Uh-oh. I have the wrong agenda. Oh, I worked on. Good evening and welcome to another riveting welcoming regular board meeting of the board of education for Tuesday, 11/18/2025. This meeting is now called to order. May we please have a roll call, doctor secretary? Yes. Good. Miss Here. Mister Recinto? Here. Miss Heinrich? Yes. Here. Mister Hall? Here. I myself am here. President Weems. Present.
Wonderful. Alright. We have a quorum. We will now stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and Thank you. We will now entertain a motion to approve the agenda. Missus Heinrich. I move to approve the agenda for the regular meeting of the board of education, Tuesday, 11/18/2025 as presented.
Support. Motion made to approve the agenda has been made by missus Heinrich and supported by missus Smith. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That motion passes. Onto announcements. Several announcements. First, I want to congratulate all who participated in and were successful in their election. And I also want to acknowledge that we get to keep our infamous Angie Smith on our board of education. So thank you for retaining your position here. I want to also acknowledge the toast of education to education.
Great event. Thank you board members for attending. It was a wonderful event and I can't wait to hear how well, they were, able to, fundraise so that we can, provide more opportunities for our schools. I wanted to also share some information on a new report related to education statistics. This actually comes from the National Center for Education Statistics. Over 80 of US public schools reported that the pandemic has negatively impacted student behavior
and social, economic, emotional development. The common issues inside the classroom appear to be disruptions, disrespect towards staff, technology misuse, and other, issues. So, I wanted to make that, a comment because we've been talking a lot about external factors and other things that are impacting, our school environment. We've talked a lot about of attendance. And I'm really happy to report that in Farmington Public Schools, we actually see attendance statistics improving. They were they were decent to begin with comparatively, but we've also seen an an
up tick and we noticed that on our, dashboard. I was really happy to report that. But I also just wanted to mention this, as well. Sixty eight percent of teachers experience verbal abuse from students and twenty one percent said it happens multiple times a year. I think that's really important because, I know the policy committee has decided that we're gonna take up behavior as an item on our agenda for this year. And I think this type this information is helpful, and and really raises the level
of priority for me anyway when we talk about what the policy group is gonna, be looking at. Surely, these are having an impact on our students, on our staff, and our academic performance. The opportunity, gaps or achievement gaps are also widening. And so we're super focused on this and have been for for a long time. Another area that was a focus in this report were student supports. Findings from the Gallup and Walton Family Foundation indicate that a majority of staff feel like there is a shortage of needed student or learning supports.
Forty percent of high school students reports persistent sadness or hopelessness. Anxiety and depression rates amongst, adolescents have surged, and nearly twenty percent are reporting, having seriously contemplated, suicide or suicidal ideation. And so I think it's really important for us to continue to prioritize mental health supports, safety. And I know that's gonna be a topic of conversation, today. In brighter news, schools are collecting canned foods for, good fellows.
So please send your child to school with canned goods that are not expired. And I also wanna just mention that in my day, we used to have contests. Right? So maybe you wanna make sure you're paying attention to what the canned goods are in your classroom and sneak some in on the last day. That's just a strategy of mine. All right. I wanted to also just talk about a couple of things that are gonna be coming up on our agenda today. First, I had a really good meeting with other board presidents across the state.
They have recently pulled together. I think maybe they did this a couple of years ago or maybe it's new. Every couple of months, they host a session for an hour and just give, school districts an opportunity to talk about what's top of mind for them. The latest conversation was around the ORS regulations and superintendent salaries and salary schedules. Also a discussion around thirty one a a, lots of discussion around thirty one a a. There was also a NASB meeting just earlier today, where several members of this board
got an opportunity to hear from, listen to over a 100 people I saw on the call, a 125 and I stopped counting, talking about this issue, around the, state. And and MASB hosted along with MASB's, legal team. Earlier today, we had a closed session so that we can talk directly to our attorneys about this matter and get some of our our questions answered. And so if folks are not aware of what this is I'm gonna provide a brief explanation and then I'm going to, have our legislative liaison give us a little
bit more information and then we're actually going to have a discussion as a board on this topic. So just factual information, there's some funding associated with student safety and mental health supports, that is not new. But the new legislature introduced a condition to receive the funds and it provides amongst many things, that in order to receive the funding, districts have to commit to in
the event of a mass event. And there's a lot of question around what is the definition of a mass event that's point of contention one. In the event of a mass event, the school district would be required to, be open to an investigation from the governor's office, which right now is a choice for the school district. And, honestly, I think this is kinda born from the Oxford situation. And, two, they would waive privilege, and that is the biggest, I think, issue amongst
most school districts because of the principle associated with that and the potential, I guess, downstream effect of maybe more funding being tied to strings like that, which is not something that is, entirely, favorable. No no one really likes rights being stripped. And then, the third issue there are many. I'm sorry. I've lost count. So I'm gonna let our legislative liaison go through all of those. But what but what I wanted to mention in my announcements was that this is
a huge issue. Last board meeting we talked about it. We talked about the need to make a decision because, in order to receive the funding, if we if we don't receive the funding, that's something that the board needs to talk about. If we do want to receive the funding, that's also something that the board would have to talk about because in order to receive the funding, the board of education is the only entity that has the power and authority to waive privilege on behalf of an entire school district because the relationship with the attorneys rest with the board.
So in either situation, the board of education has to make this decision. So it's it's specifically client attorney privilege? Yes. Is that specifically the privilege that that that that has to be waived along with yes. And then there are a whole bunch of other questions, that are subject to, some current litigation. There are two pieces of there are two, no no problem. There's a trial court sort of more locally. And then at the federal level, both of them have filed for, an injunction and,
to, kinda throw this out on the basis of constitutionality. If that's a word, is that a word teachers? Okay. Thanks. And I think that's the whole front row of hand. So we have to make a decision. A few weeks ago at our last board meeting, we decided that we would we we hadn't talked about it. It came up pretty quickly. We hadn't had a time to talk about it, but we introduced it and said that if we had to make a decision, we would come back in a special meeting. Fortunately, the deadline to make a decision was was extended to November 30. And so that was great for us because now it gives us an opportunity to
have a conversation. Really glad we had some time to talk with our attorneys to kinda really understand and unpack. There were some myths I understood that we were also waiving governmental immunity on behalf of our staff, and that really alarmed me but learned that that's not actually the case. So got some additional information, facts and circumstances around that, and we have this ability to have a conversation. We we were planning on having a conversation and leaving room to potentially vote today
because the deadline was November 30. But just today, breaking news, it the deadline extended to December 3. '4. Fourth. Fourth. Okay. The deadline extended again to December 4. So, my recommendation is that we do not vote today, but that we continue to have the robust deep conversation that we intended to have anyway. Right. And, because there's the potential for, two hearings, one tomorrow at the federal level and
one December 2, I believe, at the state level, which might provide some further direction if there's, either an injunction or something else happens. But, I want everybody to know that I I think it's in our best interest to really understand what's going on now because if this funding goes away after December 31. So if we if if there is an injunction and nobody can do anything, then I think the money just goes away.
So that's not a good thing. But, again, wanted to provide as much information as we currently have. And I'm really interested in in in hearing from our legislative liaison and having a really robust discussion as part of, discussion item, eight b today. Alright. And then I'm also interested in hearing from our legislative liaison. Lots of stuff going on around, partisan seats. So, thank you. You just got thrown into the hot seat. This is your first meeting as a legislative liaison.
Come bring teachers too. No. You know? Alright. So I think that ends my remarks. I'm looking forward to a really good discussion today. So with that, we're gonna move on to the first set of public comments. So there are two opportunities for public comment, but you only have one opportunity. You provide for two opportunities, and we have for the past year because we know some people like to get in and get out. And other people work and need to come a little bit later. So there is one public comment opportunity per person, but we offer it at two
times. Let me just read through, some guidelines for public comment because we have some new people in the room. Generally speaking, when we do public comment, it's for the purpose of hearing from you. It is not to hear back from us. We usually do not provide responses to public comment. We do ask that in the event that you have something specific to say about a particular person, or student that you refrain from names, especially if you're talking about a student, just in the interest of privacy.
But also adults, we don't we don't have to use names in all cases. What else? You'll have three minutes, and then I'm going to call up the first, like, three at a time just so that you know where you are in terms of public public comment. Alright. The first one is gonna be Eugene Greenstein, and that's gonna be followed by Braxton Chaney, I believe. And forgive me if I'm getting names wrong. And then we'll have, Maddine, Parablin. Sorry if I butchered that.
Okay. Mister Greenstein. Thank you. Good evening. I think you guys have bigger problems than me today. In August, I suggest that we need a subcommittee for academic excellence. After all, what could be more important than academic excellence, especially given our and the state's poor performance on literacy and numeracy standardized tests? Yes. We have improved, and we need to recognize the accomplishments of our teachers, our staff. Certainly, Kelly's done a great job. Yes. We have, we have taken corrective actions, but we are not yet where we all believe we need to be.
Benchmarks such as the state of Mississippi had better results at third grade literacy. Steubenville, Ohio is purported to shine in both literacy and numeracy on the national stage. There's no reason that FPS shouldn't be able to achieve at their levels, and that should be our goal over time. I believe we are entitled to become equal to them, actually better. And, we can do it, I'm sure. But we've got to set our goals to do that. It's up to the Board to set standards and provide the funds so that few, if any, graduate without being able to read at grade level.
Who is the champion of academic excellence on the Board? Everybody can't be the champion, but we need a small group who really is gonna deep dive all this stuff. An academic excellence committee should have representation from the board, the public, and the staff such that it can make recommendations to the full board similar to what was done ten years ago on a bond and capital project subcommittee covering both project definition and implementation. Unfortunately, literacy and numeracy are not the only subjects that need to be addressed. Civics is also very important given our complex national political environment.
As was stated in missus Weems' note to me six weeks ago, the schools are concerned about politically charged issues being handled appropriately. Since I sent my note about the anti Israel issue associated with the NEA, I have become aware that there are other materials on the NEA website provided by outside parties that present anti American views and views on The Middle East which are not presented in a neutral manner. Also, material presented at the universities in their education programs can be highly charged politically,
and they teach our teachers. A subcommittee of the board is the appropriate group to track these issues and ensure our policies on academic excellence are appropriate. I can provide detail on the neutrality issue the North American Values Institute, which I showed you the website for, has done a lot of work on the subject of neutrality. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next, we have Braxton. And then after that, Madine. Welcome. Hello. My name is Braxton. I'm part of the three four one four Hackpots, part one of our many teams at, in FPS.
Hackpots is our high school team, and, and I'm here to talk about our battery drive that we just did in the past two weeks. Braxton, I'm sorry to interrupt. Could you address the board? Oh, sorry. My bad. That's okay. Okay. So over the past two weeks, we have participated in our annual battery drive for, our team, and it has begun pretty well. I feel that we have gotten, over 300 pounds of batteries from of used batteries from Downtown Farmington and its surrounding neighborhoods. We had people going to talk to local businesses, and they were able to, talk
to them and be able to collect used batteries that would have otherwise probably ended up in a landfill or in waste. And as well, we also went to neighborhoods in which, homeowners were able to get rid of batteries, which they would have probably either had to throw away or go to a recycling center for. About batteries, if anybody has any batteries that they wanna get rid of, if we didn't reach your house or in Farmington, you are able to come to, the back of our school and just drop them off outside the door of our, robotics lab,
and, we'll be able to take care of them from there. I would just like to say thank you for, approving, STEM a STEM center for us, And it would it's it's gonna be a real help in the future. Thank you. Thank you. And while we don't normally, respond to public comment, I appreciate the public service announcement around batteries, and I'll make sure to mention that at a future meeting. I did not know that we have the ability to recycle at North Farmington. So oh, at Farmington. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Mhmm. Next, we have, Madine and then Bill Lovellway.
And I for forgive me, please, if I'm mispronouncing your name. Welcome. Hello. I'm Madeline from the robotics team. And I'm here to also talk about the fact that we have our robo camps. We just finished our last one, which was our FAP and robo camp, Farmington African parent network. What we do is we just we, have kids from usually k through eight, and what they do is they can come in through our shop and we teach them all the things about STEM and all the opportunities that they can have through FRC
or just anything in STEM related and let them see that they actually can do all these STEM related things. And yeah. We also have our next Robo camp, which is this weekend, Saturday, for the vision school, allowing them to come into our shop and do all these things. If someone if someone from visions is wanting to, they can come in and on Saturday, come into our shop and experience the Robo camp with us. We also have, a a gift basket drive or not drive, but we have a
little raffle that is going on, which you can address or go to our Facebook page to see more details about that. Thank you. Thank you for that. And I also appreciate that public service announcements. We all know I like raffles. Yeah. So does Rainbow Johnson. Yep. Bill Loveaway followed by Henrietta Forshee and then Mark Forshee. Good evening. I am back to talk again about what I usually do, reading, reading proficiency. And I've, spent quite a bit of time on it. I converted our percentage, accomplishments to, letter grades, a, b, c, d.
Unfortunately, in our district, Farmington is 56%, reading proficiency, which means we get an f. And forty four percent of our students don't read at grade level. And we're gonna turn them loose into the job market. Ill prepared to hold a good job, and we haven't shown the urgency to do anything about that. Or if you have, I haven't heard about it. So, I thought I'd also mention if you think that sounds like it's a little
dramatic, Michigan ranks, forty fourth among the states in educational achievement. Mississippi is way ahead of us. And that doesn't make any you have to understand that when I looked up, the whole state of Michigan, compared to the rest of The US, we were forty third. So, Michigan's education's in the low forties and, our overall state performance is forty fourth.
