Good evening. Welcome to the Monday, February 23rd regular board meeting. If we can please all rise for the pledge of Allegiance. I Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America against Republic Stands Foundation under God, indivisible, Liberty and justice for all. And we'll have a moment of silence please. Thank you. Moving on to section two, recommended actions, approval of the proposed agenda. We'll take a motion. So moved. Okay. Any changes?
Questions? Okay. Ms. McDougal Lang? Yes. Ret? Yes. Yellen? Yes. Youngs? Yes. B? Yes. Kish? Yes. 2.02. Approval of the January 12th organizational meeting. Minutes. Madam Secretary? Yes. I reviewed the January 12th organizational meeting minutes. Then I make a motion to, um, approve as presented support. Any questions with those? Okay. Ms. McDougall Lang? Yes. Riker? Yes. Yellen? Yes. Youngs? Yes. Ello? Yes. Kish?
Yes. 2.03. January 26 meeting, um, I'm sorry. Board workshop minutes. Mad secretary? Yes. I make a motion to approve the January 26th board workshop, minutes as presented. Support Any changes. Okay. Ms. McDougall Lang. Yes. Ert? Yes. Yellen? Yes. Youngs? Yes. Ba Yes. Kish? Yes. 2.04. Approval of the February 9th Board. Workshop minutes. Madam Secretary? Yep. I reviewed the February 9th board workshop minutes and I make a motion to approve the minutes as presented.
Support. Any questions, changes? She was ready. Okay. Ms. McDougal Lang? Yes. Ert? Yes. Yellen? Yes. Youngs? Yes. Fashion? Yes. Kish? Yes. 2.05. Student discipline case number eight. Yes. On um, February 11th, the board's discipline subcommittee held an expulsion hearing. Based on the information obtained at that hearing, the subcommittee members unanimously make the following recommendation to the full board regarding student case number eight. The board's discipline subcommittee recommends permanent expulsion from Grand Blanc Community Schools.
I'll take a motion. So moved. I'll support it. Any questions? Okay. Ms. McDougall Lang? Yes. Ert? Yes. Yellen? Yes. Youngs? Yes. Ba Yes. Kish? Yes. 2.06. Readmittance recommendation case number 13. Uh, yes. On Wednesday, February 11th, high school principal Mike Frey and I held a readmittance he hearing or meeting for case number 13 from last school year. Based on this student's actions and letters of support is recommended that the board readmit case number 13
to Grand Blanc High School, effective February 25th, 2026. We'll take a motion. I make a motion to approve support. Any questions? Okay. Ms. McDougal Lang? Yes. Riker? Yes. Yellen? Yes. Youngs? Yes. Ello? Yes. Kish? Yes. 2.07. Approval of the December and January financial reports and bills. Mr. Treasurer? Yep. Thank you. Madam President. Uh, finance committee met prior to the meeting tonight to review December and January. Uh, financial reports and bills.
Um, with everything being known or still unknown to some degree, uh, I'll make a motion to approve both December and January's, uh, financial reports support. Any questions? Okay. Ms. McDougall Lang? Yes. Ret? Yes. Yellen? Yes. Youngs? Yes. Ello? Yes. Kish? Yes. Okay. Moving on to section three, consent agreement. We have approval of since sanctioning requests and the HOSA State Competition, we'll take a motion and then questions. I make a motion that we approve everything under the consent agreements
Support. Okay. Any questions from anyone? Okay. Ms. McDowell Lang? Yes. Ert? Yes. Yellen? Yes. Youngs? Yes. Ello? Yes. Kish? Yes. Moving on to presentations 4.01. Student Government, Ms. Genevieve. Well, good evening everyone. We've had a lot going on since last month, that's for sure. But first of all, black History Month. Uh, there are many amazing accomplishments around us and our school. And BSU has organized a spirit week for Black History Month, and today was supposed to be comfy Fit Day.
Uh, tomorrow will be teacher student swap Day. Where you dressed as either a student or a teacher, whichever everyone applies. Wednesday's Character Day, Thursday's throwback. Thursday and Friday will be blackout or BSU Gear Day. On the topic of BSU, these student leaders organized the walkout that took place on February 12th, which helped draw focus to the point of support our peers have for each other. During the time when many students and families are feeling anxious about developing situations. Two grand blank Orchestra students, Sagan Za and High School sophomore RIN Zas,
east Middle School eighth grader, had the opportunity to perform on stage with Grammy nominated group Black Violin on February 13th at the Capitol Theater in Flint, the high school band and orchestra sent a total of 56 event to the District three high school solo and ensemble final with many students RA receiving ratings of one, which equals superior, and two, which is excellent. Students who receive scores of one have the opportunity to perform on March 21st at State Festival and January. In January two high school choir students, Lily Soy
and Mel Hemker sang as members of the State Honors Choir in Grand Rapids. These two singers were chosen as two of 300 best auditionees from across the state and had excellent performances at Michigan Music and Conference in Grand Rapids. On January 31st, 30 high school choir members attended district solo and Ensemble Festival. These students prepared two songs on their own and performed for a clinical. Their hard work paid off as all students received either a score of one or two. And 24 students qualified to sing at State solo Ensemble in April,
and then last Friday in GBTV, lake Fenton Broadcasting class. And their teacher came and toured the room over at West. And with the purpose of developing their program outside of their program's focus, both GBTV students and Lake Fenton students had the opportunity to develop bonds with the same interest in the fields. And before they left Lake Fenton State and watched show 18 for our Friday show. Uh, and then this month, Mrs. Johnson's PE class participated in Mrs. J's Winter Olympics. Students competed in fun interclass games
that combined teamwork and physical fitness. Each class represented an Olympic country and students had a blast showing off their athletic proudness and competitive edge. In addition, unified arts class, Mrs. Johnson, Addison Murphy, Claire Dunbar, Emmy Brown, and Khan Grant bravely participated in the polar plunge. It was fun and memorable experience for a great cause. And then Model UN traveled to Chicago to attend their biggest conference to date, and five of their most elite delegates attended the prestigious conference at the University of Chicago. While no rewards were earned,
they competed at the highest level and then the high school mock trial team led by Mrs. Blaker and Alum Kenzie Baker competed at the Oakland County regionals this Saturday. And in previous years, the Oakland Regional has been one of the biggest in the state with very few teams advancing to state finals. However, despite this, our team has kept the winning streak alive, being one outta three teams this year, qualifying for states. And the team looks to continue our case on March 20th and 21st. When we go to Lansing for finals, uh, the club Youth and Government is going on conference this coming week from
Thursday morning till Sunday afternoon. They will be in Lansing where delegates have the opportunity to partner with the YMCA to act as state legislators and learn the complex process of state government. Through this program, delegates are also very fortunate to have access to the Capitol Senate and, uh, house floors during debate and other various rooms around the Capitol for committee. All members of our Grambling delegation are very excited and grateful for the opportunity. NHS is moving their winter blood drive that was planned for March, uh, that was planned previously to March 20th
because of the snow day. Uh, they are still looking to invite more students around the school, despite just NHS members to gain more blood to donate to the community. Uh, science Olympiad was in Frankenmuth on Saturday, February 7th when Grand Blanc hosted two teams. Both teams did very well, competing against 35 different schools from across Michigan. Grand Blanc won a bunch of rewards, so this is gonna be a moment to rattle off, but we have first place in sixth place in anatomy. Uh, first place in Designer Genes. First place in disease detectives.
First place in water quality, second place in machines. Second place in remote sensing. Fourth place in chemistry lab. Fifth place in minerals and science. Fifth place in rocks and minerals. Sixth place in Circuit Lab. Sixth place in Dynamic Planet. And oh, nope. Sixth place in engineering cad, sixth place in helicopter and eighth place in Edman. Etymology all the wins. Propelled the team to earn third place overall at the invitational. And wrapping up Grand Blanc boys, JV bowling team was at State finals on February 14th and 15th when two JV students advanced
to the final brackets. Trey Shank and Alexander Frank, Alexander Frank competed all the way to the final bracket and ended up as the second top JV bowler in the state. And then the varsity bowling team for the boys won first place at their regional event on February 20th and advancing as 18 two state finals. And that was a lot. Thank you for bearing with me Great information. Thank you. Any questions? I'm just glad you verified the swap day tomorrow. 'cause I thought I wasn't quite sure how that was gonna work. All the kids are teaching all the teachers and anyway, that makes a lot more sense to me.
Thank you. And it seems like every day is comfy cozy day, so I don't think the students miss much missing school today. Okay. Um, going on to 4.02, the Michigan Mayor curriculum. Is that, yeah. So, um, I've asked Allison to, um, do a short presentation. We've had some questions about our ESLL students and how they can earn world language credit if they're, um, English as a second language. Um, so it doesn't create redundancy. I know that we've had some discussion about, you know, a student that's, that's learning English and is fluent in other language, it doesn't make sense
for 'em to take Spanish as a third language. And she's gonna talk a little bit about that. So I'll turn it over to her. Sure. So, um, I just wanna start with the requirements from curriculum for world language. Um, so students need to complete the equivalent of, Sorry. Thank you. Um, the equivalent of a second of, of two grade appropriate credits in a language other than English or have coursework or other learning experiences that are equivalent to those two credits. Um, and what the way that the state defines the two credits, um, is that a student should meet,
meet a novice high proficiency level. And I have a slide on here that shows you what it looks like to be a novice, high proficiency level. Students can meet those requirements by completing the courses in high school, um, by learning in some other way through a K 12 classroom or outside of a K 12 classroom, like a formal study abroad, college coursework, homer, heritage languages and or online courses. And they can fulfill one of the requirements, um, by completing a CTE program or a district approved VPAA course.
