##VIDEO ID:6UdMRN1GPaw## 23rd 2025 I relinquish my duties as chair over to VP Lopez for the evening thank you very much you're welcome vice president [Music] okay all right thank you um I hope you could quick get better quick okay okay I hope to feel better quick thank you okay um cure do we have okay let's all stand for Pledge of Allegiance please States of America to the repu for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you roll call please present Dr Cabana Mr herd Mr Lopez present Mrs Moore present Dr nebar Martinez present Dr Rodriguez present m stro m Williams qu Miss present may I address the chair VP Lopez I am aware of trusty herd's absence and also trusty Kavanaugh's ABS at this time sure okay um next we have a reading of our permission do I have any volunteers well how about with start Miss boy crusty boy the Lancing the Lancing School District's mission is to provide a high quality education and a culturally safe and nurturing environment that supports all students to live purposeful and fulfilling lives thank you very much um do we have any additions to the agenda from any board members I want to add about yeah the mission statement reading I want to make the motion that we have the kind of order in what everybody has the opportunity to read the mission statement through the whole year yeah I think we can uh have a calendar and assign each week who's going to read the mission yeah we need to have the motion maybe later yeah I was hoping that we could also include the vision yeah in addition to the mission to have theion we in the agenda we can talk about about that later on okay you want to add that for discussion or you want to whatever you want you are the president I think we already discussed it okay um do we have any public comment no all right let's go to our first uh item of U item seven of presentations uh Human Resources wonderful thank you so much uh vice president Lopez uh I'd like to bring up the uh human resource Department uh come on up to the table uh before they begin I just want to certainly say to the board and to the public um Human Resources is of course the backbone of a district the people that work for us the people that work for our children the people that work for our community and there's been a disconnect over the years around making sure that our the people that work with us are really part of the community that really are are addressing the mission the vision and I think what's been great about this board is you've continuously asked questions about how is hiring going who are we hiring what's the story what's our uh kind of our trajectory and what you're going to hear today is a lot of real deep kind of understanding of what's happened over the last couple of years uh where we are and certainly where we're going um I will say I'm looking at Ryan we are not up right okay so I just want to make sure for the record um that because of some internet issues in the district uh we are not live streaming this uh this meeting but we are taping it and we will put it on uh YouTube and all of our other channels so um there is nobody listening at home I'm sad uh sorry David um but we uh we will be making this meeting public uh once we uh wrap and then post it so without further Ado uh senior director of HR Mr Ross Take it Away push there it is now I can move it back bear with me experimenting okay um do we have the clicker is this ready to go back okay um I have here some slides of course you know you I can't come here and not have a bunch of slides but um I do hope that the slides tell more of a story I want to think through this with you and we've made a lot of changes and we've also seen a lot of um there's a lot of pride in our office right now we us two right now that are representing it but um I want to start by saying that our office is kind of feeling like we have accomplish some things and I don't want to take any credit for that that's a lot of their hard work so I just want to preface this the slides with that and um and I hope that we tell a story that you can you can kind of push back on a little bit and you can kind of ask probe some questions when we get to the data that we have and then of course we want to tap into your your wealth of knowledge up here as well there's some data in here that I think you'd be interested in saying what about this or what about that and I hope this is a continued conversation um so I just wanted to to think through that before we start going Slide by slide all right so the first thing I want to start with is a road map that we left off with I think it was last October um that we presented some some um data to you and some slides and demographic and Staffing numbers and that kind of thing um in full disclosure I stole this stuff right here from my last job the recruit hire I mean as good Educators do we steal what's good and leave what's not behind um but in at the onset I want to say that the first two goals up there I think we've made some Headway the third one you're going to see some data later that's going to show I think we need a lot of work in that area and it and I'm happy to say we've uncovered some things that lead us in the Direction Where We need to take some action in this we're not just guessing anymore um um so there's first two we've increased educator applicant pool we've reduced vacancies um we've reduced various to entry um Andrew will will'll talk a little bit about that so right now this is a snapshot of a District 24 schools 10,974 students and 16 roughly 1 1600 employees um this includes Adult Ed this includes gsrp this includes um uh their retiree Subs in here so if you go to my school data you to see exactly this because we wanted to throw everything at these numbers and say this is our total total number so the sources of all of the information we get when we are gathering information is at the bottom of the slide either is this internal my school data um or yeah just one one thing to add for the board of course and for the folks that'll watch us later is when you go to the Michigan States uh the state of Michigan's numbers you're always going to see things a little bit different like when they talk about our enrollment that enrollment is the count enrollment so that doesn't include Adult Ed that doesn't include our preschool work so those are kids that we serve but also