from a very high level we had an unmodified opinion on the financial statements no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies noted in internal control
over financial reporting an unmodified opinion on the major federal program that we tested for the single audit so it also notes that the Child Nutrition cluster was tested and the district does qualify as a lowrisk audit
questions are there any excuse me are there any questions for Mr neelson one thing I'll mention um there is a letter that is included in your packet or or will be I believe it is but that's addressed to the Board of Education that's a summary of what we've
talked about tonight too the idea behind that letter is if you never saw a copy of the audit report I'm required to give you the letter so at least you know all right well thank you for oh question sorry um I don't and I don't know if these are for you or for members
of our admin team but just a couple clarifying questions so in the I didn't write the page number down but when we were talking about the assigned for subsequent year expenditures um that 1.9 million shoot I knew I should have you don't okay I do
um is that a one-time expenditure or we it I don't know what it's related to either but so what is it related to and then is it a one-time expenditure or is it something that we can um expect in future years not necessarily one-time
expenditure it's the when you adopted the original budget back in June for fiscal year 25 the total expenses that were included in that budget were more than the total revenue by that 1.9 million okay okay yep so you're projecting to some specific thing or
okay I got I got good question thank you um and then my other question is not necessarily for you but I am noticing that we are projecting an increase in enrollment which we've been pretty flat the last few years do we have any expectation that that might in
continue or increase or what um um I mean it's only 31 students so feel you know that's literally you know two to three per grade level it's just based on rolling numbers forward and then incoming kindergarten so it fluctuates up and down with graduating classes you know and uh enrollment just resident
enrollment movein move outs schools of choice so um we projected I think a year ago to be down a little so this just brings us back where we were really close to it but it's just rolling forward add schools of choice numbers okay got it thank you
nothing we haven't had a count day yet that's right yeah in October right so we'll have a way better sense then well I just and then I'll just comment that I really appreciate the level of detail that you put into these reports but also the validation that we
get for our amazing awesome Director of Finance Rich Pew in the back there and his team we make light of this a little bit but I so appreciate being able to make light of this cuz it's not insignificant it's a big part of our responsibility as board members um and
as much as I have tried to understand all of this it is daunting so to know that we have such a solid team that gets thumbs up by an independent auditor and to have these clean audits every year that I've been on the board I just really appreciate your team Rich your
team Dory your team the same team the same team but um it takes a lot of anxiety away from me and the responsibility that I hold as a school board member so appreciate it and I really do appre appreciate you coming back every year it's my favorite meeting as long as they go like this not all do
oh we know you've been watching and we've all heard of other districts in the state that don't have it as easy as we do so um I Echo everything that trusty Chambers say very thankful to the hard work that Mr Pew and his team put into this and we thank Mr neelen for
being here um I am really disappointed about missing out on footnote 7 but we're going to have an Afterparty in my place and we're just going to get footnote seven out and uh just dig in it's like nine pages long sounds great yeah thank you up for
me okay but in seriousness thank you for being here Mr neelson uh it is always nice to have you here thanks for having me appreciate it thank you thank you all right let's move on to the next item on our agenda board discussion
uh do any members of the board wish to offer anything for discussion going once going twice all right we can move to action items the first action item is a World Language Department trip to Quebec
Canada can I get a motion I move the Board of Education approve the trip request from Miss CH christopoulos to travel to Quebec Canada June 14 through 2 2025 moved by trustee Chambers seconded by trusty Lions uh is anyone here to
discuss this okay come on up come on up is this Miss christoplos Christ friend she high school thank you for being here M christop for me uh are there any questions about the proposed trip may it' be nice for you to just say a few words about the proposal and um and what
we're doing absolutely so I'm proposing a trip for June of 2025 it'll be the 14th through the 20th so spanning seven days total um I have researched many companies but ultimately we went with the company prom mature it's a Canadian based company um our language department
has been using them long long before I was hired in the district but I've ran trips the past two Junes so one to Quebec in June of 2023 it was fantastic we're requesting the same tour guide and everything it the kids just had the best time ever and then we used the same company for our Spain and France trip
this past June of 24 which was also successful but the company's amazing um we've never had an issue it's very affordable for the kids we take a bus there which is really uh I can't explain how much easier that is than flying especially we had 45 students on that first Quebec trip um
