I'm pretty sure. And uh President Williams. I am here. Wonderful. Thank you. We have a quorum. May we now stand for the pledge? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of
America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. We will now uh entertain a motion to approve the agenda.
Mrs. Smith? I move that the Board of Education approve the May 19th, 2026 regular meeting agenda as presented. Support. Motion made by Trustee Smith, supported by Trustee I'm doing it now.
>> [laughter] >> What's going on? Walker. >> Walker. What what is in these bunny cheeks? We should have a retreat and get to know each other. >> [laughter] >> Motion made by Trustee Smith, supported by Trustee Walker to approve the agenda.
Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Any opposed? Any abstentions? That motion passes. All right. Clearly some of the adults are getting senioritis, too. >> [laughter] >> Uh we apologize.
Um I do want to acknowledge uh a belated birthday uh for Trustee Hall. Happy birthday. >> [applause] >> It's a big one. Big 3-0. Big 3-0. >> Oh, yes. Uh happy early birthday to me as well.
I'm younger than you. All right. >> [laughter] >> 21. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um earlier today, congratulations to all of the retirees. We were able to um uh have a retirement celebration just a
short while ago for 20 of our many uh retirees, and I was really impressed is probably the right word um when I heard about all of the recognitions that our teachers and staff
have had over the years, um the impact that they've had on students, uh the uh impact on families, uh the changes that they've made to lives. Um I'm just really floored by that. I'm impressed by that, and I'm also saddened
for us because we're losing five, in some cases, 25, 30, 40 years, in some cases, of experience. Um and in an environment, you know, like uh we are in right now with education,
um that startles me. Um I am very, very happy for those who are retiring, and uh I'm I'm sure they have well-deserved uh retirement plans, uh but for us, I am saddened uh because we are uh really
losing some great, great people. Really wonderful people. Uh uh I will move on uh to student round table. We had a really good discussion with the student round table today, earlier today. Uh I learned more about their goal setting. These are some incredible young
people. They have lots of interest in being involved in letting us know what they're thinking. Um they talked a lot about mental health and their goals around that. They celebrated each other and all of the spring sports. Many are going on to states and they voted for officers for
the next year. Speaking of seniors, I want to congratulate seniors and parents of seniors. Many of us, three of us. >> [laughter] >> I'm Yes, I I have a senior. Oh, yes, I do. Uh along with trustees Resendez and
Hall, we're super busy with award ceremonies and planning and prom and senior all-night parties and graduations and open houses. Uh it is a very bittersweet time. A special shout-out to parent volunteers. Uh you matter. Thank you for all that
you do. I want to not embarrass anyone, but I do want to recognize trustee Resendez for all of the volunteering that he's doing around all of the areas and uh especially with the senior all-night party and driving around the city like nonstop. That's Especially with the price of gas, man. Appreciate
you. >> [laughter] >> Uh and again, graduates, congratulations to you. I look forward to celebrating you. Um this year we've got many students receiving scholarships. I'm pretty pleased to announce that we had so many
uh scholarship applications for the Weems scholarship that we reached down a little bit more into our pocket and we're going to give out three scholarships this year instead of two. Uh it was just very, very, very hard to decide. Uh I want to shout-out to the AKAs of Farmington. They had a really nice event
uh where they um collected prom dresses and offered to our students the opportunity to come and pick out a prom dress for free. And I want to thank some of the community members uh who donated. uh One was on our way rushing out out of town. Julie dropped
some stuff off at my house and I was able to deliver it to the event. It was so nice to see the young people actually find dresses that suited them that they liked, they loved and and now they have a wonderful opportunity to look forward to. So thank you for that.
I was able to attend the Pretty Brown Girl end of the year celebration and I loved love love talking to these young people, third graders, fifth graders. I I appreciate sharing my own story about not feeling pretty, not feeling confident or noticed and the importance
of self-awareness and confidence and making good choices and aligning with positive influences. Mrs. Smith was also in attendance at that event and I also wanted to thank Sherry Crowley who started that organization who lives here in Farmington Hills and has been really
really supportive of all of our girls. Very diverse group of girls. It was a really well done, really well done. Thank you to my colleagues who attended the Gala Awards. I think many of you were in attendance for that. Mrs. Heinrich, Mrs. Smith, Mr.
Couple of you were at the Gala Awards last week, right? Another wonderful event. We had our retreat, our board retreat last week and yes, the Saturday before Mother's Day. Yay, full day. We enjoyed it.
And great theme songs. >> Yes, yes. So we had theme music. Kelly and Sherry or Dr. Coffin and um Trustee Blau had some really sweet music. It was very sweet music. You got
the sweet award. Mrs. Scriptures was really nice. Um mine was the funniest, I think. No, I take that back. I think Trustee Heinrich's husband's suggestion for her was actually the funniest. Uh Ryan was spot on. Uh Andrew was spot
on. Um but yes, Donald took the cake. Yes, he did. Very timely and well-themed by man. It was great. Uh we talked a little bit about succession planning. A really, really good conversation on data. Uh we reviewed the district's dashboard, which
is what we're going to do today uh as part of one of the discussion items. And uh I'm also really happy about the proposed enhancements to the dashboard. Thank you to everyone who worked on that. Uh we had a real good conversation about the disconnect that
exists between my school data and the aggregation and averaging that's going on in our community and the data that we look at that is at a much more disaggregated level that's really meant to inform decision-making. I appreciate that we were able to
reconcile some of those differences. Going forward, I think it's going to be very important to help our community understand what we're looking at, uh what we're reviewing, and how all of that information informs us, and how it's connected to the information that they're reviewing at a
uh at a higher level, and um what the impact of that aggregation is doing. We also had some real conversations around growth. Growth is happening, and it is happening at an accelerated level, meaning more than 1 year of growth, which is really great. We see it in our
NWEA scores, but it's not translating into proficiency, which is what our community is looking for. Um so we appreciate that we've got, you know, more work to do there. Um we also spent a lot of time talking about discipline. And I want to acknowledge that the board
has received and been notified of a number of behavioral issues that I'm not um normalizing this at all, but I am saying that that is, in my experience, common in the spring. Um um, that we have a little bit of restlessness, um,
in the spring. I am also acknowledging though that it is at a much higher level, uh, in these past few years than it has been, uh, prior to COVID. And I think that is a national trend and a national phenomenon. Not unique to Farmington, uh, certainly
across the country. Uh, it it I I I do want to make mention though because I I have concern for our students who want to learn. I have concern for our parents. I have concern for our teachers
who are, um, I frankly, you know, sometimes they're suffering abuse here. And um I'm talking at the elementary school level, first graders. That that, you know, um, hospital visits. This is not This is not good.
Um, we've been talking as a board about reviewing our student positive behavioral framework for a while. Um, that's been on my heart and I want to acknowledge the work of the policy committee in reviewing and highlighting areas that we had concerns about, um,
things that we noticed where there were some inconsistencies. And I want to thank the district for resolving some of those inconsistencies. We noticed as an example that the response for the same incident was different at the elementary school level as it was at the secondary level. And so, uh, thank you to Allison
Robinson for helping to make some of those consequences more clear and, um, more consistent. Uh, but I believe that we need to have more real conversations about how we, uh, protect our school community,
um, ensure that our students feel safe, ensure that our teachers feel safe, um, and I want to think through, um, how we do that through policy. I- If If we can do that through policy or if this is through execution of policy, I'm not sure, but I think it's definitely
worth a conversation with the adults. And so, um, I know that this has sat in policy, but policy is huge and it has a lot of work to do naturally. And so, when we get to our next retreat and start talking through our plans for the next year, I will be raising, just so
that no one's surprised, the the thoughts around how we might do this, whether we need to form a separate committee or look at this a little bit differently and and maybe even how we engage our communities in in in doing that. I think having some conversations with the PTAs might be good, leveraging
the parent ambassador network a bit differently, which also met last week. I forgot to mention. But, you know, not to pontificate too much here, but that's been on my heart and I know you guys have been reading some of the emails and and my calls and briefs to
you as well. So, our staff needs support. I know that they need help in de-escalation and I know that things are a lot different than they were 10, 20, 30 years ago. And so, I want to open the door for real
conversations on this topic and also understand what resources the district needs to address this, which is all the more reason for me to, you know, begin to understand where we might be able to leverage additional dollars to support
our students and our staff through this. With that, I think that ends my announcements. We will now move on to public comment. This is the first public comment period. There are two. I think I see three or four public comment cards.
As a reminder, you have 3 [clears throat] minutes for public comment. I'm going to list your name. Excuse me. And then ask you to come to the podium. Please direct your comments to the board rather than the audience. If your comment specifies an individual, please give
some consideration as to whether you might not name individuals where anonymity would be more appropriate. With that, the first person that I'm going to call up is Eugene Greenstein. Followed by Ian Gibbons. Good evening and happy birthday, belated
or to come. Thank you. And I'm sure you were always pretty tearing. Stop. >> [laughter] >> Okay. Good evening. 10 days ago I sent the board and the administration a copy of the recently published article inside
the Mississippi marathon by Rachel Canter. She was [snorts] a key player in the development of the Mississippi miracle over the last 20 years, so her comments are well worth your time. And I think a lot of the ideas in there, uh, we can benefit from.
Um, previously I sent you information on the Steubenville, Ohio, amazing literacy and numeracy performance. In both cases, testing and remediation were key factors. Few students are held back at third grade in Mississippi because of the testing regime and tutoring intervention
that's done up front, even though a lot of people are terrified of that idea. Um, but they make sure people pass. Um, so now it's budget time, and just like a strategic plan, the budget is also a strategic plan for the coming year.
Everything costs money. Be it tutors, tests, books, you name it. The public should know what it's costing to remediate literacy and numeracy, or do it right the first time as if you will, and it should be a line item or several in the budget, so everyone
knows, here's what we're doing, because we are doing something, right? Um, we also have a millage coming. How will it be spent? Thank you, and I apologize I won't be able to stick around to hear the the data. I have another meeting to go to, but I'm sure
I'll watch the video. Thank you. Uh, next we have Ian Gibbons, followed by Eugene uh, I'm sorry. Ian Gibbons, followed by Bill Loveway. Good evening. I have a little bit of a script today, but I'm here as both a hackbot and a
student. So, I'd like to thank you as the board for your continue for your continued understanding of what it means to be an outstanding educational institution. I've been in this district for 12 years of in which I've seen it grow with me and my peers. In everything that I've seen, you've been there.
