##VIDEO ID:PNCjp3v3Oj4## this meeting is called to order at 700 p.m. good evening this is a regular meeting of the Ferndale Schools Board of Education being held on Monday October 21st 2024 our meeting is being video recorded and will be posted from the Ferndale schools YouTube channel all meetings in the Ferndale schools are held in public in compliance with the open meetings act printed documents discussed in tonight's meeting are available in the available to the public upon request with the exception of any information protected by student or employee privacy rights board meeing information is posted on our website at www. fernell schools.org if you do not have internet access and need information please contact the board offices at 248-5868 652 by Thursday of the week prior to the meeting and the District staff will do their best to work with you item 1.1 Ro for and shepher ceric here elter here bmer here latash here Turner here president dookie here thank you thank you item 1.2 approval of the agenda after review of the agenda are there any items that anyone wants to update no then without objection and with unanimous consent the agenda is the agenda is approved item two presentation of building University High School principal patteron I'm sorry president dookie I just oh I see it forget it I couldn't see the public comment sorry hello hello everybody very excited to talk to you about um UHS and the initiatives that we have for this year uh centered around the per the pillars of Ferndale Excellence um our pillars of Excellence self-reflection transparency attendance collaboration and data as a flashlight uh self-reflection at University High School we really work to have a culture of self-reflection um we're regularly asking ourselves what can we do to make U s better our teachers are saying what can we do to make our classes better and on a daily basis what can we do to make our lessons better um and to that end we this year come came up with some new schoolwide programs and initiatives um in that goal of self-improvement um one of our big focuses is on regular classroom circles um restorative practices and a way to focus on student talk and increased student sense of belonging um we initiated Eagle activity days which I'll talk about a a little bit later in terms of more about what those are um our Student Success team meetings for mtss identification and structured supports um and again that's another area that I'm going to talk about a little bit later in the presentation is along with relationship mapping through our partnership that we have with Harvard University um we're also working to expand our use of design thinking and integration its integration into classrooms and some of our UHS students are here today to talk a little bit about that um we added in bi bimonthly classroom level surveys for self-reflection this will be just our teachers will see that information so it won't be coming to Administration it'll be a way for our teachers to get feedback from their students and self-reflect on that feedback um we also initiated a senior mentoring program this year and this is where each staff member was assigned four or five seniors with the goal of just making sure that every single senior has a plan when they leave University High School um we were fortunate to add a partnership with Oakland 80 this year so in addition to our mcam partnership um we have someone in our building full-time from Oakland 80 and he is really focused on those students for whom a college degree might not be the right path but who want some post-secondary training maybe in apprenticeships or trades or certificate programs so he's focusing on that branch and then we have our mcam partner focusing on the other Branch with our goal of having every student have a real valid plan for postsecondary training when they leave University High School um and another one it's small but but this is a mountain um if you work in schools and that is uniform cell phone enforcement commitment um it's it's always been a a rule but until you have a uniform Buy in from your your whole staff um it makes it hard to enforce and it was an instantly noticeable difference in terms of the connection um among students the camaraderie uh the engagement levels in our classrooms second one is transparency um some of the ways that we are transparent we have weekly short family updates in addition to our monthly newsletter this is really a quick read nuts and bolts most important things um as a parent myself I know sometimes the uh you can get lost in all of the links and all of the information that you get week after week so these are just quick hit um updates we also tried something new this year that we were very excited about and was very successful we swapped conferences so that we have one morning session so at drop off parents can come in and meet with their students teachers then um and our students are going to be talking a little bit about that because that was their challenge was students are in the building at that time so what can we do what can the students be doing while their teachers are meeting with parents um we have regular social media updates weekly video announcements on Tik Tok and those are shared on social media as well and then just in general we really believe in a shared leadership approach and that builds trust among staff in terms of attendance this is a major issue for University High School that we are working really hard to improve um and we're trying a multifaceted approach so first thing is a focus on increased sense of belonging um again the regular circles that we talked about earlier lead to that increased sense of belonging in addition to the eagle activity days and what Eagle activity days are we realize that at University High School a lot of our students commute they don't live in the area um so particularly for our students who ride the bus when they leave on that bus they aren't coming back so they might not have that engagement from extracurricular activities that some of the students who can stay after would have so we instituted Eagle activity days this year um we had our first one a couple of weeks ago and our next one at the end of the month Eagle activity day is our way during the school day for students to find like-minded peers and do a student-led activity or organization Club things like that and again that's really just to Foster that sense of belonging so that people are connected to others um hopefully leading to improved attendance relationship mapping is something we um Harvard University is running a program so we enrolled in that program and that is where we look at our entire list of students and ensure that every student has an adult that they have a connection with so we've we started it started with a student survey um and then at our next PLC that is when we do the actual mapping um if there are students that don't have that staff members is like oh wait we look through here this student doesn't have any staff member that they feel really connected to we make an effort to assign those students out so that everybody is connected to an adult at UHS um in addition to the sense of belonging we're working on different incentive programs um we have extra graduation tickets for our seniors who meet a certain attendance level um we do attendance breakfast we've been having attendance Raffles um just various programs like that um we've really formalized this year our mtss process um particularly as it relates to attendance and some other things but um so as part of this mtss process our tier 2 and tier three students are identified and then they're paired with appropriate support staff um some of that we have a new person this year from communities and schools that we're very excited about so she is full time in our building now for the first time and um so she works with some of our tier 2 and tier three students as well as some our academic coach is sometimes a signed depending and our one of our senior advisers is sometimes a signed just depending on kind of the situation um we're also being more um systematic about our letters and phone calls home for students who are struggling with attendance and then um again we're just really working to address root causes meet basic needs a lot of times we find that it's Transportation so we now have bus passes available that students can get if they need to take the both the SMART Bus and the DT bus we have passes for both through communities and schools um so just looking things like that we've ordered a bunch of alarm clocks if parents are telling us like waking up I have to leave for work and they're not awake and I have to leave so we've ordered some alarm clocks that give can be given out to students just things like that um to try to improve attendance so we're we're excited to see the result we really hope we can make some progress this year um collaboration really for UHS this is the heart of what we do share leadership is everything for us we really have staff that step up and Lead initiatives um things like best you week that we just had last week first four days Target time all of those things we couldn't do without a staff that is willing to step up lead um just really dive in and and look for ways to make UHS better um C2 pipeline did lose its grant funding this year at UHS so we really had to step up to find new after school activities and options for that and our staff members stepped up to to fill that Gap so we're excited about that um staff's leads PD we have some Flex plc's that are built in throughout the year for staff to share their expertise as well um we have grade level plcs so as part of our new formalized mtss process our grade level plc's kind of inform the who we need to look at for our mtss process for our tier 2 students we have shared data analysis and problem solving sessions and we do staff circles as well as doing circles in our classroom um finally this year we're really working hard to increase the capacity of our student leaders so that they can collaborate with us and we have some of those student leaders here with us today but they're really involved with new student initiatives um we brought back our leadership class this year and it is specifically designed for our student council students and so we're seeing some really exciting things come out of there um just two weeks ago