That's that's tragic. But that's where we are. So, what I recommended is that this school spend, $5,400,000 to hopefully improve the reading gap for 1,800 middle and high school students who are not reading the grade level. We haven't heard any public feedback about that or how Farmington plans to close the gap. Where did that money come from? We're sitting on $40,000,000 on our balance sheet that we could use to fund this
and save these kids, or or at least better improve their lot in their life. And we've chosen to sit on that. So the money's there. Where did that money come from? It came from money that we didn't spend on closing the gap last year to last ten years, and we're sitting on it. That's incredibly bad, student educational management. Well, I had a lot more to say, but I think it's bad enough you understand. We got the money to fix it, and we've chosen to sit on our hands
or elsewhere. Thank you. Appreciate your visuals. Missus missus Forshey and then mister Forshey. No? Mhmm. Oh, oh, okay. From a father speaking at the Michigan Board of Education hearing on 11/13, we the people whose vision is to reclaim and defend the rights and liberties of Michiganders starting with our parents and children. That includes defending parents the ability provided to us by state law to opt out our children from any state sanctioned or public school sex education and instruction which we
may deem as inappropriate. Please see MCL 3,801,507 for reference. The board of education will vote whether or not to adopt proposed health standard changes that integrate newly created sex education topics into health education. So what does this mean? In my research and understanding, it means that public school teachers will be forced to teach topics such as newly created nontraditional gender identity, sexual orientation, and have conversations with students that may be contrary to their own personal beliefs.
It means students will be required to take these courses in order to graduate. It means that public schools will be teaching material that should be discussed at home with parents. It means that the measures we have in place in Michigan regarding sex education will be bypassed and parental rights will be violated. This is a problem and this is against the law. It means schools and administrators will have a chaotic nightmare to sift through for opt out processes if one is even offered. And if an opt out process is not offered, you can expect to see multiple
lawsuits to get filed in the coming months in light of MCL three eight zero one five zero seven having been state law since 1996. Thousands of parents from various diverse backgrounds have already contacted this board to stop these new proposed guidelines from being enacted onto the over 1,000,000 public school students. About 80% of the public comments and responses you received this week are vehemently against these proposed standards guidelines. They are from just a handful of parents and guardians who understand and respect basic
facts, biology, reality, and truth. Ladies and gentlemen of the board, there are just ladies and gentlemen, the sky is blue. The grass is green. There are only seven days in a week. Two plus two is four and there are only and ever have been male and female sex and genders. When our schools, elected officials and government servants deviate from truth and reality, then we all suffer as people. Facts are still facts. No matter if you agree with them or not to teach children otherwise is child abuse To assist in normalizing pedophilia is a crime against humanity.
Quote from president George Washington on his first day of office on April 1789. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I I do wanna be clear. We haven't received hundreds of emails or correspondence. So the five. You presented at the Michigan School Board of Education on 11:13 on Thursday. Okay. Thank you. Thank you also for, sharing your opinion and other folks' opinion. We we, we we respect that.
I do wanna make sure that folks are aware that some that this is a very sensitive topic. And for some, it is not, it it it it it's a little offensive to folks who identify differently. I just wanna make sure that folks are clear on that, and this board wants to be sure that we are, responsive to, how how how people feel. Mark Forshee. Hello. I went to the board meeting for the State Board of Education on Thursday, and
most of the people there, the general public who went, they were opposed to this the new standards for the state board sex education classes. And amazingly, at the beginning, 18 people in a row were all for it. It sounds like they set something up to mislead people and think there's a lot more support than there was. A couple of pastors came with each with a thousand or more petitions that they presented. So they also because they didn't, in my opinion, want to listen to all these people, they said, well, it takes so long.
So all these people who came a long way or did all this work and effort in getting there, they talked for one minute. They gave us one paltry minute. So first, state board meeting, not, not a good impression. Also these new standards, why why are some adults so fixated on sex, sex, sex, teaching kids sex, sex, sex? We're sir we're talking about kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, leave them alone. And it goes all the way through, twelfth grade.
And you can't graduate unless you take this health class, which has a sex education, folded into it. It's a puzzle to me. I shudder to think what they're gonna teach juniors or seniors with these, new standards, but it's a, it's a puzzle to me. It's simple. If parents want to do this, they should have privacy. They should be in charge. And we had we heard people who kept calling themselves experts, we know best. And they're trying to supersede the parents, I believe. And if the parent says, no, I don't want that, then they could the child
should not have to do it. And it's very discomforting to find a a whole lot of people who talked, think they know better than the parents, and they want to impose, and they are imposing their will on the will of the people, most of whom disagree with this. So I just, I pray there are a lot of lawsuits because they get into some perverse material and they use, age appropriate and data driven and all these cliches repeated over and over.
I don't trust them after this meeting. So I hope that if it gets through here, there will be one person who would at least speak up against it. That would be great. But I just all the subjects in the world, we're talking about sex, no other subject, all the wide variety of subjects in the schools, nothing else was talked about. It's absurd, and I just hope it gets blocked. So thank you. Thank you. Miss Williams, may I have five minutes to myself? Yes. Okay. Thank you.
We will now move I I'm sorry. That was the last public comment card that I had. If there's anyone else who wants to make public comment at this time, please feel free to do so. Is there any further public comment for this public comment period? Seeing none, we will move to the next item, which is items from the secretary. Doctor Blau? Yes. The board has received communications regarding literacy in Farmington Public Schools, the Farmington High School IB newsletter and graduation information. We should all have received this also today, so if you are able to come
to the graduation as a board member, we can RSVP there. Expressions of thanks or appreciation, school safety funding with legal and policy considerations, North Farmington Swim Class policy discussion and responses, Oakland County Schools ballot proposal, transparency concerns and Board of Education committees. The board acknowledges all communications and responses appropriate. A list of correspondence is included in the board packet, which is available on the Farmington Public Schools website. And that is all. Thank you. We will now move to the legislative update. Mr.
Recento? Yeah. Thank you, President Weems. A couple of things. I'll try to make it brief, because I know we're touching on some of the subjects, later on. But at the top level, as as, folks, hope are aware, the congress and president have passed a package to end the forty three day federal shutdown, which was the longest in US history that restores SNAP funding, WIC funding, military construction, veterans affairs, things like that. So, the issue here is, that the it extended till January 30 year.
So, again, the new cliff would be on that day. It is another, they would have to reappropriate some more, funding. On the state side, a couple of things. I attended the, the Oakland Schools Government Relations Committee, and there was a nice presentation by Amanda Klein, who is the Michigan representative for the American Heart Association on the legislative side. And it's just a couple of things that came from her presentation. They do partner with schools obviously because heart health is related to nutrition activity, tobacco
free environments, and emergency preparedness, which we all touch on in our schools. One positive thing was that, cigarette use has dropped from 38% in 1997 to to two point one percent into 2023. However, e cigarette use has increased to 15.4%, in Michigan high schoolers, which is a huge concern. I don't know. Hopefully, it's seven times hopefully, it's not a surprise, but it could be a surprise. That seven times higher than traditional smoking and that, forty percent, of youth get e
cigarettes from friends or family. And they should in her presentation said some start at or as early as age 13. So with that in mind, there are some bills moving through the legislature that are addressing, vaping, mainly to remove the penalties for purchase use and possession for youth and moving them to the licensees and the the folks that sell, e cigarettes. And so there'll be a couple things on that, that front moving through. The other thing, besides three eighty one a a is a House Bill 4,588, which
is, to, a bill that will, is, changing the school board elections from partisan to, from nonpartisan to partisan. This would require, school board members to declare a party affiliation and run-in a primary before running in the general election. The Oakland School Board, school boards, they note that, this will probably likely, if passed,
would likely decrease the number of ruling candidates because of, finances, time, energy that will be used to run into elections. It will align local education decisions with party interests. And it'll exclude thousands, from current and potential board members because, federal employees are not, are legally prohibited from running in partisan races. So, again, that's just moving to the House floor. The the Oakland County School Boards has, drafted some, language that if folks want to
send out to, remain, nonpartisan, they could write, to their legislators. And, that's it. There are other, a few other things going on, with things like, epi pens. There's some language being, cleared up because currently I believe epi pen, is only allowed, but there's also, vapor, And in in the state statutes, I believe they only allow EpiPen. So there's clearing up some language like that, but, a few other things updated the next time. But those are the main ones besides the one we'll deal with later.
Thank you for that update. Any thoughts or questions? I know we do have an opportunity and discussion to talk about, government and grant funding in general, but really good update. Lots going on. I appreciate that. Alright. We'll now move to district updates. Doctor Coffin? Alright. Thank you, president Weems. As you mentioned, the two thousand twenty five toast for education was certainly a huge hit. Fantastic turnout, fantastic evening. So big thanks to everyone who came out and supported the event. I spent some time earlier this month also with the Greater Farmington Area Chamber of
Commerce, and part of the board there on their board retreat. We focused on growing membership and finding new ways of how we can create opportunities right here in Farmington, Farmington Hills for, collaboration. I really just appreciate being a a member and a partner in that work with the chamber. We also were able to meet our future educators in the making as part of our teacher cadet program. This program, if you haven't heard it, is is absolutely amazing. This is our second year, of launching this at both Farmington and North Farmington. We have offered it's for our juniors and seniors who are thinking about becoming educators.
Shout out to Jen Michaels from Farmington High and Lisa Shenton from North Farmington for leading this program for us. The cadets, we got we were able to they were able to get behind the scenes, to look at this at central office and what types of positions are there. They spent the day with our team leaders, including our teacher leaders, our directors, and our soup our assistant superintendents and myself, learning exactly how, we support all the great work that's happening in their buildings. We got to talk about our own career pathways and answer any questions that they
had about the teaching field. And thank you to our teacher leaders who are included in this as well with, miss Christie Fifield and mister Chris Bianchi and our central office admin for taking the time, out of your day to share the insights and perspective with our future educators. It was really exciting. We had about 20 students when we asked if they're considering a a career in education. The majority of the hands went up. So that that makes me really happy. Finally, I've had the opportunity over the last week to participate in several walk and talks with our building principals.
I really do enjoy walking through the buildings, hearing from our leaders the things that they're most passionate about, and seeing their leadership in action. Whether it's seeing how our educators are collab collaborating, team teaching is working, throughout our buildings, or just watching our students leave kindness notes for their friends and their teachers. It's just so great to see this in our buildings. Thank you to our recent schools, Forest Wood Creek and Farmington Central High School, leaders for taking time to walk and talk with me over this past week.
So next up, I also want to now turn, welcome mister Brad Paddock, assistant superintendent. If we could, miss Seyret. Yeah. Can I can I just make a comment about your Oh, yeah? Yeah. For that program because I heard you, mentioned missus Michaels. And just, she's the reason my daughter Rachel is a Spanish teacher just because when she was at Farmington High School, she just inspired her. So I just wanna recognize the work that our teachers are doing, and they didn't have that teacher cadet program. And so and every time I see her, I'm like, you know, my daughter, Rachel,
is a Spanish teacher because of you. So She'll be so happy to hear that. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Alright. So yes, Mr. Brad Paddock, assistant superintendent of human resources and talent development, to the podium to introduce, our new principal for North Farmington High School. Thank you. Good evening, doctor Coffin and board of education. It is a privilege to stand before you tonight to share an exciting leadership announcement. Since our last meeting, I've had the honor of concluding a comprehensive search for for a key administrative position, and I'm delighted to present my recommendation to you later this
evening as part of the consent agenda. Tonight, I'm especially pleased to introduce miss Crystal Ballard, our recommended candidate for principal of North Farmington High School. Crystal, would you please come join me? Thank you very much. Our search began on September 12 when we reviewed applicant applications for more than 38 highly qualified individuals, each eager to join our FPS community. The posting attracted candidates from across Michigan and the Midwest Re region, reflecting the reputation and appeal of North Farmington. Crystal, who currently resides in Minnesota, will be re relocating back to the Metro Detroit
area to take on this important role. The selection progress or or excuse me, process was rigorous and thorough. We started with virtual interviews for nine candidates, Followed by an in person interview with four finalists conducted by our central office cabinet. The third round featured stakeholder group interview including 17 participants from the North Farmington School staff, as well as central office administrators. The final stage was an in-depth interview with myself, Doctor. Kaufman, Mrs. Henry, where crystal's vision and leadership truly outshine others.
Miss Ballard brings over a decade of educational leaders leadership experience with a strong background in both middle school and high school settings. She holds a bachelor of science in elementary and special education from Grambling State University, a master of education from the University of Minnesota, and an ed specialist degree from Minnesota State University, Mankato. Throughout our conversations, I have been consistently impressed with Crystal's commitment to academic excellence and her dedication to meeting students where they are in their educational journey.
Her balanced approach to leadership and advocacy is exactly what North Farmington needs as we continue to grow and excel all of our buildings in FPS. I would also like to recognize the tremendous, support shown tonight by the North Farmington staff who is here, our FEA president, and of course, our member of the administrative ad team from North Farmington. Your presence is a testament to the strength and unity of your North Farmington community. Crystal, on behalf of doctor Cad Coffin and the cabinet leadership team, thank you in advance for your enthusiasm and commitment to what you will bring to North Farmington.
We look forward to your contributions and leadership as you join our FPS team. To the board, Crystal and I await your decision later this evening with a start date planned for Monday, December 1. I invite you all to join me in warmly welcoming miss Crystal Ballard as the new recommended principal from North Farmington High School. Wow. Thank you. Good evening, board members, superintendent. I'm very grateful for this opportunity. During the interview process, I had an opportunity to meet some colleagues who are just so passionate about this district.