You've been helping our students in any way that you can. Additions beyond the classroom can have exceptional value in educating students, and to say otherwise shows a fundamental lack of understanding of education. Nearly every child will discover who they want to be during their time in school, and it's the fulfilled responsibility of the district to give
students opportunities to explore activities that interest them. I attended Farmington STEAM Academy during my years in middle school. I remember in sixth grade, I was given a challenge to design a puzzle in a 3D modeling software called Onshape. I was so frustrated with this. I wasn't learning it very fast, and it was difficult to manage the changing
perspective. I later would abandon Onshape for the time, but it introduced me to the makerspace at STEAM, and I started going by during lunches and looking around. My English teacher was quick to notice this, and encouraged me to start getting interested in engineering and design,
and that's why I became set on becoming an engineer. I would later return to Onshape, and it's become a valuable tool to me. And these are all skills that are not shown in any state data or any data that you'd see. This are These are
opportunities that were provided to me by the school district that are outside of our classroom and are outside of traditional learning methods. Um and that's why and every student has something like that. Every kid in
robotics or HOSA or DECA or football or anything like that has a why. They have a passion they pursue outside the classroom and it's great that I that everything that you guys do is there to meet them wherever they might be. The athletic field works
are important and they help students that maybe are not focused on just one set of school. The half field going into our STEM facility is amazing. It's going to help future engineers on the hackbots for years to come. These are all things that I love that you do and they're
outside the classroom but they directly help the education of our students. Thank you. Thank you. Uh we have Bill Loveway followed by Adelaide Hawkins and it is Adelaide
Hawkins is the last uh comment card that I have so if anyone else wants to um do public comment, please fill out a card. Mr. Loveway. Good afternoon. Uh I'd like to speak first about the budget. Uh I see where
we got a notice or you posted a notice online that the budget detail would be posted after May 28th. That's Thursday the 28th before a Memorial Day weekend. Is that really going to be a budget?
What kind of notice is that? You're going to review it on June 2nd, the day after Memorial Day weekend. Um it isn't going to be a 5-minute hearing like it was last year. I plan to put together my comments ahead
of time before I even see the budget and I expect to see some answers. One of my big areas and Jean's area of concern and [snorts] uh Shawn Black's area of concern is the quality of our education. What's our literacy score?
How good is our literacy? What are we doing to improve it? We know it's not good. We are an F in terms of literacy. Now, what's the problem? We're coming up the budget. Your budget didn't have and
it won't have this year anything that describes what you're doing to improve literacy. It's a lousy checkbook is what it is. Here's your receipts, here's your expenditures, but there's no quality.
Uh Hugh talked about it. I'm going to be talking about it and we're going to see quality. Um I think also since uh the uh 1 and 1/2 mills are on the ballot April
No April. Uh August 4th. We ought to have a budget to how you're going to spend that 7 million bucks. That's such a railroad job. It's bound to pass and I can't believe that you'd have 7 million bucks of untethered money
money to spend uh without telling us what it's about. And whether it's going to improve our education. Are you going to put buses in there or something? Uh we also you have a bond issue coming up. Uh when is that information going to be
available? Uh is that you're going to be looking at it next meeting? When do we get the data on it? Uh that's a lot unfair to come to your public with major expenditures
and not tell anybody what it is about. You don't listen to us. You don't plan to listen to us and your timetable just demonstrates that. And while I have a few seconds, Kelly, I went to a meeting the other night
and uh they had a nice schedule that showed all of the details on the 1 and 1/2 mils, how much you paid, how much we got back. It was every school district. I'd like to see a copy of that. You must have gotten a copy of that with a notice from
Oakland schools. Thank you for that. Um the next person is Adelaide Hawkins. And And while you're coming up, I just wanted to make um one correction. I'm not going to respond everything, but next uh the
Memorial Weekend is not after the 28th. Memorial Weekend is this weekend. Uh the 28th is next week after Memorial Day, just so that you're aware. Thank you. Okay. Um hello, my name is Adelaide Hawkins. I'm a junior at North
and I'm the president of my school's art club. I started it in February and I was invited by Ms. Lao to share some information about it. So, I started this club because I wanted to help make learning about art and also the experience of making it more accessible
to students, whether they haven't had that many opportunities or they have and they want more. Um also, a lot of students at North, including me and my classmates, we might not have time with other classes and stuff to take art classes, especially when there's other interests in life,
maybe for college, but you still have a passion for art. Um moreover, the extension of the art room space allows kids to create personal works, which can be used to help build scholastic art um experience or
uh opportunities. And it's great if you want to make a portfolio or apply for scholarships with your art. Um and we also have Mr. Goodrum, which is our He's our teacher that helps run the club with us and he's also really great advisor for stuff like opportunities that are out
there, as well as individual art, advice, but overall it's a great outlet for students to use according to their needs and goals and it's really nice community to have after school. In our meetings, me and my like vice presidents, which are kind of like our
club's board, we plan out an arts and crafts project and we gather supplies and we make social media posts and slideshows for these meetings. So far we've done paper mache, painting, and origami and a few other things, but today we collaborated with our school's
photography club and we created multimedia pieces of some of the photos that they took for their for the month of May as well as a few other subjects were created and I believe Miss Val showed some of you guys some of the paintings that we I brought
and that was today. Then going forward we're trying to develop a community service program or a project I mean in order to help make art materials more accessible where they may not be as readily available. Um we're still working on that, but that was about all I had to share. If there's any
questions. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. Thank you. Is there any further public comment? Any further public comment? Seeing none, we're going to close public comment. I'd like to make a couple
comments. First of all, thank you to the students who come and speak to us. We really appreciate hearing from young people first hand about what interests you, what's going well, and what's not going well. So thank you very much for that. Um second, I wanted to make sure should
I give these back to you? Did everyone get a chance Mhm. Yes. Excellent. Um I want to make sure that our public understands what is being asked or what is potentially going on a ballot
with respect to either or both a millage or a bond. All of that information is on our website. We've also had a number of meetings. I think we held three different meetings on three different dates at various times and we had one
virtual to make sure that it was accessible to as many people as possible. I'm sure that that level of communication is not going to change. We'll continue to do that as we hear from our community questions, really good questions will will address those
and answer those as as often as we can. So thank you for your feedback. I also wanted to make a special announcement about Trustee Walker's birthday. >> [laughter] >> He's another May baby that I missed.
May's the best by the way. I'm just I'm sorry. So I have the microphone, you do not. May is the best. >> [laughter] >> With that maybe we'll get back to professionalism here and get to uh We'll move on to the legislative update.
I don't have some of the secretary. Yeah, we'll go back to that. She's in the audience. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah, just a few quick things um from the the capital on the budget. They have completed the consensus review
estimating conference which is sort of fiscal folks from all the different departments and the treasury get together and they kind of start proposing a budget. That week they can work off of to finalize a budget. There's some numbers that are are
floating around but the main emphasis is that it does get a little bit closer to hopefully finalizing budget as is required by law and so that is one thing. The house
committee did approve an extra day of forgiveness for folks that were impacted by emergencies whether it be floods up north and also the water main break in some of our surrounding school districts so they have some forgiveness there. Um and then
tomorrow morning at tomorrow morning through the afternoon is the behind the scenes at the state capital which I will be attending and I will thank thankfully be able to bring back the board some from news from there will be the agenda is filled with meetings
with legislators learning about more about the the process legislative process but also the budget process as well as meeting with folks from MASB. So I'll be there I think Dr. Coffin will be there too so. And I'll bring back a full
report at the next board meeting. Very good. Thank you. Yes. Question or comment to ask when you when you attend I know that between the Senate and Governor Whitmer there's been some specific call outs as it relates to STEM budgeting but the
house has just dropped this one large lump sum and expecting districts to have local control but I'm still not hearing what that definition is. >> Okay. If if you can >> Yep. maybe ask about that or see if they can get start to get some language about what do they mean by that or do they ever
is there the possibility that they might have some more specificity around how they would like that to be spent? >> Definitely. I have I have a question. Do you have any more information on the federal budget as far as title funding and No there is a meeting tomorrow regarding federal budget so I'll be able to get an
update on that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. We're going to go back to the secretary's report. Uh the board received the following communications the Farmington High School IB Castle newsletter the May edition the power to make change student
showcase invitation the feedback from the May 5th 2026 Board of Education meeting, a response um email to feedback from the May 5th 2026 Board of Education meeting, a USPS letter regarding candidates for
school board, and a response to the Mississippi Marathon report of April 2026 by Rachel Canter. The Board acknowledges all communications and responds as appropriate. A list of correspondence is included in the board packet, which is available on the
Farmington Public Schools Thank you. Uh let's move on to district updates. All right, thank you, President Weems. >> [clears throat] >> Well, it certainly has been a few action-packed weeks here since we last met, and you heard a little bit of that
in uh President Weems' update. Um and I have some additional exciting exciting news to share from around the district. >> [clears throat] >> Before I dive into those though, I do want to again also take a moment to recognize our incredible retirees who we celebrated just prior to this meeting.
What an amazing group of educators. Uh they have truly been part of the fabric of this district, and I personally will be forever grateful for their incredible service to our students and families. Uh we wish them, of course, all the best on their next chapters. Maybe a little bit
jealous of some of them. Um we had a wonderful turnout uh for our second annual community showcase. It was so inspiring to see our schools and our communities come together and highlight the incredible learning that was hap that's happening
in our classrooms. It also was a great opportunity to connect with our local business partners, um who continue to be a tremendous support to our district. Uh speaking of community engagement, uh President Weems mentioned as well that we had our final parent ambassador
network meeting for this school year. Uh this was to continue gathering feedback for our uh future programming needs, again which is a critical piece of our ongoing 10-year capital planning work. I'm so appreciative of the parents who
came who come after working hours, stay late with us, and lend their voices, and be part of this long-term vision. We also had some incredible opportunities to showcase our district's innovative work at the state level. Farmington High School Principal Chris
Musner and I recently traveled to Lansing. We were represented at the Future of Learning Council in Michigan Virtual Summit. Chris did an amazing job sharing the information on our fresh freshman cohort initiative at FHS, highlighting how our
high school planning continues to focus heavily on ensuring access and opportunity for all of our learners. Additionally, we were able to host a group of educators from across the state who came here specifically to visit classrooms to see our team-based staffing models in action.
This work is supported by the Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative, which is part of a larger statewide effort to build on the powerful educator talent work educator talent network happening right here in Michigan. The data supporting this team-based base
approach is incredibly compelling. Research looking at over 40 schools representing around 27,000 students shows that teachers who work in teams are not are significantly more likely to stay in their districts compared to
their non-teamed colleagues. Even more impressive, early career teacher turnover rates are 13 percentage points lower than for those who are for part of a team than those who are not. Beyond supporting our staff, this
directly impacts our kids. Students learning in these team-based models make 1.4 more months of reading growth than students educated in traditional classrooms. It It exciting to see that FPS is leading the way here in Michigan and
strategies that not only support student success but also our teacher retention. Looking ahead to this week as trustee Resendo mentioned, looking forward to going [clears throat] to the capital as part of the advocacy work with MASB.
And later in the afternoon, we will be hosting our authentic learning showcase. This is an event that celebrates our educators and the the hard work they put in the school year to expand the learning experience for all of our students. Moving beyond basic information
and acquisition to true meaning making and the ability to transfer knowledge to a new context. This is a free event. Everyone is welcome to attend. This takes place as I mentioned on Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. at the J Detroit Community Center.
Everyone's welcome to come and learn about the incredible work. I know in the past I I truly appreciated our the council members coming, just really supporting our educators and seeing the great work that's happening. And we hope to see everyone there.
Next as part of the district update, I would like to share an update on our school safety and security. The district as part of our ongoing work in this area will be bringing the Raptor safety suite to our school buildings beginning in the 2026-2027
school year. As the board remembers, there was a decision to accept the 31A funds from the state and that's what makes the security initiative possible for our district. During our recent internal safety reviews, we identified a few areas that
still needed some attention. Specifically, that our emergency communication system is still very dependent on traditional phone calls, which can cause delays. We also realized that we needed a a robust way to screen our visitors who
are coming into our school and the ability for staff to be able to notify others in the building and and trigger a building-wide lockdown from anywhere if needed in the case of an emergency. So, to fix this, our district safety
team, uh led by Ms. Allison Robinson, including representatives from our staff associations FEA FASA ESP our IT staff, local law enforcement as well, met to vet different options.