our student leaders created student surveys that went to the student leaders and then they shared that data with us um for implementation and then we've also instituted a regular student leadership admin meetings each month so that we can be we can collaborate and be on the same page and and get new ideas and then finally data as a flashlight um we use data in various ways at UHS we do whole staff analysis of our Panorama Panorama data excuse me um and then we identify smaller work groups for areas that we really need to focus on um we have our Student Success team meetings and this is really this has really been formalized for this year um so we meet uh every other week with our Student Success team to identify our tier 2 and our tier three students Um this can be for grades this can be transcripts students who are in need of credit recovery this is attendance data behavioral data as well as Benchmark assessment data so we're looking at all these different forms of data and then we're creating structured supports for those students um and we're we have our entire support team and just based on our support team's expertise we're identifying which students are kind of assigned to which Champion to um walk them through those mtss supports um also as I mentioned earlier the bimonthly classroom level survey data and then we were working to increase our capacity around I ready data now that we have switched to I ready I mentioned a couple of times we're super excited about what our student council is doing through the leadership class and I would like to welcome them up to talk to you now hi lined up here I am Sarah Rogers I'm a teacher at University High School and also student council advisor um I went to the two-e design thinking PD this summer um found it a really amazing PD to go to um we have some other teachers who are implementing it in their classrooms and social justice it's being used uh but for me this year with the new leadership elective I thought this was a really great opportunity um so this first challenge just kind of landed in our laps this year um and I handed it over to the kids and uh they got their first practice with the process so they'll talk about the process and their experience hi I'm Skyler Jackson I'm UHS president of student council and I'll be introducing the rest of our leadership team today and also talking a little bit about the design thinking process I'm TI and I'm a I'm also [Music] okay go to the next slide please thank you as a part of our leadership class we learned about the design thinking process and got to do our first practice challenge design thinking is a way of problem solving that focus on that focuses on understanding the needs of people and creating outof thebox Solutions it has five steps empathize Define ideate prototype and test um the first challenge that we were given to practice using design thinking was to create a program for students during the fall parent teacher conference we were told that conferences would be in the morning during the day when students were in the building but teachers will not be available the challenge was to come up with a plan for them the first step of the process was to empathize with the people who we were getting the program for for we interviewed our principles we asked them questions that would help us understand their needs such as what are some needs that the students have at the start of their day what concerns that you have about you have about having conferences during the school day what areas of of the building will be available during conferences the next step of our process was to review the responses from the interviews and come up with our takeaways and themes a few of the themes that we discovered were that our principles wanted our plan to be organized they wanted students to be able to to choose which activities they wanted to go to that we should plan a variety of activities for different different types of students and now we had to make sure that it could run smoothly with just a few staff with just a few staff members supporting it supervisor after we identified these items we had to come up with our how might we questions every group had different versions but this is one example how might we create a program for students during fall parent teacher conferences that will be organized enjoyable for students and appropriately supervised with limited staff our next step was to brainstorm as a group to answer our how might be questions and then capture our final concept some of the things we took for our brainstorming was to not judge other people ideas encourage each other to think outside the box build off each other's thinking and keep going back to our how we use the yes and protocol for brainstorming we all had sticky notes and we took turns adding on to each other ideas after we finish we close our ideas by similarities and then we voted on our three favorites we used the top ideas to capture our final concept we selected a title for our concept came up with one sentence to summarize it and one sentence for how it will work and what we wanted the impact of our concept to be once we had our final concept we started prototyping we worked as a group to create a 3D model for our idea we had to get a creative we had to get creative with pipe cleaners form board and a lot of Random craft supplies here are some pictures of US during our Proto prototyping Workshop after building our prototypes we presented them to our principles and got feedback from them here are some pics from our presentations in the end they decided to use a combination of our Concepts during fall parent teacher conferences and they gave us approval to use some of our ideas later on in the year we are already planning on a wellness day for the second semester student leadership will be using the design thinking process throughout the school year to plan UHS Improvement projects plan student events and address challenges some areas of focus will be attendance student belonging and family engagement we will also be partnered with a local business in the spring the business will give us a challenge and we'll use the design thinking process to create a solution for them we'll be taking a field trip to conduct our interviews in person and then presenting during a showcase at Oak schools in May do you have any questions awesome [Music] job thank you everybody we appreciate your time any questions I just really want to solicit participation on our Wellness if anyone's interested please join our and I'll reach out I'm so excited it's a great idea Wonder anybody have any questions for me before can I just ask one did you guys have fun with the process it was it was very like something that like most don't do so it was good to like see everybody's ideas and how everybody was like shutting everybody down we got to talk through the ideas just like well that's not smart do that got like great thank you so much that looks like a great process and thanks for coming here was this implemented building live yes you mean for for that day for that day yes it was it was design just so you all know design thinking is all over the workplace like I would like to capture you all and bring you to my job so you could do this presentation but I mean kudos to your leadership for introducing you to the concept because you're learning about something that if you can talk about that in a job interview you're going to capture people's attention right away so hang with this process and whenever you get a chance to use it please use it and then think about all the stuff that you're learning and mention it to other adults in your life because they're going to want to hear what you have to say about it but thank you for solving Real Worlds just like those are real I you have no idea how how many times principal Patterson and I and have talked about a number of these things so it's just exciting to see what we can do when we just give it to students I'm just proud great job great job thank you thank you everybody thank you [Applause] up next item three presentation of fond program update de right you that right have a good evening night I speak as louly as U the children so I decided to get up here because it's just awkward for me to sit so close to the to the screen but good evening everyone my name is Felicia wri I'm Deputy superintendent Ferndale Public Schools and tonight I'm going to do a recap of our bond program from 21 up until 23 and then what we have planned for next summer and actually I wish UHS had stayed the young ladies would hear all the wonderful work so you'll have to you'll have to take notes UHS rep okay all right so this is just a reminder of our Series so our bond passed in in 2020 we call it the bond 2020 series 1 is about 53.7 million Series 2 is 35.4 and series you're anticipating does thank you what we're anticipating is another 35.7 million was it the chairs chairs they were shifting on their own I knew it okay I didn't know what that meant we can we can advance uh superintendent hler so completed Bond uh bid packet which is what we entitle all of our bid projects as a bid packet the number one was um big packet Bond budget was for a little over 7 million we actually spent a little less than that 6.5 and that project entailed the next slide I'm sorry that project entailed uh Renovations at Ferndale upper elementary school as well as at Ferndale Early Childhood Center New Laboratories new front office new uh vestibule the same thing at uh ferdale Early Childhood Center we installed a new clayground I like to say a venture Center for those kiddos and a new uh secure front office bid packet number two budget was 2.6 we went a little bit over at 4.2 million and that project entailed Ferndale high school with the um one we filled in uh the women's pool I believe and we renovated the pool uh formerly the men's uh pool area and we also um on top of that pool that was filled in in the women's we buil in a new weight room at the high school the Pack 3 budget 3.3 million actual spend 3.1 little less that project entailed uh uh Renovations at Tri County Educational Center um included a parking lot roof repairs uh ventilation mechanical and heating and cooling classroom Renovations and Furniture completed bid pack four budget uh Bond budget was 26.2 million we expended uh 32 2 million and that project is the new Ferndale um low