As mentioned, I grew up in Michigan, and I am so elated to have an opportunity to serve at home. Throughout the process, I felt very welcomed. I felt like it was definitely the place for me, and I am excited about the opportunity, and thank you for the consideration. Mrs. Smith. Welcome, miss Ballard. Thank you so much for taking the position. I'm a little biased. I had a my middle daughter went to North Farmington, and she had an excellent career there. You are working with well, I had two that went to Farmington, so I love
them too. But, and they too had an excellent education. You will be working with Farmington's finest, although they all look like a bunch of bumblebees right there. I'm loving every bit of it because those are my high school colors too, so I am not complaining. That brown and gold is looking good on this staff right here. But I wanna thank you for taking this. You have a you have a family now, not only with Farmington Public Schools, but with North Farmington. And that staff will reach out and work with you and make sure that you
look out for all of our babies. So congratulations. Thank you, and welcome, and go Raiders. Thank you. I, also just wanna take a a moment here to congratulate you and to welcome you. We usually have a lot of staff support when we, identify and put people into new positions, but it usually isn't for someone who is new. It is usually for someone who is being promoted from within. The fact that we have so many North and and staff outside of North, representation
here says a whole lot. I personally am really excited to see you here. I'm impressed that you've come all the way back from Minnesota. And, as a parent at North currently, I've got three who've gone through, one currently in, and I'll be done soon. I'm I'm incredibly happy and look forward with all of the rest of our parents to welcome you. And, with that, unless anybody yep. I had something to say too. I wanna welcome you, to the community also. I too have a student who, went through North Farmington.
I wanna thank, many of the teachers here who have helped influence her over her four years. My daughter Elena, does many different things and, a lot of the teachers there. But I have a son who's in eighth grade and he will be a freshman next year. So I'm also very much looking forward to the continued success, of my son in for the next four years at North Farmington. So thank you again, and welcome. I just wanna take a point of pre oh, go ahead. I I just wanna reiterate everybody's welcome. And shout out to the North Farmington staff for coming and, wearing your school spirit
wear and to welcome our new principal. And maybe, President Weems, we can take a short recess. That's what I was gonna ask is if we could take a point of privilege because I would love to I would love to do that. And I'm sure that our staff wanna get back to watching the board meeting from home. So we'll we'll take a short break. Thank you for your attention. Back to our regularly scheduled program. We will now move back to district updates. Doctor Coffin? Yeah. So I'd like to welcome, backup to the podium, Miss Allison Robinson, Director of Safety
and Athletics to provide an update on our school's safety and security. Alright. Thank you for having me back. Apparently, I didn't do too poorly, in the earlier meeting. So, thank you. Okay. So I'm gonna provide, I appreciate having the opportunity to come back and talk about school safety. It's something I'm definitely passionate about. So I have about four or five different areas I'm gonna touch upon. Some of this will be, I I don't want to say a repeat, but just to let you know, we have some processes that we, you know, are committed to and we refine every year. So I'll talk about those a little bit as well.
And then, you know, any questions, please feel free. All right. What do I have? Oh, there we go. Okay. So I wanted to start first, with the training initiatives that we have. A couple years ago, you may remember, we had all of our administrators, building administrators, and at least one front office secretary from every school, trained in prepare one training through Oakland Schools. Prepare one is is basically a school safety crisis preparedness. So we did a full day in June, where everybody came to East Middle School, and we trained for that. All of our new administrators have signed up for that training for this year as
well, so that they're, we're making sure that everybody that comes in has that same level of training. We are this Friday actually is our very first, all day safety training that I do, at the Hawk. Every year. We have three throughout the school year. This year, we, we we first target our new staff, that have come into the district to give them, sign up time. And then we, this year, actually opened it to the district for everyone that wanted to come. So we have new needs, that are coming. We have paraprofessionals from early childhood all the way through high school.
And so at these trainings, we do in the morning, our police department, Farmington Hills Police Department comes and runs the two hour ALICE training. And then our district nurses lead, stop the bleed training. We have lunch. And after that, our district nurses, lead, CPR and first aid training. And Mrs. Patton, who was here earlier with the north staff, she brings her EMT class as well. So we typically get between seven and ten kids that come, and they help with the training. So they help train the the the staff. So they will be coming again on Friday. I was just talking with her about that.
So, you know, by the end of the school year, just through those trainings, we'll we should walk out with, let's see, forty, eighty, a 100 and no, sorry. 60 or 70 people that have been, additionally CPR and first aid trained. So that's that's really exciting. Additionally, every three times a year, we do our fall, winter, and spring coaches meeting with our high school coaches. They come in, we have dinner, we have a two hour meeting talking about the upcoming seasons. And before each of those, we offer a CPR training for any coaches that need to re up their certification because all head coaches at all levels are required to
be CPR certified. So we invite all our middle school coaches and all our high school coaches. So anybody that needs to get that, training can do it right before the coaches meeting. So we did that in the fall, and then we'll offer that our winter, or I mean, yes, fall, and then we'll offer it in our our other ones as well. We have this is a continuing thing from the past two or three years, but now all of our schools, k 12, are, heart safe school certified. And what that means is that our nurses have been working with all the schools to put together cardiac response teams, and they run, they were trained to what what
to hap or what to do, how to respond if there's a cardiac incident. And they run drills every year, practice drills. I was just talking to Ms. Patton, like I said, and she was saying that North, just ran theirs the other day. So in the event of an emergency, the team practices, while the nurses are there. So all of our schools are now certified and there actually was legislation that came out last year, I think, that mandated it. But we were already ahead of the curve, thanks to our our district nurses. So we have satisfied that requirement. And this year, thanks to our, district nurses as well as our HR department, we
were able to coordinate a district wide CPR training for all of the secretaries, in the district. So on November 4, during our professional development, they completed the online portion of CPR, and then there'll be a follow-up portion so that they can do the hands on training so that all of our secretaries will also be CPR certified. So we've really done a lot of work in that area and different people throughout throughout the district contributing to that effort. So very exciting. So those are some of our trainings, that we have been working on this year. Next, I'm gonna talk about building safety.
One of the things that I'm particularly proud of that's been a really nice group effort is working on our building EOPs or emergency operations plan. When I entered, into this position, we had an EOP for the district. And, basically, what that is is it's sort of a disaster manual. If there you know, anything and everything that can go wrong, how do we prepare for it in advance? What are our plans for when it happens? And then how do we recoup after? So what we did rather than just having one manual for the district is we created EOPs for each of the buildings. So I worked with our Oakland County School Safety Commission.
We meet about four times a year. We got together, and we all worked on our plans together. And so it was a really great, it was a really great kinda gathering of the minds, and I learned a lot throughout the process. So I was able to put together a master document for our district and then, replicate it. And then I worked with each of the building administrative teams to customize the plan for their buildings. So that was phase one. We had those completed last June, and rolled them out too. I met with administrators and and kinda rolled it out after everything was put together.
And then this year, I've been meeting with each building crisis team, to go over the plan with them as well. So it's not just the administrator now that knows about it, but also each the crisis team in each building. So I think I've had six or seven of those meetings so far. I have several more scheduled. So as they're meeting with their crisis teams, I'm coming, you know, we have an electronic copy for administrators, and then I'm also just doing old fashioned binder in case something happens. Everybody's gonna have a binder in their front office with their plan in it. So, that way it'll be more than just a couple people in each building that
that know what to do in each situation. Then we oh, part of our, FEA bargains contract this year, very exciting. We added some safety pieces into that. So one of the things that I've been working on is, a classroom safety survey for every classroom in the district. So we put I put together a Google form of probably 10 or 11 different questions that we're asking teachers to assess safety pieces in their room. You know, my windows open and close. My door handle locks. If I call the office, you know, the the call goes through. My PA system is clear, and I can hear announcements.
Some basic things so that we can get, a gauge on, you know, if there's issues, what what we need to do with them. So I'm I, I presented it to principals at each of our monthly meetings to get feedback from all levels. And then, I shared it with the FDA president, and he took it to some of his, members and offered me some feedback on it as well. So I'll be sending that out after Thanksgiving and then working with principals and whomever else needs to, to address any safety concerns that come up. Shield hall monitor is something I'm really excited about and has been a great add
on to our, high school buildings. We contracted with, Shield, who's, falls under SEC, who we've done other safety work with. And we were able to bring in six, hall monitors at our high schools. There's three full time at Farmington, two full time at North, and then we have, Sixth, who's the manager, who is a former student of mine at Harrison, who bounces between who spends some time at Farmington, some time at Harrison, and also goes to Central as well so that they have, you know Not Harrison. I said Harrison.
He was my student at Harrison. Sorry. That's why I got into my head now. Sorry. So farming's in North. Thank you. And, in Central. So that's actually been going really well. I've been meeting, talking to the administrators. You know, we've they've been ironing some things out, figuring out who goes where. And really, they're there, a, to make relationships with the kids, but also they're security trained. So they're testing door handles. They're making sure doors aren't propped. They're educating kids about those things. So they have the security lens as well. They spend their day walking around the building. It's also been nice because we were able to flex some of their schedules so
that at least one of them is staying until four or 04:30 every day. Because after school, we have a lot of issues with kids, you know, finding nooks and crannies or they're hanging out in the athletic hallway when they're not in athletics. And and things happen. Right? So they've really been it's been great to see the buildings clear, and to and to get kids to where they need to be and get them out of where they shouldn't be. And and a nice, I guess, kind of ancillary and unexpected benefit of that, when we brought the monitors in, it displaced some of our EDGES staff hall monitors. But they were three of the four of them were able to then come to
the middle schools, because they were still interested in being hall monitors. And our middle schools were not fully staffed with hall monitors. So two of them I know I my build or I'm at East is where my office is. So two of them are now hall monitors at East, and one of them went to power. So that's been, a, it was really nice that they wanted to stay in the district and continue doing that work, but it's also a nice benefit to our middle schools because now they each have, two people, kinda just monitoring the hallways as well. So, so that's been something we've been really excited about. I talked I just yesterday talked with their manager.
You know, we're saying, hey. What about this? How are we doing this? How are we doing that? Just to make sure that, you know, all the areas are being covered and we're utilizing them in the best way possible. So those are some of our building safety initiatives. This this is one. Some of these you may have heard before. Last year, just as a reminder, we adopted the standard response protocol. There either is or was legislation that is pending that will mandate schools to move to a standard response protocol. So luckily we rolled that out last year. This is our second year into it. Basically it's just, you know, these five commands.
Everything falls under those. So if something happens, the secretary or the administrator can press a button on the school PA, and there's a prerecorded message that goes out. It's the same across all buildings, and it instructs staff on what to do. As well, these posters are in everybody's classroom. So if you hear this and I'm a student, here's what I do. I hear this and I'm an adult, here's what I do. So, that so far has been really successful and just made things equal across all the buildings. So we're not all using different terminology. Well, one of the things I'm not sure I've mentioned before, but this has been
going on for a while. At our high schools, we have emergency action plans for our outdoor facilities. So, or our athletic facilities in general. So our gymnasiums, our stadium. And this includes our off-site venues, our bowling alleys, our golf course, our ski hill at Mount Brighton, gym Farmington Gymnastics Center, anywhere where our kids may practice, off-site. We have emergency action plans for those. So if something goes wrong, a student collapses on the top of Mount Brighton, right? There is an emergency action plan for that. What do we do in those situations? Something happens in the gymnasium, you know, where's the low, where's the nearest AED?
You know, those types of things. And our athletic trainers, Christy and Sarah, who are fabulous at the high schools, work with each team each season to run an action plan drill. So they meet with the coaches. They talk about the action plan, make sure they know where everything is, and then they run a drill. So just in case, you know, something happens, they test it out. So that is something I'm not sure I've talked about before, but that happens every season with, with every team. Our rally point drills. This is something that we added this year. In the event that a school has to evacuate, they each have a separate rally point that where the students can walk.
So this year, we asked each school to have a rally point drill, where they walk the students to their location. They line up how they would line up. They take attendance, and they come back. So I've been able to, walk on three or four of them, particularly elementary schools, and they have gone really well. And it's been great. Some of them have a little bit more of a distance. Some of them are, you know, fairly close, but every school, you know, is working on getting their rally point drill in. So in the events of an evacuation, whether it's as a school or, you know, kids have to just go, they they should know where to go, hopefully.
So that's, that's been a nice thing that we've added to and gotten good feedback on that. Last year, so this is where sometimes my sports and my safety world tie together. So last year we had our facilities evaluated. We had a security company, SCC, come to our football game, to give us some, you know, pointers on things we could do differently. So this year, we did add an emergency tent with a first aid kit. It's a little spare right now, but we're we're adding to it. But we have an, you know, a clearly demarcated, or marked, emergency tent, with emergency supplies under there.
And then we've added announcements so that people know where to go in the event of an emergency or if they need to get help with anything. So, that's been something that we have added this year just to add another level of safety at our, games. Preventive measures. These, I think I have spoken about before, but always ongoing. Care Solace is the, I guess, I don't wanna say therapy middleman, but I guess that's the best way I would describe it. If, you know, when we have families who are looking for some care for their students, we refer them to Care Solace.
And this is, an agency that, finds providers for them, works with the family and refers providers to them, and then they help make that connection. So, this is something that's used, very often. I use it even in my work a lot when I meet with students. You know, if there are discipline issues and the parents often want some help with that, this is something that we've relied on. So that's been a nice added bonus to help with, some of our student mental health concerns. Our district safety team meets every couple of months. So that continues. We meet with, Farmington Police, Farmington Hills police, Farmington public safety, fire, who else am
I missing here? Our our SROs come, our athletic trainers, our district nurses, and then several people from inside the district that have different rules. And we get together, and I will often, you know, here here are some things we're considering for the schools. And then they will offer some, you know, comments on that, or they bring some things. Hey. We really wanna talk about this. So we meet every couple of months. And it's used as a little bit of a vetting, you know, for some of the things. We we've had a couple people come in and do presentations on on some things that we're looking at. So it's just nice to have everybody looking at the same thing considering because, you
know, law enforcement has a lot of things that we don't always think of, when we're when we're looking at, safety initiatives. And then one of our proactive pieces, because we're really trying to do a lot more proactive, you know, in all of our safety workshops I go to, they're like, being proactive and preventative is really better than anything that you can do in terms of safety. So one of the things we do, we call them student welcome meetings. If we have a student that's coming in new to the district, and we may notice some behavior issues from, you know, past past districts, we come together as a
team. So the administration, they bring a counselor with them, special education, if that's, appropriate. And we meet and we come up with the best plan for the student before they enter the school. So those are actually great meetings. You know, that we get a lot of information about, about the student, what worked for you, what didn't work for you. We make sure they enter they get introduced to their key people. Right? Here's your principal. Here's your counselor that you'll be working with. Here's your special education teacher or supervisor. And then we come up with what's the best plan. Right? And sometimes that may maybe it's not this high school. Then we start talking about, hey.