that was our first French trip postco so we had a really high number of students we're expecting a little bit less or fewer students this year but um taking a bus is just a weight off your shoulders and as far as like tickets and suitcases and all that goes so really convenient it's a nice and long bus ride but the
kids usually have a good time sometimes too good of a time and we have to shut them up but um yeah so we'll get to see kbec City for the majority of the trip it'll be about 4 days there and then we take a bus a few hours down to Montreal on our way back um last time we just stopped there for the day and then
continued and came home the kids had a blast as soon as we got there there was this big Like Music Festival and art Culture Festival going on and they wanted to stay so I actually requested for one extra night so we will be staying in a hotel in Montreal on this trip can't guarantee them the amazing Festival will be going on this time but
at least they'll get an extra night in Quebec or sorry in Montreal um before taking the bus back home so super great trip super amazing to see the kids speaking French sometimes the way they are in class I'm like okay am I actually teaching you anything and then we get there and they're like ordering food and
ordering like buying things and doing all the stuff in French and it's just really rewarding to see so yeah that's great great any questions about the trip chaperon do you need schol board shapon I ask every time keep driving keeps trying if you actually want to know
about chaperon we do uh take elps staff members and so one of my goals is always to include um people outside of our roal language Department to just kind of offer those opportunities so um the number of shaps we take will depend on how many students sign up for the trip as soon as it's approved hopefully um we
will be able to open registration and get those numbers coming in and so I believe our ratio for this trip it's either 1 to six or 1 to 7 I'm not sure about this exact one but but um so we'll kind of ask chaperons from there um but yeah usually good time I always try do
you speak any french uh no we weor yes there you go saan oh no no no y That's what I got any other questions any other questions for uh Miss christoplos well have one more quick
thing to say that's actually new this year the company actually offered us $22,000 that we can use however we want whether we split it up between all the kids equally or a couple who need financial assistance so super excited about that it's another reason to go with this company that we've worked with for so many years cuz it's a free $2,000
and they said as long as it goes to students you can choose how you spend it so we could offer one student a free trip we could offer $500 scholarships to four different students that type of thing so we could give a couple hundred to many different students so really excited about that as well awesome that
awesome awesome thank you thank you yep oh um Montreal is a magical City I've never been to Quebec I'd like to see Quebec but no Schoolboard chaperon dang all right the motion was made by trusty
Chambers seconded by trusty Lions all in favor of the World Language Department trip to Quebec uh please say I I any opposition the motion carries unanimously so you can start Play y there you go thank you have so much fun yes
without for this brush up my you know I I do want to say I think it is it's so great that you taking a bus because I think about the one what's prohibitive about travel and it's the the cost of an
airline the cost of a hotel and you take a huge part of that cost away with the bus so I think that that's that's really positive and it does open the door for a lot for greater participation which is which is awesome I had to get 11 seniors
through security at the airport for spring break so I also understand that [Laughter] part all right the next item on the agenda is the audit financial statements for fiscal year ending June 30 2024 can I get a motion I'm Mo the Board of
Education accept the audited financial statements for the year ended June 3 2024 as presented second all right motion was made by truste edil seconded by truste Chambers all in favor of the motion as pres well actually trusty edel do we need to say anything about these
or was Mr nielson's presentation sufficient I think that was good okay I agree think it was I could start again oh please all right all in favor of the motion that presented please say I I any opposition the motion carries
unanimously next item on the agenda is committee reports the first is academic and Technology trusty Lions yes um would you or uh trusty Chambers like to speak on this since I was absent at our meeting um this past week well trusty
Chambers was the chair of the meeting so I would be remiss if I didn't give her the opportunity nicely done um and I have the minutes pulled up for just this opportunity um one of the major things we talked about was um
the high school math uh curriculum updates we um heard from our math team at the high school about curricular updates last year and potentially adopting a new algebra curriculum they went through the adoption process and decided that what we do is better than
anything that is out there which I concur um but we did provide them some additional financial support to beef up the curriculum to add some new units do some work like that so our amazing Math teachers um spent a good de of the summer creating new content um and
enhancing what already is a really great um curriculum hopefully I'm doing this right Mr Mitch um and they're going to continue doing some work throughout the year um including some videos and sat support it just is amazing what they are
doing I should not be amazed at our amazing teachers because they're always amazing and yet they find new ways to let me know that they're awesome um we also talked about uh the HIV sex educ curriculum review that will be coming up for the review process this year um that