of course those are employees that serve those kids as well and we certainly think of all of them as families so I just want to make sure that if you do see different data to explain why this is the full picture of the District of Lancing not necessarily just K12 or just the employees that support them yeah thank you next one is we have a we have uh student R race and ethnicity um this is over the last three years this is pulled from my school data so you can go and it should match it exactly with what we have here um and you can see there's a very little change year to year but we get a good sense of who our students are by this data you know their their racial ethnic identity next one is our teacher race and identity I want to I want actually want to say that this is one piece of our teachers but I want to think about who our teachers are I want you to ask that question to yourself who are our teachers because there's some slides here that represent different slices of who our teaching Force are currently and that those needs changed based on years in the field um based on credentials and those kinds of things so our teacher race and ethnicity one of the things I want to point out is that we've made some gains with black or African-American teachers and um we see some progress but we see some areas where we need some growth let's just be honest like that's where it is um but when you think about our retention rate we're not we're not getting rid of all of our teachers and replacing them so change is slow when you're thinking about a 15% turnover we just want to see it trending in the right direction and I'm happy to see that this is this is what we see yeah and and one thing to add to that I mean because Clayton and Andrew won't take the the the bow but you know one of the things that this board has been really clear about and has directed us is to really make sure that we are trying to diversify staff trying to make sure that we're bringing folks into the District the idea that the black teacher um numbers are going from 8 to 13 you might say well that's 5% but that's more than 50% increase that's a huge number and also to what Clayton is talking about you can only hire folks if there are vacancies I I'm not hopefully planning on firing a bunch of folks so you got to also understand the kind of incremental gain but the fact that you're going from 8 to 13 that's five % but 5 over8 it's more than 50% that's that's huge and then of course where do you see that coming from is the white uh teacher population is went from 82 to 75 now do these numbers represent the the data in the page before absolutely not but this board and you know in the three years or now four years I've been here one of the things that you can see is the narrative and the trajectory of what we're trying to do but I will say if there are any Native Americans out there native Hawaiians uh Hispanic Asian those numbers really haven't moved and we certainly would like to hire them um because we want to diversify our staff but again and this is something we'll probably talk about later is to be a teacher there's certain credentialing and so it's a little bit more difficult when you're going out into the field to hire if you're uh kind of capped by credentialing and there's a whole conversation that we can have about the paper ceiling which is something that we'll probably talk about later but just to highlight on this page this is this is really good movement for a district the size with the kind of numbers that we're looking at so thank you another snapshot of who our teachers are years of service there's something that literally stands out up there um it's the 120 in year one um I like to think of that number as a lot of hard work from the person to my right about hiring people in the last two years but it also says to us that we have a we have a young teacher Force we filled a lot of vacancies but who do we fill them with and what do they need I think that's the bigger question that we're wrestling with as a department as we see these numbers go in a direction that we like but also see we we have some exit data and some feedback that goes in a direction of need so um years of service you can see there's a a real Lull in the middle and um we've worked with organization called tntp that has uncovered similar Trends not we're not the only ones but when you look at those there's a potential when you have somebody working 47 years um in the district we'd love to keep them more but what's the likelihood of working 50 um but you see a big bubble there that there's people on the verge of retirement and we we need to think about that down the road because that could that could come up quicker than we think so yeah and and I also want to add the 120 for the year one and the 25 for zero meaning that they've been hired in the last let's say 12 to 15 months I appreciate that that looks very very high but one of the things that you can ascribe that to which you'll see in a slide coming up is the fact that we're finally filling vacancies that's a huge thing right so when I got here the number of vacancies for teachers was like a hundred now it's much less which I don't want to steal anybody's thunder so we will lead with that but if you're looking at vacancies of 100 anybody you hire is only going to be a firste teacher that's just the way it is this isn't years of service in the profession it's years of service to the Lancing school district and so that's just one thing to couch to when you're looking at these numbers that 120 and that 25 that's awesome because what that says is we've hired 145 people this year who are certified teachers who are in classrooms working with our kids yeah now that's a good point and I think um some of a lot of these teachers when you get to the certification part of this you're seeing a lot of them are first year second year we're we're stealing some from you know I don't I'm not going to name names but we're stealing them from from some charter schools and we're and I'm happy like we're stealing one teacher who came there's there's an mive article you can look it up it's about a book that they were teaching that uh that the parents were mad they were teaching and we said come on over teach it here um so there's there's a lot to be proud of in some of the the efforts where we're drawing people I think