Here's something you know, here are some other options we offer in the district, and then we we can customize a little bit from there. So that's something, that I really enjoy doing. I think our administrators do as well. And and really, I don't think any of those students we've had welcome meetings with, you know, they they roll in there. And I've never seen any of them at hearings, so that's always a very good thing. Right? They seem like they're coming in and and, they're well prepared. So that's another, preventive measure. Our next steps. This is what I'm working on currently and probably throughout the rest of the year.
Reunification planning. So as I mentioned earlier, we have our students when they need to, exit a building, evacuate, they go to their rally point. Right? Those are generally churches in the area. A lot a lot of our houses of worship allow us to or, a couple businesses. But when they get there, you know, at that point, what we do is we bring buses in, and we take them to a reunification site. Right? And the reunification site is more equipped to deal with, you know, large number of students. It has a spot where we can reunify parents with their students.
You know, you keep the kids here, the parents here. We, you know, have a whole plan for what that looks like and different rules for all the staff people. So the reunification planning I'm working on right now, I have, I've spoken with somebody. We're looking at a couple of different venues. So I'm in talks about that. And then our next step would be to, I'll bring that to district safety team. I'll start working on the draft piece for that, and then we'll bring that together. And and then we'll do some trainings with our administrators around that. So that's the next phase after the rally points.
We look now for a reunification point. So, that's what I've started working on recently. A couple other things. One of the things and and these next two are separate, but I'm gonna speak about them together. I've been speaking with a couple of different companies. Centegetics is one and Raptor is another. And these are, companies that have offer a couple different safety services. They have visitor entrance management. You know, you go into some high schools and you put your ID in. They run a quick sex offender, check. And or, you know, if you have any red flags that you want to enter,
you know, there may be some custody issues, things like that. It it, you know, it it it flags some of those, prints or prints out a badge if you're all good and then you can go into the school on your way. So we're looking at some of those types of pieces. And and along with that, the other thing those, companies provide is a wearable badge. You may have read about those and some of the school, school violence, incidents that have happened. But what they are is every staff member gets a badge. It's got a button on it. It's real simple. You press it 3 times because something's going on where you need some help, in
your classroom. Could be a medical issue. Right? Student faints. Something like that. Could be a skirmish out in the hallway. Right? And then your building stat or your building team, like your administrators and whomever else you designate, is alerted through their phone, their computer, and then they go to the they go to the situation. Beyond that, if you press it more, eight or nine times, it that's when there's a huge emergency. It initiates a building lockdown. And then police are also notified. So it's a really interesting system. I've spoken with several districts who are using it.
I just went last week to Rochester to see a demonstration because they use it there, and I've met with their assistant superintendent, at a safety conference. So that's something that we are are looking at. And I've obviously spoken with doctor Coffin about it as well. And our district safety team. They came and presented there. So, something we're we are also looking into. So that's the that's that's the main work for this year. So that's all I have. I'm happy to take any questions. Missus Smith and missus Heinrich, Miss Robinson, I wanna thank you for everything.
I don't know if the board knows exactly what you do, but you have been pretty much humble about your role. I have served on CPAC under three, chiefs, maybe four. I lost count. And, no, I didn't get rid of them. So, those police chiefs have had people from Farmington Public Schools that would just come in, grab us come in late, grab a slice of pizza or two and some
salad, and they would leave. Miss Robinson does not do that. She's always on time. She won't even eat until after the meeting is over. The relationship with miss Robinson and the chief of police right now, both the chief and the director, is phenomenal. And it she has that relationship. Not only she has it, but the superintendent does too. Mhmm. And that's what we call bridging the gap. Mhmm. Having a working relationship with our schools and our city, our fire, and our police
department. The relationship that she has with them, it has been from what I've seen under the three police chiefs that I've had, the chiefs were wonderful. Yeah. It was the people that were running the program from here. I thank you for your service. I thank you for having that relationship. She also even brought up about the food drive, what we need to do because our, our pantries. God bless, Chris O'Brien and and and, Hattie for doing the work that they do
with our pantries and with cares because our cabinets and are empty. Yeah. Terry Weems is doing this herself, but you spoke up, you know, because we did have somebody to speak out of turn and say, Farmington Public Schools, we give them free lunch and breakfast, but we don't know what they're eating after school. Allison and I both said that's not true. So I wanna thank you for the work that you have done. For a while, I thought, she may can't do this. But you are doing a phenomenal job, and I wanna thank you for all that
you've done to help keeping our schools safe. I'm bringing in a, organization Mhmm. And a group that will work with our students. Mhmm. So thank you for keeping our schools and our staff safe. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you for the kind words. Appreciate that. Missus Heinrich? Yeah. I just, I have some notes. I have some questions that don't need to be answered right now. Just, you know, just things that popped into my head as you're going through. I just, highlighted I I like your building crisis teams, because when people ask who's
in charge of safety, it shouldn't be Allison who's in charge of safety, but everybody in the buildings. And I'm and I'm just sitting here thinking, you know, you talked about classroom safety and and surveys and things like that, and maybe, an opportunity to think about having student safety teams also because students should be in charge of safety also. That's a great idea. And when you were talking about, right there, the visitor entrance management and and things like that. But, I'm thinking, you know, is there some way in the safety protocols, to highlight
the okay to say and have education in the okay to say, as far as because that's a huge deterrent and a huge, piece of safety as far as people know where to report and how to report. And I know that we have stickers on the doors and things like that, but I'm not quite sure if every if all the parents are aware of okay to say or if all the kids are. And so maybe that Would you like me to address that? I can if you would. Would you like me to address that? Or or just You can now or in the future or, you know, is it
is it being highlighted? It is. We, at the beginning of the year, I sent it out to all of our principals and said, please book an assembly with okay to say. And I know that several have because we've gotten some feedback on it. I said some you know, at some point this year, we should be all schools should be doing them them every year because they, you know, they do age appropriate assemblies. They can do them virtually or they can do them in person. So, and and then when those do happen, they send along documents to be sent to the parents about what it is and also opt out forms if they don't, you know, if they don't choose to have their student in there.
So we have we have been highlighting that. Because I agree with you. It's a great tool, and our students use it a lot. They they really do. They I can say just as a former principal myself, it gets used a lot. So I I agree with you. I you're right. That would have been a good add in here. Okay. That that's good. Yeah. And I I'm interested in my shield hall hall monitors, you know, and it just because everything that I've learned is relationships are important. Yep. And I was just wondering if you're collecting any data as far as their impact. I mean, is there a reduction in incidents, discipline incidents, suspensions, things like that?
It might be nice to have those questions, you know, thinking about that, just because it's, you know, a a higher level of that. And then, the same question goes down for the middle school hall monitors, having additional hall monitors. And you, you know, talked about all the ALICE training and or whatever, but because they're not trained at the high same level as a shield hall monitors, but do
they get additional training as far as relationships and monitoring in middle school? So that's something for future. Sure. And I I was really pleased to see that you had the emergency action plan for Aflix and also off-site to have an emergency action plan also. Thank you. Because, parents don't necessarily think about those things until something happens. And so, you know, drills and preparedness are really important. So I I like the I like the training that you have with all the
coaches also for the athletics and the consistency there. So, yes, just thank you for the work that we're doing. And I I think, you know, we're gonna have further on talk about safety and the importance of that. And so this was really a timely presentation. Absolutely. Lot of information. So, mister Hull? With So real quick, the visitor entrance management, is that what they're doing like what they do over at the Holocaust Museum? Because that one too and I just thought about that where you go in, Hold on. Your, like, ID or data scan it or you stick it in a machine.
That would probably be it. Yes. That's and that's it. I'm sorry. And then they print out, like, a badge with your picture on it usually. Yes. Mhmm. That's it. Okay. Thank you. Mister Hall? Yeah. So with the, CPR training Yes. That I I believe that's a very important thing that everybody should learn, you know, because you came was that there I saw something on news recently that a student at another district swallowed up accidentally swallowed up, top of a water bottle. Yeah. Right? Yeah. What was kinda disturbing about when I saw that was that she had a call,
the person the the principal who who was certified to do CPR or whatnot. And I and I was just thinking about what if that person was at a meeting or what was what you know, why couldn't she be equipped to actually do the CPR train? Even, you know, it's the basic part. I don't know if you had to be certified to even try to tempt it or anything like that. Yeah. But I don't know all the rules, or or, you know, legalities behind all that, you know, because I believe something with the, with the Samaritan It's like the Good
Samaritan. Yes. Correct. Yep. Yep. And and and I was wondering that for, is that is is the CPR training, like, a mandatory training for all staff? It is not. No. Not at this point. And and also, are we offering that in, you know, for us for regular students, like, part of, like, I won't say well, like, curriculum or something. I don't know. Something of that nature. Anybody can do something other than just look at that person Right. Having the episode, you know.
And and I I just remember when I took a CPR class, like, some years ago, and I remember the fire department, he made a scenario and say, hey, you know, baby's at a pool, The baby start stop breathing, and the mother's looking at you. You're you're just there hanging out at the pool, and she throws the baby at you. And I was like, oh, then what are you gonna do? I'm like, I don't know. Oh, okay. And that kinda, like, put, bestowed on me. It's like, it's everybody's responsibility, you know, even though, you know, some something you know, you're not that parent or or whatnot.
So I don't, you know, I don't know if we can I don't know? It's like a Yeah. I I get what you're saying. I do have one thing I forgot to add about CPR too is there are a lot of, principals who work with the nurses to do staff trainings. I know I think it was last year, the year before Warner did a full staff training as part of their PD so that everybody at Warner was trained. Right. There's another, Farmington Early Childhood, I think, generally does that because they do infant CPR, you know, or they do small child versus adult. There's another school. I can't remember who's doing a a full one as well.
Oh, I think East Middle School was doing one. So, there are several or they were just training, you know, parts of their staff. So, there are several of those smaller pockets that are happening as well. It's not every school, every person, but, you know, by getting the secretaries and then trying to work through these day long trainings, which this year, I was glad we were able to open it up to the full staff. So we've got people from all levels, all positions. So I'd love to add more of them. But we definitely are getting hitting a lot of the people. Good. And and also with the, reunification planning, I believe that's a a very, important part
Mhmm. Because I remember hearing that I think it was an incident at one of the schools that the that the emergency couldn't, the, emergency staff or, first responders couldn't get through because so many parents was coming to the school. Exactly. And I thought that was a, you know, so how can we you know, everybody's trying to rush and get the kids, but if there's a rendezvous at a different location Yes. I think that makes more sense than everybody just crashing. You know? Right. Because everybody had the same thing. Everybody's like, this is Exactly.
So I I believe that is a, very good idea to Right. We have rendezvous. And that's a big reason why because, you know, understandably, parents wanna come get their kids, and then it, you know, can hamper the process or they're grabbing kids that are theirs or, you know, or their friends, and you don't know where everybody is. So there's some accountability when you have a system. Yep. Well, thank you for all the Welcome. The, Allison train over the house. Yeah. The house. Close enough. Got the coin there. You're welcome. I I also wanna echo everything that, my colleague said, so I won't parrot it back.
But, the one area that I wanted to just lift up, briefly was on the mental health, supports. Thank you so much for sharing those. Mhmm. I would suspect that many parents are struggling right now Yes. And do not know where to go Mhmm. For help. And I know if they were to ask our school administrators and staff that they could help. Mhmm. There's something about, perhaps, not feeling comfortable.
Yes. Sharing or talking through those is a very sensitive matter. Mhmm. I just quickly went on to the district's website Mhmm. And I was pleased that when I did a quick search on mental health, there's a button that pops up that says urgent needs. Mhmm. And there are some resources there, but not all the ones that you listed. Okay. It's a lot more around, other human services like homelessness and, United Way and child protective services, those types of things. There are some resources there, but I wondered if the district might consider.
And I know you've got a lot on on your plate. But I also know that a growing number, a large number of our students and families are suffering Yes. With this. I wonder on whether on the parent section, whether really quick and easy to find Mhmm. If you might on the parent section in addition to, you know, enrollment and the parent portal and transportation, whether there was a section on maybe urgent needs, maybe even mental health specifically.
Mhmm. Because you have all of these resources. But if it were in one spot for parents to kinda see Right. If that might be something that you would, consider because we know that when young people are suffering or their families are suffering, it's really hard to focus and pay attention in school. Yep. And we're really trying to support this preventative Mhmm. Sort of these preventative issues with, that translate into behavioral issues, for themselves or others, you know, going forward. So just something that I can add. Suggestion.
Yep. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Anything further before we move on? Okay. Thank you again. This was a very timely topic. Appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Alright. We're gonna move on to reports from board committees. Mister Walker is not here today. He asked me to provide the report on policies, and so I'm gonna try to be brief. Ron Recinto, myself, and Donald Walker, are on the committee. Donald Walker is the chair. We talked about, the plan for policies. Let me step back. The first thing that we did was we, reviewed the policy recommendations that came to
us. Hey, buddy. Just talking about them. Do one of my moves. Right? Okay. Sweetie is waiting out your way for you too. Yes. Yes. I don't even know the street about things. So I'm gonna give our colleagues some time to get activated. I'll do the report and then when we get to policies, mister Walker can, pick it up. So in the meeting, we talked about, the right back to the regular, policy updates that our, legal firm gives us.