Elementary School big budget big project and we're so proud of that building if you haven't gone please take a visit over there principal uh Keith would be glad to have you uh completed bid uh package number five budget 379,000 we expensed uh 598 th000 and that project entailed new boilers and we can advance that that project entailed new boilers um what wasn't initially included were the boilers at actually UHS and we made a decision to replace those given we were having problems in the end and so that's why I went a little bit over budget b packet number six 2.5 we expense uh expended 2.9 and those were the roof over the auditorium at Ferndale high school as well as here at the Ferndale the old Ferndale low or what we now call Central Administration and new doors uh select doors throughout Ferndale High School completed bid pack 7 78,000 was the bond budget we actually spent 69,000 and that was for the new monument signs at Ferndale uh middle school and high school and next bid pack 8 Ferndale Early Childhood Center and Ferndale upper elementary school so this project was just completed this past summer we installed two new uh toilet rooms within the classrooms at Ferndale Early Childhood Center which really have become very valuable to the teachers both of the classrooms that we completed this past summer Rave about having it so uh close in the classroom where you don't have to worry about lining up all the kiddos to take them down to the group lab atory the new monument sign as well as parking lot resurfacing so this project entailed install of six toilet rooms throughout the building in as a Jack and jail so to speak between classrooms and we did not um complete all of them we have four more to do next summer and just due to timing because we believe we couldn't get the project done and have the building reopened by fall uh the other four Laboratories are going to be done uh summer 2025 and all the materials are there and then at Ferndale Upper Elementary School we completed uh a little less than 2000 square foot extension on the building for uh steam education it is absolutely a beautiful space and already principal Jeff asks uh to use it we're not complete with our final uh fire inspection so um we're waiting for that um but the the fa the space is nearly complete with a heated flooring a workstations for robotics as well as uh uh for art and for music that room would be used by all of those entities in the building um but the flexible seating and the furniture is already on site and storage and then finally impr progress has B packet number nine and so this is a a new project that will get underway this coming summer a University High School will experience um a new parking lot expansion we going to take a little bit of the playground that's there to expand parking to 86 spaces uh a new approach off of uh why can't I think of the street that runs towards fecc Bermuda Bermuda ber Bermuda on Bermuda new uh approach there uh new secure vestibule replacement flooring in the cafeteria and throughout all the classrooms new furniture and we're going to also refresh the Laboratories in the um locker room and that that Bond budget is 3.4 million so right now we're in the process of finalizing our bid responses compressing the numbers interviewing the contractors to ensure that they understand what the scope of the work is and can carry out the project to come this summer that's it so that that gives you a little bit of a view of the existing conditions and and why we're um renovating the space so Laboratories flooring signage and then that security vest to be buil built out under that um canopy any questions I have one uh shout out about the F playground yes cuz it's a winner yeah it has been it has been consistently a winner like it's the place to go with all the all all the musical instruments that are built into the playground oh yeah and then um I have a question about the side the at the high school and the middle school do they turn off at a certain they do okay I was like I didn't think about it till one night I came home late I was like oh that's good that they turn off but I'm like I don't know if they actually turn off they do they're programmed to turn off at 10 p.m. but there's not a city ordinance but we're being respectful of the neighborhood because they're so close to Residence right yeah up here and teacher conferences any questions I'm so excited for UHS because I just I can't wait wait to see the kids faces when they come back in the fall so yeah okay thank you thank you very much brings us to item four Count Day update uh director of school community relations and people accounting Mr hbert excuse my corded oldfashioned setup here my wireless mouse two of them they just kind of caved on me I'm not sure exactly what's going on but thank you good evening good evening it's funny when I show up with this people say man what are you doing you put the EKG on your computer so um but I'm going to talk tonight a little bit about the enrollment and where we are as a district uh you've received in your packet the update as of 1016 uh which shows where we stand I do want to provide some updates on what we've been doing to True up the number um with the absent on Count Day report and also with the fpcc um totals that we have and I'll be able to share a little bit more with that but I want to go over exactly what you have so far uh if you click on on in that file uh can or whoever's driving you want to click on the link the hyper link go down to the hyperlink to the building data it's down link to building do that from PDF just open up it's a PDF the link is should be live no right [Music] no the Link's not well what I have here is I have a backup links we live oh wait hold on a second let me try from this oh no no sorry thank thank you if you have it and you want to share it with me real quick cuz I'd like the community to I do yeah let me share it I'll share with you okay you there you go there's another tab down there that answers a question from the board as well this is it right here yes okay so you'll see one of the the points I want to show with this data is over the summer we track from July until mid uh October after Count Day the trend to see how the data shows in terms of our enrollment and you'll see uh that when we look at lower and we look at or Su of the easing of those numbers especially uh with lower from 509 to 523 and the increasing number for sorry I said easing the increasing number from lower from 509 to 523 as a 1016 and also at upper we see a little bit of an ease there this indicates I just want to show this because this indicates where people are sometimes shopping schools at the beginning of the year they're enrolling in multiple districts and then they shake out and by the time they figure out where they want to attend or if they they plan to attend we'll see those numbers shift um for FHS same thing see a little bit of a settling there between the last period that we track to 1016 what's favorable is that at UHS we see that number going up and that's what we want to see we want to see that number because they build their classes pretty organically from School of Choice Wayne County and so that's a good indication that UHS is going strong and same with tcec you'll see that that number increased for the 12th grade significantly and that represents those online students coming back to finish their their school so um another question the board had was you know what percentage of our students are School of Choice at this point uh approximately a third of our students are School of Choice a thousand students th4 students we have some students here on uh superintendent release which is also a an element of choice but it's U limited to caseby casee scenario the next uh tab shows an analysis of cohort I believe that question was asked and I wanted to make sure I put this together to share a 4-year glance uh looking back for 4 years to see at our transition points what happens with our enrollment um if the question if I recall was do we see a significant drop off or do we see an increase so let's start with the light blue cohort which I call the kindergarten cohort starting in 21 all the way through 24 25 but we see here now of course this doesn't take into account every aspect those students don't go one to one through the year but to answer the question of the transition between the second and the third grade we see that actually as a district we increase our enrollment from that transition point about 99.3% so between the period of 2122 all the way down you follow that cohort through that first transition you'll see that it increased 10% then you know to get my arms around this I was thinking I said well let's take a look then because in order to do this kind of all the way through we'd have to kind of count back so I said let's take the look at the next cohort who students which would be our transition uh 5 to 6 so we start the third grade there with the purple so if you follow that from the third grade all the way through the sixth grade you'll see that it may follow some of the logic and some of the thinking that between our elementaries and our middle school and our secondary school we see some attrition there but not a lot not a lot we see the enrollment is picking up so down four students there and again remember the 2425 data is the summative data of the count as we see it now it's not certified so that number may drop or may change a little bit but not significant and then the third cohort uh the 89 transition um I'm very pleased with the numbers we see with the interest in in District residents staying with Ferndale and not choicing out um over the from the sixth grade to the ninth grade we'll see that the uh the enrollment has a healthy increase pretty much all the way through and especially in that ninth grade year um in the 2425 period from year 2324 and this is significant because we haven't increased our School of Choice slots significantly so that is in District residence we haven't changed U any of those policies about admission so we're seeing a healthy uh gain in our uh student enrollment Robert would you mind pausing just real quick just to see if we you have any questions that was a a lot of great information okay no I want to say like huge thank you for doing this because I know it's a question that gets asked a lot is do we