And those are found for all students in our student, um, course selection guide. There's a large list of all the classes that, um, count for that second year. So in order to demonstrate proficiency, um, there are a few different things that would happen in grades one through eight, or in grades 12 through or nine through 12. Um, on this, the course, um, transcript students will have that they've met the requirement, they'll be granted credit, and we could, if a student comes in with, um, experiences outside of the classroom,
then they can take a test that allows them to receive high school credit, but they still have to be able to demonstrate that proficiency level of novice high. So here's how they can do that in their a couple different ways. Oh, and this is what novice high looks like. It's the first level. So some students, if they take more than two years, will get well past the novice high level. But that's what that first column is what it looks like when a student has met those requirements. And this is what our year two course should be teaching toward, is that novice high level. So students can earn a Michigan Seal of Biliteracy
by demonstrating, um, a really high level of understanding. But this is also the pathway that a heritage learner would, or a heritage speaker would use to demonstrate their learning as well. Um, so the Michigan Seal of Biliteracy is a program that the state of Michigan complete or created in order to recognize high school graduates who have a proficiency in English and another world language. Um, it encourages students to embrace their heritage language and also helps employers to know when a student has a really strong level
of understanding in a different language. Um, it goes on a student's, uh, diploma. It's a stamp that goes right on their diploma if they earn it. And it's a way for colleges or for careers to recognize that students went above and beyond what they were expected to learn in a language at high school. Students who want to participate in the Biliteracy, um, or the Seal of Biliteracy have to be in 11th or 12th grade, and they have to be on track to graduate. So students who would qualify are students who are well above just, um, that novice high level. So a student who's just only completed two years of a co
of coursework would probably not qualify. Um, but it, but it could be a student who is a learner from outside the us, a student who is a heritage speaker, or a student who has completed probably through fourth year. Um, that's where we kind of start to encourage students if they've gotten through, um, whatever our, if they've exceeded what we offer, then we can encourage them to start looking at potentially doing the Seal of Biliteracy. But they of course, can take the test prior to that too, um, if they've gone through maybe two years, but feel like they just have a really high
level of understanding. So there's nothing stopping them from doing it, but they have to be an 11th or 12th grader. And we do offer this test at our school. So it's, it's something that's offered every single year at Grand Blanc High School. So Allison, when we say heritage speaker, it means it, say they live in a home and Yeah. They speak Spanish at home. Yes. Yep. So anyone who their home language, you know, might be something other than English. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Sure. So when students come to Grand Blank, we are supposed to be looking at their transcripts that they're coming in with.
And this is something that our counselors do. And if they are arriving in the US after sixth grade, then, and if they can provide a transcript from a previous school, then we can verify, um, and, and we can verify that they took a course after sixth grade or sixth grade or beyond in a different language, then we can actually submit for them to earn the seal of Biliteracy when they qualify as an 11th through 12th grader. Because if they're taking a course in a different language, sixth grade and beyond, they would have to have a high level of mastery to be able to, to speak in that language.
Um, if they arrive to us before sixth grade, then we do recognize that we mark it on their information, and then they are able to take the test that we offer every year to demonstrate that proficiency. And then they can earn the seal of Biliteracy on their, um, transcript and then also would earn their credit for high school as long as they can demonstrate, um, for the seal of Biliteracy, they have to demonstrate intermediate high proficiency to just earn the credit. They have to be able to demonstrate high novice. So either one of those two things would count the students
who are arriving with a transcript that shows coursework, sixth grade or beyond in a different language, they would automatically earn the seal of Biliteracy and their course credit. A heritage speaker is a student who has lived in the United States, um, but, and didn't come to us with a transcript from a different school outside of the us but they have a language that's a different language that's spoken in their homes. So that's kind of what you were talking about there. Um, those students would have to still, according to the state of Michigan, in order to earn their credit, they still have to demonstrate the novice proficiency
or the high novice to earn credit, and then they can, if they choose to demonstrate the intermediate high proficiency in order to earn the seal of Biliteracy. So again, we offer that test every single year. So if a student comes in who feels like they have a lang, they they can demonstrate that novice high language, they can take that test. We would grant them those two credits, and if they can demonstrate even higher proficiency, then they would be able to earn the seal of Biliteracy. And when do they take that test? They're Senior. We offer it in the spring. It's, it can be, you can take it in 11th or 12th grade year, depending on when you feel like you're ready. You have to just be on track to graduate. Okay.
Gotcha. How Many students generally take the test every Year? We, we don't have a, a large number of students who take it because there just aren't a lot that feel like they, to have a intermediate high proficiency, you have to be probably fourth year or beyond or be a, a heritage speaker, a native speaker who that's what you're speaking at home all the time. Um, and it has multiple parts to it. So there's speaking, there's listening in, there's writing. So sometimes students might speak a different language at home but not be as proficient in the other areas. And you have to demonstrate that high, um, proficiency across the board.
Allison? Yes. The, um, is the, is the Biliteracy test, what's it called again? So We use the, um, it's A-A-P-P-L test. Okay. That's the one that we use. Um, there, it has to be one of the Michigan Department of Ed approved tests, and that's the one that we use because it offers it in multiple different languages. So if we have students in, um, it offers a SL Arabic, Spanish, German, Chinese. So there are quite a few different languages that the a if they call it the Apple test.
But that, that one, um, offers, if we for some reason could had a language that wasn't offered in that, then we would seek out an alternative test that's approved by Michigan Department of Ed. Okay. So they've created these tests? Yes. In Those language. It's not our test. It has to be a Michigan approved one. Okay. Mm-hmm. And, or It can be the AP test. If they demonstrate the highest level on the AP test, they can also earn the seal of Biliteracy that way. Okay. So Biliteracy obviously is two languages. What if they're just, I mean, still, maybe they're newer to this country, they're really good at this language,
but not so much English. So They could, they could still take the test to earn their credit for their world language. Okay. But then they probably wouldn't qualify for the Seal of Biliteracy if they're not on track to graduate. So it would depend on, have they gotten the credits in English, you know, in their English courses, as long as they're on track to graduate, the test is not testing their English PROFIC proficiency. Uh, we are awarding that by, you know, them passing their courses in high school, the test is testing their, uh, other language. So they automatically get the English by just graduating.
They get English as a second language services through Ki Christie Gibson. Mm-hmm. And her facilitators. Okay. Yeah. And then, um, the other question I had was, um, how, how well are we at letting them know about this opportunity? So any student who comes to us from a different country, we are, we do advertise that really well to them. Um, as far as students who speak at home, that's probably a place where we could make some improvements, um, and just advertise that this test is available or this opportunity is available.
Um, I was talking to Christie Gibson about that. Um, she's our ESOL director about just how do we communicate with our counselors to make sure that these opportunities for alternatives are available. The other thing is that some students want to earn, learn yet another language. You know, that especially if they're looking at certain colleges, they might wanna be able to say, I still took world language classes during high school, right? Mm-hmm. But we do have students who utilize this, um, as an alternative for taking their course credit. It almost has to be, uh, indicated to them
that there's this opportunity in maybe sixth, sixth grade. Mm-hmm. Even, or fifth, I, I don't know, because students start taking maybe Spanish And in sixth grade. Sixth grade. Yep. Yep. So, yeah. Okay. Um, and then the other way that you can earn this is through being a classroom learner, which we talked about. You'd really have to go through most of the offerings that we have to be able to meet that high intermediate, high proficiency. Um, we have had grand blank students who have earned the seal of Biliteracy. So this isn't talking about students who have swapped out and, you know, utilized it to just cover their coursework.
But these are actually students who earned the seal of Biliteracy on their diploma. Again, it is very hard to earn it. Um, so over time, we've had quite a few students, and if you look at this map, these are all the schools that offer the test and that have had students from their school graduate with the Seal of Biliteracy. And can you hold on the shift button there for a second? And if you look here in Genesee County, uh, where are we? Powers? Yeah, it's us in Powers in Fenton. And if you click on us, wherever we are here, there we are.
Um, you can see that we have had students who have earned the test in Arabic, French, German, and Spanish. Um, and I think it's, that says a lot for us that this is an opportunity we provide to our students, that we offer the test, and that we have had students who have graduated with it, if they take it in their 12th grade year, we don't typically get the results back until after graduation, but we'll add the SEAL to their diploma. If they take it in 11th grade, it will be on their diploma when they graduate. Allison, do you think that, um, we have students who might be fluent in an, in a different language that are, again, taking Spanish
or, you know, at the high school or middle school, where they could have, I mean, I think our biggest concern is are we making them take this instead of taking, getting extra support services and using that time to help with their English transition? Mm-hmm. And then give, you know, finding a way to give them that credit for the language they already know. Sure, yeah. Like that is because if we can support them extra during the school day and not have them in these classes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And again, this is the, the seal of biliteracy too. It's not the students who are replacing, um, right.