They give us a list of policy recommendations every fall and every spring, And these are usually, pretty simple legal updates like your policy needs to change because it no longer conforms conforms to law or their recommendations based off of what they're seeing from other school districts or, some pretty hot topics that might be coming up related to school safety or something like that. So we review those and we'll be looking at those later on under, discussion items. We also talked talked as a board about as a policy, committee about, what our
planned agenda might be for the year. And I would recommend that every committee sort of do this. We've done this in the past at our committee meet at our, retreats, But we didn't really have time because our retreats have been so fully packed with really good information. But I would encourage each chair of, our committees to think about what is it that you're trying to accomplish in the year. And so, one of the things that we did was we pulled together a list of all of the topics that have come up in the past, some new topics
that have come up recently and it's really just a laundry list. It's not prioritized at all. What we'll do is send that to everyone and we wanna get input from you. First on, is it complete? Are there topics that you want the board, the committee to, you know, take a look at, over the course of this next year or in future years that aren't on here? And give us feedback with respect to the comprehensive list, what do you think sort of rises to the top? There are about 20 things on this list. There's no way we're going to tackle all of them. But some of some of the things that come up top of mind to me
are what we've already talked about, student behavior, culture handbook, discipline, sex education is on the list, HR policies is on the list. We've talked about those things before. Dress code is on the list, graduation requirements, student clubs, PE requirements, busing distances, drug search policies, vaping, considering adding a student rep to the board of education. Like, we've talked about a lot of this stuff before. Which of these are we really gonna tackle and try to determine whether we want a policy on it or not. And if we do, like, what does should that policy look like?
So I think that, that was a really good discussion, and you will get some more information, from the chair on how to move forward there. But I just wanted to let you know that's what we were currently thinking. Oh, and we also because, you know, we're pretty, good with project management discipline. We're gonna recommend to you guys as well that you do the same. Once we agree on our priorities, we're gonna outline. There's like a nice little x handy dandy excel spreadsheet that keeps us accountable to, you know, what we what we plan to do.
So, you know, tackle these three issues by January 31 and tackle these next few issues by March 31 to really keep us moving, on on those kinds of things. So, again, record friendly recommendation, strong suggestion, that you guys think about doing the same thing. Alright. Thank you. Next is the finance and facilities committee meeting. Oh, so we don't have to go through the policy updates? Discussion.
Oh, it's a discussion item. That's a disc oh, okay. Alright. Mhmm. I just, like, pull myself waiting for it. Okay. Finance committee. Okay. So I don't wanna stay away from our discussion items, but the finance facilities committee met Monday, November 17, myself, mister Thomas Hull, and, doctor Sheryl Blau are on the committee. We met doctor Coffin was there, John Barth, Luke Caddo, central office people, Kimberly Pintech,
Jennifer Kaminski. We talked about a van purchase recommendation, and it's gonna come up under the discussion items that there's gonna be a recommendation for four, new 10 passenger vans. We have two existing, and so we really, heard about the need for why we need for additional, passenger vans 10 passenger vans. And they're really, it came as a result of the, district.
The district had a transportation study overview, and, there's a need for special transportation needs. There's, some places where, full size school buses don't fit. There's transportation between buildings. And so this will really, be a a good addition to the, district. The van, drivers only require chauffeur's license. And so it'll give us more flexibility as far as meeting needs for, transportation between
buildings and during the school day when, buses are not necessarily needed. So it was a, it was a good conversation and that is up for discussion. So we will talk about that in discussion. Alright. And then we, had a look at the November 2025 budget to actual update. And so really, this is a higher level, look at how we're doing, and there's multiple layers of checks and balances in there. And so I'm really wanna give a shout out to our business department for really
doing a good job with our finances and making sure that we're accountable. And, we just came up in an audit, and we always score really high on those. So they're doing a good job on that. And, the board really appreciates being, informed on how we're doing. And, we had a couple things for future agenda. We wanna look at, actually, the safety school budget is one thing we asked about to put on the future agenda just to see how our dollars are allocated and what our needs are for that.
So that's something that we're hoping to spend some time delving into. That's it for the, finance and facilities committee meeting. Thank you. We will now move to discussion items. The first discussion item, doctor Coffin is the review of the van purchase that, missus Heinrich just talked about. Yes. Thank you. So I'd like to invite, mister mister Luke Cadeau and, John Barth to the podium to share information on what was previewed a little bit in the health finance facilities
report, of a van proposed van purchase for transportation. So good evening board members and doctor Kauffman. Before I turn over to Luke about the details of the purchase itself through my deal, I do wanna read a letter that was written to me from Aaron Hill, who knows the need more than anybody else about these vans. So let me read this to you real quick. So Aaron says, farming public schools utilizes 10 passenger vans as an important resource for safely transporting students to and from school. In order to comply with PA 187 requirements, the vans must be originally manufactured as 10 passenger vehicles. So they're built to be a school bus, but they're small, right?
Once purchased, they undergo certification to the state of Michigan, just like buses do, before being placed into service. So they're very safe vehicles. These vans we use daily for both AM and PM transportation, including routes for special education students and for students whose assigned programs are outside the catchment area of their home schools. In addition, the vans would be to support community based instruction, PAES lab transportation, on roads that cannot accommodate a full size bus, and for midday instructional needs. During midday hours, it would be used for small field trips as scheduling allows.
And after PM routes are completed, the vans could be used to transport small groups for athletic events. Only a chauffeur's license is a requirement to operate these vehicles. However, all staff assigned to drive them must complete the same training, background checks, and safety requirements as our school bus drivers. So as stated before, Aaron knows probably more than anybody else what the difficulty is in sending buses down a road that's got a cul de sac or whatever it is. So he he's been accommodating. We've got a number of, contracted companies that we could actually eliminate some of those runs, a lot of them. And so this is gonna help us a lot, only from a cost standpoint, and
ultimately to service these vehicles that's a lot cheaper than a bus. We do have 86 buses in in service right now, being used daily or as spares. Some of those would get retired, obviously, if this works out like we project. So we're really highly recommending this purchase through, through a MyDeal cooperative with the state. But I'll let Luke explain how this, actually transpired. So I, am working with Gorno Ford. And they have the MyDeal contract for the next five years through the state of Michigan. They will provide us, four ten passenger vans, which will be certified, like John said,
through the state of Michigan. Grand total will be around $286,000, 352 in that range. These vans, the big portion to is, like, a lot of times there are students throughout the district. There's four students that need to be picked up. We're sending a full size school bus, which is wasting how much diesel, putting more wear and tear on that bus, Wear and tear on the roads where if you send a van, it's cost effective, saving us gas and repairs and downtime. So that's why we're asking to add four more.
That'll give us six total. These also John didn't bring up, but these also help with some special needs students. We have one child who has brittle bones, and being on a school bus rocking around is too hard. Or if they're on a van, the van sit lower, so they're not rocking around as much, not jostling them around. So Any, mister Walker? Question regarding the special needs aspect of the vans. Are they fitted in in a certain kind of way for the special needs students
and to what degree? Yep. So these yep. So these are none of them will be none of these will have wheelchair accessibility, but they are mid ceiling mount, so they have higher ceilings. So kids can climb into them. They'll have grab rails, running boards, so everything with that aspect. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Anyone else? Seeing nothing. But yes? Well, just to piggyback on, mister Walker's question on, students with wheelchairs and special needs, do we have buses that are coming across? We have special needs buses that can hold wheelchairs and also hold students at the
same time. Oh, okay. Yep. Okay. Thank you so much for your report. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is related to government, and grant funding, as an update. And I would suggest that we do, this. We there are two topics that this was related to. One was 31 a a, and the second one was, assigning a party to school board, candidates. I suggest we do that one first. And then because I think the 31 double a will be a little bit of
a longer discussion. Does anyone have a problem with that? Okay. Mister Rosinto, would you kinda outline again what that issue is and what the recommendation is in terms of, like, the board signing a letter and that sort of thing? Just to do one a or the The, yes. Yeah. So, thank you. The, the issue is that, a bill is being introduced to the house floor regarding, making, school board elections partisan, which would require school board members to assign an, party to their ballot and, and then run-in the primary and then run again in the
general election. The issue here are sort of, a couple things that will likely decrease the number of folks because, you know, this is a very service oriented, board that we do. And now we're asking folks to, add time, financial resources, energy on primary election and then and then a general election. So, it'll increase campaign costs. It'll align possibly align local, education decisions with party interests rather than with student needs.
And then it'll, caveat, it'll exclude, thousands of currently, or potential board members, including federal employees who are legally prohibited to run-in partisan elections. So there are actually, there are several folks currently. And actually, at the highest level of the Michigan State School Boards who are federal employees, will have to then not run the next election because of their debt? So with that, you know, we can open for discussion. But Yeah. So I've always kind of appreciated that school boards were meant to be nonpartisan personally.
And I personally don't identify with either party. And so I appreciate that and wouldn't want to have to select one, to be honest with you. I I think that's unfair. And I agree with you also on the, implications associated with, like, campaigning and fundraising. That that's another really tough one for me. I have always despised the whole fundraising nature of it. It makes me sick when I think about all of the money that's raised for
these campaigns, especially at our level, they could just be redirected to schools. So the idea of that increasing incenses me personally. That's just my own personal belief. Missus Smith. So, as everybody knows, I just, ran for city council. And these seats are not for the weak, and it's definitely not for those that are not financially healthy. I did not like asking for money.
You know, I had people say, well, just go make some candy bars up with your face on. You can't do that either. I'm against asking your partisan, because if you think you can just win by being a Democrat and not getting support from the other side, you are sadly mistaken. This is why we have nonpartisan so you can be able to work on both sides. I don't know who up here is a democrat or republican, nor do I care.
I look at them as my colleagues, not because, oh, well, if if if doctor Blau is a republican, I don't like her. That's not the case. Or if miss Heinrich is a Democrat, we go into lunch every day. That's not the case. I look at it from and and and what we need to look at too, we're here for children. So if I'm elected because I'm a Democrat, does that mean I'm gonna leave the children alone that are Republican or what have you? Finances are expensive, and you're gonna ask school board.
We only make $30 a meeting. We're not making what senators and state reps and and congress people are making. We're giving up our time. We're giving up, our family. You know, why aren't we asking this with our city council? I mean, let's be real here since we are having the conversation. Our current mayor was only endorsed by one person on that city council, and it was a Republican. No Democrats, and she's a Democrat. I was not endorsed, but supported by both.
So at the end of the day, the bottom line is and then to ask you to run on a primary. So now if you don't win, then you're out, and then you get someone else in. And you're you're excluding candidates that could be a potential person that knows the district and knows what they're doing. So, I have, some connections, and I will be making some calls. I'm not writing no letters. I'm calling you. Yeah. Well I'm gonna ask Yeah.
What what we doing here? I will add that there was an Oakland County letter drafted a template for, folks, to show support for the nonpartisan nature of school boards. That's how they're phrasing it. That you can craft, send, and, to the legislature. And also as you noted, Trustee Smith, that it's only this is only affecting school boards. Not any other boards know. Zoning appeals, no planning board, no parking And I think that's unfair. What if you are a diff some religions don't believe in if you're Jehovah Witness,
you're Mormon. So this is, systemic racism in my eyesight. So so what you're saying is we just gonna pick, and and so we just gonna divide this community. There's 83,000 residents here in Farmington Hills. And for the most part, we are kind of blue. We kind of look purple, but we're blue. So we just gonna put a Democrat in, or are we just gonna put Republicans in? So I am strongly against this happening. I wanna work with both sides because at the end of the day, both sides
have got great conversations. We may not always agree, but we have great conversations. And there's some Democrats, and I'm a Democrat, that I don't like. I'm just gonna be honest about it. So at the end of the day, I am totally against this, and I will I'm not making any because most of these emails, when you write them, they're not gonna read them. But when you make a phone call, they gotta answer that phone. So that's my stand on it. Thank you for that. Missus Heinrich? Yeah. I, I think everybody sitting on this board is here for the children, not for
political gain. And so I would like to, hope that our board can come agree on consensus that we as a board, will the Oakland County has a has a draft of a letter that we will send out a letter as our school board. And I would also hope that our parent community has a big voice and ask our parents and our our community to use their voice to let their feelings known to their legislatures. And hopefully, supporting the message that board positions should be here to represent the children
and not representing political parties. So I think that it's an important issue. And, the, actually the, board, we were talking about going to the advocacy conference in, Washington DC. So really, you know, the the legislatures are political parties, and they listen to the people that vote for them. So, you know, we have, members of our school family and community on both sides
of the aisle as well as the ones that are independent or, other, you know, sides of the aisle. So use your collective voices to, you know, and this this should be an issue that should be discussed by everyone and keep the the interests of students first in mind, because that's what we're here to serve. Agreed. Miss doctor Blau? Yes. I concur with all of what my colleagues have already said. You know, serving on a school board is already challenging enough without party affiliation, complicating
things, to work together collaboratively, as a board. I mean, just generally speaking. And, to complicate it further by adding partisanship does not sound to me like it's in the best interest of our students or our community. It's just putting in a barrier in place that doesn't belong there, doesn't need to be there, won't serve any possible good. And so, you know, as my colleagues have already stated, it's the students who are
at the center of our work, and we don't need this other distraction. It's going to detract from the quality and caliber of work that boards around the state are able to do. And then I I can't recall if if you mentioned, mister Recinto, about the the provision that would bar, federal employees from from serving. So, if I were a federal employee currently, I would have to resign from my
seat on the board just because of my place of employment if I had to declare, you know, some partisanship. So it just doesn't sound like it's in the best interest of our community or our students to to go in this direction. I I did find the letter on our board packet. It's page 33 right after where it says legislative report. And if I don't know if we have to vote on this or not, but I'd be happy to write one signed by the Farmington Public Schools Board of Education
and said, I know some of us are gonna call and write individually, but can we do that, President Williams? Can we if we concur, can we send one on behalf of the Farmington Public Schools Board of Education? So you can send one individually. If we're gonna send one on behalf of the entire board, then I would send it or send it through Ron as our legislative chair. So I get consensus that this is the direction that we wanna go in. And so I'll work with Ron to get a letter drafted. Awesome. They it's page 33. Absolutely. That we could Yep.