um but there's deeper analysis here about steps in using like experience like we can't really just go in and um grab resumés and really analyze those the way we'd like so I think that there's further look at who these uh who these teachers are and their true experience um our current principles and assistant principles these are student facing admin in buildings um this is by race and ethnicity this is as of 12225 for this year's um the other is end of year last year um so you can see the the demographic breakdown of those those folks um we are at this point um white administrators are the minority of our of our um our building facing admin one thing I'll say about this why why this reflects more it reflects more of our student body uh it mirrors that a little closer is when you talk about applicant pools which is one of the things we're trying to do is expand the pool of applicants we have to choose from principles are like there's a lot of teachers who think they'd make great principles some of them are right some of them aren't but um and you there's another slide just to show that as well um but there's a there's a when you H when you can actually attract more people you can do more work on diversifying your teaching for so I think this is reflective of that of that narrative as well and again I mean there's research after research after research when children see folks that look like them that have similar experiences especially especially in leadership positions that really matters and the idea that we have 55% of our school leaders are people of color that are actually I guess 57 um is really indicative of when we have an applicant pool we're able to really do what we think is best for the district now of course Talent will out we want to always make sure that the right person is in the job but again when when we're opening up and when we're recruiting and we're doing all those things we're able to really get um something really significant um the fact that we're at 57 uh percent of school leaders are people of color that's that's huge I mean there are districts in this state that have a larger percentage of students uh of color than we do that have a handful of people of color as leaders and the fact that we have more than 50% I think the board should be really proud because a lot of this when I got here was a a directive to me and a directive of making sure that leadership looked like our kids and look like our community and I think we've been able to do that um now because the N is so small we don't have a thousand teacher we don't have a thousand schools this can fluctuate a little bit here and there but the again the idea that this is above 50% um this year is is really a a a great thing for those efforts so here's a snapshot of the other bargaining units as well just if if you're wondering about our total staff because I started with that you know the 1,600 um employees that we have um if you look at LSA is one I want to highlight here because you'll see this is even more representative of our students and there's another like a deeper dive to have with that group because I just showed you the teachers those are classroom teacher positions LSA is the bargaining unit so what that means is you have ancillary folks who are uh de of students you have Behavior Specialists you have student Sports Specialists you have uh behavioral health or mental health uh clinicians you have all of these other ancillary positions that are student facing that are far more diverse than our teaching staff and I you know that goes back to to um V point about the paper ceiling these don't require teaching CS some of them require master's degrees and and that's our that that has our uh that is the the most diverse group of um of ancillary folks we have are the ones that require the most credentials but it's the teaching CT that sometimes is the barrier so um we there's another slide to address that so I feel like I'm I'm hoping it's a little narrative feel all right our staff retention um this is year to year this is if you ended the year with us and you returned with us that's typically how it's how it's done um there's you can see it it drops there's there's uh other than our ancillary folks that are that are they stuck around um but 85% is not really troubling to me it um there's a lot of people who this is not necessarily the field they need to be in you spend a year here and you it we don't want somebody this is not for you right we would rather hire somebody that's that wants to do this work um but it's also in line with some national stat statistics on 14 to 15% um there's if I recall like even the Epic study has you know somewhere around 12 to 14 um in turnover in uh on like on average so I mean you talk about urban districts you even higher turnover some places so there's nothing that I see as troubling here but I do think that why people are leaving is the more important thing those that should leave that we want to say you gave your best effort but the way you're treating kids not acceptable that's that I'm willing to cut ties with that person that person is struggling that doesn't get the support that's where I want to put my efforts and then one thing to also note that 85% for uh 2024 in terms of lsca teachers again is Clayton saying we're really right in line with the national average the Michigan average but the thing I would want to point out is I actually think it's really good and the reason for that is think about how many new teachers we've brought on in the last year to so you're going to inherently see if you're bringing in 200 new teachers 100 new teachers the likelihood is that more of them are not going to make it in the first two years than a third year teacher or a fifth year teacher or a 10th year teacher and so the fact that it's only uh only dropped by about seven points again I'm not worried right I don't ever want these numbers to be 100 because that means that out of 1,600 employees you're telling me everybody is is perfect for us that can't possibly be true right and so the the if this dipped uh to about 80 I think that is a troubling number I think that would be something we would really need to look into but the 85 for lsca teachers is is about that I will say the troubling number that I do see and we did talk about this and I want to be very Frank here of