And I, and when I talk to Christie, we aren't doing a great job of tracking that, so that's something we can work on. But I do know that every student who comes to us who qualifies for the ESOL program is notified of how they can earn their credit as long as they meet the certain requirements. And so, again, they have to be able, if they came with the transcript, then they can, it's automatically granted to them as long as they took the courses sixth grade and beyond. If they came as a younger child, then we do advertise that they can test, test out of, um,
taking a world language. Um, some students may choose not to, to do that, especially if they were much younger. When they learned and their language isn't spoken at home, then they might lose that by the time they get to high school to take the test. And you said ESOL English is a second? Um, language. Okay. Yeah. I don't know what the o is actually no other language. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it was E-L-L-E-L-L for a long time. Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. ESOL? Yes. Okay. All right. And that, that's where we are.
If you have any other questions, I'm happy to answer. Good job. Thank you. Thank you, Alyssa. Okay. Old business, uh, NEO policy. Uh, yeah. So there has been no new changes from, uh, policy 8 83 0 0, or 75 41. Uh, so I'll make a motion that we, uh, approve the second reading. Is there a second? Okay. Any questions? Okay. That's Ms. Hugo Lang. Yes. Riker? Yes. Yellen? Yes. Youngs? Yes. Ello? Yes. Kish? Yes. Thank you. Moving
On to new business district calendar. You're up. It's my pleasure to share the proposed 2020 6 27 district calendar with you. This calendar was developed in collaboration with our GBEA representatives, Gary Smith, Rachel Kinney, Anna and Maureen Callahan worked with Allison and I on this proposed calendar. So usually this is the part where I say we don't, they're just some small minor changes, and then I start going through the calendar. Um, but today I can't do that today, this year,
we do have some major adjustments. Most of the adjustments were a result of attaining two major goals that we set for the 2020 6 27 calendar year. Our primary goal was, which we achieved, was to decrease the number of student half days. I'm sh happy to share that the calendar that is being presented achieved that goal with the high school decreasing to 10 half days from 19 in this current year, and the elementary and middle school decreasing to seven, half days from 15
during this current year. The second goal was to make sure we maintain quality instructional time with students, which was also achieved. And you can see I've shared those numbers with, uh, this proposed calendar. We are going to increase high school, uh, hours by 2.58 hours, middle school by 5.68 hours and elementary by 5.65 hours. We do have some major adjustments. Um, those major adjustments are in the area of professional development and parent teacher conferences.
In regard to professional development, all seven of our professional development days this year will be full days, will be all of the, um, staff will be on the same timeframe coming in at eight and working till three, which allows for better collaboration across the district, especially at those elementary levels where they get together. Um, and now sometimes when we work up between the levels, we'll all be on one timeframe as well. This was necessary to, uh, decrease those half days that were cumbersome for families.
The second piece for professional development is that we are proposing that three professional development days will be counted towards our required 180 school days this year for students. Um, and I do wanna note that the professional development hours were not included in the increased student instructional hours that I counted here. So when we took the half days out, we added 3.3, 3.5 hours to every one of those days, which created, um, an excess.
And then, so we did make an adjustment here. We've increased the hours with students. We've increased, we, we feel like it's better instructional at that time when we have full days instead of half days where you're at the secondary level meeting with kids for 20 minutes. Um, so we feel like we've maximized our, uh, time with students. The second major adjustment here is with parent-teacher conferences. All levels will be held on the same week. So usually the high school has a different timeframe than the middle school and the elementary. All of, um, our levels will be meeting in the fall from
October 26th to the 29th. And in the spring from March 9th through the 11th. Um, elementary and middle school spring conference hours were also just decreased from nine hours until six hours. And we've been collecting data on that for years. Um, we felt like we, looking around, we have more parent teacher conference time than most districts. Um, and we found that in the fall, those hours are absolutely necessary. We have great turnouts at fall conferences, but in the spring, we felt like we could, um, align to other districts.
And so we did back off on three of those hours at the elementary middle school. So now I'll take you through our normal, uh, month to month. I combined August and September here. First day of school this year is August. We're proposing for this, um, summer will be next fall, August 24th. It's hard to say fall when it's in August. While this is only one day earlier than we started this current year, we are officially starting two weeks prior to Labor Day, because the holiday, the Labor Day holiday falls on September 7th this year,
this August 24th start date is in alignment with the majority of schools in our county. I, there were, I don't know if anybody's starting any later than that. There's a few that start a little bit before that that have balanced calendars. Um, but our students will only be attending school for three and a half days during the month of August, because that second week that we're before Labor Day, it's September, you know, it's September 4th, third, second, first. So, um, following the Labor Day holiday, our students will be in school for full five day weeks
for six consecutive weeks, with the exception of our Friday half day for homecoming, which is listed here as, um, it should 25th September 25th. Looking at October. Um, this highlights the first change of one of the major changes with the common calendar or common parent-teacher conferences. So you can see here what we'll be doing this year. We do wanna spread out. So families have students at multiple levels. On Monday, everybody will have a full day in the high
school, will have their evening conferences. On Tuesday, the entire district will have a full day, and middle school will have their evening conferences on Wednesday, the everybody will have a full day, and the elementary will have their conferences that evening. And then on Thursday, I have those highlighted because they're all the same day. Thursday the 29th, on Thursday, there'll be a full day of school for the high school, and they will have evening conferences. The elementary and middle school will have half days, and then they will have their afternoon
and evening conferences on that day on Thursday. And then nobody will be in school on Friday the 30th. So the 29th is the end of the first marking period. We, um, will have no students for no school, for students or instructional staff, and they will have fall break on Friday the 30th, and students will not return until Wednesday after election day, which we'll see on the next page. So again, the students will be off on Friday the 30th.
Um, and they will return on Wednesday the 4th of November. On the 2nd of November. That Monday, we will have a professional development day for our staff. And this is the first of the three student days, that first of the three professional development days that we're counting as student days. Um, and they'll, again, there'll be no school for students that day. On the third we have election day, and that'll be our fourth of seven professional development days, and students will not be in school that return the next day.
Then we have a Wednesday off prior to the Thanksgiving holiday. We'll have that Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off for that long weekend in November and in December. Um, have a couple of good solid weeks before we head off for winter break, which will begin on Monday, December 21st with us returning in January on Monday, January 4th. Semester ends on January. I put my classes on here for a second. I do wanna read through this real quick.
So, semester one has 86 student days, and one of those student days is, um, a professional development day. And we complete four of our seven professional development days during the first semester and three of our eight lsip hours. Winter break for families. We'll book in the President's Day holiday from Friday the 12th through Tuesday, Feb, February 16th. And the last few years, you can see on that 12th of February, I have an asterisk by
that professional development day because while we have designated that for being our summer swap for the instructional staff, para paraprofessionals and teachers who do professional development during the summer, they will not have to attend on that Friday if they complete the required documentation for that professional development. So they'll also get, um, they Friday and the Monday off, and then we will all be back for professional development on Tuesday the 16th students will have their final day of mid-winter break,
and we'll all will return to work and school on the 17th of February, March is the show. What I've shown here is the, um, spring conferences. So like I shared earlier, the spring conferences for the elementary and middle school. We have, um, decreased the amount of time from nine hours to six hours. Um, but it's a very similar format. Um, for the spring, we won't have conferences on Friday or on Monday, I'm sorry, Monday the eighth.
But on Tuesday the ninth, it'll be the middle school evening conferences. On Wednesday the 10th, everybody will have a full day and it'll be elementary evening conferences. On Thursday, the high school will have a full day and then have their evening conferences, and they'll get a half day on Friday the 12th. And the elementary and, um, middle school will have a half day of school and they'll do afternoon conferences. They've already done their evening conferences, so they'll be able to get out and then, um, have a half day of school on Friday
and release time for the teachers for the time that they, um, put in during that week for conferences. Spring break this year, the Friday prior to spring break is a holiday on Friday the 26th. Um, we will be releasing after a half day on Thursday the 25th and the spring break aligns with the Genesee County Common Calendar from March 26th through April 2nd. April, um, you can see things did get pushed back a little bit here with the end of the third marking period falling on Friday the ninth.
Um, but then we have, um, a real solid, um, fourth marking period here with full five day weeks. Um, other than, other than the disruption of some testing that might happen during that timeframe. Um, and then we do have the, um, election day professional development, which will be the final professional development, um, for teachers and instructional staff on the 4th of May, which will be, um, election day in May. The regular Memorial Day, um, holiday.
And then June graduation will be on Thursday, June 3rd. The high school will have their final three days as exams with, uh, exams in the afternoon or exams during, in the morning, half day in the afternoon. And the entire district will have a half day for students and afternoon work day for Friday the 11th, which will be our last day. And that's our calendar for proposed calendar. While you are thinking of any questions that you might have, I want to make sure to thank Dr. Ward, Allison Walworth,
Jeff Cushman, and the GBEA calendar negotiation team of Gary Smith, Rachel Kenney, and Chuah, and Maureen Callahan again, um, from the GBA for their contributions and collaborations on preparing this proposed calendar as well. I want to do a thank you to Maria Jones, Stephanie Rado and Megan Daunt. Um, they go through all of these spreadsheets and, uh, the information that I share to make sure we're meeting all of our requirements for pupil accounting and for, um, business office obligations.
And then finally, a special thank you to Amy Hart and Andrea Calvert for their work putting, um, this community calendar draft together, um, that hopefully in, in anticipation of it after your approval today being shared out to the public. Awesome. Okay. Any questions for Scott? Um, how are we allowed to do the three PD days for, to the 180? Is that We are allowed to count up to, um, 30 hours. Actually we can take up to five days. Is is the requirement? There are, um, some hoops we have to jump through.