After comparing presentations from Raptor and and another company, uh Centegix, the committee chose Raptor as the best multi-layered solution for our district's needs. The implement implementation centers
around three main tools that will really change how we handle our safety in the district. First, we're introducing the Raptor badge alert. So, every single staff member, including our adjus staff substitutes, will receive a wearable
badge with a built-in panic button. If a teacher needs quick help with a localized issue, they can discreetly press the button, and it calls uh get calls the building's internal response team. In a worst-case scenario, the button can
be pressed several times in order to initiate a lockdown within that building, which automatically will call the police and triggers um a digital screen takeover of the building. Next, we're going to be deploying the Raptor visitor state. As I mentioned, we
currently don't have a visitor management system uh that monitors guests coming into our school. >> [clears throat] >> The system will scan the visitor ID against the national sex offender registry and our own like local list in the in the event of a custody
restriction or no trespassing orders. If there's an issue, it quietly alerts the secretary so the admin can step in and uh if it's in clear for visitors if the prints if for cleared visitors it needs it can also print a photo badge before
they come into the building. Finally, we have Raptor Student Safe. And this gives us a secure centralized digital space that we can track student behavior patterns and store sensitive threat and suicide assessment
information. This tool is truly about early intervention and helping our team spot warning signs and support our students who are at risk prior to a crisis happening. Uh we are moving fast to get this done,
but we're very deliberate so that we're ready for the upcoming school year. Um this spring we've already had our kickoff meetings and we've actually been engaging with stakeholders. Later in the spring and into the summer, we'll finalize our internal protocols and
we'll share that information with our families, our staff, and prep our training materials. When staff are back with us in August, uh they will get their badges and we will conduct a comprehensive training so everyone feels confident when using the system.
Full implementation will roll out this fall and then we'll continually gather feedback and provide training to our teams as needed. >> [clears throat] >> Ultimately, we expect this to cut down on response times, give our staff a piece of mind, uh and to secure our perimeters. Uh just as importantly,
it'll allow us to respond to student mental health and behavior needs much faster than we currently can. I know the board in your packet received additional information um and as always, we're here to answer any questions you may have, but just wanted to give a brief update
um for you on that. >> [snorts] >> Next we have we'll move on. Any questions from the board? Okay. Next I'd like to invite up Mr. Tim Russell, our IB coordinator and his guest to the podium
to [snorts] share an update on the IB program. Hello. Good evening everyone. Thanks for having us. I see we have the slideshow up. This is excellent. Just wanted to let you know I we appreciate you giving us this
opportunity to speak. This is we started in 2013. Our first graduating class was in 2015. We're this is our 12th graduating class and they've done a terrific job this year. Um
the numbers are looking better each year for the next couple of years. We're looking into maybe IB music cuz a lot of the students really want to do IB music as part of the program. So that's one of the things we're trying to we're hoping to build in.
I'll try to keep you up to date with our newsletters. Hopefully those are those are interesting. So one of the great things that we've been able to do the last couple of years is what we call the IB support network which includes the IB student leadership. This is the IB executive
board for the student leadership group and then the IB parent leadership group which is kind of I've been a soccer coach for 30 years. So it's basically a booster club for academics and so we've been trying to build that up because when they choose to do a
difficult program like this it is challenging. They need extra support because sometimes they feel like they're buried in the books and we need to get their heads out of the books a little bit so they can be kids. So one of the things these guys have been leaders
for is exactly that. A lot of the social programs that we do, a lot of the fundraising that we do, we were able to give a couple of $500 scholarships uh to a couple of our graduates. Uh they don't know about it yet, but they will. And um
we're actually giving those in honor We're calling it the the uh Bashroush-Palmer uh award in in honor of uh our former leaders, Polly Bashroush and Vicki Palmer, cuz they're the ones that got the IB program going. And so uh we're
planning on increasing the number of scholarships in the in the future. Um at the very least it'll help to pay for the cost of the IB exams, which is, you know, sometimes limiting for families. So, um these are a number of the the changes that we've been making and these guys have been a big part of it. So, um
start off with Adrian. Um Adrian Ponal is going to have a few words. >> [clears throat] >> Hi, my name is Adrian Ponal. I would just like to state that how IB how I view IB is how it just incorporates us into a community into a very you would
think a school as the school it's a very small community, but in the big one it's a very big community, especially with all the grades that we have tried to reach out to even in freshman and sophomore. You're not in the program yet, but you're still in that IB community and in this community I feel
like we really provide a support system with each other. And in our classes we are able to allow ourselves to learn, but also have fun. Like especially since IB is a smaller like you have smaller classes, you have smaller like peo- like
people in your classes you want to learn with the people that you are intellectually like capable with and able to like you know, communicate with each other. And especially with even with the teachers, like you have inside We have almost inside jokes with like every single teacher we have. And it's very it's very fun and like we just like
e- each and every class we have a community with and we're able to like just learn and explore more. One of the things that I love to do is just to like educate myself, understand what the real world is going to be about, what what can happen in the real world. And I feel
like IB really prepares me for what is going to be in the future. My sister, my older sister, she's in college. She goes to LTU. Um but she will talk to me about her college experience and I'll be like, I've already learned that. That's crazy. Like I've seen this, I've seen this every single every single thing that
she's shown me or almost every single thing I won't say that that because she's architecture. I can't do that. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of creativity. But a lot of the a lot of the things that she's shown me is like just like stuff that I've seen in math and history and
bio. Like it's a it's a crazy experience and I feel like what outside of IB, I wasn't able to like explore as much as I was possible. Like compared to AP, I took eight like this is one of one of the comparisons I
say a lot. Compared to AP world history and IB world history, I feel like I've learned so much more in IB world history than I did in AP, especially since this is a two-year program and you're able to explore deeper into what you're actually trying to learn. And then
also with like just like the teachers and like communi- communicating, it's easier to like have these connections and be able to explore more. And with the IB student leadership, we like to like plan parties, you know, plan plan the separate things. It's like, oh you guys are nerds. What are you doing, you
know? But really it's more it's more just like to make our community better and like allow ourselves to grow as people and grow into our futures. And it and it allows us to really just connect, especially when you're looking
at like the IB test. Holy when I tell you, I was writing more than Alexander Hamilton himself. That It so much work. It was so much work. But it was like even after the experience when we after testing, we talked to each other about
like the test and we're like, "Oh my gosh, I knew that." Like it's And with like Spanish, that was crazy. I was like she's given us harder tests before. And honestly, like the DR this like that just showed up. The DR when we went to the Dominican Republic, little kids
would talk to us in Spanish and like, "Whoa, give me a second there. Let me let me compute and then I'll process." But then you're on the test and you're like, "I know what they were saying." You like you know you know what they're saying. You know what they're thinking. And it's really like you're allowed like you can reach out more to other people.
You're like you can talk to other people. And like IB Art it's so beautiful all the stuff is so beautiful and everything that we produce in our in like our schools, everything that we are able to do in this program allows us to reach further into the things, have fun, and like just it's
just a like dig deeper into what we want to be and what we want to do in our futures. For me it's business business management and business administration. And really with that I we have an EE. It's just called extended essay and you pick any subject you want. Anything you
want out of all your subjects and some people even chose to do something they're not even a class like in a class of. And for business it was just like it was so fun. I like to exploring more into like different things. It was like really allowed me to discover who I am
as a person and like as a community what we want what to achieve. But yeah. Y'all want to [clears throat] go? >> [laughter] >> Okay. Right. I love how when I come up here my slideshow just like magically pops up.
Um can't top Adrienne's, you know, s- Why is there two? Uh um can't can't top Adrienne's, you know, Yeah, speech, we love that, but I will say that I am one of three siblings who have all done the IB program, and I've
seen firsthand um just like the benefits of it. I mean, me and all my siblings, we are all attending MSU, and we all are uh aiming for business degrees, but I will say um I think experience-wise,
I've learned so much. I've certain learned so many skills um but by just being a part of the IB program because I currently don't take all um I'm not a diploma Yeah, I'm not a full diploma student anymore. Um but I will say that
in the last 2 years, I've gained friendships. I've gained so many um different experiences and also life skills that I think will prepare me better for um college as opposed to AP, and I feel like I just wish that so many more students
were educated about what the IB program is because I do know that my sister was um one of my older sisters was in the IB program before COVID, and then me and my second oldest sister Me and my second oldest sister were
post-COVID, and you could definitely see like the like Mr. Russell was talking about the decrease in numbers of students, but also like the lack of awareness that these students have in the school because I mean there's so many people who are like,
"Oh, you're in the IB program? Like, don't you just hate your life?" And it's like, "No, like, I love all the experiences. I love all the friendships." I mean, it's 2 years with the same people. You grow bonds, and like, you What is it? You like learn You You I don't I don't know what it's
called, but it's like you gain some like a deeper connection than you would with just any other students in a one-semester course. Um but like I was saying, yeah, I think it's definitely important to like educate our students and our lower classmen of what the IB program really
is and not like the false perceptions of people thinking that it's like you know, this terrible course where you could it's so hard to be successful and you have to like be born a genius because it's like they allow you to grow
academically and also socially. So, I personally love the program. I also think it you know, I think it it it it has to do with mindset, too. Um I I try to look at things in a positive light. So, I feel like that's probably why I look
at it I look at IB in such a I I hold to a high standard, but um that's really all I have to say about it. That's how it's affected me, my life, and obviously it's given me the podium to be successful in like my my career because
I'm going to miss you. Yay! >> [laughter] >> All right. Hi, my name is Smalley Shah. I can't really top what they have said cuz I feel like they've covered like literally everything that the IB program is about. And I'm just going to add a little bit extra. I feel like I feel like I have made the most friendships
that I have ever made in this entire program. Adrian, I met in fourth grade, but her and I these last two years have gotten so much closer than we have in the last what eight years, I think that was. And and it's just amazing how many like great friends I have made and the
connections that I still will still have with these people cuz they say you have every single class with these people. Like it's you you might get tired of them, but you keep making those connections, you keep having fun with them. You just want to spend all the time that you can with them before we have to leave. Like our last day is this
week Thursday, and I know I'm going to miss like all of these people so so much cuz of all cuz of all the connections we have made and all the memories we have made, which is just what the IB program can offer to everything. So, yeah. Questions? Any questions, comments,
concerns? Um I got a few. So, um Adrian and Jamie, you're going to MSU. I'm going to Clark. You're going to Clark. Okay, so Natalie, okay. Yeah, we're going to MNU. >> [laughter] >> And you're going to Clark. Okay, so I wanted to get that clear like where you guys are going. So, all seniors. Correct.