course is the Lea the fact that 73% uh we lost that was something that we were really uh concerned about but we've been very clear with this board that one of the reasons why that was happening is because our Lea contract was low we were not paying our assistance very well well you all know that we just signed a great new contract that puts our people at a much higher rate of pay and we're really thinking that next year we'll be able to uh retain more we know this is a market if you can do the exact same job and get paid a lot more somewhere else we understand why you might think about leaving and so we saw that with the Lea folks we to completely respect that and understand that and that's why we were so proud of finally getting that contract done that brings them up to where we are but you know when I look at this page I go o that Lea number we got to fix and I think that we're working pretty strongly uh on that um that's a good point because you know was the contract was not in place over the summer they knew we were bargaining but we couldn't tell them the other thing that we have done is Lea is we do recruit from them like if you are you know there's there's possibility that that some of the 73% moved over into the teaching Lane change bargaining units so that's also a possibility so there's more more look into that us and if you remember the way that to grow your own Grant works is it's people who are assistants becoming teachers we didn't have that million dollars two years ago we didn't have the ability to get send people to college so I I appreciate that Clayton I think that is some of it um which is a great thing and then some of it I think was our our low salary the good news is Lea year to year or I'm sorry within year uh does stay with us so 94% if you started the year you ended the year um this isn't this is just one that I was interested in and figuring out like if somebody starts with us what's the likelihood what percentage of that group ends with us that year doesn't doesn't bail on us mid year um and so there's similar numbers in 86% um but Lea is kind of a markedly different uh different look at that with 94% compared to the 73 in the last side so they stick with us they stick it out during the year and then probably find employment elsewhere and that probably fits more of The Narrative of the um the market this is our pathway for certif if ification it's also a snapshot into who holds Sears and who holds a permit so I want to it's not on this slide but I do want to briefly talk about um a teaching certificate is something that is issued that allows you to teach year-over-year it allows you to teach in a lane in a subject area you get an endorsement it is something credential by the Michigan Department of Education a permit allows you to teach during that year it is a permit that is issued entire it's legal you can teach we have people that come in that have an engineering degree you want to teach math great you get a permit you have people that want to teach elementary and have some Early Childhood experience we have somebody that has a um uh Early Childhood degree but doesn't have a teaching wasn't a teaching C pathway great we'll get you one but they don't hold a they don't hold aert they hold a permit so there's some difference in language sometimes when people say permit endorsement CT there's um there's an interim teaching CT there's a a daily permit there's a full year basic like nothing is Made Easy in this world but I wanted to narrow it down to you either hold assert which is what Ben was talking about with sometimes there's a paper ceiling there or you have a permit which you're great with kids you have some content knowledge let's get you in front of them and see how you do um so those this is the percentage of folks who hold a CT and hold a permit and it's roughly around 20% who have permits over just just to kind of um make it a a blanket pattern for the last three years um we're seeing more people of course with more uh with fewer CTS come in because we're offering those things on the bottom we have it didn't come through and there's a there's a graphic there it's called teachers of tomorrow that didn't come through right there but that also wasn't didn't come through on the printout is it on there okay well it's not up here so there's something wrong with that one but that's fine it's um hash te and teachers of Tomorrow our alt route programs we have 93 people currently enrolled in that that actually is those those folks that come in without um aert and they have a permit you can get enrolled you get an interm teaching SE once you pass your test you have three years you're with us for three years if you leave then we say you don't get that interm teaching s we kind of hold you to that three years that here with us um the other pathway is a degree granting and a CT pathway we have people pursuing a master's degree we have people pursuing just their CT we have people pursuing um their bachelor's degree through Central Michigan we have 17 currently enrolled and then with our round two we have anou that was sent we have some tweaks to make before we actually sign it but Davenport has anou their college of urban education and I'm working with Michigan State on partnering with some of their teachers um to work as parapros we're still working out some of the details but coming in being parapros and having tuition reimbursement to work with us with a commitment that they will then teach with us um so this these are kind of the the buckets where we put our efforts to get people past that certification threshold one thing that yep um as we as Ben mentioned on our last side one of our big polls one of our big recruitment pools right is our current like Lea assistant right and so these alternative Pathways into teaching roles is one of the best ways for us to continue to diversify our teaching Force right um by not restricting our teaching roles to people just with uh traditional teacher SE Pathways we're able to really broaden our search and include a lot more people I should have thought it before we should have included some some demographics in terms of who fits into these different categories because I I do believe the data would show that these pathways are are incredibly diverse relative to our other teaching population which is really exciting right again