Um, it has to be aligned with our, um, school improvement goals, the professional development days. That's why you saw that I have strategically placed those as the days that we're going to use as student days, um, because we'll make sure that those align with the specific, um, goals of our, um, our, my kid goals. Mm. Have we ever done that? Or is this new? We have, it was allowable, um, probably 10 plus years ago, maybe in 15, and then it wasn't allowed, and now they've allowed it again.
And it is a little counterintuitive when you start to think about counting that within the instructional calendar. But you remember, and I've talked to the board about this previously, is one of the biggest topics of conversation at Bobcat Advisory with my parent group are the, is the calendar and the number of half days we have. Um, so when we looked at that as being a goal based on the feedback from Bobcat Advisory, you know, we started to recognize pretty quickly that we're adding more quality instructional time, more five day weeks, more instructional hours for the, for the students.
So we felt that that was worth the, Because half days count as a day, They count as a day, but that they only count as three hours. Right. So, so That's why getting rid of the half days, we really Need to take days. We actually had hours to the calendar. I had a couple questions. Um, have we ever considered doing high school exams before break? Yes. That seems to be a, sorry. Thank you. Have we ever thought about doing high school exams before Christmas Break? We have, and, uh, we've explored it and we'll continue to explore that and look at it.
Um, the schools that are doing it in the county are maximizing the number of professional development days. That's one of the reasons that they are able to do that. Right now. They are, um, counting all of the professional development time that they're legally allowed to in order to make that happen. Um, I believe three districts in Genesee County did it this year, and it, there'll be five that will be doing it next year. Um, so we're gonna watch and see how that happens. Starting this year with a September 7th start was a really bad year
to make an attempt. I did put together a calendar, um, and shared that and we, we've had some conversations about it, but I don't think that this was definitely not the best year to start that. And it's something we'll continue to look at. Okay. The, um, August 27th, 28th, is that the ally challenge days? Yes. Okay. I know that's always a question, is we start and then there's days off and obviously for that event. Sure. Correct. Thank you. Any other questions? Um, just with the calendar,
I know there's, these squares are tiny and it's really hard to add it all, but just so that we're clear on the October 29th and March 11th, it says elementary Bobcat Innovation middle school half day. But it also is the high school conferences those days too. So they're not listed like they are on the other days as conferences. It is in the evening conference. It's in the Yes, it's, but so the 26th it says high school conference, middle school conference on the 27th elementary conference. But, and I know why they, it's hard to add at
All, right? They didn't, we actually had it the way that you were sharing that. We had the high school listed there, but it looks like then the high school has a half day. Right. So we didn't want that. So if you look under the Parent Guardian teacher conferences, the correct days of the conferences are listed in the middle where the conferences actually exist. So the days that they're having their conference, Where am I looking? I'm sorry. Right here, right In the center. The actual days of the parent teacher conferences are listed there. Okay.
Okay. That makes sense. But everybody does the same thing that you are doing right there because we all look at the, with the bad day and I can't see, but the ninth and the 10th not see any of it without these readers. But the ninth and 10th of March are not half days. October 26th, 27th, 28th, or not half days. Correct? Correct. Okay. I love that. We have less half days. Me too. And Too, it's better for parents Attend The students and Well parent teacher conference week in the fall. The high school will not have a single half day during that week, so they'll have a, you know,
a four day week of instruction. The kids in the audience are like mad right now, but They get Friday off though. They do. And some nice long breaks in the middle of the year with the, with the October to November and then in February. Yeah. And yeah, That's a good down. I mean, I don't know how many times I access this calendar throughout the year. It's on our app. It's great. Um, so I do appreciate this. So Any other questions? I miss that noise. It's the year. Oh, Okay. Do we need to approve this? Okay,
we'll take a motion to approve. I'll make a motion. I'll make that motion support. Any other questions? Ms. McDowell Lang? Yes. Ret? Yes. Yellen? Yes. Youngs? Yes. Ello? Yes. Kish? Yes. Thank you. Thank you Scott. Lot of work. 6.02. First budget amendment, Ms. May. That'd be me. That's you baby. It's all you. Uh, let me figure out how to make this work. No, but the heater is, it's working now.
All right. Um, thank you so much. Good evening board and members of the audience. Um, bringing forward to you today, the first budget amendment for the 25 26 fiscal year. Just kind of recap where we've been this year. Um, it's a very frustrating year. Um, we are required by law to adopt a budget by July 1st of every year, which is the start of an actual school district's fiscal year. Um, the state budget, however, is not supposed to be or not required to be adopted until October 1st. 'cause that is when the fiscal year starts.
However, we did not get an actual state budget until the mid to end of October. Typically, we know way ahead of time. I wouldn't say way ahead of time. That's a stretch we know a little bit more ahead of time. Um, this year has been the most, um, drawn out agonizing state budget process that probably I've ever had in my 20 year career. There are a lot of unknowns. We are required to come to you by July 1st date, and we do so by law, we're asking our legislators to do the same and abide by that. We've already are five months into a fiscal year
before we even know our allocations for the current year. So even though a budget is adopted and accepted and signed in October as a district, we don't get our dollar amounts right away. It takes months. So we're still getting though, we were still getting those dollar amounts even last month. Um, so it's a very grueling process. Um, but here we are today and we have some actual information to share. So as a recap again too, when we came to you, we had not settled our Labor group contracts. We had three contracts we needed to settle at that time. Um, so there are various unknowns from the revenue side
and the expenditure side. We always start with the revenue assumptions. These are direct copy and paste from the last presentation, um, in June. So just quick, um, I don't wanna read in detail every single bullet point, but just high level. We had assumed a hundred dollars increase on foundation. We had assumed a loss of a hundred students. Um, we made some assumptions on what the MIPS R'S rates were going to be and what the stabilization revenue dollars we were going to receive. And we also made some assumptions on some of the categorical line items. But the one thing that we did know was that the one time funding for the 1 47,
A four MIP service cost offset and the 1 47 G funding, we knew that was coming off the top right away in this year. So there was something we did know and those were two line items we knew not to account for. Um, starting the school year, we made some assumptions on what was gonna happen with the school health men. Uh, school mental health and security grant. We reduced that, um, a little bit. Um, we didn't completely remove it and made some other pass through. Um, assumptions on the MIPS R'S pass through funds. What do we know today? Today there are some significant changes, um, between our assumptions and what actually happened.
There was a $442 increase in the foundation from 96 0 8 to 10,000, um, 50. However, with that increase there were many categorical line items that were reduced and we'll go through that. Um, on the next bullets, we, um, after our fall count, which is still unaudited as of today, um, experienced a loss of 186 versus the budget at a hundred FTE. That's about a 1.87, um, million dollars difference increase in interest earnings. We had assumed that the market was going
to shift a little bit. Um, but luckily rates are still holding and we're receiving some added revenue there. That's not very common for school districts anymore, but has been the norm. The last year, um, a little bit over a year, there were some reductions in other local grant revenue. So not just state revenue but local grants. We had a school nurse grant that we were receiving through our local ISD that is no longer um, in existence. And we also lost community foundation funding for our Parents as teachers program in this year. What understand that they were, um,
redoing their grant platform and we're not awarding grants in this year, but they likely will in the next year. So we had to come up with some supplemental funding for this, um, fiscal year for that. The state categorical line items that changed, I kind of summarized them for you at the bottom. I did two columns 'cause there were a lot of changes. The left side are your reductions and the right side are your increases. So on the reduction side, we lost, um, there were some significant changes to MIPS R'S line items and to go into detail on what they all are, we'd be here all night. Um, but high level we lost about 1.4 million in MIPS R'S
categorical funding. We all know the conversation regarding the 31 AA grant. We had assumed a loss of 400. We actually had to add an additional loss of 800 for a total loss of 1.2 in our budget. 35 section 35 early literacy grant also went away, but we also had some increases on the other end. Our section 31 A at risk categorical funding increase by about 2 million. The enrollment stabilization line item increased because we have an increase in loss of students. That stabilization funding increase for us to help offset some of those losses.
There's a one-time section 27 L or four sters healthcare offset of 730,000 and a one-time educator compensation funding that must be bargained with our union groups of about $1 million. You'll see that on the revenue side, that is a direct payment on the expenditure side as well. So we're not increasing or decreasing anything on our books for this, but it does have to be depicted somewhere. And once we settle with our groups, you'll see that on where, where, how exactly that flushes out. This is our state aid membership trend.