Uh Jamie, you mentioned you wanted to see more young people go through the IB program. We couldn't agree with you more. Um when and I hope to see you, you know, at graduation. And for those of you who come back in December, if you're coming back for the December graduation, too, for those of
you who are going to continue on with the IB. Um my point is I've never met anybody who went through the IB program who said um they didn't have academic rigor, that uh didn't that that's everyone who comes
out of the program says they have the academic rigor, they are breezing through college, um they've seen, you know, folks who are in college who are struggling, that's not their story, that it absolutely prepared them. We have the
curriculum. Uh we have the pathway to um um you know, productive outcomes in you girl power. I love the world. I love it. Thank you for bringing out these three lovely girls today. He knew what he was doing. >> I think the next leaders are going to be girls too.
>> Yes. Yes. I couldn't agree more. >> [laughter] >> Hey, we started it. We started it. Um I appreciate you coming. I appreciate you telling us your story. Um I also want you to tell us where we have some opportunities to improve. I would love
to hear from you how we can grow this program and and make it more accessible to more people so that more of our young people are confident, are articulate, are um college ready, and all of those things. Thank you again for coming to
share your story. Mr. Hall? Every time I see you girls, I just I'm just smiling from ear to ear because it is just it's just refreshing to see to see young young girls that's that's have that thrive for learning
and that you putting you may not know it, but you're you're you're setting a expectation now in which that this is normal, okay, instead of being the exceptional. And we want to always know that anybody can do the things that
you you are doing because you don't have to be a certain demographic or a certain race or certain ethnicity or certain gender in order to accomplish what you're doing. And that what people have to learn that you know, it is it's it's this is this
is very obtainable. I mean, you basically said that you're allowing to grow and have fun. And that's what I like and you you girls seem like you're very close. You're you want to the the just the bond that you guys are having because you guys are are part of
the same fabric, come from the same cloth. And we going to make that cloth a lot bigger that includes more people that's in it and I I I'm I'm really excited to what you guys do next. Thank you. >> so much. Mrs. Smith?
Mr. Walker had his hand up first. You sure? Okay. I I just wanted to comment on from last year to this year. Last year when there was the guys Oh. >> [laughter] >> Okay. I should have took my time back, President Lee. I just want to put that
out there. >> [laughter] >> Certainly not [clears throat] to diminish the ladies by any stretch of the imagination, but just to compare the level of joy from one year to the next is just it's is fantastic to see and that seems to be something woven into the fabric of of this program with the teachers, the staff, and certainly with
the students. And I think if there was some way to, President William's point, if there's some way to really bottle that and market that and really demonstrate how you guys show intelligence is cool. You don't lose your swag. You There's so many benefits
that come along with it. That hard play can still be fun and beneficial. And for those of you who are second and third generation IB students, talk about the progressions, talk about the positive benefits that you seen in
your own families. I think if we can build something around that, you can do a a really great job of expanding all of this across the board. Um it is just so wonderful to see students expressing joy in learning, and that school is some place that you enjoy
coming to rather than staying away from. So, I just wanted to congratulate staff, students across the board. Mrs. Smith, I should have went first since he wanted to talk about the young man. >> [laughter] >> Just just give me some acknowledgement
and that's all. First and foremost, congratulations on a wonderful job at um your accomplishments and your achievements. Um what you don't know now is once you hit
those college doors, um my daughter did not do IB um because the program was just kind of starting. But she walked into her college as a first-year senior,
and she didn't have to take a freshman year. She was teaching students higher than her, and now she's a almost a physician's assistant. She's almost done. So, I want to say first um
congratulations to girl power as Ms. Weems said. Um with the climate of this community and country the three of you are amazing and I want you to know that
and hear that from this board. Um as we know this country is dealing with women being targeted. And what you all are showing is that you can go above and beyond.
The teachers that you have in this program have worked hard to keep this program alive and well and going. Now, most people would look and be like, "Oh, them IB people. They They nerds, you know, they the Steve Urkels or whatever."
You girls Y'all Y'all fire. Y'all got it going on. So, at the end of the day I am proud to see that you all have not segregated yourselves from the general population. You are still working as a team with the
school. And I also want to say this. We do have people that come to the board that acknowledge that we, the people of color don't have books in our homes. And you are showing
that we have books. We have brains. We have talent. We are We are exceptionally brilliant. So, I want to thank you for the work that you have done.
I want to thank you for bringing these young women, our future, here. And we want to see more from all of you and I won't be on the board when y'all come back with your speeches, with your doctorals, and all that other stuff.
But, I will still be listening, paying attention. and wish you all three success. Congratulations. Trustee Blau. I would like to comment in particular on your passion.
Your passion for learning. The way that you celebrate the relationships that you share and how important those relationships have been in your learning experience. And now that you have this appreciation
for these friendships and the importance [clears throat] of relationship and how exciting and interesting and interdisciplinary learning can be, no one will ever be able to take that away from you. So, you just shine on. So,
ladies, your presentation eight. You did a good And I want to offer to you business folks, you can come read my thesis on accounting theory anytime. >> [laughter] >> It's a great read. Why are you laughing?
>> [laughter] >> Have a good one. Thank you for >> One one thing I wanted to add, we've we've now had a 12-year trial run that shows that cohort learning works. Very good. >> Cuz this is our 12th cohort. That's great. That's great. Thank you. >> [applause]
>> All right, that's all I have this evening. Thank you. We will now move on to reports from board committees and I am going to report on the blueprint committee. The school blueprint committee met last
week, I think it was. I am a member as is Trustee Hall and Trustee Smith. The blueprint committee, as a reminder, was established because we wanted to focus on learning and really transforming student experiences.
The district district's work um with respect to our school blueprint is intentionally focused on four pillars: high expectations for all, equitable instruction, alignment of resources, and professional learning and collaboration. During the meeting, we uh talked about
all of our aspirations for the district. We want all of our um young people to truly mean every student. I recall us also talking about um uh discipline coming out of that conversation. Uh really really good discussion.
Anything either of my trustees would add? All right. Well, that's That's a summary of that uh committee meeting. I just want to say you did a phenomenal job on running that committee. And um we did have some great great
conversations. And so, I appreciate you forming this and hearing the conversation and the feedback from um Trustee Hall and yourself. I really it was impressed. And I don't impress easy.
So, thank you. >> No, you don't, Mrs. Smith. >> [laughter] >> All right. Thank you. For uh now we'll move on to discussion items. I just I really appreciate you guys. I'm just going to pause for a minute, take some privilege. I enjoy serving on this board, and I have not always enjoyed
serving on this board. It is really nice to um celebrate each of our uniqueness and our different personalities and what we all individually contribute uh towards something much much bigger because of all of these differences. I think we are
a great example of Farmington and Farmington Hills in terms of diversity and in terms of what we how we leverage that diversity, you know, for purposes of collaborating and and and moving us forward. So, all jokes aside, I'm serious on that
point. Thank you. All right, we're going to move on to discussion items, Dr. Coffin. Yes, I would now like to welcome Ms. Gail Aliviado, president and chief marketing officer with TMP Architecture, along with Ms. Kerri Cini, vice president of interiors with TMP Architecture, to
provide an update on our capital improvement planning progress and prioritization efforts. Great, thank you very much, Dr. Coffin, and thank you, board, for inviting us tonight. We're busy at work with so many great things
to share tonight, and still a lot that we're still gathering because hot off the press, the EPIC MRA survey to look out at the broader communities feedback to some of the ideas
went live yesterday. So, I'm sure some community members are getting calls, and it's not bad to make sure everybody knows that so that you don't just like oh, I'm not taking that call. I don't know that number, you know, we want people in the community to take those calls and provide that feedback.
But, today's presentation is going to be focused on some updates. There we go. We're going to just kind of look at that summarization of the process again. We're going to look at the feedback that we received from the
ambassadors on the secondary buildings. The last time we were here a couple weeks ago, we talked about feedback on the primary buildings. So, this time focused on secondary buildings. We're actually going to give you a sneak peek at some of the potential items that
are starting to rise to the top in terms of prioritization, and those became very be in creating the survey so that we could get the feedback directly on those uh prioritization uh uh potential projects. Uh talk a little
bit about survey methodology and uh and then the next steps. So, I'm going to ask Carrie to take you through process. Check me closer to the mic. Okay, for our process, the board has seen this graphic before. This is our program development process. And it's
been updated to better reflect some of the stakeholders that we have been interacting with through the process. So, before we really interacted with a lot of the people in the district, we received feedback from the Cobalt community survey, PTA notes, so parent
perspectives, and lunch and learn notes, student perspectives. Our team read through all of those notes. Honestly, the student notes were so impactful. Um and then when we really engaged with the district, we were able to meet with building leaders, athletic leaders, and
teachers when we were in the field. And then some people are more oriented with numbers. So, this is the process that you just graphically saw more by the numbers if you want to quantify it. We had five visioning meetings with
district administrators and building leaders, really understanding the district vision for the strategic plan and also the curricular vision. Um 32 PTA meeting notes, lunch and learn meeting notes, 17 principal and building
leader meetings, 22 building walk-throughs, and so some of the buildings we walked twice. Some buildings we walked we walked when the students were not in session because there were some things we had to look at deeper, but we did walk all of the buildings
when school was in session so we could see learning in action. Five engagement sessions with district leadership on findings and master planning. 20 plus master plan concepts and we look at that long-term vision for the
district as far as facilities, a lot of concepts and iterations and reiterations. More than 20 and counting, still working on the prioritization concepts. So, as Gail mentioned, you know, we had the we had the master plan concepts, then we
started looking at the themes that kept bubbling up to the top and representing those in graphic concepts. Um three plus Board of Education updates and three parent ambassador network meet network meetings focused on that master plan.
Okay. So, this might be a little bit of a review, so I'll go a little bit faster and if you have questions, please stop me. But what really drove our assessment of your buildings is around these four drivers of alignment. So, again, we dove
we dove into the vision with the strategic plan. We dove into the skills that Farmington Public School students should develop in that profile of a lifelong learner. We looked at competency-based education, that overarching visions with in what learning should look like at Farmington
and that is what we were able to see in the buildings, watching learning in action. We saw that team-based model happening as well and we observed the space and how the space is supporting those other three drivers. And just a synthesis of all of the notes
that I mentioned that we read through. So, the lunch and learn notes, elementary, middle school, high school and then a full synthesis. I believe I presented this at the March 7th Board Retreat, so this is just a review.
And a visioning exercise with district leadership and we asked them to design their ideal school and on a really high level. So, not just the building, cuz that's that's our role, but really around the schedule of the day and the learning experiences that we want students to develop. Because as I like
to say, it is not just about the building. It's about a much bigger picture. And our assessment methods that we used throughout the buildings and the um the stakeholders that we engaged with. So, with programmatic alignment, understanding how the spaces within the building are supporting curricular
initiatives, we engage with building leaders. So, that's the principals and anybody else that they wanted to bring to the table. So, any key staff members as well. And then when we were in the building, we were able to see learning in action and talk to teachers in real time. And they were so excited to show
us what they were learning. Um my favorite is we were at one of the elementary schools. I think it was Lanigan. And the teacher pulled us in and she's like, "I'm doing science in my classroom." And I looked and all around the room is a bunch of physics slides set up. And they were running out of
space there, but it was really a good case study to say that the space needed to support more than direct instruction and that you are doing amazing things in your district. As Dr. Dr. Coffin mentioned that you have other districts coming to observe your programs. So,
that's amazing that you're running towards that change. And our architectural staff looked at each building for the adaptability. So, when we're talking about a master plan, the these are items that we need to look at how adaptable the building is to
potential changes in the future. And all of this was boiled down into assessment data. So, we had a lot of qualitative data, but we also needed some quantitative data as well. So, each building got a rating score for both adaptability and programmatic
alignment. So, this is an example of the findings. And then we were able to digest those into common needs and desires. So, a lot of information there. This was presented to the parent ambassador network as well. And all of that data came into these 12
guiding principles that again, these are themes that started to boil to the top of this data, and the parent ambassador network prioritized these. So, that gave us some really great insight. And again, number 12 doesn't mean that it's not important. We know all of it is
important, but it was really helpful for us to get into the heads of the community members in that ambassador network on what they feel is important because they represented we had great representation of early childhood, elementary, middle school, and high school.