just continuing to broaden who's able to actually obtain teaching degrees while getting paid while doing it with us while serving our kids right away which is really cool so yeah so we have some exit survey data um this is where we'll probably get interesting might have some questions um but I do think it's good to hear even people that are disgruntled they're leaving they hate you they have all like the kids are terrible because it's as as a lot of qualitative data is it's perception data uh I don't you know there's there's some data in here that I would want to throw out because I know how wrong that was but that's their that's their reality that's what they sent out the way out what do we do like some of those you cut ties with and you're like I can't deal with that some of them are are quite legitimate right and I get every one of them they come in Christina gets them sometimes we're like what's up with that and we go and check on it uh we had four people resign in 48 hours I called all four of them I was like what is happening you know and then we get to the bottom of it we figure out what's going on and we make some changes but this is the first year we've had we've actually been able to use this data so I want to draw your attention to the little box there I just added it I didn't it didn't deserve its own slide I don't care for you know uh celebrations I think that um just reality is enough so um we have received 161 responses for exit surveys in the last year and a half we redid our process we redid the questions it's qu tracks it goes out we we actually redid the way it even is sent out um our response rate is I I'm very happy with it comparative to what we had in the past it is about 28 it's close to 30 uh more than we had in the 5 years prior combin um and so when you're thinking about yield on getting feedback you want you want your end to be larger so so I'm H I'm quite happy with that response I think that our work to do now is to how do we make this more robust how do we add a layer of follow-up questions and how do we how do we um have some more interactive process around these and one thing to add if a board remembers there was a concern um three years ago about the survey data and are we getting any and as you can see we took a look at that for five years in a row or the combined for five years it was very low now in just a year and a half we have more responses than we did for the five years previous now what are those responses we'll get into that and we can talk about it but just this sheer fact that we now have uh in just a year and a half more people are responding uh that is better because I think again we Chang the way that we addressed them the way that we got to them because we really do want to know their feelings good or ill because that's the only way that we're going to learn so I appreciate that you put that box and cuz I know that something that this board had been very clear about is hey hey we need to know great let's fix it and sadly I think previously the district didn't want to know and they were uh not actually asking and so that's why you wouldn't get much but now uh we're getting a lot and uh let's go into the data yeah so and I and I think I want to I want to put this out there it's not some of it is not glowing right I mean this is these are people who no longer work for you um these aren't employee satisfaction surveys this is quite a different different different beasts so when you look at the first question up there that one stands out to me because you're looking at people are leaving and their Top Choice is pursuing a career path with a more stress-free environment we're midyear and we're almost at the same response rate as or the same um selection rate as all of last year um I think that's concerning and I think that we look at it some of we can filter out the the five that were that you know you lasted a day and you blamed the kids and you there's some that say that kids are violent they I mean they use criminal like I mean yeah we don't want them in front of our kids but there are some that are like there was no structure and we have to look into that and take it seriously so you know I put this out there to say we're not trying we're trying to say here it is ask us some questions and ask us what we're doing about it because I think that we want your feedback as well we also have some pretty good ideas um and that one stands out to me the rest of them are pretty you know about Midway where we were last year but that one is almost you know one away from receiving with half the response rate of matching last year's um I had to tap into some grad school experience and do some coding on this for some qualitative data which you know it's been a while uh but I I this is this is my efforts to reduce these down the open of the questions um into some into some codes and some uh some areas where I think we can look at analysis and um you see that other opportunities people are not leaving as you know as much for those but if you look at leadership and support and student Behavior those on stand out again those speak to culture and climate and what are we doing about those are they coming all from one or two schools they coming all from middle schools like these are this is all data um because if the the end would be so small if we just moved out into bargaining units or talked about schools but internally we get these and we know where they're coming from and that's where some of the the immediate action was taken and in some steps and we we have a another slide later to talk about that yeah and a couple things to point out with this one with the other opportunities you saw that it goes from 15 to three but just as a reminder again that the last year numbers are for full year A lot of times people will leave at the end of the year because they have other opportunities and the reason why that number three is so low is because we're in the middle of the year and then of course if you go back you know a lot of times it's things like uh same career but a different District due to life circumstances we have a lot of folks that time their lives based on the calendar of the school they finish up the year they move to Texas that's what a lot of that is I wasn't surprised to see that number being very low on this slide because it's only half year A