Um, just showing you a 10 year overlook of what this looks like. We had our enrollment study done and we're still waiting for that taper off effect that they predicted for us and we're really hoping that happened soon. Um, but as of now, this is where our enrollment trend, um, what it looks like. So our revenues, um, pictorially and the data below. So from left to right, the original budget showed a total revenue of $102 million. The middle column shows our actual revenue of 106.5 million and the variance column, um, to the right
of a total difference of about $4 million. So you'll see on the local line item, that's the mainly the interest revenue earnings net against the loss of those local grants. The state categorical funding changes and the foundation changes. So net to a 3.9 or 4.8% increase and um, a decrease in our federal revenue of about 168,000. Now this shows as a decrease at this point because we have not at received our final allocations as of this budget amendment for our title grants. So that is still happening in process now
and will be shown to the board at the final Amendment. So though it shows as a decrease, it's because we still didn't have those allocations at this point in time. We just received those this month and it's February. So that's kind of how your budget process works. Budget assumptions for the expenditures, um, we had to make some assumptions not having settled our contracts at this point. So we had, um, we are intentionally planning on spending down the fund balance. So we had, uh, budgeted approximately $6 million for increased salary and benefits. Uh, we had increase in overall MIPS rates,
so we made some assumptions on what those were going to be. 10% increase to health insurance rates across the board, which was in line with state projections. Slight increases to dental and long-term disability plans. These are the rates are set against our wages. So as wages increase, those rates will actually inherently increase as well. Continued increases. Gas, electric and bus fuel. We made some, um, plan reductions to strategic plan initiatives. We made some assumptions on what ELA curriculum adoption would include in this fiscal year and various cost assumption increases
to liability insurance, workers' comp and et cetera. Again, these are directly taken from the June slide, so there's no changes from that PowerPoint to this month. Just copy and paste. We had a, uh, planned spend down, um, I'm sorry, a plan set aside for our technology fund of 676,000 to help hedge um, to the next bond for a one-to-one program. We had assigned fund equity for wage increases of about 1.5. We used that in this year's budget. We applied for a filter first grant and we're awarded that.
And we also still have the 20 3G grant, which will continue until the end of this fiscal year. We assumed increases in software expenses for district copier program to phase out the print shop operations. Anticipated increase for minimum wage from 1248 to 1329. Um, at this point in time we had assumed the addition of one social worker. We have added a few more special ed staff since then and then we'll all we would finalize staffing at the budget amendment, which is today. So what do we know today? Um, we have settled all of our contract, um,
uh, labor group negotiation process. That's all finalized now. So all those increases are accounted for in this budget. We also had in this budget any new hired staff that were on a partial contract this year that will realize a full contract, partial contract last year, full contract this year, um, is depicted in this budget. The total wage increases for all employee groups through the bargaining process equated to about 10% or about $4.4 million, not including FICA in retirement. So that is a significant investment in our employee, um,
employees and a plan spend of our fund balance. The one time 27 L educator compensation funding is depicted in here, even though we're still working through that process with our groups. There was a 10.02% increase in minimum wage beginning January 1st and that will continue to increase in the next year to $15. So that's something to account for really taking a look at our retirement rate for the district. Every employee timing of payment type of payment has a different rate. So we've taken an approach of looking at a weighted average.
Basically what do the majority of our employees have and are coming up with a weighted percentage for that. We had to increase the funding to security services from the general fund because of the loss of 31 8 A. So we had to account for an $800,000 increase in general fund expenses. We had 400,000 in prior year 31 AA money that hedged us through. Next year will be a total of 1.2. That will be in the general fund, 9.5% increase in health insurance rates. We did because of the increase in 31 A, we were able
to shift some of our ongoing allowable 31 A expenses that maybe we didn't have enough grant money for into the grant to help offset some of our general fund costs that were for our 31 a services still awaiting at this point of the presentation. Our reoccurring grant allocations for title one through four, those will be added to the instructional line item and the final amendment. And we have been working with the new company Executive Energy to really hone in on our utility charges. So you'll see some changes here based on those estimates. Some other big line item changes.
Um, our special education transportation consortium for our special ed students increased by $382,000. That rate is based on ridership. We contract those services through our local ISD. We also increased in contract transportation services with first student to help reduce the cancellation of runs. This added two drivers to our, um, fleet shifting of increased expenses from IDEA. We have been able to fill every special education paraprofessional position, but because of that we don't have enough IDA funding to cover added costs.
So some of those costs had to get covered under, um, regular special ed, which is just general fund and the addition of the SVPP grant for district radios, which has a match component, which we'll be using the sinking fund over the summer to cover the 25% match requirement. So overview pictorially, I'm gonna get a drink. These are our expenditures by function, which is the where. So the each slide, the next two slides will work the same from left to right. The original budget showed expenditure budget of 109 million. Actual amended budget projection is 110.6
with an increase in cost of 1.5 or 1.4%. The next slide is the object, which tells you what are we spending our funding on. So again, from left to right you'll see the biggest changes in the salary line item are for the actualized cost during the actualized cost, during the negotiations process. The benefits, um, reduction is the net change to our retirement costs that we were projecting Net of the increase to health insurance purchase services includes a minimum wage increase, the loss of funding for our trans general ed transportation.
Um, and that's it there. Supplies are more of our grant purchases. So any grant line item categoricals change the supply category. Utilities working with, um, executive energy have come up with a little bit more accurate assumption and order gas and electric charges will be. So that's a loss of a decrease of about 70,000. The capital outlay line item is the SVPP grant net of any other changes. And the other line item mainly encompasses that special ed transportation consortium through the ISD. Again, same number and net increase of 1.5 or 1.4%.
So the slide we all wanna see overall. So again, they work from left to right and then starts from the revenue in the top, the expenditures in the middle and the end is our fund balance projection. So we estimated that we would be spending about 6.58 million in of our fund balance. This amended budget depicts or projects that we'll be spending about 4.1 million for to the good net of 2.5 or projected ending fund balance of 26.48%. I'm going to stop here for a minute to catch a breath and to give you all a moment
to sit on that and see if you have any questions. Anything you wanna point out? No, I, I am glad to see the fund balances still. I mean, it, we're doing okay. Yes. There's other districts that have zero. Correct. So we've placed ourselves in a position where we can spend into our fund balance for the time being. It's not sustainable in the very much long term. Um, but we did intentionally plan to spend this down. This is exactly what we wanted to see. And it's exactly what I'm showing you today. We will have to make some adjustments in coming years.
It's not a sustainable approach, but it does do what we intended to do. And the intention was to spend down the fund balance. And that's exactly what we're doing. Michelle, is there any talk about them offering the 31 AA again for the next year's budget? No. And if you remember when we had those conversations, one of the things that they wanted districts that were accepting the funding to do, to have a sustainability plan. So that was the first kind of time they, they introduced that, that that money's gonna go away and you're gonna have to carry those costs. So I'm not sure what that's gonna look like in the future. And this is, does our safe, you know,
it was money toward our, uh, all of our security services. We use it strictly for security. And we should point out to the board that 31 AA came about during COVID, during the pandemic. Prior to that, those security costs were in the general fund. So we have absorbed that before. But to Michelle's point, a budget and for the audience a budget that's $4 million plus to the deficits, not something we can do every year. So, um, something that we're gonna have to get our hands around. And we're doing that slowly, um, through an attrition process and through how we're identifying programming so forth.
And our security costs about a million dollars a year, 1,000,002, 1,000,002. Now it's all security events, buildings. Um, That's things guards have to do to keep everybody safe. We're Still doing the same things. We're just paying it out of the general, we're paying it differently. Mm-hmm. Any other questions on general fund? We can obviously go back if you think of any. So looking ahead, um, some salary amounts may change between now and the end of the year. Any midyear adjustments for leave of absences, maternity leaves, second semester changes, anything like
that I would capture in the final amendment. The January estimating conference came out. The state's, um, general fund is in a deficit, unfortunately, but the state school aid fund has a surplus. Um, if history repeats itself, sometimes one tries to take from Peter tries to pay Paul. Let's just hope that doesn't happen. Um, I don't know why it's always Peter stealing from Paul. Um, minimum wage will continue to increase. That's such a dead joke. That's a Scott joke. Where you are, a minimum wage will continue to increase in the next year. It is supposed to be at $15 an hour,
beginning January of 27. There is a very large a CC adoption coming up for our K eight ELA curriculum. That, that adoption alone will be an additional million dollars, not including any other a CC pilots or initiatives. Software costs are expected to increase. We're working with our technology department to figure out what those might be. We're still working with the vendors mm-hmm. To figure out what those might look like for us. Uh, enrollment projection projections do continue to predict the decline, but we are expecting a taper
and we're really hoping that, um, pans out soon. We will assess staffing levels in relation to enrollment as we start the staffing process, which will be begin this month, next month. Continued deficit spending, as I stated, isn't sustainable, but we are committed, um, to spending down the fund balance. And the passage of the bond is critically important for technology. A big component in the bond is our one-to-one program, and there is no budget line item for any of those technology expenses currently. Other funds, um, I'm gonna kind of breeze through these a little bit. Children's Garden is a self-sustaining fund
and is a tuition based program that is for our preschool and latchkey program does not receive any funding from the general fund. We do charge the fund indirect cost of about $80,000 that we help to sustain the, we help to run the program, my cost, um, overhead, um, so on and so forth. So that fund is about breaking even, but it does have a pretty healthy fund balance that it has secured over the years. Um, come next year we will have to increase preschool rates slightly to keep up. We haven't increased rates in about three to four years. So we're a little behind the trend.
Um, so we're starting to slowly, um, bring those to, um, what the actual cost should be. And we've looked at the market and we're a little bit, we're behind, um, neighboring preschool programs. Food service fund. This is a restricted fund. It is a federal program. This is for our food service operations. This fund does very well and requires a certain fund balance. So Jeff and I work together to determine what that would be annually. And we, um, continuously look at making sure we're spending enough to maintain that minimum fund balance requirement. Again, doesn't receive any funding from General Fund,
but we do charge the program indirect cost, which is an allowable, um, expense. Our student activities funds, this is our student groups fundraising, um, supporting our boosters program, so on and so forth. We don't really set line item budgets. It's just a high level category. We expect to generate 2.5. Whatever those, um, they're taking in, we're expecting to pay out the same as well. So that has about 1.4 fund balance, um, from the prior year debt retirement fund. This is a restricted fund that pays down our bonds that we've passed over the years. You can't touch this for anything else but the payment of our debt
that's due every May 1st and November 1st. Um, once we get through the bond cycle, we're able to look at the amortization schedule, maybe escalate the payments a little bit because we've been able to secure some interest earnings there and basically pay down the debt faster. Sinking fund. Um, thinking to the voters for this, this is our warm, safe and dry fund. Um, we've kind of been holding these funds in reserve based on what would happen in May. Thankfully, that passed. We were able to do a roof, some parking lots, some things that we put on the side, um, in hopes just, just planning.