And at our last board update, we presented feedback from the elementary concepts that we showed the parent ambassador network. So, now I'm going to show you some feedback on the secondary concepts. So, we presented the secondary concepts.
We had some great conversation with the parent ambassador network. They they uh they oops, they engaged in small groups. And this is our quantitative feedback. So, they ranked those guiding principles. So, we asked them to every
single concept we presented, we asked them to rank it against the guiding principle. Does it positively impact? Does it slightly impact? Or does it not impact at all? So, that is our quantitative data scoring. And then qualitative, we asked them
questions. Did we miss anything? Very important for us to know. How might these new learning environments enrich students' lives? And do these environments support future-ready skills? And shared themes that these environments foster community. I've I've
heard that a lot from all of the speakers tonight about how important that community is. Mirror university and professional settings. So, think about that as a secondary level. And that's something we're seeing all over is that especially at the secondary level that it should mirror
those professional settings when they get into the workplace. And empowering students with greater ownership over their education and learning experiences. And obviously that's already happening in Farmington Public Schools. But these master plan concepts can really support that.
And do these environments support future-ready skills? There was a strong agreement that it supported. And with emphasis on real-world environments, collegiate environments, and modern and collaborative spaces. And they touched on expanded opportunities available with any
athletics upgrades. And then more qualitative synthesis is across all tables and all concepts. The feedback was organized into five major themes. Future-ready learning environments, safety, security, and student well-being. So, that was a discussion
point as well. Um accessibility, wayfinding, and campus functionality, flexible academic spaces, and long-term growth, and a balanced student experience. Okay. Okay.
So, from all of that, uh the things that really rose to the top that are in the survey, uh and and this is um not totally inclusive. There's a lot of different uh facets to how they ask uh questions in this. But with regard to
each of the um building levels, first visions, it's really more about the critical site infrastructure technology needs. Uh at the early childhood center, same thing, the site infrastructure and technology needs. At the elementary schools. Uh
it's really about bringing uh it's going to test this idea of uh furniture upgrades to provide flexibility in their classrooms, uh adaptability so that teachers can uh kind of change their classroom like that uh to support what
they're trying to do. Um optimizing those media centers to support STEAM. We saw uh we're going to be testing that and also the, you know, maker spaces, project-based programming, uh up upgrading playgrounds at our elementary's, and again uh testing the
site infrastructure and technology upgrades at elementary's. At the middle schools, uh a focus on enhancing performing art spaces. Uh those are programs that seem to, you know, be bubbling up and they need their
space, uh very unique spaces. So, we're testing the uh feedback and support on those. Uh again, furniture solutions to transform the classrooms into flexible and adaptable environments and and not just classrooms, but the multi-use
spaces like cafeteria and media centers. Trying to kind of get uh get more use out of those the full day, uh the entire day. Uh again, optimizing those media centers to support STEAM and project-based programming and the critical site
infrastructure uh and technology needs. And at our high schools, going to be testing out uh enhancement of indoor athletic facilities uh and furniture solutions to transform those classrooms into flexible adaptable environments. We're going to test out
the re-imagining of cafeterias to support not just the dining function, but collaboration, instruction, and different activities that students and teachers and and really community can use throughout the day. Uh and again, testing the critical site
infrastructure and technology needs. So, the EPIC survey, which went live on Monday, it's focused on uh obviously unregistered voters who reside in the boundaries of Farmington Public Schools and who are likely to vote in the November 2026 election. You might say,
"How do they know that?" There's a lot of research they do on who has voted in past school elections, who has voted in past November elections. So, they use algorithms to kind of figure that all out and uh they are uh looking at
uh a widespread kind of uh it's a random sampling, but yet it is looking at demographics that are are throughout Farmington Public Schools. So, age, gender, education levels, all
of that is factored in so that you don't get like one homogeneous group. It is they they look at that and once they reach a certain quota on different things, if they, you know, have too many females, they'll then focus on males. So, they look to
get a broad section uh of the community. These are trained live interviews that uh and it's calls. They don't just call landlines. That used to be the case, but landlines don't exist hardly. So, they
are calling both cell phones and landlines and it will come from a Farmington phone number. So, that's a real positive. Uh they've already started. These calls will end late May. Uh they look to complete 400 surveys in
order to get that 95% confidence level plus or minus 4.9 points. So, I don't I know that they're they're in the 200s right now, but uh sometimes they make 2,000 calls to get 400 survey
responses. But, it's um it is happening right now. Has anybody gotten a call, any family members? I don't know. Probably. Probably, yeah. >> [laughter] >> So, we're uh we're excited to uh to get those results and and to start factoring
those into the um kind of into the current step, which uh we are uh glued to Plant Moran Real Point right now, because uh the program assessment was only one facet, the facilities assessment was the other. Those are
being married together right now, looking at those priorities, looking at critical infrastructure needs, uh and then just factoring in everything we're learning from all the great feedback. The EPIC Survey will be the last factoring in. We'll be working very
closely with district leadership to bring it all together. On June 2nd, um meeting with you to talk about the specifics of the results and a proposed ballot language. And then the 16th is um
when the board would uh look to uh the recommendation resolution if if that uh is is the step that you take. But, it's very exciting right now. Um fast and furious work, and uh
if you have any questions or comments or we'd like to converse. >> have a lot of questions. I do, too. Go ahead, Ms. Tyrik. But, yeah. I mean, all some of my colleagues might have the same ones. Um just I made a couple notes, and a lot of the things you
talked about um critical site infrastructure and technology needs. Um can you just kind of elaborate a little bit? I know right now we've been we've been constantly upgrading our technology as far as the
we just approved um structured cabling and upgrading all that and we replace things and so just a little bit of better explanation on what that exactly means. >> Okay. Um that part of it is the blending
of the Plant Moran Real Point Infrastructure Report, the Facilities Condition Report that they just performed and there was a technology study that is bringing up the 10 years. Dr. Coffin probably has more detail on that than we do. We're merging all of those reports.
>> Yeah, so thank you. So uh this is looking at the next 10 years. So we have been doing all of our technology upgrades in our last from our last bond. So there is still uh 60 million plus need around continued
technology upgrades over the next 10 years. Okay. So that's what they mean that the those in in the infrastructure needs are incorporated from what wasn't able to be done in the last bond series. So we we didn't want to lose those and
those are part of that prioritization of where we have to, you know, we still have some roofs that will need to be replaced because they were part of the very beginning of the first series um but not all the roofs. So those are the things they're talking about that will be incorporated into this uh the
10-year plan. Okay. That was helpful. Um yeah, I I'm just um you know, all this is good but I'm sitting here thinking how are we going to pay for this? Um and that I kind of Dr. Coffin kind of
gave us a little bit of an overview or you know, talked about it at the um board retreat. I mean as far as the things that we're looking at, are we looking at things in with some financial
constraints in mind, not just not not just a oh a wish list and you know, these are all the things, but we kind of are are so we we kind of have financial constraints and just talk about and the the survey is this I think is tied to
that zero mill increase. >> Yes. Yes, so so couple of things there. So we have the opportunity as we've talked about to go back to our voters and request a zero mill increase which would generate over four series $171 million.
So that's keeping the millage rate the same as it is right now at 3.2. When we started this it was a little bit lower, but due to the property values, it generates a little bit more money for us and we in choosing the four series.
So that's the number we're working with it. When they're saying the prioritization, we have a lot more needs than that. However, we are using the feedback that we got from our community, from our teachers, from our leaders from the
district to to determine what are those priority areas. So they're getting the prioritization in this 10-year plan is going to start with that those first initial priorities. So we recognize there's more needs than the $171
million. Okay. >> But we are prioritizing that based on what our community is saying. The epic MRA survey they're talking about is putting this out to our community and they're saying we could support this,
we're not going to support this. That's data that we'll be able to have as our final prioritization. In part how we communicate, but also in part of knowing what our community is very internet interested in and us continuing to pursue. So so in terms of
taxes and what our community is paying, this zero mill increase is not a tax increase and so our taxpayers will not be paying higher taxes. >> They will continue to pay their 3.2 mills. Okay. And so we would be able to have these improvements without raising
taxes. >> Yes, correct. Yes, correct. Okay. The The one thing I want to add to this, you know, we are initial effort was looking at a master plan that was going to be a road map for
a road map for longer than just 10 years because you're doing phenomenal things here and you never want to make changes and then 10 years later go, "Oh, we have to undo that." You know, so we've mapped out a master plan and and what we're doing now is the
Okay, what's like phase one of that? What's the first priority that can be built upon later? Now, you're looking far out and it might change, but without that road map, you know, you always want to put money in that is going to remain
good and not be tearing out or doing something you just finished. So, we're building upon it, but you have now a road map of how you can meet the wonderful programs and different initiatives that you're trying to reach long term and your zero increase
opportunity right now will be spent in the best first step to that. Um Trustee Blau and then Trustee Smith. Uh I I just noticed um a friend in the
community did get called Mhm. and I have some feedback for you about it, but I'll I How do I get you that feedback? Okay, about the call specifically? Uh yeah. It was very confusing and this is a very very highly intelligent person.
>> Okay. That's um Let's talk about it because Jacqueline should probably, you know, hear about this so we can get feedback to Epic right away. >> yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's good to know and we can adjust that right now.
It just started so Yeah. Yeah. You never want it to be confusing. And and this is really very very >> Yeah, it's a sharp person that should have that should have been easy. Okay, and it could be the interviewer. It could be, you know, the survey instrument might need to be tweaked, but
we'll we'll address it right away. Okay. And I do I do know I don't know when the call happened, but I do know they made some tweaks initially in their first calls. So it would be It was I think like just maybe today. Oh, okay. Cuz they just started yesterday, but I know I got
an email that they made some tweaks, but Okay. So let's talk Mrs. Smith Um I want to thank you for coming before us with this presentation. Um and I love the fact that um we're trying to get this information out in the community.
Um we've had some discord in the past with not having relationships with our city. Um both cities. And I'm loving the fact that we do and we have bridged that gap.
Um and we have that transparency in that relationship now. Um and so if we can, cuz I've received information and phone calls from city officials from our city council.