may not be as robust because there aren't as many curricula to look at for that but it will still go through the regular curriculum adoption process our sex set Advisory Board obviously will be involved in that and so will some teachers and we also had a really interesting conversation about um AI um
if you've been paying attention to our Schoolboard meetings you know that we had a big um technical term a large number of trune vid um policy updates over the summer one of them that the policy committee kind of pulled out and sent over to academic tech for a review
related to AI um and we wanted to get perspective from that committee before moving it forward for cons consideration for the full board um and spoiler alert we are going the recommendation is that we do adopt that
policy it'll come to you later we had sort of a conversation about what TR has put together is great good but we probably can't enhance it so the question is do we wait to adopt something until we have what we want in place do we adopt this in the meantime
and our kind of consensus was we need something in place we have ai being used in all kinds of really innovative ways um and so having some policy in place makes good sense and what TR has drafted is um pretty solid so policy will look at that again and
then you can expect it to come to the full board and I think that's everything Mr Mitchum Mr plasty I don't know okay academic Tech our next meeting will be October 7th at noon in this room clear your
schedules thank you trusty Chambers yes and you were ill I'm sorry that you were we carried on as best we could without you you did great yeah and I'll send those notes so we can get them posted I just haven't opened them up yet so thank you I think I did send them to H you did
send them yes yeah and uh trusty chamers said everything but the one thing that just blew me away and this shows maybe my age is that our Math teachers in the high school are making an effort to make videos that accompany all the lessons
and I think back to my own experience in math if you miss a half of a math class you miss so much instruction especially when you're doing some of the operational stuff and to have it on video that you can go back and review just sounds so helpful and it's a great
benefit to our students who can't be there for one reason or another so or even like students like me who were there my daughter has already benefited from it I mean so it's extraordinary really what they do so yeah well done and we were happy to compensate them for
their time over the summer doing this work great all right the next uh committee report is from facilities trusty feris Highland we meet this Friday at two here in this room all right forward to that finance
committee trusty etel uh we meet October 7th at noon where's that going to be right here oh there's going to be a battle of the meetings October 7th at what time noon one one yeah I was going to say they're all stacked up we have
this carefully orchestrated machine we must have it we we we can do it yeah that's one okay fine uh intergovermental relations uh Jessy Torres nothing to
report Personnel committee me uh committee is me there's nothing to report from Personnel um the policy committee trusty Chambers with me again officially though so we also met on September 16th and um these trune policy
updates continue to capture our attention so exciting um our agenda was to try to make it through the final batch of these updates which relate to student conduct student student related issues I don't remember what the term is um but we didn't quite
get through all of them so while we had hoped to get through to finish all of that we'll have one more meeting um to see what I mean it's all so exciting I don't know what to choose to talk about from the policy updates there so many
things that we discussed but um I it will all come forward when we actually move to the full board so maybe I'll wait let you stay in suspense to hear more about what we talked about hanger um the next meeting will be also
October 7th at 10:30 um so if you're looking for a whole day to stack up can have policy at 10:30 academic Tech at noon and finance at 1:00 I know what I'm going to be
doing well I have to be at two of them but maybe I'll stop in finance stay for the finance come for the academic Tech and stay for the all right thank you U now is Ann time for announcements are
there any announcements from board members I just um wanted to acknowledge the passing of Chris Dean um he was an integral part of our Donald middle school scaff for a number of years um
not that I know him well but um it's sad passing so I just wanted to acknowledge that thank you trusty Ed have certainly Thoughts with uh family and friends uh our next regularly scheduled
meeting is October 14th at 7:00 here on Friday I believe our friends at the East Lancing at Educational Foundation are hosting a tailgate prior to the football game against dit dit o dit and uh that's
always a fun event so if you're looking for a pregame activity I'd recommend that he's at 4:30 I believe I think it starts I think it's 5: to 7 maybe 4 I don't know 4:30 to 6:30 they usually start stop before the game Sorry
I can pull it up real quick if I didn't I think Miss Walsh said it's the same day that the students are going to do the body paint thing so yeah that's usually the boy yeah it's whole potion of different itory right 515 5:15 to
6:45 so 5:15 neither of us were right yeah we were all wrong 55 to 645s I believe that uh or whenever food runs out exactly that's what it says um the events usually chartered or catered by Charter uh CH yep still is hamburger
veggie burger hot dog potato salad watermelon salad chips cookie and a drink for $5 what a deal imagine the possibilities all right uh if there's no other announcements we will be adjourned at 7:57 thank you all for being here
goodness thank you for