Um, and now we're going back on our regular maintenance cycle. These projects, um, come on the upswing during the summertime, which is Jeff's busy time. Um, so we're hoping to spend down about 2 million of that fund and we'll receive the next, um, set of tax revenue in the summer. 'cause we're a full summer collection. The athletic complex Fund. Um, this fund, uh, is generating funding right now through Open Swim, which has been successful, a successful start to that program. We received some funding for the scoreboard advertisement, um, pool rental and earnings on interest.
We have this fund here for when that TF needs to be replaced, which it will need to be replaced at some point. And any maintenance of that building in general can come out of this fund. 2020 Bond series three, we're at the tail end of that. A big project's gonna happen within the next few weeks, which is the relocation of the tennis courts. You'll see significant spend down of that. Um, there will be a little carryover from my fiscal year or our fiscal year, which is June 30 to the summer program, which is when the summer construction begins. So this fund will continue into the next fiscal year, but is likely going to be spent in full, um, by the end
of summer, if not into the fall, um, next fiscal year. So it's still on our books though. Timelines. I'm sorry as this, I didn't catch this, but some of the letters and are covered. But same, same overall overview, April through June, um, are planning for our bond election. We also are working on budget projections for the next fiscal year. So as we round up this meeting, we start right back up, um, staffing projections for the next school year in June. We'll be coming to you in that second meeting in June
for the final Amendment and the 26 27 original budget, hoping we have some solid information from our legislators at that point. Right now, the governor's only come out with a very prelim, um, budget, but there's a long way to go that we'll go through 58 reiterations before we know much. In October, we'll have our 25 26 audit presentation. And then December we'll begin the discussion of the non-homestead renewal, um, which is our annual 18 mills that we collect. And that's it. Um, no questions. Just wanted to, to thank Michelle and Jeff for their consistent dedication to the budget.
I mean, when you have a deadline in July and you don't get information till October, November, it's very difficult to try and manage a, you know, a budget of over a hundred million dollars. So, um, you know, and then turn around and get, you know, a very clean audit year after year. So, um, you know, we meet, we chitchat, you know, we're in a good spot with fund balance. You know, there's other districts around the state that aren't as healthy. Um, MASB has a recommended, uh, fund balance of around 15% based on various variables. So I don't want to write that in granite,
but, so to be where we're at is good. But you know, as we look to the future, we'll have to make some decisions on how to take care of our students safely, our staff safely, and make sure that we try and keep things as as great as we can. So, thank you both of you for, for your consistent attention. Years ago we were well Sure. Effort borrowing money. Okay. We'll take a motion to accept the, um, amendment. I'll make a motion Support. Sorry, we're not, we're not doing well today.
Are we, Jamie? Sorry. Okay. Um, we have a motion and a second. Any questions? Okay, that's Ug Lang. Yes. Riker, yes. Yellen? Yes. Youngs, yes. B? Yes. Kish? Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much, and your team and Ryan for making sure everything's tip top. I, I know it's all you, right? Oh, yeah. That laugh says it all. Okay, moving on to information report, superintendent Report. Yeah, just a few things from me tonight. Um, first I wanna thank Michelle. I know that this is a, a frustrating time and, you know, Michelle's tenure with us, she came in
during COVID and the pandemic, and now we're into this budgeting cycle at the state level. That's, uh, not even on a 14 month rotation, but we're hopeful that we're gonna get some guidance here, here shortly. But I do think it is important, and she hinted to this, that as you see, we saw the Revenue Estimating conference, we've seen the governor's proposal, we're gonna see proposals from the House and the Senate. One of the things I think we have to make sure we're all aware of, and this happened last year and our public's aware of, is the Shell game that happens in Lansing. Um, you know, there's a lot of funding, as Michelle said,
the revenue estimating conference, the school aid fund is, is flush. The, the general fund is not, what that usually triggers to us or alerts us to is somehow there's gonna be a, some, some pots that move around and all of a sudden they're gonna use, they're gonna divert from the school aid fund for the road projects or something to that effect. That was what everyone was worried about in the last fiscal cycle. Um, so we just need to pay attention to that as we see things from MASB, from the county, from the state organizations, because that's something we all need to advocate for.
Good. Um, it's hard to believe, and she alluded to this too, that we're starting to get into the cycle of preparing for next year. Scott's put out staffing notices to, to buildings. He's starting to have meetings with administrators, but tonight is kindergarten information night. So, um, you know, the Biddy Bobcat night, um, so I know Jody and Barb are not here. They're out running around with our building administrators who are talking with parents, and it's an exciting time. You know, we're gonna get into the spring and ance testing and the teddy Bear bus ride. And, um, I know enrollment's down,
and we've known this for a while with our projections, but one thing that we are pretty consistent on from, um, I wanna say the last cohort of 600 is in eighth grade right now. So when we go K seven, our cohorts are gonna be between 505 50. And that's a little bit different than where we've come from. I know my son graduated in 22, he had 720 kids in his class. Um, but they're, they're pretty consistent. And that's where that leveling effect, we're hoping that that comes sooner rather than later. So if we get a cohort of 500 kindergartners, I'll be very happy with that. So we'll keep you posted.
Um, next week our high school is going to be going through their accreditation visit from coa, which used to be advanced ed, which used to be NCA or North Central. That's a virtual visit. So it's not, if you've been in education a while, you may remember the day of them coming into a room with crates and hanging files and evidence. And that's all digital now. So it is a little bit more streamlined, but that'll be taking place next week on Wednesday. I'll have more information for the board, um, after we had that visit. And I want to thank Allison for her work
with the high school team on that. And speaking of Allison, I don't think publicly we've acknowledged the fact that Allison is being appointed the deputy superintendent on July 1st. So I wanted to congratulate her. Um, and I know Jody and Barbara are not here, so I will not gonna call 'em lame ducks or anything to that effect. Um, they're still around til to June, and they're gonna be working with Allison. They've been mentoring her. Uh, she's gonna do a great job and I'm excited to have her, uh, across the hall, not down the hall. So she'll be, she'll be, uh, keeping her duties as curriculum director, but we are restructuring her department a little bit
to support her with a CC and some of the other work that she does. So, congratulations, Allison. Congratulations. Um, I'll be at the Genesee County Superintendent's winter retreat later this week. We're gonna be up in Bay City. Um, gentleman named Tommy Thompson's coming in on Friday to talk to us about visible thinking from his work with Dr. John Hattie. I know some of our administrative team are gonna join us and we'll be with the other 20 local districts. So we're looking forward to that. And then the last thing is just think spring. You know, I woke up this morning and I swear, and I, I know we have an audience,
four 15, I took the dog out. I, I didn't think anything of it. I looked on the ground, I saw some snow. She went out and went to the bathroom, came back in, I laid back down, and then I looked at my phone and there were about 45 texts at five 15. So it's, you just can't win with these, you know, you see that, but they did close 69. I know Jeff mm-hmm. Took him an hour and a half to get to work today. Um, so it's better safe than sorry. And I know we're in much better shape than other districts. Um, some that are not too far away from us that other people might be working at that. Yeah. Um, But so I think we're gonna,
we're gonna be in good shape. Hopefully the weather turns, but think spring, you know, we're only, uh, uh, I think about a week away from spring sports starting all the winter sports, um, tournaments are, are heating up here. So, um, it's gonna be here before we know it. So that'll conclude my report if there are any questions. Okay. Amy, you wanna get us started with board member reports? Yep. I don't have anything for tonight. Great. Kelly? I don't have a lot. Just that I attended the Polar plunge, gosh, I think that was almost two weeks ago. And that was really exciting. I was able to witness my two fourth graders take the plunge.
Um, they were really excited. And then I look forward tomorrow to going to the N Nerds Partner showcase and to meet their robot momentum. So I've never been, so I'm looking forward to that. Awesome. That's all I have. Um, I also attended the Polar Plunge and your, one of your sons, uh, plunged with our SRO. So we, you know, even our, that was his third plunge of the day. So fully suited, right. Fully suited. Yep. It's Crazy. Um, uh, Ethan and I attended the Genesee County Association
of School Board member, um, informational meeting, um, last week. And they had a presentation from the MASB about, um, the board's role in increasing student achievement. Um, along with that, Dr. Iff talked about the Genesee County's work in Raising Standard, our test scores of our students and, and their successes throughout the county and how to work together because there's so much movement of the students as well. You know, what, you know, there's what, 25% School of Choice kids throughout the county coming and going.