lot of times people don't leave their house their life their whatever to go move somewhere in the middle of the Year unless it is usually for a promotion and so what you will see sometimes in the previous slide is you know different uh career path within the field of education at a different District or organization we do know that we'll have a teacher let's say become an assistant principal in another District in the mid year because well hey it's a promotion and you do that but you typically don't go teacher role teacher role unless there's something wrong and that's where you go here again the pay the 6:1 ratio I don't want anybody to think that pay isn't an issue it's just that typically you're not going to get a different teacher job uh with the different salary kind of in the middle of the year um but I will say the leadership and support and the student Behavior which uh was highlighted this is something we look at but we also have to go into what's the qualitative data here one of the things that we did here in our surveys is was teachers started with us and lasted a week and in their exit survey it was about how terrible our children were well I don't know if I want that person working for us but if it's a teacher who's been here for five 10 years and says wow something's different the school I'm at it's just not being supportive of me that's super concerning and so that leadership and support issue we really do look deeply are they all coming from the same school is it the same principle what's the issue and that's where we get to the work that we have to do as a leadership team what do we do with with those schools so you know the these numbers are not I would say Stellar but they're also not surprising and so sometimes you could look at it in a positive sometimes you can look at it of a negative the most important thing for us as a district is take the data and make it useful and actually do something about it and you'll see some more things uh about that later and I and I will say there's looking at that 13 you know and and of that is 38 right is 13 out of 38 um I can tell you four of them uh were a concern that we addressed right away the middle of the at the beginning of the year I first two weeks into school so four of those people we couldn't save them I called them but you know it was a concern we addressed it one of them see you later I mean but I didn't exclude him from that data so we do read all of their actual data this and their their openend questions and kind of try to sift through the the stuff that's legitimate what's not uh this one's interesting employee experience um the takeaways here are that I think people generally like the type of work they're doing even as they leave if you look over a type of work it's more favorable uh the one that stands out is colleagues they like who they work with that you know they're leaving but they still like who they work with and I think balance that with flexibility schedule and professionalism and a lot of times people will look at professionalism and think that's a work culture well we can't really do much about flexibility we can't I mean you can't start at 9: we've had people really and it's like nope kids are here at 7:40 you can't start at 9: um you know that's just not within the contract those those are guard rails that we have that we can't we can't uh across but um same thing with schedule like we're not going to do you know a Monday Wednesday Friday for you this college is over you you got to show up it's a real world and this is a job um but professionalism I think lends itself to colleagues and supervisors so I think when you look at those the flexibility and schedule are really talking about rigid things that we don't have much control over but we do have control over culture or at least have some influence on that and then you know pay is another thing that's contractual there's not much we can do with that um and Equity inclusion we can definitely make strides on that it's pretty balanced at this point and again because this is all teachers I'm sorry all employees right is that we do know that there are certain bargaining units that were not getting paid uh as well as they should and so I don't want you to I want you to see that pay is that's something that we agree with that some of the pay is an issue and we're trying to address it but as of today our starting salary in almost all of our bargaining units is actually as high as pretty much anywhere else in mid Michigan which is which is really great um but I do want uh people to see the the supervisor issue right so you know the I mean people can love me or hate me uh but all of my direct uh reports have stayed for basically three years so that's kind of great thank you guys uh but you know when we're talking about supervisor the these you know the way to look at this is look at our directors our principls or things like that and so we understand that um we do have something to to to deal with and as Clinton mentioned when those four teachers let's say all left maybe the same school all at the same time that's indicative to us about maybe we need to make some like leadership changes and that's why the board and the community sees us trying to make changes as quickly as we can based on employee experience but I will highlight again that um you know there are there are things that are happening in the job market in total in the world that schools are not really built for I cannot tell you the number of times people will even try to email me Ben is there just any way I don't have to work on Friday no I don't know I mean no you know is there any way that you can't that I can come in two hours later well that's not the way that this the district works now I'm very happy for us to think in a flexibility way but it is it is the makeup of a school district that lends us to but I want to acknowledge these people's experiences because what is the truth the truth is if you have a master's degree in curriculum development you can get a job at a software company coming in at 9:30 not working on Fridays or working remotely so it's something we have to think about but at this point the way that school districts are built it's very very difficult for us to so I don't want to negate any anything these are valid concerns these are human beings they have their their right