lose kids at those transition and it's tough like when you look like our current cohort that says like the fourth graders the fifth graders sixth graders when you go from 147 in one class to 182 it's tough to see that just year over year no but to know if you look at that same say fifth grade class going back they fluctuated between that 180 to 90 they're solid there where the class behind them is at right in that like 140 area so like this is great to show just that the cohorts are staying strong in where they start to where they're going through it's not an attrition we're not losing and just that that like ninth grade where we didn't increase School of choice but we're seeing an even larger class of like people coming back so it's thank you this is awesome see it's funny we I spend time with the data so much it's like I kind of get it in my head that one laid out for you to see it so you can see that we strong year over year um some interesting findings uh you notice the kindergarten class you might see that from K to one a drop off there we were discussing that and uh come to to think about first fives in that number so they're getting counted twice so that's why so you're sign you're really not seeing a lot of Kinders leaving the district it's just that those Kinders are counted at the K level otherwise that would be an indication Tom and I talking about that would be indication of what's Happening why are we losing so many kindergarteners to first grade so that might be a deeper dive that we can take a look at but um other than that the numbers are pretty solid and over the over the past four years we continue this out I'm wondering uh going back to looking at the building summary um I appreciate your explanation of how the numbers aren't settled but between 8816 and 1016 especially if I'm looking at fecc lower UHS I know we said that that has more of an organic process um to what you said um but seeing those are sizable jumps I'm wondering where do we see a lot of those kids coming in um because I'm thinking from a classroom perspective for both the teachers and the students for their learning if we're having a lot of kids come in beginning of October yeah what does that mean for the learning of the kids who are in that class as well as the kids who are coming into that class and the teachers have to look with that so in in terms of head count I can so start with fecc those gsrp students that's their raw number okay when we shake this out and I I think your question pertains to that because it's about space and about how many students are in the head count um I have too and timing so like there a lot of that increase happening towards the beginning of September or is it closer to this 1016 date if we know that trickle through very um high level um perspective on that so I know last year um principal Keith was challenged with um watching the numbers over the summer and trying to figure out where that sweet spot was going to be of will there be a need for extra section in K or in one because they were coming in and it's always this kind of game that was played right last year it was first grade bigger class that K was a little bit smaller now we're in the conversation this year and we're looking at that k group and I can confirm that they are still enrolling right now so I think that this would be I don't recall seeing so much in September and October last year so I think it would be very um telling this year with our current c um I I think that we'll have a lot of narrative data around um the impact that that has had on classroom culture um you know all of the things right because because it's kindergarten we we can't confirm that they're playing that like game of testing out schools for a month we don't know that they may have not been in school at all so um you're just making me think that we may want to ex big a little bit deeper specifically of those students that are enrolling a little bit later because I think that that definitely tells um it'll be important dat to piece and I I guess with that um is there a cut off point um cuz I know we have the C for enrollment by numbers but by time but yeah I I know if it's residents you you can't say anything but I'm wondering otherwise I'll come and I'll say presidents they're coming you know like it's it's it's I I I I know that's not a unique to us too I know that's and I will say that um like it's a good it's a good problem right we are definitely getting close to our caps and um specific in kindergarten so so it's hard why we would love to be like November you know like the specific day is difficult when your residents oh for sure yeah I I um just appreciate us hearing about how that's going throughout the year um just so we know how we can support the kids who are in the class and the the teachers teaching them cuz yeah so maybe you enrollment train throughout the years there how many new enrollments yeah yeah so that that would be the ask from enrollment and then from building leadership to teachers would be how are they managing that the flux of students and what that does to the classroom learning culture and we try to push them we try to get them in roll quickly because if you wait the longer you wait you know the kids out of school you know yeah it's tough for everyone that kid the class they come into everyone yeah yeah it's things like yeah whether it's students that are like our first five to 10 you can waiver in or we getting those kids what are we yeah what is it group because yeah I look at that class and that's going to be like the fifth grade class right now which every time that moved up a teacher had to had to move move around a lot so it's going to be if you take out first five you're still looking at 180 students which is a huge it's a big class huge class it's it's almost like every other year every couple years is like this huge class so it looks like that K class like you mentioned Sarah is our next big group just yeah I think it's we've been very fortunate after Co with having not those huge classes and just that and being forun of like our teacher to student ratios being there so like yeah how if we're thinking more and more residents are staying how yeah we're thinking supports we're thinking of like you know uh facilities you know because very soon and very soon they'll be in middle school and they're different sizewise I would just curious to see how many of these residents are new to the area I almost poing to somebody daily and says hey I just moved right so how many new residents are are moving into the city because of the schools right yeah I think there's a Code we can pull new first time in District nice so uh and then I wanted when I mentioned that number the 3360 the final number as we're whittling it down I want to give you a little more precision and not tie myself to a number just yet because we're working on it we're around 3206 right now and the whittling down is coming from a lot of the FCC students we get funding from them if we provide special ed services so we're really focus on making sure we get every student from Special Ed in in uh fecc but we're confident we're going to be in and around the margin of era of the 3160 that uh uh uh projected uh same as last year but this this large number I just want to make sure everybody's not multiplying that by the the state right we'll get down to our F can I ask you so is you're so when you're talking about special education and specifically to FCC here saying that we need to get as many of the students as early on as possible into the special education like registered into special education or whatever the services are let me be I want to be clear not not we have no we are just making sure that our records are up to date with Services they're receiving so we're not I'm not certain about how they're getting it but just making sure that we are calculating the total hours that are in the system that's what gives us that FTE that's a that's a separate question and what day is that by you you do that fifth week uh after count so it's uh November like the 9th or whatever that second week in November for five weeks and one one final question from the last meeting we had was around attendance and um early release days and so I did some digging on that just to see so we get average daily attendance our district is pretty high 904 let me see fpf average on those just for this year is 94.3 so to tell you how we track attendance from our offices we set our indicator at 86% so if it ever Falls below 86% we're going to know there's an issue coming so our our audited account for attendance is our audited attendance is high across the district I did see a slight slight dip but nothing measurable like 1% for FHS and UHS on those Wednesdays the seven Wednesdays that we have okay have had uh so there is an indication that that and what I want to do is follow that through the year to see and in UHS as well they they dipped down some to 86s and 8 85s and as we're working as well with Juan George is working with Juan to build some attendance reports so that we can see how we're going to track and measure attendance for Camille's goals and for the district's goals what what is going to be that metric that we just don't want to leave it so it indicates that there is some slippage on the Wednesdays Robert did you say the average attendance is 94 94. 