Copy and we can tweak it or whatever. And you can put it on letterhead if if it sounds Do we need individual signatures on it then? No. We can sign it as the Farmington Board of Education, and I can write everyone's name. I see everybody's nodding, and we look like we're all in agreement. Problem with that. I'm I'm I'm glad that we're all I mean, we're all here for kids, and I've never I don't recall us ever having a conversation, like, that was politically driven. And I don't think that that's where we wanna get to. That's not the place for this.
Right. Alright. Great. Okay. So now we can move into, I'm sorry. Yes? Trustee Hall said something that I think I wanna lift up. I if if we do this, I'd like to put my own signature on it. He mentioned he would want to do the same. Sure. I think that would just drive the point home just that much further as individuals and as a collective. I know that'll add a little bit more logistically to the situation, but I think it has a little stronger impact if our own individual signatures. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. That's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I was kinda mumbling underneath my breath.
I said, shoot. Put my name in highlight red and and circle around everything. Because I wanna make sure that, you know, I wholeheartedly am against this. We could each stop back up here at central office once the letter is completed and and sign it. Yeah. Thank you. Pardon me. Yes. Sign it before you. Yeah. Good good idea. Okay. Perfect. So, Colleen will probably, offline work on that and arrange for board members to come up inside. Thank you. Appreciate that discussion. Alright.
We can move on to the next item, which was 31 a a. So I think you you we all have background. And, we don't have to vote today, but we may have to vote, depending on what happens next week. It's likely that we'll have to vote. If the district well, we we don't have to vote if the district does nothing. Right. But if we want the district to accept the funds, then we're required to act because we need the dish we need to waive privilege.
Right. Does anyone wanna have a discussion on this? Yes. Yes. Miss Henrick. I I think the first thing to to start the discussion is to, ask doctor Koffin just to highlight what these funds will be used for and how they're currently used, just so that we can share with the public. We we talked about these things, but just to have everybody not everybody was present to understand exactly what what the funds are talking about and how they'll be used in the district. Yeah. Thank you, miss Heinrich.
So, currently, the amount the the funds that we get from thirty one AA support, safety and mental health. The funds are used right now to support each elementary building having a a staff member who is dedicated to the social emotional learning and needs as well as mental health needs of our students. In addition, there is some support that you heard from miss Robinson around our new shield, supports that are at our high school.
So we do use some of the funds to support that. Absent of those funds, we would have to make a decision on what we would support and what would have to be taken away in order to support, that's, like, about a mil a million dollars of our budget, just to put it into perspective. And for for both safety and mental Yeah. Health. Yeah. Special emotion. Yes. And, just to be clear, it's a million dollars for two years. So So cumulatively, it would be $22,000,000. It's 2,000,000 over a two year period of time.
Okay. Yep. Missus Heinrich. Yeah. Well, to speak on that, it was just I think at not this past year, but the year before the NASB conference when I was there, I went to quite a few sessions on safety and I pulled out the business card. Jason Russell, has a, secure environmental consultants and he actually consulted with Farmington. And when Allison was giving her presentation and talking about f the football stadiums and safety, it was like one of the things that they were doing. It was coming in and assessing.
They they initially assessed all the buildings, but then they were assessing all the outdoor activities and everything. So we see the results of those things. And the one thing that he said as far as, you know, what the most important thing he said is investing in people. He said that's what makes a difference. He said, you know, you can have all of the all the barriers you want, all the metal detectors. He said it's the people that make the difference, and it's the relationships. And so, you know, these funds are supporting people in every building in the district.
They're supporting trained people in our high schools. High school students are more I don't know. Need more support maybe in that level. You know? But, so, really, I think it's important to maintain these funds to support the people. And the funds that we have really we should have more. I mean, we should not only be asking for these funds, but we should be asking for more funds as far as as that. It's it's like it's it's to take something away is not reasonable, and we should
be really lobbying for more funds for safety. Great point. Yes. It's it's really a shame that our state has put us in this position where we have to decide between the safety of our staff and students and the mental health supports that we have in place physical safety as well as the the, the mental health supports that we have in place as you were describing, and our legal
rights. That's that's really unfair that the state would put us in this position. I'm impressed, not surprised, but impressed with our commitment as a board to the safety, the physical safety and mental health of our school community. And our you know, while we would not welcome waiving our legal rights to, Attorney
client. To attorney client. For every village. Yes. Thank you. We are we we all are consistently on board with doing everything we can for the physical and mental health safety of our students and staff. Did you have some I wanted to ask, but I also have to take into consideration. Unfortunately, I wasn't available here today. So if it's an offline conversation, I'm told No. This is important. So if you we can we can we can walk through. What do you have question on? So my question is, what are the ramifications of giving up the right to attorney
client privilege? What are the ramifications of that? That's a really good question. So, I mentioned earlier today that I was on a call with, four presidents from across the state, maybe a week or two ago. Earlier today, mister Rosinto, missus Heinrich, myself, was anybody else on that MASB call? MASB hosted Michigan Association of School Boards hosted a call, and there were over a 125 people on the call from around the state along with MASB's attorney and other
MASB professionals who just talked through the, implications of this. And, what they talked about with respect to privilege was well, there are lots of issues associated with this bill. The the biggest one is is privilege in the sense that, when you strip away privilege, you, it's not that the district doesn't want to be forthcoming with information, but it could likely put our staff in a position where they don't want to cooperate
with an investigation. It puts staff in a position where in order to if we waive our privileges, the district waives its privileges, that doesn't mean that individuals waive theirs, but they'd have to hire their own attorneys. So, all of our staff, if they wanted to, you know, retain their own privilege, they would have to take on the responsibility of hiring their own attorneys. Otherwise they're waiving their privilege too. There was some suggestion about a potential raise or increase in the number of lawsuits
because you could have I mean, there was a discussion about ambulance chasers looking for opportunities. And where there is a waiver of privilege, There's, you know, potentially more access to information perhaps, that would otherwise be subject to, attorney client privilege. There could be more information that would otherwise be, held private for student information or staff information. Whereas, you know, you you kinda waive your rights and by extension, some of our
employee rights or staff rights to privacy or our student rights to privacy. The the attorney client privilege is, you know, just, a a right that, you know, it it and it feels, uncomfortable to sort of start sliding down this slippery slope. There's also some discussion about, okay. Well, what's next? Are is all funding gonna be tied to some Other. You know, other carrot or whip or, you know, it it just didn't it didn't feel right.
So that's the attorney client piece. There are also some other pieces around just ambiguity around the language that people are just not comfortable with. So if you accept this funding as an example, is it for all issues in perpetuity? Is it for just this first year? Is it the second year? If you're investing it, some people are investing it in staff, but some people may be investing it in, you know, objects. And so if that object was purchased with these funds, then does that mean that
for the next five, ten years, anything associated with that becomes the subject of investigation? There are some questions around what what is what is really defined as a mass event. Is it you know, it's it's not just school shootings, as you know. It's accidents, car accidents, bus accidents, you know, an unfortunate incident where bleachers breakdown or fall or, you know, just all kind of stuff. So that's the anxiety around it. And then initially, I think where we were all concerned was there was some discussion
about whether our staff would be giving up their governmental immunity. We found out that that's not the case, but that was also certainly high on the list of concerns. And so that that's that's what's currently, at question. But at the same time, and I think I want to give credit to Mrs. Heinrich because I heard her say this earlier. And I think we all agree that, no one is interested in hiding anything. You know, we're here for students. We're not here to, you know, protect any wrongdoing.
But at the same time, it it it would never feel right to me to have to sign a peep piece of paper to say I'm giving up my rights. Just period. Like, just they're just principally that doesn't feel good or right. There's some major issues for me around the the access to that kind of level of information because we're at at the core of it. We're talking about data. And that kind of data, that kind of information can be utilized in all kinds of even worse ways if if given that level of transparency, that part.
And then some of the other ambiguity that you just mentioned is because I have one other question regarding the funds that support safety and supports, social emotional. This 2,000,000 that we're talking about, is that a part of funds that we've been getting prior to? So if we don't do this all of a sudden, we no longer have those funds? Correct. That's correct. And so, you know, again, it depends on what you're using it for, which was a really good question that missus Heinrich raised earlier. What is the district currently using it for?
If we had been using it on one time things that, you know, that we don't have a plan for in the future, it's still a loss, but it wouldn't be as it is in this case, an evaluation would have to be conducted about how we pay for what we're currently using these funds for. We'd either have to eliminate what we're doing because it's resources or we'd have to figure out how to pay for it out of the general fund. Missus Heinrich. Yeah. And and just, just in response to some of mister Walker's questions, because some of
the things that they highlighted at the at the information system So our session today. So really the, the thing that they're talking about is in the event of a mass casualty, which is not clearly defined. I mean, it's like more than three is a vague description of injuries. So that's not clearly defined. It would require allowing an outside investigation to come in an independent investigation, in my opinion. I mean, we're here for the children, for the students.
Heaven forbid there should be some accident, but, it's not about protecting ourselves. It's about protecting the children. And so that's, you know, that's my perspective that I'm looking at. And so I would welcome an independent investigation. But it's just the fact that, it's setting the precedents, which some people in districts are having a problem with, is setting the precedents of requiring that in tied to
the funding. Setting and so it's a waiver of attorney client privilege. And so they said that we would be able to go into closed session, but the things that we could discuss in closed session, that doesn't have to do with attorney client privilege, would be to discuss future threats to students. We could go into closed session to discuss that. We could go into closed session to discuss litigation strategies. And so, you know, it's kind of vague what attorney client privilege is.
If there were any teachers that were under scrutiny or under investigation, then they would have to hire rather than using the school district attorneys, they would have to hire their own private attorneys to maintain their attorney client privilege. And so that's that's what that was, up to. So some school districts, some of the bigger school districts that have a big fund balance are saying, well, we can afford the $2,000,000 to take it out of our
fund balance because we didn't we're concerned about opening the door for future funding and having things tied to it. And that's why there are these injunctions that are going on. The attorney, I mean, we we don't have to if if doctor Coffin we could say we don't wanna take the money, and she could go ahead and sign it
and take the money anyway without our things. But if she did that, then she's saying the waiver, she just wouldn't have our support. So what we really wanna do is give her direction, you know, that we would be supporting her to sign this waiver because we think that this money is important. But on the other hand, we want to send the message that, you know, the injunctions are going on and hopefully that courts will take care of the process. So it'll be a moot point, by the time this comes around.
So the the thing that we're asked to balance is I I don't think anybody wants to say safety isn't important. And More mental health. Yeah. And $2,000,000 is a lot of money, to throw away, because it's really if we don't take the 2,000,000, then it it takes away from other things that our district resources are going to support students. And so and so that's the question. So the question is, you know, are we willing to take that risk to sign
the waiver and say student safety is more important, and put our own needs second and put students first. And hopefully the courts and, our legal team is doing the thing to fight this in the courts because we don't wanna set this precedence. And if they do call it illegal or if they do say it's unconstitutional, then any waiver that we signed is null and void anyway.
So it wouldn't matter. And it would only go into effect if there is a mass casualty, which is not clearly defined. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to And then just add to one thing. I think, it was pointed out that the waiver is this isn't the board members. It's for the district. Right? We we are the client for the district. So we are basically signing for those in the district, not just ourselves. So Yeah. Yeah. And Massey's position is they don't like the language, but they're not making a recommendation to do it as consult to the individual boards.
They're not in it. It's it's not their lane to recommend what we do. It's it's our lane. But they're saying legally, you know, and that's what our legal counsel kind of is concerned about the language. So any anybody that speaks legal is concerned about the precedence in the language. The vagueness of it? The vagueness of it. This is a phenomenally excellent lose lose situation. Correct. One of the best ones I've ever seen in my entire life. Is this is That that our state would put us in this position.
Yeah. I don't understand. So it sounds like we're all of the same mind around, this is a pretty, pretty crappy place to be. Sort of shame on, legislators for tying funding to something like this. At the same time, I'm hearing that our, district is concerned about not having this funding and what that would mean to our district. So I need us to sort of move towards consensus on our direction.
Again, we don't have to approve everything anything today. But if we, if we have to, currently, the way things look, we need to make a decision, by our next board meeting. So, is there any additional information anyone needs to be able to make a decision around whether they would be for receiving this funding at the expense of giving up, our rights and the ambiguity associated with it or, you know, are leaning towards not
getting this funding. The other thing that I wanted to drive everybody's attention to is the recommendation from our attorneys Is if we were to accept this funding, and I wanna make sure that, mister Walker hears this too, the recommendation is that we also adopt a resolution to make it clearer, what our interpretation of the, sort of, caveats with respect to this funding are. So, you know, we define mass casualty as x.
We define timing of y. Right? So this doesn't mean that, we're expecting that we're giving up our attorney client privilege forever. It doesn't I I'm not expecting that we're, I don't infer that this means ten years. Like, we we need to define it. So they've developed, a resolution for us. I think we all saw a copy of that potential resolution. So the choices, I think, for us are accept the funding, accept, an investigation, which
I don't think anybody has an issue with, except the waiver of privilege, specific to what we're defining in our resolution. Walker, what we just said was we were going to we have two choices to make. Mhmm. We decide that we are, going we we want to continue to get this funding, which means that we will, sign off on our, rights in terms of waiving privilege. But in accordance with our attorney's recommendation, we would adopt a resolution that sort of
defines what that means for us. So one of the issues that that one of many issues people have is, like, what does it mean to give up your rights and for how long? Is it for a year, two years? Does it matter what you spent it on? Is it forever? So this resolution would sort of identify what we've, defined as, you know, parameters around those waivers. That's true. Or we don't accept the funding at all. Is there any further discussion, or is there any further information that people need to
be able to make a decision, which we'll very likely have to make at the next board meeting? Hypothetical. If it's not fair to ask this right now, I I totally understand it. But let's just say under a different set of circumstances, for whatever reason, these funds had come to a stop. What would our plan be? What will we be, and what would we have to do in order to still meet our safety and security needs and our social emotional needs if those funds were to stop? Just out of curiosity. And if that's not a fair question goes away. It is a fair question.