to do this but it's just if you're going to be a third grade teacher right now at least you got to be in that room with our kids from 8 to 3 Monday through Friday unless I call a snow day like I did the last two days so there you go all right this is where I'm most proud of my team um this this one I think I don't lead with it because that's not me but um if you look at this I just want to highlight the blue square there I I put it into to make sure that everyone could see this is last year right this is where we were last year we were hovering this is a monthly average we were hovering in between 55 and 60 teacher openings this is classroom teacher uh we were around between 10 and 10 and 15 special ed openings um I know Ben you wanted me to add a add something there to uh to the slide about the year before we don't have a lot of data for the year before uh that is that I've actually collected right I need to make sure that it's accurate I do have a binder that I've that I found and inherited and it said 94 on it LSA positions but um that you know you you alluded to 100 plus at one point um so we made some progress but over the summer the office was buzzing it was there were interviews going on like crazy people were working very hard and I just that was my first summer in that role I realized summer is the time when you're on teachers are off we're on um and you can see we reduced that to around hovering around 20 um we're about the dotted line reflects where we're going to be it's just that data is I keep these up to date we meet weekly with uh with principles he does I do not but um but 15minute check-ins to make sure what's what's going on with your staff we need to know is there a problem is somebody likely going to leave and so we want realtime information not just that we can extract from e finance but like what's happening in the school and so I put that dot a line there because we're going to fill about so well you actually have the numbers later so I'm I going to try to off top my head but uh you know five to six positions at North so it's going to bring it right back down where we started probably di below 20 I think that's a big deal I think it's important to to bring up to say we've reduced it I mean when you red reduced vacancies by 2/3 and um and everything else seems to still be moving along I think that's worth celebrating so I don't want to take the credit I want it to be the people who did a lot of the work Beyond me I mean of course I told Clayton he should lead with a slide because this is the slide this is the story and but but what I appreciate is the the humbleness of the HR department but to the board you remember that two years ago we had a 100ish everything okay oh oh um we had you know 95 to like two vacancies last year we were able to make a pretty big dent in that got us down to you know the high the low 60s and the mid-50s and kept pretty stable and then we are now at the 20s that is incredible um Clayton Andrew entire team Christina who oversees it this this makes the difference this is how districts move forward if you have a district that has 60 teacher vacancies you can't move forward because you have noncertified non teers in those rooms cycling through cycling through this is incredible and you know the board knows that I send them a weekly email uh I give them the numbers and the these are all the numbers that you've seen these are where the numbers come from and so this is the chart that I think we should be really really proud of Are We perfect no do we have a lot to do absolutely but this shows you just how strong the HR department has been uh in the last year or two and a lot of it is really since uh Clayton took over the department and was able to do the work so you know congratulations folks this is really really amazing and what I appre also is you did all of this hiring and you notice they've stayed or at least you've been able to replace them and that's really powerful uh because it would be one thing if it went from May to September and then spiked back up into October but that's not what happened is that we were able to really keep uh keep on it so congratulations on this most important slide even though you buried the lead so um yeah but you didn't uh the thing that you actually wanted to highlight is the special ed vacancies we didn't touch that yet but uh I I do think I want to I want to point to that it's it's zero at one point in December uh it is not one but uh it may not be one yeah it may not be one as of who knows when I like we had people nine nine people on board just today and we didn't have internet that's another story um given that last slide is the Highlight a lot of that work was done by the person my right Andrew um this is the changes to the interview process I'm going to let him talk through that and then talk through the changes we've made to our to our applications our recruitment our hiring um all the the the experience people have when they apply for jobs and interviews um and how we interact with the hiring managers like how do we get people in front of in front of principles like we record interviews now we send them out to people are you like we make sure that they're they get in front of people um and we get more results I went yeah cool um those of you who we made this presentation to last year might recognize this slide um because it's a change we made about a year and a half ago um essentially though the big change is in the past it was you applied to one job you were interviewed for that one job you either got that one job or you didn't and then your road was over right we have made a pretty big shift in terms of like our philosophy behind hiring where when you apply you basically enter into an applicant pool right and the way it works for any certified role I will talk to you first like we will have a 15-minute conversation with every single one um to talk through what exactly you actually want to do right make sure you actually understand all the roles that are open um all the roles that you are eligible for um how you get eligible for roles that you want that you're currently not eligible for and then set up those next steps right whether that be school visits whether that be virtual interviews as Clayton talked about um whether that be uh saying hey now is not the right time for you let's talk again