And this is also coming to them as well. So if there's any way that um President Weems and um superintendent can have those conversations with uh the mayor and city council members, I received some
feedback yesterday from one city council member and then a couple of days prior to two two others and the concern in the community is the raising of the taxes. I
who owns a condo don't want to be taxed out of my place because with me having two homeowners association fees and then maybe an increase we want to be transparent with this community and let them know
because I'm a senior citizen don't say nothing Mr. Walker but I am >> [laughter] >> I am >> [laughter] >> a senior citizen and I you know I am hearing from the
senior community that they are afraid you know what do they do pick eating or paying taxes or put gas in their car they want to do all of the above so thank you. Trustee Smith thank you for
bringing that up I actually did connect with the interim city manager of Farmington Hills and I'm I think they're the same question so I was able to connect but thank you for that reminder we do need to get something up for you. >> We do need to get them involved right now we do have a phenomenal
relationship with them we don't want to lose [clears throat] that trust again we want them to continue to work with this board and you know not have no cataract or glaucoma blocking nothing
that we do with them okay thank you. Yeah thank you. I had a few questions the first is I was really interested in hearing about the student feedback and so I I didn't quite hear which of the feedback is coming
from directly from students versus others? So, when I look at some of the um feedback, I see words like inclusive playground. I'm sure a fifth grader didn't say that. Like, what How What What is the What How do we um I'm interested in seeing the direct
feedback from students. How can we get that? So, the majority of the mic is on. The majority of the student feedback was through the I believe they were the lunch and learn um meetings that were the notes were given to us. We did organically have some
conversations with students while we were in the field. We just don't capture that as official feedback, but when we walk into a classroom, there's usually students who run up to us and be like, "Oh, I'm doing this. I'm doing that." And we just hear a little bit about what they're doing. We might ask them about
how they feel about their classroom. Usually, they end up talking about how much they love their teacher, honestly. [laughter] But, most of the student feedback came from those lunch and learn meeting notes. Okay. Um next question, I see a lot of feedback around flexible space. And I
know most of our uh at least elementary schools have LGI rooms. And in my experience, they've been historically underutilized. Has that changed? How are we leveraging that space? Why would we create more space to potentially not be used? Like, I'm
just trying to think that through. No, that that's a great question, and that's something that we've heard a lot about is underutilized space. And that is actually one of the things that we are looking at in this upcoming work. Is we're not proposing that you add a bunch of space. We're saying you have great
real estate in your buildings that's underutilized. How do we reactivate it for a different purpose? And we've talked through those could be just solely operational or schedule changes, thinking about who owns that space. And it could be minor renovations or medium
or major renovations. Again, that's going to come down to cost when we start prioritizing. And then a big component is going to be furniture. Furniture can change the way a space functions wholeheartedly. But keep in mind that these design after
hopefully the the bond passes, there will be design conversations around all of this scope and we really dive into how are you using the space? What are all of the activities that occur in the space? And again, that's going to tie back to some operational changes too
about who owns that space. In our last bond, I remember a lot of conversation around that bond and the community's desire quite rightly frankly to
understand exactly what the proposal was by school in specificity and I'm guessing that that's the plan. I'd like to kind of understand when do we think we'll get there? How will we This is a question directed back to the district
and you don't have to answer it now, but I will want to understand what our process is for sharing that and our plan for regular reporting on the actions against that plan. I think our community
deserves that and we'll certainly be looking to us for it. My final question or maybe penultimate I got one more. Is on Does this include ongoing maintenance? So our prior bond was not on anything
sexy for lack of a better word. It was like roofs and parking lots and stuff like that. But those things are going to need updating over our next 10-year period. So is that included in this as well? Okay, that's not a lot of money. Correct.
>> Yeah. Yeah, so we're we're not going to be doing much, guys. I'm just going to be honest with you. >> So hence >> furniture options. Like, what can we do to repurpose space with small renovations >> Right. and furniture. >> efficiently and effectively. And And that is one of the best. I do want to
address uh President Weems, your question or your timeline question. Um the minute this is decided upon in terms of the scope and the board has approved proceeding, we begin right away with writing what we call frequently asked
questions. So, it's kind of I I call it, you know, it's this living document that answers every question that someone in the community might ask. That is vetted by your attorney so that we're it's approved language that is anyone can use educating and talking to the community
members about. And from there, we're already diving into creating communication tools. So, that's sort of summertime because, you know, and there it's not like you can't get information about hey, something's com- something's going to be happening in November and that,
but there are steps we need to take to make sure that everything is vetted correctly, messaged correctly, consistency. But then, everything just starts rolling, you know, we'll create uh you know, Canva templates for social media. I mean, and this is just a full
comprehensive communication program is developed around the messaging. I like to see things really start to push out in August before you have people coming into the schools. Like, have things ready in your schools. Have messaging out to respect your staff first. They
should be the first to hear about this. Understand they're They're like the ambassadors to the community about all the great things that'll happen. So, we educate them, make them feel comfortable, they can talk about this. Um not advocate for it in the in the school community, but talk about it in
with passion and and features that goes a long way. But, it just starts rolling out. and really our work on supporting the district to uh create those educational communication tools happens the minute that that you approve what
you're going to move forward with. Um Mrs. Heinrich. Yeah, I I just um I our buildings are older buildings, but they have good bones, which which is a you know, a really good thing. And so, I'm I'm really one of the highlights. I really like the fact that you're looking
at the cafeterias and the media centers and looking at the spaces that we have and how we can better utilize that. So, this is this is a a really good thing. Um You know, I think you explained I was trying to figure out what what the survey what the goal of the survey is,
but it's just to find out if the community is going to support this. It and to and to find out where their interests are hotter. You know, what like are they like it more excited about um I I'll just STEM and STEM Yeah, STEM
education or you know, so it's testing out different programming program elements and you know, technology and so, it's really looking at what is the community interested in seeing addressed and and you know, upgraded. >> Okay. Yeah, and and I I really think we have
to do, you know, be really intentional on our our messaging and how we're going to pay for this without raising taxes. I mean, this is something that I'm really excited about because um any improvement projects is expensive
and in in the in today's financial climate, if we can do this and really improve our schools and and make things um better without raising taxes, we we really need to um continue to get that messaging out.
>> Yeah. So, I appreciate the stretching of the mind or the status quo of how we actually sit and learn because as I'm sitting here and I'm thinking that I'm I'm so thankful that we have
chairs that go up and down. You know, so imagine if you're like in doing this for 6 hours, 6 to 8 hours and you're at a steel desk and a steel chair and you can't do anything. I wish right now this is a a suggestion that maybe
I don't know in the future or so we can have desks that can go up and we can actually stand up, but I don't know how that would look for a quorum like things or whatever. But you know, it is I love the flexibility the way to stretch the mind to say that we have evolved. You know, this is not
the same school that, you know, probably Socrates or you know, all the great [laughter] philosophers on stones talking teaching on and this is a little bit, you know, >> [laughter] >> that we actually, you know, have evolved from that in which we have flexible
environments and environments that can furniture that can move to other spaces and to do certain things and, you know, just get you get the kids and students and even adults more engaged into that. So, I appreciate that out of the, you know, norm thinking.
Now, if I could just say to the board >> [clears throat] >> I just so appreciate that 2 years ago you said we want we know that our this bond is wrapping up. We want to know what will we need for the next 10 years
all in. And you were very very clear on that. So, we started with building utilization and and the district has done hard work to right-size our district, but we are right-sized. We looked at transportation efficiencies.
We looked at our enrollment projections working with Plante Moran. Um and then going into our buildings and looking at this and recognizing that we have this opportunity to go to our community knowing that we've looked at all of the needs. While we won't be able to do that
all, I I liked how Gail said that is it's kind of we have though the road map of what it is and anything we would do would not need to be undone, you know, down the road. So, um I just appreciate uh that. Two years ago, that was the
conversation of making sure you had all the information uh collected. Mr. Orsinto? I was just going to say um you know, again maybe beneficial as you had mentioned to make sure that our community knows the survey's out there cuz half, you know, half the time people think it'll be, you know, spam [snorts]
or, you know, I don't know if maybe we'd go out post it up us with some some outreach. Uh new principal newsletters, PTA, um all those avenues and we just tell our uh parents uh and our constituents that there's a survey out there regarding the future of our schools.
Love you to take it. Yes. Good point. Yes. Um I I also want to applaud um Dr. Coffin you and your team for beginning to experiment with some of
these things over these past few years. In several of our buildings just this year you put in some doors. Just put in a door between two classrooms and that was that was uh uh uh a game-changing for teachers and
students in terms of the quality of the student experience. And so, um the fact that we've already experimented and had successes with things like that
and with having uh a multiplicity of things to sit on, you know, in different classrooms, the varied seating and those kinds of and uh the teachers at the middle schools having extra space to have as a hub for their for their, you know,
interdisciplinary planning. And so, we've already experimented with many of those things over the last few years and found some some ways that we can um invest in a small way, but with big
uh big gains in student learning and the the teachers positive experience, too. So, kudos to you. >> Thank you for that. Dr. Blau, I'm thinking about something you had said at one of our meetings that I mean, you guys do this all over. Walk around and I I I'm going to I'm
going to mess up everything you said, but it you shared at one of the parent ambassador networks when one of the parents who's a former student at North Farmington and talked about in an earlier meeting, we're still having these conversations
like this is what school was like when I graduated X number of years ago. And and he said, "Are our teachers ready for this?" Remember that? And and you said you just shared that you walk through so many
buildings where they're looking at making the change to the space before they've made the change in the instructions. So, to Dr. Blau's point, you shared that our teachers are already doing this work and working around and
against some of the infrastructure that we have Right. and are still doing it. And so, I I just remember you calling that out as something that was very very unique in your work around this area.
Yeah, and I I believe I told the board before, but I want to emphasize that we're creating a lot of new spaces for surrounding districts, but they are actively trying to lead the change in instruction, and their buildings are now farther going to be
farther ahead than their instruction, and that's what that's kind of an uncomfortable place to be. But you, it's the opposite. You've already been doing the amazing things, and I I've said to this group that, you know, a building in a certain organization that can support teacher collaboration and student collaboration
and cohorts and teaming, other districts might be struggling to live into that. Farmington could move in tomorrow and know exactly what to do in those spaces and how it's going to support them. So, applauding you all. I mean, for getting all of the facts and
thinking about the 10-year plan and starting on that vision for instruction, putting it in gear, and then saying, "Okay, well, how can our spaces really support this?" And and we've seen that as we've visited other Mhm. Yeah. >> [snorts]
>> All right. Um Mrs. Henry. Well, no. I just have to go back to money because, you know, our buildings our older buildings, but they do have good bones. And so, you know, we can be intentional on using our structure and using our money
wisely without going to the community and asking for a whole bunch of increased taxes to pay for new buildings, which we don't really need because we have taken care of the existing buildings that we have. And so, Exactly. >> there there is um new isn't necessarily
better. Right. >> All right. You know, I I'm aged to perfection, and so, um >> [laughter] >> Amazing. Yes. Yes. >> [laughter] >> Yes.