Something goes away. I'll answer it. Something goes away. We either have to find out how to, and we've done this before. When when we make, decisions, with contract negotiations as an example, we we didn't plan for this in our budget. It means that we have to we have to figure it out Mhmm. Within the confines of our budget. It means that something else needs to shrink. It means that maybe we our our budget for, you know, technology purchases is lower or buses is lower or, you know, other things are lower.
It probably means it it might mean, well, it probably doesn't mean that now because we just, finished a contract negotiation. But if we didn't, it might mean that we're asking for larger classroom sizes because we can pay for less teachers. Something has to happen. Or or it means we're drawing into our fund balance, and we're saying that, you know, we're comfortable with a lower fund balance Mhmm. Mister Hull and then missus Heinrich. So so question. This money already has been carved out in the state budget. Correct? Yes. Okay. So if it's not spent, what happens?
So that's a really good question too. And I think one that kinda was asked. Do you wanna answer that question? Go ahead. So it felt like if so two things. If the December 4 deadline is a real deadline and some districts decide not to use this funding, that funding, they get spread to the districts that did receive it. So let's say that we're the only district that decides to get the funding and
everyone else declines it, then our share of that becomes something more than 2,000,000. So that's answer number one. If there's an injunction and the courts provide that this is not constitutional, and as a result, no district signs on, No one gets any any funding because it expires December 31. It has to be paid out by December 31. So if no one does anything, then the funding just goes unspent.
That's my understanding of how it works. So that was a really good question, one that we we were all asking. Missus Heimer. Yeah. I mean, back when, you know, I was working when the school budgets were cut. So, you know, when when funding goes away, then librarians went away. Teacher salaries, they got half steps and salary freezes. Your school social workers and psychologists went away.
Your hall monitors went away. All the all the measures, all the people that are important for safety in our safety presentation, those are the first things to go away because you can't get rid of your teachers. You know, so it's all those other things that go away. So, you know, you really have to be careful with in saying we don't want funding. I think we should be we're trying to send the message, we're not getting enough
funding, but we want our public and our community to write your legislatures and say, stop tacking on these ridiculous Requirements. You know, criteria or these ridiculous these things attached to funding because it's funding is the issue. It's the additional things. And so do we wanna make a statement and risk putting our students' safety at
risk, or do we want to capitulate to what we feel is not acting in the best interest? And so so that's a decision that we have to make. I mean and so and so what is more important? And, you know, when you balance those things, I mean, I always have to say the kids win. We're here for the kids. And so we have to act in the best interest of the kids. And, therefore, we have to ask the adults to stop playing their adult games and
just come along on our thought as what is best for children and what is best for keeping our our our students safe. And so we're gonna go to you know, we have our legislative committee that goes to Lansing and advocates and stuff. And we go to Washington for IDA funding. So, you know, people's voices are important and, you know, the politicians are partisan. And so we have people in our school district on both sides of the aisle.
So use your voices and say, put the kids first and stop. So it feels like, you know, we got something heavy to kinda think through, and, we're not going to come to consensus on that tonight. But I do ask that you give this some really heavy thought. And in the meantime, you know, we can talk to our own legislators and make sure that our voices are heard. But I I I I, yeah, I'm torn. I I tend to agree, though. And and when making a decision for me, you know, we have I I have
to put kids first. Yeah. So can can I ask a question? What do you think? So Mister Hill. Oh, sorry. Mister Hill? Yeah. So I have a I don't know. I don't know if this is appropriate or not, but I'm thinking, who would even work or get hired with those strings attached? You know, if if you were responsible if if you're responsible for all that things that you can't control and don't have any kind of protections, then it will even
even we do have the the, the funds for that. Who's gonna what kind of quality of of of employee or a professional that was so put themselves in that position. I I that's a great question. I think on a on a regular basis, we are making it tougher and tougher and tougher to be working in education. It all people who deal with children, it feels like we're showing them we value them less and less. Absolutely. A 100%. It's it's it's it's really, really startling.
That's what this is. This is another assault on public school and public education, plain and simple. Between this and what we discussed before, these are some of the most divisive concepts, laws, issues, bills, whatever you wish to call them. It's all about being divisive. It's all about power play. And it's at some point along the way, follow the money because it's someone who's going to have their pockets lined with this. Anytime you force an individual for something like this on a district, where you have to choose principle versus dollars, you're choosing both sides of this impact students.
One just potentially impacts students far sooner, earlier than potentially the other. So we can't play games around whether or not this impacts students and or staff. We're gonna impact them one way or another. And that's a crosshairs that they placed us in. And I'm using that particular term specifically. This is this is utterly ridiculous, and I wanna be very clear that the emotional tone that you hear from me is not an endorsement or, for the Mhmm.
The other side. I am hugely concerned about safety and security, which is why I'm so vehemently upset with this position that we find ourselves in. I don't want anybody to think that I don't want our students to be safe or secure physically or mentally. It's just another, it's, it's politicizing funding, and and I'm I'm getting really tired. Everything being political. I could we just focus on kids? Yes, missus Haines. One question I wish somebody would have asked Brad when asked.
I thought I'm asking Mhmm. Lawyer. It's like, how did this get tacked on to this funding? And who's responsible for this? And who should we be lobbying or talking to and saying, why are you doing this and it's wrong? And, you know, Angie, you have friends and land sales, so maybe you can find that out. It's like, how how did this get originated? Well, then I'm going to make some calls. Because no one has an issue with an investigation. That's not the that's not the issue here at all. Oh, I'm with the But all of the extra stuff that's being tacked on to
it with waiving privilege and Right. In perpetuity and the definition of a mass casualty event is like, what what are what are we doing? Yeah. I I Exactly. Because I'm looking into that right now because I'm just make this make sense. When did this become corporate? We're here for children. We are not here for I mean, we are here for the betterment. We were all elected to govern a school district.
We are not working on cars. We are not making MacBooks. I mean, we do purchase vans. But at the end of the day, these are our babies, our children. So I'm I'm I'm, I'm I'm making some phone calls in the morning on that and the other, partisan thing. Okay. Was what you said. Thank you. Oh, absolutely. Oh, thank you so much. We're gonna put a pin in this one, and we're gonna move on to our next topic.
But just know that next week, we likely will have to make a decision. And I'll keep everybody in the loop on what I find out. Thank you. And I think there is a a resource page for 31 a a that Massey has. I think I can send that out and other things that have all this information. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. We can tag team one on this. Mister Walker, do you wanna take us through the policies? Yes. So we have several policies that are up for first reading. You'll find them obviously in your board packet for the purposes of tonight and not
to belabor this any further than it needs to be. This is information that is available to the public. What I would like to do is just kind of as efficiently as possible and as clearly as possible, just highlight what their recommendations are for the purposes of our discussion, and then pending the discussion, move these four action items at our next meeting. So if we begin with if you're looking, wonderful technology, It's a beautiful thing.
We're looking at policy six zero zero two, safety and security, ironically. You see the current language found, over there to the left. The change in language is found there at the bottom, bottom or on the right. We've been looking at a slightly different document. Let me find the correct one for my computer purposes. There we go. Okay. Language in red really reflects the behavior threat assessment management team, and this is the language that is being added to this particular policy, that the superintendent will develop a
behavior threat assessment and management team, including duties aimed at addressing situations which may pose a threat to health, safety, and welfare of themselves or the school community pursuant to m c l three eighty, dot one thirty eight oh, 13 o eight e. Excuse me. The goal of the behavior threat assessment management team is to take appropriate preventative and or corrective measures to maintain a safe school environment, protect and support potential victims, and provide assistance as appropriate to any student or staff member being assessed.
That is the addition to this particular policy six zero zero two. Do we wanna have discussion around each one as going through them? Do you have any comments around that? Missus Henrich. Yes, ma'am. I have a question. I'm just looking at the first part where the the blue was done. And, they recommended taking out suicide intervention language. And I think the answer to that is because it's included in safety and security. But I there might be some concerns.
There's some numbers that suicide prevention is a is a big issue. And will that cause a problem in our school community by taking out that specific reference? This when we discussed this at at the committee level, we we had some conversation because this came up once before. And I believe we were concerned about that language. And in terms of the language of suicide prevention and there was correct me if I'm wrong, we're talking about potential liability being attached to that, and that's why we wanted to bring this underneath this large rebel and or or call the conversation directly.
I personally recall a discussion around the school district's role related to suicide, intervention. I I remember expressing concern about that. I think the school district certainly has a responsibility to, protect students and to ensure that we are providing a safe environment, that we are, as an example, preventing, you know, people who are not part of our school community from entering buildings, that we're
vetting people, that we're doing background checks, that we're doing all of the things that we should be doing, that we're noticing when students are behaving differently, you know, that we're doing some wellness checks, that we're doing those kinds of things. But to for me to indicate that a school has a responsibility for suicide intervention, worries me. Now, obviously, when we're made aware of something, we should be doing everything in our power to, you know, address that and, you know, inclusive of involving the family.
But if if there's something going on with the child, I hope we would know about it. But if we don't and something happens, I I don't want the school district to be blamed. No. I mean, it it's just, you know, appropriate preventive measures to maintain safe school environment, protect and support potential victims, and provide assistance as appropriate. Yeah. It it's implied. It's in there, but the specific words are not there. And I'm just wondering if there's gonna be pushback on taking that out and if
there is a reason that the attorneys recommend to taking it. I think part of that, and when you you talk about policy, you wanna there's a fine line between language being too specific and language being too general. Okay. If we start calling out and again, that fine line will move. But if we start calling out individual circumstances in, for example, this particular policy, why isn't bullying called out there? Right. Why isn't x called out? Why isn't y? So I think there has to be a degree of, positive intent, for lack of
a better term, assumed with certain aspects of policy to say if we're talking about addressing situations that may pose a threat to the health, safety, and welfare. Okay? Those are three key terms, in my opinion, that encompass any and all other elements. So that gives the superintendent and team the ability to be flexible and maneuverable with respect to that. So I I think if somebody is concerned about it, we could have that conversation with them. But I think at the end of the day, we're we're covering what they're concerned
about, and we're giving the district, excuse me, superintendent and team the flexibility to be able to maneuver however they need to. Yeah. And and I I think that is there still a week in the school that's devoted to suicide prevention? I just remember the kids. And so we'll still do that in as a district as partners on mental health? Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Alright. So we still address it in the district and take it away. Yeah. Okay. I'm good with that. No. But you bring up an a good point. So, I I would be I would not be opposed to, you know, amending this
to say I mean, it does say including duties, as an example, I would wanna say to make it clear that it's not just this. But then, you know, mister Walker's point, there's no reason to, like, list all a laundry list of all of the things that management should be, you know, addressing, you know, a threat assessment for. I mean, there's so many different, you know, trip hazards. We're gonna lay we're gonna put that into the language too. And I'm not trying to be facetious in any way, shape, or form.
But, I mean, it could get down to that granular level if we're not careful. So, again, fine language with respect to policy. We're always gonna be, you know, where's where's the line? And today, in my humble opinion, keeping it broad Okay. Works for us. I'm good. I'm good with that. Thank you. Anyone else for 6002 before we move on? No. Good. Thank you. Then moving on to revised policies 02/00/2003, education records. This is around the superintendent, developing and implementing legally compliant regulations covering the creation, maintenance,
preserve preservation, excuse me, and confidentiality of student records. The additions you see are in red, and so we're adding to this to this policy per the recommendation of, Miller Johnson. The this policy and its implementing regulations will apply to all school district staff, student, and, excuse me, school district staff, slow down, and the school district will further require that external part parties contractually affiliated with the district such as technology service vendors must
comply with this policy and the implementing regulations to the extent applicable. So it's just bringing in our third party vendors, making sure that they comply with all of our privacy measures, along the way and that the addition the, changed language in blue Those are just those are just links. They're links. Just links? Okay. Alrighty. The change link. And so that's really all we're talking about with respect to policy 2003. We're just bringing in our vendors underneath the umbrella and making sure that they comply.
Any conversation around this at all? Hearing none. Moving on to revised policy two zero zero three. Is that the same one? Nope. That takes it all the way back. I'm sorry. Policy 2002, learning and achievement. This is regarding graduation requirements. The additional language is centered around in order to graduate and receive a high school diploma from the school district, student must successfully complete all legal requirements, including coursework required by law. And then it concludes with the addition the school district will adopt administrative regulations to
implement this policy. This was, with the inclusion of certain what was it, in the committee that we were discussing, that they were talking about, the example that they Didn't we didn't wanna add additional requirements outside of what was we currently require. That's what it was. Okay. Thank you. So keeping a the language again broad so that we have the flexibility to move how we need to because there are certain things that they wanted to make regular that we're already doing. Right. And we don't wanna we don't wanna create additional barriers to graduation Right.
As opposed to let's get the kids graduated. Mhmm. Question. Would would this, have anything to do with with, with the students that are, like, in a alternative or some type of makeup program in order for them to graduate, so they're I'm thinking that No. We're we're just following the legal requirements for that as well. Yeah. Whatever the requirements are, we would be without any of that. Okay. There is no policy. If we move on to if if there's no other conversation I'm sorry. Okay. Moving on to number four, policy four zero zero three, new employee salary schedule.