So they're really all our kids that we all need to work together. And Trevor has been one of the spearheaded has been spearheading this, um, work. So we appreciate that. It's great work and, um, it's good to have this information to then continue to move forward. And I think the MAs B'S response, um, with their presentation was like, let's all be on that same page. What are our board goals? What are, uh, his bo his goals? What are the individual, you know, building board or building goals, um, so that we can constantly kind
of think to that. Um, so that's something we we're gonna see hopefully on the next workshop to continue that discussion. Um, um, and there is this next class that the ISD is putting on locally, um, CBA two, uh, 3 23, but it's also the same night as the, um, soccer game at the Don Bachelor field. So keep that in mind before you RSVP to this, because, you know, we've got a cool soccer game that night here, um, as well. Um, I knew there was something on that date. Yeah. I couldn't
Remember. Yeah. So that's it for me. Okay. Brian? Uh, not much for me. I also attended the Polar Plunge. My youngest did it. Uh, and I, I'm shocked at how many students and staff did it. Um, the last number I heard is their goal was 10,000. They were near nearly $40,000 raised for Special Olympics, which is amazing. So 24 24, I know they were still taking in. Yeah, it was, it was, it was a lot. So, um, just really, you know, cool support of Grand Blanc, uh, or from Grand Blanc for the Special Olympics.
Um, Genevieve, just wanna say thank you for your report. You know, we get to do a lot of the outside events and go to the ones that, you know, our customer or our customer, Jesus Community facing, but it's nice to hear what's going on inside the walls, you know, with Black Student Union and everything else. So I appreciate the details, the updates, athletic, non-athletic arts, you name it. So, uh, appreciate you being here and always giving us those updates. Um, and then again, I just wanna thank Michelle and Jeff, you know, making sure that they're good stewards of the taxpayer's money, you know, stretching things
where we can, just trying to make sure that the buildings are safe, they're sound, they're dry, they're, they're know, they're safe. So again, can't thank you enough for all you do. That's all for me. Okay, Ethan? Uh, yeah, no, I don't really have much to say. Uh, I wasn't able to attend the Polar plunge in person, but I did watch the live stream. Um, and again, I can't believe that Detective Rouse jumped in three times. I mean, I think once is enough, but three in full uniform. Two, uh, I do want to wish everyone a happy lunar New Year,
a happy Ramadan, um, a happy lenon season. Uh, I can talk about the, or going to the, the county reporter if you'd like now or Yep, go ahead. Uh, so at the January meeting, a new board was elected Dave Wallace, uh, is the president. Kurt Schulte, the Vice President, Brooke Hanson, the secretary, and Recia Handy, the treasurer. Um, the discussion on raising the amounts of, uh,
that the scholarship recipients would receive, uh, was brought up. Um, and with that, you know, each district chips in and that's where we get the scholarship funding from. So that is something that I know, um, the ISD wanted to talk about, uh, locally as well with the local districts on, uh, the willingness to raise that, um, amount. Um, aside from that, the, uh, conference, the annual leadership conference has been planned. It will be in Lansing this year, uh, with it flip-flopping
between, uh, traverse City and Lansing. Um, and then for the next meeting, the 19th, that meeting will start at 5:00 PM again with the CVA 3 23 class starting at 6:00 PM And the, uh, scholarship dinner being on April 23rd, I believe. Is that correct? That was that, that was the Yeah, yeah. The fourth, uh, Wednesday or fourth Thursday of April. Yeah. So Make a note of that because normally our meetings are the
third Thursday, Thursdays of the month, but April has a lot of Thursdays. And, um, it worked better with the students at the ISD to help prepare that night. So it is the April 23rd. Yep. Yes. So just mark that in your calendars. Uh, it'll be at the ISD, probably at the same building. Yeah, at the GCI off Tory. Um, but aside from that, uh, we can talk more about the, um, last week's, uh, kind of, um, presentation.
Uh, Scott Morrell, he gave a great presentation, um, going over kind of our role in student achievement. Um, and I thought that there was a lot that we can adapt, um, spending more time on student achievement in our board meetings. Um, one thing that really stood out to me was setting individual board goals. Um, so our superintendent has goals. We as a board should also have goals that we work towards, uh, each year. Uh, and then going over, uh, annually.
Um, I know it's somewhere in here, uh, annually, what our goals are, uh, in January specifically, because, um, he mentioned you get new board members, um, oh, annual conversation on what our vision statement means to us. Uh, because with the election you'll get new board members sworn in in January. Um, having that conversation every year, it's just kind of a reminder of what our goals and our vision statement is. Um, another thing that stood out
to me was going over our agenda and marking it with either a, MV or G. So mission, vision or goals, um, seeing where that aligns. Um, otherwise it, if we have too much that isn't aligning with our mission, our vision, or our goals, we as a board and our meeting is kind of going off track. Um, so I think that would be something that we should start kind of looking towards doing. Uh, I was looking over tonight's agenda, kind of, um, mentally marking it over. Um, I think that's all
that I had on his presentation. If Yasmine, if you have more or Just one thing, Trevor, the, um, scholarship student for our district to go to the county should be picked by, I think next week, for the end of this week. So as long as do they did it great. And I just signed that. Great. Awesome. Do Back at the ISD do back at the ISD by this Friday. Um, And I think applicant Was hired. Okay. I was, he's a swimmer. Did you read It? No, I didn't read it. It's send it to me Military. Anyway, um, thank you. And then we're gonna put this on
the agenda for the work chat. Yes. I sent Linda a so we can talk more about it in depth. Thank you. Okay, awesome. Um, couple things from me. Um, in your um, folder there's this document that's the interview questions. So if you can take a look at it, um, I know we're starting at four 30 tomorrow, four 30, so if we could maybe meet at four 15 so we can go through that. Great. So there's like 12 questions here. Um, we formatted it, so you've got a place to put notes. So we'll get copies, you know, let me know if you can
by tomorrow morning if you have questions or comments about the questions. And then Linda could get us copies. So there's six of us, three candidates, so 20 copies of this would be great. Um, so these are questions that we've used before, um, for the interviews we went through and I put some, moved some down to the secondary. So the last page are things we probably won't talk about, but they were relevant in past, um, interview sessions. So I've got that and in that as well. Um, Linda, Yasmin and I have been working on updating our new
board member binder. So, um, Linda's done an outstanding job to get this up to date. So, um, I'd like Kelly, if, and Ethan, if you guys can kind of just look through it, see if there's anything since you're fairly new board members to see if it covers everything. The thing, the other things, um, we'll use the plan is to have two meetings, um, with the board president and the superintendent to walk through some of this data, walk through the knowledge base, all the other stuff like we did with you guys, but we've tried to organize it in the order of that meeting.
Do you have anything else to add? And then once we, this is good. I think Linda, you're planning on making copies for each board member as well, so we have the same information. Pardon me. Fun weekend reading. Okay. And then, um, and one more thing. Our knowledge base, Linda and Yame and I kind of, they kind of go together, that's our electronic, um, version of a lot of the data that we use as board members. So Linda's been making some updates. So you'll see there's been some changes out there. If you have, there's anything else that you think we need
that's missing, something that doesn't make sense, please let us know when we will get things updated. Okay. Next. Moving on to public comments. So we have six people signed up for public comments. Um, just a reminder when you come up to the mic, um, public comments is so that we can hear from the public. So it's not gonna be a question and answer. So I don't want people to get frustrated if you ask a question and we don't respond. We will definitely get back with you after the meeting if there's items that we need to follow up on. So as you, um, I will ask you each to come up starting that.
Yeah. Um, to the mic. And, um, you have three minutes. So we ask you to come up and state your full name, your city or township of residence, and then I will give you a 32nd heads up when you're at two minutes and 30 seconds so you can wrap things up. Okay. First one is Jody. Okay. Hi guys. Hi. I'm gonna talk to you while I walk over here. Great. Um, some of you guys know me. So, uh, my name's Jody Johnston. I am a resident of Grand Blanc. I have two students that go to school here and I am also band booster treasurer.
Um, so I'm here today because I wanted to talk about some of the, um, the stuff that's kind of been going on. So we had a little bit of issue with band. Um, so on October 13th, we were voted down the winter programs. Um, we were not, we were told that we could not talk about the budgets. We were only told that we could vote yes or no, which seemed kind of weird because that's kind of what boosters are for. Correct. Um, so we discussed doing that. And then we also, um, I apologize, I'm nervous.
Um, we talked about turning them into two clubs and instead of having them under the booster umbrella, um, Anthony is our drumline director. He was notified of his budgets that they were not approved, and we were told that we could help them with their budgets. Um, when I did help Eva with her Winter Guard budget, the band directors seemed to get a little upset about that. And I was like, well, they're all on a Google Doc for all of us to see. So, and you told us we could help. And then the winter directors were told
to revise their budgets with plans of no monetary value from the boosters. And this was not voted on. Um, with it being a band booster, I would assume that you would help with monetary value fundraising. And then, um, then apparently there was a couple Facebook posts put out there, um, by the winter directors, I'm sorry, um, a couple of them. And apparently it was brought to administration's attention. Um, their posts were very generic. There was no person, um, put on their messages
or schools and they work with multiple schools. Um, apparently that was a big deal. So they, I don't know. At some point they got in trouble, I guess. Um, our, by our, our bylaws, the Ban Boosters bylaws state that we are to lend possible support both moral and financial. 30 seconds. Okay. Fundraising policy of the school is sanctioned. Groups are expected to spend funds raised on the students who raise them, and the students may be used to assist in such activities,
but shall not be required to participate in such, such activities. And then our marching band contract states that we need to, um, require parents and students to volunteer or pay money, which contradicts each other. So I'm up here saying that there is some stuff that's been going on. It doesn't seem fair. So, yes. Did I make a statement? 33 minutes is not that long, guys. It goes fast. So I do apologize, but, um, thank you President Kish. I did email you and vice President
and treasure documents. Okay. So I know that I ramble on a little bit that way. Thank you very much. You can, um, appreciate it. Take a look that at that. And my phone number is at the bottom. Thank You. Next is Danielle. What's that? Bear with me. I hate public speaking. My name is Danielle Woodward. I live in Grand Blanc Township. I am a parent of two students in the Grand Blanc Band program. I'm here for the same reason. Um, I'm here because I'm concerned about recent decisions to cancel our winter drumline and guard programs. I think it is a conflict of interest
that we just hope hosted a Winter Guard event this past Saturday, but canceled our own team. I think it's wrong that we are going to be asking our students and parents to help host a drumline event next month when our students should be also competing and are all left pretty heartbroken because we were given no notice of the cancellations. Grand Blanc is the largest district in Genesee County, and we are a Flight one marching band. If anyone knows what that means, it means we have to compete with much larger bands.