31 for for those uh days for those early release days both buildings all buildings all buildings FHS averages 93.4 dips a little bit UHS is 93 lower 94.7 and upper 95.6 so that's average attendant on the early release day MH and average attendance on regular days I can run that I'm just a like I'm amazed that is not what I'm hearing about School attendance no that's so if that's our average attendance kudos to your team so that in that school but in those six percentage points lie our critical kids yes and those are the kids even though as a district we're performing well our chronically absent students need to be serviced so even if there's 2% if youve got right absolutely so all right any questions about where we stand thank you thank you brings us to item five a AI acknowledgement and presentation of Dr L good evening everybody good evening evening this evening I have the extreme pleasure of introducing you all to Dr Olivia Lynch from The african-amer Institute Dr Lynch came to Ferndale last year I believe and has has brought her her extreme amount of knowledge and experience she's held every educational position I think you can hold um at the you know Public School level um colge Professor um just a wonderful resource for us and I thought it would be appropriate to take some time tonight to introduce her to you so you can meet her and also see some of the wonderful work that she's started we start with a little bit about the African-American Institute 7 decades a d diaspora to catalyze a more sustainable and Equitable World taking a transcontinental multifaceted approach their programs span across cor impact pillars laboratory education Community Building Global healing and repair and economic sovereignty I won't read all of this but just um from the AI website part of Dr L's bio sorry so last year the work that that we partnered on started with some classroom libraries at part Upper Elementary Dr Lynch led a book study on Goldie muhammed's book unearthing joy for all of our principles and instructional lead teachers uh we had a wonderful experience Dr L brought Stephanie Harvey in for a day of learning around comprehension I'm targeted for teachers of literacy and social studies there's uh you a lot of times when when principles say hey we have this PV who wants to go it's the exact opposite you know people were like wait wait I missed that how how do I get in on that so it was great was great interest before the event and there was wonderful feedback after the event so that was really exciting Dr lyce met with the curriculum instruction assessment team on a regular basis to just kind of share her wisdom uh provide some mentoring opportunities just kind of map out where we're going helping us put some guidance there and uh one of the highlights for me last year was she coordinated a conversation with Joe Feldman who is the author of creating for equity which is a a book that I've listened to and read multiple times and I find um some great information in it and some some learning and leading that we're we're engaging our principles with um over last year and this year with the The Hope and goal of creating a districtwide grading policy in the very near future one that focuses on an equitable Equitable approach um that ends with grades reflecting what students know about a content and and nothing more nothing less okay so that was last year this year we're continuing our work um Dr lince is mentoring two of our fero Public Schools administrators I am one of them and I am really excited about our conversations um we've had a couple so far and always leave just you know energized and excited and ready to go um so it's a great experience for me I appreciate that thank you uh starting the second semester Dr Lynch will be leading a book study for administrators culturally responsive School leadership by Muhammad Khalifa so I'm excited about that we focused on culturally responsive teaching in the brain for the last few years and that's been a great book for principals and teachers but Dr Khalifa's book is geared directly for school administrators um so having read that book I think it will be a great experience for our principles that will lead to to increase success for our teachers and our students I'm excited about that we are going to be getting additional classroom libraries for f upper uh we have an additional fifth grade class this year so that class will be getting classroom library and then we'll be getting some classroom libraries for the new rooms at Burnell lower we're going to expand on our day of learning with Stephanie Harvey we're going to multiply by five this year so that that's again very exciting um probably won't be with Stephanie Harvey this year but it'll be with one of her team um so we're still looking very forward to that AI provided scholarships for myself and Miss Griffin to attend the cult responsive teaching and the Brain master class that was facilitated by z h and herself which was beyond super cool and she's also supporting us in our fernel Middle School social studies resource adoption process so those are just some of the things that we're working on bless you I'm sure that as as we go through the year and we have our conversations our opportunities will expand themselves but that's kind of what we have in the works right now so again I want wanted to take the opportunity to introduce Dr Lynch to all of you and give you a chance to to meet her and give her a chance to say a few words and give you a chance to ask questions if you have so with that I'm going to turn it over to Dr L hi thanks for having me um it's always an honor to come to fale you all know that I'm just we have an amazing district and I just feel it I've only been in Michigan 2 years um and for all of the work uh that I do I tell people what I am is just a school teacher and that's how I view myself and school teachers get to learn lots of things and I just got a chance to learn lots of things but I'm still a school teacher I'm still happiest in in spaces for children and Educators that's the best place to be I'm I'm happy to provide services through the African-American Institute I'm a consultant with them so be before I came is actually my high school teacher worked with them many many moths ago and I got a call about four or five years ago saying would you like to come and help this organization they want to reup their schools uh their schoolwork uh piece of the of what they do and I said well who are they and so I looked and then I said oh okay and um so we were able to create a lot of the programs that you see one of the things that I loved is the um the um African diaspora uh curated um classroom libraries that was so fun again that's why I'm a classroom teachers it meant that I had to read a lot of books a lot of Children books kindergarten fifth grade to put this Library together but it's so wonderful to experience that and I'm just really proud that we have recognized um the diaspora both in the United States and Africa in the Caribbean and in Latin America and I I am from Latin America so that's just really wonderful and that there's a library that uh speaks to all of that uh for the children it's just really really exciting so I like this kind of work uh tarita Hammond I knew her in San Francisco well yeah in San Francisco when I was um the director and superintendent of us Charter there and um and also I know her work and her and and her books and um so I'm just I was just so pleased that um uh I could with her in any way that I could Joe Felman turned out to be a friend when I was a um wut superintendent in the Bay Area um actually I mentored him when I was working at Stanford and then I got a call years later when I was Consulting and said you ready to come back to a district or school I said yes what and um he was uh leaving a district and asked me if I would come and take uh his position there and subsequent to that he um wrote a book based on some of the work that he did and so grading for Equity came out just amazing because lots of times Educators know things they don't have time to put it together in ways that are useful anyway I talk a lot about teaching and learning so I'm going to stop I just want to let you know that again I'm honored let me know if there's anything that you need um Stephanie Harvey is another colleague that I I met years ago when I was um a principal in in uh New York on the east side and the superintendent brought her in to do some work with us and then later I was able to bring her out to California when I was there to do some work with my schools so um you know she's just a really top educator I want to tell you one of her you know she has um as Tom said it's not necessarily her but she has um Consultants that work with her and one of them has been working with the school in Pontiac and it is the only school that improved on the what do you call it here the M the only one and I asked the principal uh for what is you have to write down everything you did and started earlier and one of the in the package of things was having this consultant from Stephanie Harvey um impacting the disposition and knowledge and practice of her teachers and looking at what happened to the children only School the district was like what what's going on over there so I I'm just happy for those things because the children at the end of the day is the children that matter so anyway you have an absolutely beautiful dish but I know you know that and blessings to you and thank you for having me thank you I have a a onepage document that I'll sh there on the africanamerican thank you thank you next item six uh public comment this is a time for public participation in the meeting the Board of Education attempts for the public to have many opportunities to address the board and administration of their school district these include email phone calls face Toof face meetings Community Gatherings public hearings and other meetings we welcome individual and group input into the important issues that confront our schools as noted at the top of the agenda this is a meeting of the school board open to the public we want to provide fair and impartial guidelines for participation as required by the open meetings act and to encourage transparency and equal treatment for everyone in attendance we also recognize that an effective meeting facilitates better decisions and promotes openness by allowing more people to stay for the full length of the meeting to meet these goals please note the following we ask that you identify yourself and list contact information on a comment sheet to help administrators follow up with you on your comment if you do not wish to do so in writing please identify yourself at the podium and if you need a response please provide contact information with an administrator after the meeting I'll call on people who have completed a comment sheet first each person will have one opportunity to address the board for up to three minutes comments or questions should be directed to the board president uh vice president Fulmer will raise her hand when your time is within a few seconds of expiring this period of public comment is for both non-agent items and issues that are on the agenda public comments will end at the close of this part of the agenda in the event that the number of people wishing to comment requires longer than 30 minutes public comment will be temporarily