There is no current policy around this. So what is being proposed for adoption, is pursuant to Michigan law, all employees must be paid pursuant to a normal salary schedule for those employees that are not a part of the collective bargaining unit with a contract that provides normal salary schedules. Normal salary schedules will be implemented by the district setting out, base pay for each job classification. Job classifications for non bargaining unit employees are to be determined by the superintendent. Salary schedules for all non bargaining unit job classifications will be presented to the board
of education prior to implementation for approval on a yearly basis. This is the policy that we're proposing or that is being proposed, excuse me, for our salary schedules. Any comments, questions, thoughts straightforward? Let's keep it. Then conditions of employment, which is another policy being proposed. We don't have any current policy around it. It's an anti moonlighting, policy. Anti moonlighting school district employees are prohibited from simultaneously working for another entity when that work conflicts with their employment for the school district.
Whether a conflict exists is within the discretion of the school district, a conflict includes, but is not limited to an overlap of timing and responsibilities, worsening of job performance, abusing school district resources, or leave of absence concurrent with employment for another entity. Moonlighting that conflicts with employment for the school district may result in discipline up to and including termination. In other words, make Farmington Public Schools your focus. That is what this policy is, basically stating. Trustee Smith. So, hypothetically, if someone works for a cruise line or, works for Disney on the
side, and that's on Internet constantly, is Is that considered gas I mean, moonlighting? I'm just give me that example. So if you work for Disney, just other entities. Mhmm. And you're posting constantly. Mhmm. You know, or you're influencer on TikTok or Facebook or what have you.
If there's probably a contribution coming in, is that considered gaslight? I mean Will it light? Why do I keep saying gaslight? Pursuing to the language You know what I'm saying. It's got a light in it, but it ain't light outside right now. But I'm just questioning Pursuing to the language, it would be left to the discretion, obviously, of the superintendent and or leadership. But I I guess the key in that is it is it interfering with the duties, responsibilities That's all I need to know. If it is, then they have an argument.
If it is That's all I Need to know. Thank you. You can have other sources of employment as long as it's not conflicting with Yeah. Your day to day responsibility. Yeah. To like, a number of teachers teach night classes at the community Right. Right. And so the moonlighting, as long as they do it at night and it doesn't interfere with their school day, then it's fine. If they run off all their class materials on the school district, copy machines, then get that policy address.
That's the problem. If they decide that they wanna teach a Monday, Wednesday class, it starts at 02:00. And so, therefore, they, you know, use their, sick days and and consistently take, you know, the last hour of the school day off on Mondays and Wednesdays for ten weeks or whatever, then that that's what this policy is talking about. Or if, you know, if if somebody wants a seasonal job at Kohl's during Christmas time, and so, you know, is this their personal days to, go work at, you
know, their seasonal jobs and get a and get a sub. That's what this is is talking about as far as the moonlighting. So you can have a you can have a summer job. You can have a night job, a weekend job. You just can't have it if it interferes with your Same time. Same time. Same time. Yeah. With your school responsibilities. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that makes sense. I wonder if it's clear here in the policy. You know? I think it is. Is, some of the examples though that you you mentioned, I think it's clear. Like, if you can't, it is, it's increasingly not unusual to have someone working two
jobs simultaneously. Oh, yeah. A lot of the younger Especially post COVID. Okay. My daughter taught college classes for years and she was starting out. I'm talking about mostly in a professional setting where, you know, folks are working from home. So, what I'm I'm trying to get at though is, if you have if I'm making this up. You're an influencer. And between classes and on breaks in the morning and the afternoon, you're posting. Is that That's what I'm referring to.
Yeah. I mean, think of that. That that's a job. That's a this one is a new job. Emerging jobs. Right? Or You're a younger generation than me, so I didn't even think about that. So that that's that's yeah. I'm not I might go to work at the age of you? Not those traditional nine to five jobs or the the not the traditional in person jobs. There are increasing numbers of, gig jobs, work from home jobs. You know, I I don't know how they get my phone number, but I'm getting those texts all the time. Are you interested in working, you know, from home for, I don't know, $1,200 a
week or whatever it is. Like, those Teacher teacher shows a movie and is posting on their website. There you go. Or or being a realtor or, you know, something that doesn't require you to be present. You can do it, you know, that that I just I don't I don't know what if you're so for example, if your your sixth grade class goes down for gym and you get in there and you're on TikTok and you getting the likes and the hats and the mustaches and you making money, that's an influencer.
So you're making money because each, so that's considered a job. It is. But again, if we go back to the language, it talks about Worsening job perform. Worsening job perform. Conflict exists when, conflict exists, within the it's certainly within the discretion of the school district and it includes, but it's not limited to, worsening of job performances, overlap of timing and responsibilities, abusing of school district resources. So let me give you an example where it's not that, but it is.
Say you have a a employee who is constantly on the phone. They're always on the phone talking to somebody about something. Okay? Is that a problem? Probably isn't the best look in the world, but if that if they're doing it while the kids are watching a movie and it's not causing a problem, we leave that to the discretion of the principal to determine is that a part of the culture that they want for their building, then they can have that conversation around that. If we leave it to anyone above the principal, you know, under those sets of circumstances.
So again, in my opinion, keeping the language in this manner allows them the flexibility to do what's necessary within their school environment to promote the kind of culture that they want to have within their school environment and still give employees some degree of freedom. Right. Right. That allows them to continue to be motivated and and to do the thing do do the work that they need to do. You know, these are different times than they were obviously ten, fifteen, twenty years ago.
But again, that discretion of the school district, is it impacting what that person is doing? If that if the principal or whomever says it is, now we get to bring into the pot we bring the policy into play and have that conversation with whatever the protocols are at that point. Yeah. And and just a reminder, as you know, there also are administrative regulations that usually are, supported that support the policy. So we can definitely check into what those would be. Exactly. Could be teachers don't use their phones in the classroom.
That takes care of that problem immediately. I think I'm good with this. Case. I'm just Yeah. I'm good with the language. I think be giving it discretion of the school district that can go on a case by case basis so they can decide, you know, the finer points, you know, disrupt disrupting. Take them away from the whole time. Then the last one, if all are in agreement to move forward. Yep. Alright. Last one is, policy 60, 14 regarding is there's no current policy for this, but this is around facilities and operation, specifically around the facility dog.
Facility dogs are dogs that are trained to work within school facilities and at school events with children with a variety of academic, social, and emotional superintendent will promulgate an administrative regulation applicable to the use of facility dogs on school district property. Yep. It's just a requirement to switch from the use of the term therapy dog to facility dog. That's all. So is you're talking about CODA? Yep. Okay. So that we have a policy now that We don't. We do have a policy and we have we have some we have admin regulations
around it, but it's required they're saying we we are required to change the name from therapy to facility. Oh, okay. So that's that's just what it was changed for all types of Yeah. So I learned a new word promulgate. Okay. That one. We'll create. Oh, great. We have we have back rags for Look at me. Alright. This was like, wow. There's a new word there. Are we good? Yeah. Okay. There you have it. So, these these items will come up for act as action items, at our next meeting. Thank you. Perfect. Okay. We have moved along to, our next, item which is public comment.
Is there anyone who wishes to make public comment, comment, comment? Is there anyone who wishes to make public comment, comment, comment? Third time. Anyone who wishes to make public comment, comment, comment. Okay. We'll move on, to action items. At the first action item and only action item is related to a school of choice. So there are, yeah, I think everyone has a motion in front of them.
Is there someone who wants to make a motion for school of choice? As a reminder, we talked about this at the last meeting. I think we had a good discussion, missus Heimer. I move that the board of education approve the school of choice SOC recommendation for the twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven school year as presented. Support. Motion made by missus Hyrek supported by mister Walker to approve the school of choice recommendations for the 2627 school year as presented. Is there any discussion? Yes. I have had conversations with people in the community, and they are concerned about the
school of choice. As we discussed the whole absenteeism, which you addressed that. But, you know, I've had the conversations that the students at the high school, maybe they're they get dropped off early, may not get picked up until five or 06:00. Elementary students, I don't know if you call it latchkey, But, being dropped off before the teachers and the last you know, by the time they're there until the last
minute before they're done. And, then the discipline thing. If we have students that have issues in our schools, we're not allowed to let them leave. They have to stay. We have to keep them. So my concerns are the discipline, kids being left until five, 06:00, and, somebody's gotta be there with them. So, and then the weather is changing, and then you have the traffic. And I, I mean, we do have our own homegrown that are doing things as
well, but I cannot, I know that miss Henry works very hard on our school of choice and everything, but I cannot pass that, for out of district school of choice. Thank you for sharing. Missus Heinrich? I would ask if if we if that was gonna be a consideration that we would have data to support those claims because, you know, kids come home and say everybody is doing it and who's everybody sort of thing.
So, you know, just to make blanket statements that the kid's staying late. I mean, my kids live in the district. And when they were in high school, I wasn't always on time to pick them up. So, you know, they weren't school choice kids. So, if if we're gonna take that into consideration, then I think that we need some data to support those claims. I I have a problem with just blanket statements. Yeah. No. I think we have some data. We actually talked about it at our last board meeting.
Attendance. We don't have data on attendance. Attendance. We do have data on discipline. And so that was one of the things that doctor Coffin, came back and shared with us because it was a question that we had. And so we did not find that there was any correlation between, our outer district students and discipline. We did not I I I don't think and I don't I don't wanna speak for you. I don't know that we have any data related to late pickups. I don't know that anybody is tracking that, especially at the high school level.
No. Not But we did a chronic absenteeism data Yes. And there was, no indication, that that was correlated with residency. K. Were there with residency. So let's say that the the chronic absenteeism rates were higher with students who lived within Farmington districts than our school district. Okay. So so yeah. So absenteeism. But did you have you do you have discipline data also? Yep. I shared that also, I think, in one of the board updates. Okay. So out of close to 300 incidents, only one was, connected to a student with
the best I ever discussed. Oh, okay. Alright. So there isn't data support those statements. Or there there's data that negates those statements, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. That that time when the board requested it, that was the data. Thank you for sharing that. Any further questions, comments, reactions? So because we had some discussion on it, I'm gonna ask for a roll call vote. Okay. No problem. Miss Smith? No. Mister Rosinto? Yes. Miss Heinrich? Yes. Mister Walker? Yes. Mister Holt? Yes. I myself am a yes this week. I'm a yes.
Thank you. So that motion passes. I really appreciate the, you know, discussion on this. Mhmm. Yep. Alright. Next, we have the consent agenda. Mister Walker. I move that the Board of Education approve the 11/18/2025 consent agenda as follows. Item a, approval of minutes for number one, 10/28/2025 regular meeting. Number two, 11/12/2025, policy board government committee meeting. Number three, 11/17/2025, finance and facility committee meeting, in addition to item b, personnel items.
Support. Motion made by mister Walker, supported by missus Smith on the consent agenda. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Like that, we have a new principal for North Farmington High School. Woo hoo. Yay. Alright. That the record show is 08:58PM. Alright. Reports from board representatives. Missus Smith? This is not a report, but I wanna thank, the community. I ran a really hard race. The results came out. As everybody know, I'm four eleven. But after all the walking, I am now three nine or maybe three eight.
Thank you for all the support. Miss Heinrich was always my cheerleader. How's it going? What's going on? But I thank everyone for all the support. Everybody keeps calling and saying, are you okay? Are you okay? Yeah. I'm okay. But I chose to stay. At one point, I was reluctant because, you know, when you hold this position, you are beat from the top to the bottom. And you can be used, by community members, staff members, because people don't wanna hear
the word no. And if you say no, then all of a sudden, you're not that friend. But, I had some some discussions, and, everybody knows I'm a fighter. But I wanna thank Clark Doty for saying that he would step step up if I decided because you all did this great appointment thing. We've got a great guy sitting here, and Clark Doty would have been great. But three years ago, the people decided who they wanted to sit in this seat.
They wanted Angie Smith, and they wanted Terry Weems, and I think it was Donald Walker. They spoke, and they spoke loudly. I'm not a quitter. Tonight, I did get a little emotional, because it's things like that, those comments that were made, about students and their sexual orientation. It is not a secret. I do have a daughter that's gay. But those are those comments that make you wanna leave. They make you wanna leave this district, and not wanna do anything else.
Three years ago, this community decided to vote for me, Terry, and Donald, and I can't walk away from that. It's selfish for people to ask me to stay, but it would be selfish for me to leave. Because if I have other higher expectations and aspirations, walking away from all of you in this community, then I wouldn't have the people come back and say, well, why would I vote for her again? No. I didn't get beat. I didn't get spanked. I just got a oh oh because it was assumed that I would win.
I have a opportunity to stay. I have a opportunity to leave. But I chose to stay and continue the work with this board, especially after the last two big conversations that have kept us here till 09:00. I have that relationship with, state reps, senators, and congress on both sides of the aisle. And I wanna have those conversations to help my colleagues here. So thank you again. Thank you for all the love and support. I will be staying, and I will be continuing to do the work that we
do here. You know, while I was walking, I had somebody tell me, you're not nice. I'm not a Walmart greeter. I'm a board member. I am here to serve and protect the students and be 10 toes down for this district and this superintendent and my board. So thank you. Sure. Point of privilege. I don't think it's a secret that I've been working on my, doctorate thus far. And after the last two months, tonight, at roughly 06:40 this evening, I passed my
oral examination. So I'm officially out of touch. The tears were flowing. Part of the reason why it took me so long, I had to fix my face. Oh. There's a lot more work to be done. Still have to do, my defense of my perspectives and eventually, finish, you know, do my writing and and defend officially. But to get to that particular milestone, I've been told there's no small achievement. No, sir. And, I I'm thankful to all who have supported me and dropped any encouraging word in my direction. And, I wanna publicly say thank you to Tara Walker, my wife, who just stood
10 toes down with me throughout all of this thus far and put up with me being just ridiculous over the last couple of days when I couldn't sleep and pacing all over the house. So thank you for that. Wow. No problem. Congratulations. Thank you. Wonderful. Mazel tov. Well, I I think on that note, we're adjourned. That's that's a good one. Thank you. Yes. Oh my goodness.