We will be the only flight one band that does not have winter programs. When we step on that field, leaving our students at a great disadvantage, we are coming into the season behind everyone else. I'm sorry. I'm so nervous. I hate You're doing great. Um, I lost my place. Shoot. These winter programs aren't just simple clubs. They're where students build skills, leadership and momentum for our fall season. I understand there are other programs offered, but none of them focus specifically on percussion or guard.
Our students feel like they lost their mentors, their place, their community. Um, none of our other programs offer such a competitive environment, which allows students to grow and be showcased in the same way. This is a major loss for the Grand Blanc community. These programs have been existence for over a decade beyond competition. This was a community for our students. It gave them structure, connection, and purpose during the winter months. Losing access to these programs matters. These programs are also open doors, also open doors
for program, um, advancement after high school through independent groups, college programs and scholarship opportunities. Losing these programs with no warning means our students no longer get to list these on their transcripts. If someone got didn't get to put football on their transcript, suddenly they'd be pretty upset. Because we were given such short notice, our students were not able to audition to seek out these organizations on their own independence. Um, families invest a signif significant amount of time and money into these activities.
They are not small clubs. They were established high level competitive programs that were so, um, our drumline competed at a world level with WGI and we competed. Well, we were not a failing program. Um, we are just seeking answers as to why there was no transparency with this decision. Families weren't given any notice and it left a lot of students feeling. Thank you. Lost, Thank you for your comments. Uh, next is Christina. Good. I wanna say good morning, but I guess it's not.
Morning. Good evening. Um, thank you for letting me Speak. Your name and city resident. I am Christina Cooper. I am a Monday township. I, well, I had three kids, the third, the oldest graduated, and I have two who attended the high school and are part of the band. I'm here kind of piggybacking off everybody that is really here to represent the band. I have been a strong supporter of Grand Blanc since my kids went to Grand Blanc kindergarten. I have been a school liaison member from McGrath and Anderson when back then in the day,
I've been a sub in the school district for many years. I support Grand Blanc, but at this time I just furious with what has taken place in the band department and how it was handled. We did have a band booster meeting the beginning of the month where we were trying to figure out what had taken place and how it came about. You know, we understood that drum line was canceled, but we don't understand the reason why it was canceled. To this day, there's no answer. All we get is conflicting answers. No one standing up to explain why it has happened. Drumline is a great program for these kids.
It has given them a way to excel, to challenge them and to give them a place in the school. By taking these programs away, you're putting these kids in a place where they're lost. They have nothing. These kids can't even speak for themselves because they're afraid to speak. They have the parents who are gonna talk at the moment, the teachers at the school don't want to hear from us. We have spoken, we have explained to them and return. We have gone aggression and negative responses.
And when we did speak and we explained to them our responses and how we are furious with it, what we got were our kids being picked on by a teacher. I am furious with the, the school right now and how you guys responded for them to bring in the student unit and the teacher not being handled in regards to this is beyond me being a sub. I have had, I have a teaching degree. If I was ever to talk to a kid the way they did, should not, they should be reprimanded for it. But at the moment, nothing has happened.
I'm furious with how the directors are not doing anything. They're washing their hands, they're putting in sub 30 seconds substitutes for the program just to appease the parents and the kids. At this moment. We need an answer. We need to know what's going on. And if they're not gonna do drum drumline or color guard or any winter program, they need to step away and prevent and stop preventing us from doing our own program and establishing stuff in other schools. Right now, they are hindering us and not allowing us to do anything. I have nothing else to say. Thank you. Okay, next is Kelly.
So I'm just gonna quickly say, um, my name is Kelly Wells. I'm a, um, resident of Grand Blanc Township, um, 88 alum of Grand Blanc. And I've always been a proud Bobcat. I am here as a former band parent. My two sons graduated in 2013 and 2017. They were both members of many of the bands, marching band, uh, wind Ensemble, you name it, they were in it also choir kids. And to this day, both of my kids still sing at a world, um, competing barbershop, chorus. And I just feel like music is something that most people can do throughout their entire lifetime.
And I think that it's something that should not be overlooked. And I'm just here to show my support to all the current band parents because I feel very passionate about this problem. And I hope that you all can reach a solution. 'cause it our kids matter and I know that their kids matter as well. So thank you. Thank you. Uh, next we have Peyton. Hi, my name is Peyton Blackhurst. I live in Grand Lake Township. I didn't really realize how these meetings went, so I'm not very prepared. But I'm just gonna read a little snippet of something that was actually posted on Facebook. Um, I have been a band parent almost
consecutively since 2010. High school band parent I should add. Um, I have two kids that have grown and graduated, and then I have one that is currently a junior. I've been part of with them every possible, something that you can imagine through the band program. Um, 11 marching band seasons right now that I've been a parent for six drumline seasons and countless, countless everything else's. Um, I can't count the hours my kids put in and the hours we as parent volunteers invested and the money invested would literally blow you away. It was offered something so good and beneficial.
I would've done anything and my power to facilitate those experiences for my kids. The betrayal of having these winter programs ripped out from underneath them, uh, in the midnight hour, I might add at the very last minute, and gave them no opportunity to search for an alternative. Um, that is an indescribable sting. But the real hurt comes from the lack of communication from our directors And maybe even some of our board members. Not Jodi, but, uh, things were happening that they haven't been very clear on. There hasn't been any transparency, a lack
of honesty, unfortunately. Um, a lack of communication and accountability and responsibility. Um, but nobody seems to want to take responsibility for anything that's happened. And they've left almost as many kids just out in the open with nothing to do that are part of marching band. We did go to the booster meeting that was at the beginning, beginning of the month. And what my takeaway from that was that in the end, marching band was more important. And the funds that were raised through the fundraising that we do should go there first.
Uh, it's very heartbreaking to our kids and there's a very big feeling of betrayal. And there will be a lot of kids that don't return to any of the programs. My son is one, and that breaks my heart. He doesn't wanna march. He doesn't even wanna take dayAnd anymore. There's a very bad atmosphere happening within the dayAnd classes and the directors and, and how they are coming at the kids. Something should be looked at. We don't know the whole story and maybe we won't ever be privy to it, but somebody should because something went severely wrong
and it's going to impact this program for years to come. And I thought there was a plan to build this program when Cory went to east, working alongside Jake at West to build up middle school, to come to the high school with kids that were ready to be part of these things. It's going to change and it's going to be very sad. Thank you very much. Oh, can somebody talk that wasn't on the list? No, you have to sign in Within 15 minutes. So sorry. I'm so sorry. Um, and then Dan, This is just in, um, uh,
my name's Dan Matson, um, Monday Township. Um, my daughter still goes. My son just graduated. My, uh, daughter goes is, uh, 11th grade right now. First off, I wanna agree with my fellow band parents. Um, everything they said was right on point. The optics, um, the pie was reduced, right? The budget was reduced. The funds were reduced. Uh, intentionally. It looks like it was intentionally allowed to collapse under its own weight for lack of product, proactive planning as well as politics. Okay? That, that needs to be said. I don't think anybody really talked about the politics too much, but that is very important in my opinion.
The trust has been eroded. Students and parents alike. Parents and students asked the directors, directors blame the boosters. Boosters blamed boosters. Then asked the directors, directors, then blame them. Admin, admin, sorry. Directors. Blame the admin. Parents ask the boosters. The boosters have no comment per the director. Like Jody said, parent talks to admin, admin says, ask the directors. We are getting sent in directions that don't make any sense. Nobody wants accountability. So I support, I apologize. I actually created this just as I was sitting here.
I support strategic planning to grow and eventually the, uh, sorry. I support strategic planning and growing of the, and unifying of the performance arts programs, but not at a breakneck speed that only serves to confuse, divide, and disrupt student goals and expectations and the relationships they've built. I volunteered at the WGI show the other day, the last weekend all the schools were coming together and like, why aren't you guys performing? What's going on? And they had, they had lots of, lots of friends and everybody was pulling together and like, they were very confused.
Sorry, my phone turned off. So my call to action is, look, what's done is done. I get it. The budget was what the budget was, but the transparency wasn't there. Alright? The vision needs to be unified between the admin directors and the boosters and shared with the students. They have no idea what's going on. They are so confused. Musical arts booster reform is needed. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, that is all for public comments. Next is future meetings. Uh, the next meeting is tomorrow.
It's a special board workshop to do the interviews. And the next upcoming board meeting is on Monday, March 16th. And with that, this meeting is adjourned.