Yes. I I will say right we're not exploring any new buildings. We are not That's not in the conversation. That's not in the conversation at all. Absolutely. So, you know, again, we're doing these amazing things with the money that the community is We're not
asking for more money. We're just asking them to continue to support us as they have in the past. And um yeah. We're demonstrating fiscal responsibility and careful planning. Yeah. I think this has been a really good discussion. I think we've left the
district with the next steps and to-dos. Uh any further questions? All right. Thank you very much for your presentation. All right, we can move to our next agenda item, which is our dashboard or the strategic plan update. Dr. >> Yes, so I'd like to Thank you. I'd like
to welcome Ms. Rhonda Henry, assistant superintendent of innovation and strategic initiatives to the podium to provide a strategic plan update. Rhonda. All right. Good evening, President Weems, members of the board, and Dr. Coffin. We are in year two of
our five-year strategic plan, and I will be providing an update on enhancements and improvements that we are making in our strategic planning dashboard. The strategic plan touches every part of our organization as the goal areas were
developed by the input of all of our stakeholders, our administration, our community, our staff, um led by teachers. As we work to redesign the student experience, the strategic plan connects to every one of the system elements, and
the work is spread across the entire district centered around continuous learning and improvement. And here is a review of the four different goal areas, again based on the collaborative strategic planning work that happened
over the course of several years led by our teachers. Each of the goal areas includes key indicators that we monitor throughout the school year. We utilize uh a specific process beginning this year at the cabinet level
to achieve our strategic goals. And this is a framework. So, four disciplines of execution. First of all, focusing on those wildly important goals, the four areas that have been decided on, and acting on our lead measures. So, these
are the key indicators under each of the goals. And those the key indicators are the predictors of success. So, we These are areas that we focus on in order to influence the success of the goal. And as we discussed, we had a really good
conversation at the Board of Ed retreat last week. We discussed that we set meaningful, rigorous goals at the district level, and that's included on our strategic dashboard. And so, those goals are developed intentionally to be
rigorous measurable future-focused and helping to guide our work while providing the community with a transparent view of our progress and areas where we need to continue to grow. Creating a compelling scoreboard is an
important part of the process as well. We do have a strategic dashboard that is on our website. We are enhancing it so that it's more compelling. So, you can see how we're progressing in areas that we need to improve on in real time. And
then the last discipline is creating a cadence of accountability. We do this each week in our cabinet meetings where we move from goals to action and take collective responsibility on the strategic goal areas. And we pick one,
so this was from last week where it was goal number four, collaborative professional learning that supports equity and innovation. And here's just a couple of examples from our cabinet team where we talked about those key indicators that we are currently working on to influence the goals.
So, I'm excited to provide a quick update from even from the last board retreat on improvements that we're making with the strategic plan. So, you can see on the left of the screen that is our current dashboard
that we are monitoring our goals. And then to the right, in partnership with the NIC 12, we are enhancing the how we show the community the visibility of our goals and how we're how we're progress progress monitoring
our goals. So, at this time, I just need the link. Yeah, so if I could have the link to the dashboard pulled up. There we go. Okay. So, based on feedback from the Board of Ed retreat, I'm going to go to the home
page here. Back to what I was saying about the key indicators and the intentional setting of meaningful goals and rigorous goals, we did add here on the home page how the goals were set. And um
each of the goal areas are underneath with the key indicators. On the first goal here, innovation for teaching and learning, we have updated it to have under each of the key indicators, we have our target
again. We set the target as a district of where the baseline was 2 years ago in 2023-24 where the baseline was and our goal in order to move the needle in the future. So, part of the feedback was
adding county county data. So, you'll see here that on this page where county data data is available, we added it and that's in our state's assessments. So, you can see here
right underneath. And then our um the the key underneath has FPS and county. We also have the color coding system that will be included in the key. This
is still being revised, but goal one that all the data here is is accurate in terms of the county and FPS. The color coding system is based on the targets that we set. So, a green would
be significant growth, yellow would be we are making progress or we are maintaining, and then red is we are not making progress yet, area that we that we continue to need to grow in. That's awesome.
Thank you. No, thank you. Um so, as of now since our board retreat a week ago, the the updates that we made based on your feedback um is the the landing page having that
clear statement of how we are setting our goals and what what the data means. And also then double-checking the data. The uh previous year variance was an area that we talked about as well, so that's all been updated and adding the
county comparison. Okay? Um the strategic our strategic plan our strategic plan um dashboard will be updated again in June when we have our growth data for NWA and we will keep you
updated as we're making changes to the plan. Okay. I'm just going to pause. We all had a lot of conversation, I think over an hour, hour and a half around this dashboard. I want to thank
everybody for contributing feedback and I want to thank you for incorporating the feedback. I think it's really important to understand where we are relative to the county in addition to seeing where we are compared to our goal and also seeing where we are compared to
last year and this really shows it to us. So I like it. I like that it's all in one spot and we don't have to dig through and look for data in a whole bunch of different places. I feel like this is a really good dashboard. It's very visual. Mhm.
It takes a minute to like wait, wait, what's this and what's the green and the yellow and the but I get it and once you got it it makes sense. Thank you. We are adding the there will be a key that has the colors. It just couldn't happen by tonight. >> Absolutely.
Okay. Yes. I agree. I love this. Um for those that don't know, you know, with the up and down and here and there, you know, um
you made it uh very friendly in layman's terms. So it's just like if you have a MyChart at your doctor's office. >> Yeah. You have >> [clears throat] >> um you know, instead of just having the doctor say, you know, your A1C count is
this, there's a chart to say you know Mhm. sugars are or this This is perfect. Um it's spot on. You won't have these people that think they know the district and know what
you're doing coming back with their feedback and making it seem like they work for the district and saying they know, well, this this was wrong and this is you have it right here. I love how um you've explained it.
So, there should be no um feedback on, well, no, that's not how Well, if you don't work with you and the team, you wouldn't know what you were doing. So, I want to say thank you and I appreciate
this this is so um much helpful and in layman's terms. So, thank you. Yeah, thank you. This is Henry and then Mr. Rosento. Just a just a quick question. I I I do like I like the way you have the purple and the
gray and, you know, taking our feedback. It's nice It's it's actually nice when you ask for feedback and then you actually and then you know, we feel we're listened to, so we appreciate that. Um just help me understand a little bit in the arches like two of the little arches have the
red in them and the rest of them are yellow. And so, what is that that color signify between the red and yellow in the in those? Yeah, so that's it's Yeah, that's a great question. It's a strategy tracker, so it helps us to know it um
how we're doing on our progress. So, the red is not making progress in that area. Yellow is making progress or maintaining and then green is making significant progress. And I will be adding a key
to each one of the goal areas so that um so everyone understands that. And and again, it's based on the targets that we set. So I heard you say that, but um I guess that would make sense
for the top left corner. So um target 72 we're at 45. The prior year variance is negative. Mhm. And that's why that's red. >> Mhm. But
the one I'm pointing to here So Oh, so our So our target. Go ahead. No, so um the those completing Zello, the target is 100% we're at 58. Uh the baseline was 49, so it's up from from, you know, a couple of years ago
and it's up from the prior year. So I would expect that to be yellow rather than red. Yeah, it's because of Yeah. Um So we set the target we set the target. >> know, where we just like kind of, you know, pulled this together since the
last couple of days. I I just want to make sure should that be Should that be yellow instead of red? >> progress from Right. Right from the from the Yeah. Yeah, I can see that one. Yeah, so we had we set the target of 100 and because we're at 58, it is something
that that's um we probably need to change because of the the 9%. >> We've set aggressive targets. So I'm I'm going to expect that we're going to be yellow for some time. That's okay. Um I mean not okay, but I mean we
If the goal is 100% we were at 40. I don't expect we're going to get to 100% in a year. So but but we're making progress. >> Exactly. So that's [clears throat] another area. Thank you. And I'll We'll get We'll get that one updated. >> take a look at all of those. I was just
going to um I don't know that there's a suggestion here. Um but some people are colorblind. And I'm just wondering with reds and yellows and greens how we address that. I mean that's just with any traffic light kind
of report. Mhm. I I'm wondering for anyone just looking at this, even if you didn't have the yellows and the reds, I think you can make out where we're doing making progress. Because of this speedometer. Based on right.
That's and that's something that we can absolutely look into as well. I can It's like your gas gauge. If you see it's going over there to the E, Mhm. you know you don't have no gas. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's tricky because different
There are several members of my family who are color blind and they're color blind with different colors. Mhm. So it's tricky tricky to find Yeah. But I appreciate the traffic light report. I'm not saying I like the way it is. I just want to make sure that there are other ways to gauge
>> maybe putting like if it's yellow put a Y, if it's red put an R. You know what I mean? Like in the in the lower >> talk about it at our next retreat. Yeah, but that's a great Yep. Thank you. Yep.
Trustee Walker. Just curious as we move towards those mandatory ADA compliance regulations, how well does this begin to fit into that or well, when will those modifications or accommodations maybe is the better term
Right. begin to take place? It's a great point. And Galapagos has done a lot of work on our website ensuring that those ADA compliances are in place. So it's definitely good input. This will eventually go on our website once all four goal areas are completed and and I
will absolutely ask her for her feedback on that. Yeah, I was just wondering >> Yeah, that's a great point. interpret all of this data clearly. Yep. Cute. Yeah. Thank you for this. No, that was my question.
Like the the green, what would take it to be green for example with this one up here, the percent graduation rate? It's 95 and right now it's what, 91? If that hits 95, would that be green? Yes, significant progress. A meeting the
goal, significant progress. Mhm. Yeah. All right, another one where we had a lot of good discussion here today, but we also had some really good discussion at our retreat. I think this was primarily to see the updates and to get
to a point where we were communicating to our community how we're progressing in the dashboard. We've had a dashboard on our website for the past year and a half or so. Two years. Or two. Um, this is just a little bit more streamlined, a
lot more streamlined actually. Um, and so I look forward to being transparent and sharing that and keeping it updated. >> Yes. Yeah, and that next update will be in June. Perfect. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. All right, we're going
to move to our next agenda item, which is public comment. Is there any public comment? Comment. Comment. Comment. Is there any public comment? Comment. Comment. Oh, yeah, we got I should have given it earlier.
>> [laughter] >> This is early. It's light outside still. This is great. Love it. All right. Um, Mr. DeYoungki. Uh, thank you, President Weems. And I want to thank the board and staff for
the wonderful acknowledgement you had for retirees earlier tonight. It was wonderful. We've done a great job over the past few years of showing our love for those people who spent their careers with us. So, please keep up the good work with that. Um I would like to speak to with you about
our proposed bond and advocate that if we are uh passing a bond, that we do so in a way that supports our general fund. Uh over the past 5 years, we've been transferring general fund dollars to different funds and not spending it in
the classroom. You record it as a budget expense and then you artificially lower your fund balance even though the money hasn't been spent. I sat in the back of this room for a meeting the first time we did that post-COVID, and the reason given was
"We're going to put this money away so that we don't have to ask the community for a bond again." I am hoping that any and all resources that are available to the general fund are being put to classroom use. They're being put to attract and retain and keep
the best staff members in this district, teachers paraprofessionals bus drivers. We are in a shortage and I'm just concerned that we have been transferring money, but we are going to ask for bond. We have to make sure that all the dollar those bond dollars are very restricted on how we can spend
them, and I understand that, which leads me to say then the money we have been transferring, I would really like for us to look at how those can go to our classrooms, how we can try and lower class sizes, how we can hire more bus drivers so that we can have these great
new buses providing our athletic transportation and our field trip transportation like they used to rather than having parents subsidize it or third-party vendors make money off of us. So, as you consider your final proposal for the bond, I really urge you
to look at how can we leverage this to make sure that the dollars are going to the classroom and the dollars are going where they're closest to the students. Because no matter how many doors you have in a classroom or how beautiful they are, we know the people that work with those kids will have the biggest
impact on their education and their lives and we want to continue to provide that for our community. And so I hope that whatever the final result is it is one that keeps the people in the classroom as the focus. You know, I saw the
Winston Churchill quote up earlier, but I'm reminded by Rick Jones whose name is on the building. He said there is nothing about the look of this place that makes it special. It is us who are here every day working with kids that make this place special
and I want to continue to honor that. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any further public comment? Any further public comment? Seeing no further public comment, we're going to close the second public comment period and we're going to move to action
items. The first item was presented in detail at the regular board meeting on May 5th. It is an adoption um uh it it's we are required to adopt a resolution in support of or in dis-
disapproval of the budget. Is there a motion? Mrs. Heinrich? I move that the Board of Education adopt the resolution in support of the Oakland Schools General Fund Operating Budget for the 2026-27 school year and waive the reading of the
resolution. I support. Motion made to adopt the resolution in support of the Oakland Schools General Fund Operating Budget for '26-'27 and waive the reading of the resolution and that motion was made by Mrs. Heinrich and supported by Mr. Rescinto. Uh is there any discussion?