postponed um after 30 minutes and time will be added to the end of the meeting for those who did not get a chance to speak complaints about staff should be made outside of the board meetings and should follow the applicable board policy uh please contact the superintendent's office if you have any questions regarding this item the board cannot respond to complaints about employees in public this is meant to prent promote fairness to the staff person and the complainant BR up Public Schools Community acts with great civility toward one another please help us to maintain that condition during public comment anyone here for public comment the comment is now closed brings us to item seven consent agenda 7 point item 7.1 request for approve minutes of the special meeting Committee of the whole Tuesday September 3rd 2024 item 7.2 request to approve minutes of the regular meeting Monday September 6 16th 2024 item 7.3 request to approve new hires resignations terminations and transfers item 7.4 request to approve bills and accounts uh for September 2024 does anyone wish to remove an item from the consent agenda for questions or discussion later no seeing none I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented I'll move move by Peter second it a second second Jonathan roll call Sheer sigic yes El Turk yes bumer yes matash yes Turner yes president dookie yes thank you thank you with six yes votes the motion passes and the consent agenda is approved uh action items item eight action item 8.1 request uh to approve the ocba proposed amendments to the association bylaws uh we had those uh via email and we shared them at the committee of the whole does anyone have U any discussion on the bylaws no I'll a motion to approve item 8.1 request to approve OCS vaa proposed amendment to the association bylaws so moved moved by Mary second second by Sarah R call shepher Elk yes pler yes latash sure Turner yes AAR yeah president dookie thank you with six yes votes the motion passes an item 8.1 request to approve the ocba proposed amendments to the association bylaws is approved uh item 8.2 request to approve the appointment of amyra house conect house house I was like I as Oakland County parent advisory committee representative talk about his committee as a whole you anyone here yes introduction Wonder so now that this is a regular board meeting and we will do a quick another formal introduction of our special education director right or no or are we talking about talking about her she's right here okay got it we we could do Special M yeah yes please a lot of audibles and hand motions thank you so much good evening good evening evening I every how are you you want me to just say a few words just a few words okay so I am Alicia bir um proud to here in ferdale as your special education director um I've been here for a little over a month now this is I think my second or third board meeting so um lots of work to do here I've been collaborating with all of my team members on the um cabinet to kind of create an action plan um I'm doing a comprehensive needs assessment of all of our programs at each building to just see what's working where there are gaps and I have a dynamic team so I'm happy to be here and Alicia's dynamic as well proud to have her on our team perect thank you can you just say a word or two about this position on the pth yes I can so um the parent advisory committee is really um a committee through Oakland schools each district has one or two parent Representatives depending on the number of students with IEPs um so there was one vacancy created um so we have a parent who has three students in The District Two two students with IEPs one with the 504 um she herself is a Mental Health social worker for moms of newborns um and one of her her Visions or her her passion is behind helping parents to navigate the special education process especially when they have young kids and they're just starting out and there're a lot of questions and they're not familiar with the the process and procedures of and all the acronyms and all the things that go along with special education that's great and so far there's been two pack meetings so far right there have been two pack meetings one was in September that was their orientation the meeting in October was actually for um pack reps and directors so I went to that meeting it was a dinner meeting at Oakland schools and I attended with um one of our members Sarah Martin yeah P tomorrow is our oh yes and tomorrow is our um parent advisory committee for Fern Bale at um 5:30 in the nest at um shs we meet on the 4th Tuesday of the month from 5:30 to 7:30 5:30 we serve dinner 6:00 to 7: is the meeting 7 to 7:30 is kind of our Parent Connection portion where parents can kind of network and communicate with each other I'll entertain a motion to approve item 8.2 request to approve the appointment of Amar as an Oakland County parent advisory committee act representative move by Jen oh second seconded by Jonathan any other discussion on the motion ROM sheer bumer yes latash yes Turner yes ceric yes El Turk yes president do yes thank you thank you with six yes votes the motion passes in item 8.2 the request to appr the appointment of amyra house neck as an Oakland County parent advisory committee representative is approved than you thank you thank you item nine superintendence update good evening I have just a few items this evening for an update um first I would like to um one of the things that we would like to do to build um camarad and community and honestly just celebrate publicly is each month we will be inviting any awarde of the eagle Excellence award um to be acknowledged publicly at our board meetings um we are trying to get the get people to be nominating so if you are watching um we ask that you please use our link and nominate um staff members that uh exemplify excellence in our district so without with that being said um our Eagle Excellence award this week is Miss Valencia K I ask her to come to the podium because I'm going to read what her um award um acknowledgement States and it says Valencia Cade is a dynamic administrator within the special education department she works closely with the special education staff and also guides and supports our parents through her work with the parental advisory committee pack her diligence and work regarding our IEP compliance efforts is critical to ensure Student Success Miss Cade has been instrumental in maintaining a list of priorities in order to support the recent transition and Department leadership she works hard to cultivate and build relationships with team members and has been instrumental in recruiting and hiring highly qualified team members without a doubt her tenacity and attention to detail are assets to the district most importantly she is known for her passion to facilitate the best outcomes for the students we serve she is a team player and we surely want her to know how much she is appreciated Miss Kate is a stellar example of Eagle Excellence thank you Valencia for all you do so give a round of applause and we have an eagle Excellence Clint pin that I would like to present to Valencia and we're so so proud to have thank you I just want I you know it's yes okay I was I was telling Camille U Friday when I saw it like I cried you know what I mean because I don't really take that for granted you know what I mean it may seem like a small gesture but it it moved Mountains for me to feel like that I'm seen and heard and Valu for the hard work that I do here right now so thank you so much thank you congratulations thank very much um next I just wanted to give an update um publicly I did mention this in our weekly board update but on Thursday I had the opportunity to facilitate um what I'm calling a pillar committee goal setting session um so you've heard a lot about the five pillars of Excellence you've seen me talking about them in eblast um and it was time for us to um set a goal around each of our five pillars so that we can monitor our progress toward achieving that Excellence that we speak of um so the morning was spent with all of the leaders in our district then we went to the afternoon where we had staff representation from each of our buildings to do a very similar goal setting experience from both of those um experiences we have draft goals that will now come to the public Community for their feedback so because we all have a role in our goals we all have a role in ensuring that Ferndale is excellent so it makes sense for us to ensure that we have feedback from all of our stakeholders um so we're looking forward to setting um achievable yet um audacious goals I will say and um it was just a wonderful time um lots of the feedback that we um received was that it just um was exciting um and just powerful to be in the room um I watched people who had never leaders in the district who very rarely work together who are now working together to set a goal for our district so it was very powerful and I'm proud of the work that we're we're doing so stay tuned um but we did want to make sure that you knew that we' had some great work that we're doing around our five pillars of Excellence um next I wanted to talk and a briefly about our Dynamic plan and to acknowledge that from here on out um I will be including a dynamic Plan update during the superintendent update because it is in motion and we are excited so we had our kickoff meeting where myself um Deputy superintendent Wright as well as president dookie met with our Dynamic plan facilitator Dr Kelly Peterson I mean this was very much so your typical kickoff meeting where we wanted to make sure we had dates we understood the roles we understood what was coming next in our timeline for the development of our Dynamic plan and there were two pieces of homework that I would like to engage the board on very briefly um um around a few items the first one if you recall um there will be a period where we will do a board retreat um and that Retreat is where we would do we will review a lot of the stakeholder data that was collected as well as do our dreaming about what we would like our um threeyear sixe out Ferndale to look like um the three of us that were on the call thought that January made a lot of sense when we will have um board transition we have new board members on the board um but I wanted to just give an idea if there was any