Seeing none, could we have a roll call vote, please? Yes. Ms. Smith? Yes. Mr. Rescinto? Yes. Ms. Heinrich? Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. Mr. Hall? Yes. And myself I'm a yes. President Weems? Yes.
That Thank you. That motion passes. Next is um the Oakland Schools Board of Education 2026 election and designate and resolution. This item was presented at both the
April 21st and May 5th meetings. There is only one person, one candidate, and so that makes it a pretty easy motion. Is there a motion? Mrs. Hiatt. Um yeah, and Gary Hoff was the one candidate, and um I think all
the board members had the his resume for the meeting, so everybody had an opportunity to look at him. I move that the Board of Education designate Trustee Ronald Rosenthal Ronald Rosenthal as its representative and Trustee Angie Smith as its alternate
representative to serve on the Oakland 2026 body responsible for electing members to the Oakland Schools Intermediate School District Board of Education. Further, the board supports the candidacy of Gary Hoff for the one open
position on the Oakland Schools Intermediate School District Board of Education for a six-year term ending June 30th, 2032, and directs the designated representative to cast the district's vote for this candidate at the June 1st,
2026 election. Support. Motion made by Mrs. Hiatt, supported by Mrs. Smith to designate Trustee Rosenthal as its representative and Trustee Smith as the designate to serve on the 26 body responsible for
electing members to the Oakland Schools Intermediate School District Board of Education. Uh further, supporting the candidacy of Gary Hoff for the position of Board of Education for a six-year term, and directing the designated
representative representatives to cast the district's vote for that candidate. Any discussion? Yes. Just clarification, I think. I mean, the I didn't look at the wording carefully until tonight, but we're just
designating them as our representatives to cast our vote. They're not serving on anybody or anything. They're just voting for us. Correct. So, okay. Any other discussion?
Something wrong? Um any other discussion? Can we have a roll call vote, please? Sure. Mr. Hull? Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. Ms. Heinrich? Yes. Mr. Resendez? Yes. Ms. Smith? Yes. And myself I'm a yes. President Weems? Yes. That motion passes as well. Thank you.
And next we have approval of Title 1 iPad purchase, which was presented at the board meeting on May 5th. Mr. Walker? I move that the Board of Education authorize the purchase of 110 elementary iPads from Apple Incorporated
in the amount of $132,220 funded through Title 1 to support differentiated instruction, early interventions, and small group learning with deployment to occur over the summer of 2026. Support. Motion made by Trustee Walker,
supported by Trustee Heinrich to authorize the purchase of 110 elementary iPads from Apple in the amount of $132,220. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, may we have a roll call vote? Yes. Ms. Smith? Yes. Mr. Resendez? Yes. Ms. Heinrich?
Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. Mr. Hull? Yes. And myself I'm a yes. President Weems? Yes. Wonderful. Motion Next we have approval of CTE high school laptop purchases, which was also presented at our May 5th meeting. Mr. Walker.
I move that the Board of Education authorize the purchase of 330 laptops from the C High, if I'm saying that correctly, Computer Products in the amount of $439,560 utilizing REMC contract pricing and funded through the 2020 bond and CTE
funds to replace end-of-life devices supporting high school CTE programs with deployment to occur over the summer of 2026 and in place for the start of the 2026-2027 school year. Support. Motion made by Mr. Walker,
supported by Mr. Rescinto to authorize the purchase of 330 laptops from C Sehi, whatever you said. C High, thank you. C High Computer Products. You did, I forgot what you said. Um in the amount of $439,560
utilizing REMC contract pricing and funded through the 2020 bond and CTE funds. Uh is there any discussion? May we have a roll call vote? Yes. Mr. Hall? Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. Uh Ms. Heimlich? Yes. Mr. Rescinto? Yes.
Ms. Smith? Yes. And myself am a yes and President Weems? Yes, that motion passes. Next is the approval of admin laptop purchases. I can I can read it. I move the Board of Education authorize the purchase of 30 administrator devices from Apple Inc. in
the amount of $57,840 funded through the 2020 bond to replace end-of-life devices in alignment with the district's five-year replacement cycle with deployment to occur in summer 2026. Support. Motion made by Trustee
Rescinto, supported by Trustee Smith uh to authorize the purchase of 30 administrator devices from Apple in in the amount of $57,840 funded through the 2020 bond. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, can we have a roll call vote? Yes. Mr. Hall? Yes.
Mr. Walker? Yes. Mrs. Heinrich? Yes. Mr. Resendez? Yes. Mrs. Smith? Yes. Mrs. Humphrey? Yes. President Weems? >> Yes. The motion passes. Next is the security cameras purchase. Mrs. Heinrich? I move that the Board of
Education authorize the purchase of security camera hardware hardware from MCA in the amount of $690,766.01 utilizing REMC contract pricing and funded through the 2020 bond to upgrade and expand camera coverage across
district buildings with purchase to occur in summer 2026. Support. Motion made by Mrs. Heinrich, supported by Trustee Smith, to authorize the purchase of security Nope, sorry.
Authorize the purchase of installation services from Complete Interactive Technology. Oh, this is REMC also. Oh, that's why I was confused. Okay. Motion made by Mrs. Heinrich, supported by
Mrs. Smith, to approve the authorization of purchases of security camera hardware from MCA in the amount of $690,766.01. Mad at that one cent. >> [laughter] >> Utilizing REMC contract pricing
and funded through the 2020 bond. Is there any discussion? Yes. I appreciate that we are upgrading these devices. Um And so that we can see incidents that
are taking place in our buildings. Um we need to be able to hold people accountable. Um if we have students that are doing things, we don't need parents coming back saying, "Not my kid." We do have camera coverage.
Um and um if we continue to do these things, um I would support this 100% I don't want a camera in our building and there are things going on and students are having issues with teachers or other
students. I want them to be able to pull that camera footage up and I don't want to hear what the camera was a little foggy, we had a little snow, and it's June. I want to be able to have everything taken care of. So, I support this. Thank you, Mrs. Smith.
Any other discussion? All right, may we have a roll call vote, please? Yes. Um Mr. Hall? Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. Mrs. Heinrich? Yes. Mr. Rescinto? Yes. Mrs. Yes. And myself I'm a yes. President Weems? I'm a yes. Thank you.
Uh the next item is the security camera installation purchase. I move that the Board of Education authorize the purchase of installation services from Complete Interactive Technologies in the amount of 127
$127,766.61 funded through the 2020 bond for the installation of security cameras across district buildings with installation to occur in the summer and fall of 2026. Support. Motion made by Trustee Rescinto, supported by Trustee Heinrich
to authorize the purchase of installation services from Complete Interactive Technologies in the amount of $127,766.61 funded through the 2020 bond. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, uh can we have a roll call vote? Yes. Ms. Smith? Yes. Mr. Risinto?
Yes. Ms. Heinrich? Yes. >> Mr. Walker? Yes. Mr. Hall? Yes. I myself am a yes, and President Weems? Yes. Thank you. Um this next one's a good one. Who wants it? Um All right.
I move the Board of Education approve the purchase of one 2027 Ford F-750 heavy-duty commercial truck in the amount of 100 115,396 [clears throat] dollars, one 2026 Ford F-350 Super Duty truck in
the amount of 76,649 dollars, and one 2026 Ford F-550 Super Duty truck in the amount of 94,296 dollars, as outlined in the quotes dated April 28th, 2026 from Gorman Ford for a
total cost of 286,341 dollars utilizing MyDeal pricing with funding from the district's general fund. Second. Motion made by Trustee Hall, seconded by Trustee Risinto, to approve
the purchase of one '27 Ford F-1 Ford F-750 in the amount of 115,396 dollars, one '26 Ford F-350 in the amount of 76,649
dollars, and one '26 Ford F-550 in the amount of 94,296 dollars. Um with funding from the district's general fund. Any discussion? Um I'm just going to say I would lose at
The Price Is Right today. I'd totally lose. Um can we have a [clears throat] roll call vote? Ms. Smith? Yes. Mr. Risinto? Yes. Ms. Heinrich? Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. Mr. Hall? Yes. I myself am a yes. President Weems? I'm a yes. Motion has
Thank you. And um utility Gators. I move that the Board of Education approve the purchase of two 2026 John Deere utility Gators at a cost of $30,000 30,027 dollars and 13 cents each from John
Deere and and outfitted by Weingartz. Support. >> Less a trade-in value of 23,000 for an existing tractor for a total cost of 37,000 $54.26 utilizing my deal pricing with funding
from the district's general fund. Support. I guess I'm excited because these are I like this. You like John Deere Gators? Okay. [laughter] She likes the John Deere. Motion made by uh Trustee Rescinto, supported by Trustee Smith who likes
Gators uh to approve the purchase of two 26 John Deere utility Gators at a cost of $30,027.13 with a trade-in value of $23,000 for a total cost for both Gators of $37,054.26
with funds to come from the uh district's general fund. Any further discussion? Seeing none, can we have a roll call vote, please? Mr. Hall? Yes. Mr. Walker? Yes. >> Ms. Heinrich? Yes. >> Mr. Rescinto? Yes. Ms. Smith? Yes. I myself am a yes. President Weems? Yes.
Thank you. And that brings us to items from the treasurer. I move that the Board of Education approve the expenditures as outlined in the expenditure printout dated May 19th, 2026 as follows: General Fund $12,495
$7,000. General Fund Athletics $95,567 Capital Projects 2023 Bond Fund $947,088 Nutrition Services Fund $517,351 Benefits Stabilization Fund $1,584,597 for a total of $15,639,610.
Support. Thank you very much. Motion made by Mrs. Heinrich, supported by Mrs. Smith to approve the expenditure report. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That motion passes. Is there a motion to approve the consent
agenda? I move to approve the consent agenda. A. Approval of minutes. Number one, May 5th, 2026 regular meeting. Number two, May 7th, 2026 School Systems Blueprint Committee
meeting. Number three, May 9th, 2026 board retreat. B. Head Start Director's monthly reports. C. Personnel items. Support. Motion made by Mrs. Heinrich, supported by Mr. Walker to approve the consent agenda. Is there any discussion? Seeing
none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That motion passes. Are there any reports from board representatives? Seeing none, this meeting is adjourned. We had to duck and run.