specific weekends in January possibly for our right now three so I Shar the two dates the 11 and the 25th I think the feedback that I got from theer was either works M Jonathan either works okay and Jackie also said either works but her question for was about how many hours yeah of orientation okay get that okay I was trying to hand off my homework but I now have some homework okay the next piece of feedback I wanted to just um get input from the board was there will be the need to develop a stakeholder team stakeholder development team of 7 to 11 that she's suggesting 7 to 11 members those members could be any role in our community of of course there were a few that we had discussed as possible options but I just wanted to see if there were some um potential roles or Community roles that you felt very strongly about needing to have a seat on the strategy development team my question would be which were those roles you identified yes so great question um one representative one staff member from each building so that will be seven um and then a potential Elementary and secondary student representative that will bring us to nine then the last two would be a secondary parent um as well as a excuse me parent career parent caregiver as well as an elementary parent caregiver so that will get us to 11 right there I would love to have a non-parent Community member um but that would bring us to 12 I think that we could squeeze that one in um but just wanted to see if there were any other formulations that might make sense makes sense to me especially again um for more the sake of the record that we know this is not the only input process right um this is going to be a small working group right to take in information that we're getting by many methods of feedback processing it um and I'm continuing to process on the the non directly District related Community member if anyone else has M like when we say one staff from each building because mine goes to like obviously like our staff is a huge range of different people and so like it's just a that of like making sure we're hitting aart upon different people roles within those so I can see a principal at one building a parent professional at another building a teacher at another bu you know someone from the special education department you know like just making sure they're very roles and very intentional um in the total representation I wonder if if Administration might already have just some like the meetings you have with them and everything a more direct line to you and if it may maybe not administr yeah and if it's maybe making sure we have um okay other educational staff represented and then if there's even um I don't know if it's if it's a a selecting or a building's nominating so folks have someone they feels representative um and then they know they have ownership of who they can coach to with questions and concerns keep that day was a good idea in the board there is representation of alumni or that would have been one that I would have highlighted but in a district where we have such tremendous support from the community I really would advocate for a non uh someone from the community that in this moment does not have direct ties to FPS yeah same okay another idea I was potentially think that we could do is maybe adding one of our Community Partners that's with one of our programs like youth Assistance or communities in school that yeah about 15 um but I I and then I was also thinking too that we have a number of staff that are also parents a number of staff that are also Alum so we may be depending on that part that we may check a few boxes in one yeah that's what I think for me the numbers you presented I think those are the critical ones to cover and that's looking for overlap um with the other things would be my feed okay okay thank you for that feedback um and last thing um under superintendent update is we have a very very exciting new program that I wanted to make sure that you knew about um I am going to hand it over to Deputy superintendent Wright to talk a little bit more about our new drone program sure so um this program is brought To Us by FM you assistance in partnership with um the um Neighborhood Legal Services of Michigan um we're targeting potentially 20 students from each School building that being fro high school and University High School um to provide uh stem education and stem Labs um through this program students can become certified in in Drums also coding um there's opportunities for not only mentorship but also employment um the program um the grant is $125,000 it's for this school year right so we attempting to get the program underway the program will be housed physically on the first floor of fdale high school kind of En Vision where it used to be on the first floor by the cafeteria right it'll be housed there um within the rant funding there's opportunity for renovating that space so it's appropriately designed for drone education um primarily cosmetic right building out to labeling and some really cool graphics and wrting and storage and um um so um we've been working with um Neighborhood Legal Services uh darl dam is in charge of the program and this program is actually brought to our attention also by Mr W um and the principals our High School principles had the opportunity of meeting the program designer um at our back to school fair if you remember that there's representation there and so they got a chance to link and so yep our kids would enjoy an opportunity to be a part of it and so um we're looking forward to launching that partnership can I take the class I would like to certified too yeah I can I can earn money yeah that's good that's great yeah I'm sorry just one more thing it's just l a lot of great things happening in F deal schools um last thing is I wanted to to make sure that the board and the community was aware that Ferndale high school will be sponsoring a South Africa trip um in 2026 um we are definitely looking for sponsorship uh as well as interest from any parents um if you are a middle schooler specifically 8th grade we will be targeting that group Because by the time 26 comes around they'll be in high school um we recogniz that there's a number of other trips um where students are attending already um but South Africa this is the first time that there have been a visit to South Africa to my knowledge um with Ferndale School so we're very excited wanted to make sure that we're getting the word out very loudly um so if you are interested I would ask that you reach out to Kylie Rulo Miss Rulo was an English teacher at ferdale high school or myself and I would be happy to connect you as will but we're very excited about this trip and that is offici if I could just say one thing about the trips is they are one of the both best experiences for kids kids to broaden their Horizons and bring new cultures and people and experiences um my kid went on two of them and he's he came back a much more mature worldly adventuresome person and he still talks highly of them and Mrs Rulo is one of the leaders on on that one so it was a great trip super well planned they had tour guides at every step of the location they never slept they saw everything they could see and they had the best time so highly recommend these trips that brings us to item 10 informational items 10.1 budget to actual report good evening evening this is the budgeted actual report for September 2024 do you have any questions anything to worry about no the original budget uh it does not have any of the contract you know the contracts were all settled so it's the it was done before all that so it and it always changes with budget amendment so um things will look different when we do budget amendment one but right now things are rolling along a an amendment one is December December or January okay great thank than you item 11 consideration of AOL consent agenda items we had none item 12 our next committing of the whole meeting is Monday November 4th 2024 at 6: p.m. item 13 next regular board meeting is Monday November 18th 2024 at 7 p.m. this is the item 14 Eagles points of Pride comments I'm going to get in first I don't get up um I wanted to say just I'm going to do two of them I was happy to see the turnout that we had for that the fern Elementary PTA advisory committee put on um for the incoming Schoolboard members the number of people and committee members that showed up was awesome to see um I hope it's something that they continue to do and continue get more involved with so that was really cool um and then another one that the friend Elementary PTA um was Field Day a couple weeks ago and it was an amazing day like perfect weather and just seeing again just one of those fun times it's the first time that like lower elementary kids were able to actually walk from their building to oper Elementary for field day which was awesome um and then just when all the elementary kids get together and you've got kind of that mentorship between the younger and the older kids and seeing all that is always just kind of a good time along with all of the parents um and caregivers that come out to volunteer for it so it was incredibly fun if you missed it come out next year I call tug War every year so pick something else but um yeah it was a good time I wanted to um shout out UHS um the presentation was really amazing the their Su and Council was incredible inredible to listen to um and it is so cool to see them living out what we know is a very intentional instructional practice in UHS is that culture of innovation growth mindset and um really making it um there you know um Miss Patterson talked a lot about shared leadership with the teachers but that goes down to the students too there's a lot of shared leadership with the um students and um I am currently uh teaching alongside of UHS Alum and just listening to the presentation I'm like yeah that it's been that way forever and it and it's growing and and such to see them when they're out in the world working carry that with them um and just kind of meta everything else in the meeting I felt like also went along that so point of Pride for the whole District that we are all living into that um growth mindset of all ways thinking about how we can do more and share more of our leadership and responsibility I'll just piggy back off that one because you're so nice but I actually wanted to acknowledge the the principal's month um we have some amazing principles and building leaders in this District um some that I've had the pleasure of my of my kids knowing and they're phenomenal folks and I did want to highlight um Julie Patterson today the presentation was great and also seeing the amazing things that the school is doing and being on the Forefront and really thinking outside the box the senior mentors making sure no kids left behind um that they all can focus on the future with the future that's right for them I think that's fantastic um I I'd love to see that spread throughout the district I think it's a great one on the social media presence they pop up on my social media all the time and I love seeing the kids and what they're doing and having the representatives today um from all the different programs and the how might we um thinking about moving forward I just impressive group of kids impressive teachers and it stems also up to leadership with Julie I think so kudos to her and the whole team over there really and then the morning conferences making sure that all the parents and Guardians can get in there and then letting the kids figure out the problem to solve all great stuff uh I actually want to pull mine back a little bit because I think this is our first official board meeting after homecoming but I just want to give a really big shout out to the team that put homecoming together um it like truly I wish I was in school when it happened because it was one of the best homecomings that I think I've been to um the engagement there was just phenomenal it was a really good turnout especially in the tailgating and I think like the biggest change I saw this year in the past year with I was doing tailgating Is Not only was it a huge turnout but people stayed all the way until the beginning of the game which just like just a really great thing to see and seeing the students like line dancing and having fun and like the cheer team out there kids enjoying the activities that we have planned for them planned for them as well it was just a really refreshing and just nice sight to see for the district so Clos to the team that put that together uh I have a lot of shout outs I'm going to try to be brief uh parent teacher conferences have been mentioned but I just want to shout out all the teachers and building administrators who are involved those are long days um um and but super important I know they've happened at uh middle school and the two high schools and I think Elementary is coming in early November so um again just shout out to the folks involved uh just a reminder that there is no school on Election Day because our buildings are in use um and want to encourage people to get out and vote I think it's a uh PD day for the staff so I want to acknowledge that like no school does not mean that the staff are off they're doing all of this important uh learning and professional development that we hear about Sarah mentioned the wathon field day one of the things that jumped out at me was that the kids raised $88,500 like that is a significant amount of money and support and we'll go a long way to do some assemblies and some fun stuff but I think it also just speaks to the support that the school gets from this community uh as a music parent I want to mention that the hij jinkx concert with Orchestra and choir is this Thursday evening little kids are encouraged to come in costume there's a trick-or treating that happens we're also doing um cider and donuts it's usually a very fun concert and they play uh like more pop like funner I mean I shouldn't say funner music I love classical music I love you a little more uh anyway bring your Litt bring your Littles and then they're going to want to be in the orchestra um uh we have this amazing opportunity corwell Health one of our school moms is doing a student heart check on November 2nd this is an incredible opportunity um a a program like this literally saved my nephew's life he discovered a heart condition he did not know he had so if you don't know about that please sign your student up for it and then the last thing is uh the marching band just they had an incredible run on Saturday in Novi they're going to Regionals this coming Saturday Saturday and finals on November 2nd so lots of great stuff uh don't miss any of it okay I also have a number of um um shout outs so first I would like to shout out the Avid 6 classroom at Ferndale Middle School um their Dynamic teacher Miss Z reached out to me and stated that the students had a proposal that they would like to share with me for approval and I said I'll be there um and I was so deeply impressed with the presentation that the students came up with completely by themselves all students participated everyone had a slide they all spoke very very well and their proposal was to clean up the pond in the courtyard at Ferndale High School ferdale Middle School completely by themselves they they came they had a budget they had a materials list they knew how they were going to fundraise they had a timeline it was thorough and needless to say it was very quickly approved um so um be on the lookout for some fundraising requests from Avid 6 because they have um some great plans to clean up the pond so I was I want to shout them out as well as Miss Z old and all Ferndale Middle School next I would like to shout out Tom Maye and the teaching and learning Department specifically tawan Robinson who has been facilitating the kindergarten through fifth grade literacy curriculum now adoption now we're in implementation um I had a chance last Wednesday to do learning walks with them at Ferndale Upper Elementary and it was just so wonderful to see so much of the planning that we've been doing for year literally years see it in action in the classroom um seeing the teacher um not struggle because they're all very talented teachers but it is a new curriculum so with newness becomes like sometimes some uncomfortability um but every classroom we went to it was being implemented with Fidelity and with excitement um so it was just great to see such engaged classrooms so shout out to Ferndale Upper Elementary as well as the teaching and learning Department um in in totality last this is somewhat difficult for me to say because I actually graduated from Southfield high school but I look at it like Southfield A&T is not Southfield high school so I am very proud of the um the football game on Friday um the Eagles were uh Victorious and it was a good game it was a really good game so um shout out to the football team is looking like they'll be heading to playoffs this year um so very excited for them and then my last one I've been very wordy this meeting but just a lot of great things um I also received an email from a student at Ferndale High School who shared with me that they will be beginning the first ever black student union um and they invited me to their first event this Thursday of a game night um so I am very excited to see what comes of that organization at Ferndale High School um and just want to shout out all of the student Le initiatives we heard a lot from UHS today and we see that it is also happening at Ferndale high school so I am a proud superintendent sorry have anything sorry yeah I do actually I was yeah I do um one I want to shout out um superintendent hibler so she talked about the Five Pillars and in school Ministry this meeting it was really really engaging and the comments that were uh given regarding the session was heard um exciting about the work no one questioned why these five pillars right it was all about us di in into the data a little bit more and be supportive and it it was just really enjoyable to be a part of it um the second shout out I want to give is to our work around our Emergency Operations planning because it has really been um engaging by not only our school administrators but also we've been supported by our local law enforcement so uh Ferndale Oak Park um the fire department they've all been here week in week out to help us um complete our template around Emergency Operations and right now we're in the process of finalizing our internal work around it but they've been great thought partners with us on reunification sites they're willing to meet with me and go out to some sites and see what's realistic for each of the schools um just really really supportive and I want to thank them publicly for their support and for their commitment to meet with us that's it um so I have a couple one Mr George and Jaden Blackwell and the Olympic um two marching band so I work in Wayne County and I got a little Flack this week uh after we won uh they make sure to like send me photos and like congratulations I guess so shout out to the band keep up the good work um that's some black I don't mind taking um three to my fellow board members uh there's a week in October that's like School Board member week um so I know some of you are dropping off the table but uh this is a group good group to work with um and I appreciate all of you immensely um just wanted to publicans than that principles principles month um I know there's not enough words to say thank you and keep up the good work but thank you one other thing I'm not going to remember it now it'll come back to me oh Trunk or Treat FCC so I am although I'm a parent of multiple students or alumnus alumni and a grandparent I don't like little people they're ger carriers but when you are in grandparent mode you never say no so I got to uh participate in Trunk or Treats actually decorate a car with an infin in to M um and hand out I don't even know handed out all kinds of stuff bubbles spiders um and it was great to see the little kids out and about and just like community and family engagement um which is how I got sick by the way I got sick the day after um that is an event that I think is really cool um for the little people so oh we had a bus there and I don't know this program but uh Heidi was Magic School Bus was that Miss fizzle from Magic School Bus and there was an actuals and the kids got to get on the bus and te awesome line it was a line it was can imagine I would have been huge fan of Magic School the kids were excited cuz they wanted to know where Mrs I would have been there yeah and Miss Keith was also there of course as a flower no surpr there yes uh yeah um all right so with that we are adjourned at 8:44 good