in three months let's talk again in six months right and then keeping that connection warm um essentially though this is really important because it broadens our applicant pool from one person applied to a third grade teacher job at Garder to we actually had seven people apply for Teacher upper elementary teacher jobs over the past couple weeks they're all applicants for that job as well as every other Upper Elementary job um as well as maybe they applied for an instructional coach job but they're not ready for that yet great let's talk to them about other teacher jobs that they can work up to instructional coach job in the future um and just really broading that pool to make sure that there really is no dead end with us instead it's just kind of a loop back around right if a job is not right for you how do we redirect you and keep you in engaged because if you're interested in working for us it is our job to find a job for you um it is not our job to turn you away unless again there's serious concerns so yeah I will say not everyone's happy with the redirect because they always think they're going to be the superintendent so uh but but you know a good feedback is honest and it's direct and it's like we don't want to push you away so you know you're not going to be a principal let's start somewhere where you can work your way up to that yeah U but I but I will say that that slide you know three or four slides back with the 120 first year and then 55 uh he has personally I bet you he could name off a hundred of them like you know off the top of his head he has personally met and interviewed and talked with and like there's a much more personal touch that they have a point person to go to now and I think that's a big Improvement that I don't know that um that he is going to highlight but it's all I you're it's hard to catch him not in an interview I'm just going to say that problem um another another big piece of this change uh about a year ago actually exactly a year ago um we implemented a new applicant tracking system an applicant tracking system essentially is the tool that we use for everyone to apply right it's also the tool we use to actually review applications um the tool we used to have um was a little bit outdated it was built for schools but it was built for schools a long time ago it had you had to log in you had to remember your password it took you probably about 20 minutes to fill out an application from end to end and you're probably going to fill out the same information a few different times before you're actually done right it's it's not a candidate friendly experience um the other problem with our old platform was while some jaw board aggregators I can kind of just find that word if you'd like me to but some of them might pick up our jobs but there's no guarantee they'd end up anywhere right this is a big problem because in today's day and age while some people might look up might go to our website look click on our job board and actually go to a specific job a lot of people are typing in Lancing School District jobs or teaching jobs near me right and Google's job is to redirect them back to us so the new job board and the new applicant tracking system we've implanted is called lever lever is not built for schools but we've adjusted to make it work for our schools in a really cool way there's no login required mobile friendly any of you could apply to the job right now in in five minutes or less right um it it allows us to get quick information the information we actually need from somebody immediately um figure out what steps need to be done with you communicate with you through the platform document that communication which is a huge change um get feedback from other hiring managers on you within the same platform and then the fun part is we know for a fact it's going out to indeed it's going out to LinkedIn it's going out to glass store top school jobs is platform that we pay for connection with they scrape our jobs I believe it's every single day every single night and they automatically post them to this National job board for just Educators um there's other aggregators that also pick up lever jobs better and easier than taloned um this is really cool so sadly we don't have great data because another problem taloned it gave us no data zero um so we don't have data on like applicant numbers hopefully a year from now when we sit here again we can talk through actually how our applicant numbers are changing over the course of time because the really cool thing with lover is it tells you exactly where somebody found us originally how they got to us um tell we'll talk through the candidate experience data as well um but basically allows us to spread our jobs far and wide and also simplify that process to make sure nobody starts an application with us and gets dismay because it's taking them too long they say ah not worth it can't have that so yeah yeah there's going to be like this is Baseline data that we're going to share is that we don't have anything to compare to but it but it's it's interesting a lot of the the stuff that we can do with the data we collect in Lo yeah um so as I mentioned one of these things is candidate experience right so every not everybody who applies um but everybody who hits the virtual interview stage in our platform which is one of our preset stages um is sent What's called the candidate experience survey right obviously not everyone's going to fill this out um this is going to people that both get jobs and don't get jobs um for some roles it's more likely that did not get a job because we have a high applicant volume for some of those roles but ask them a variety of questions um basically summarizing what was your candidate experience light on a scale from uh I believe it's actually one to five right one you had a horrible experience five you had an awesome amazing experience um as you can see a lot of our candidate experiences are hovering around the four 4.5 Mark right that that to me is is a good sign obviously there's room for improvement there um and there's some qualitative data that comes with it not much so we're not going to share that but definitely some for improvement especially with our Lassa roles right as we've talked about our candidate pools for Lassa jobs are massive we we usually get 10 15 sometimes like more than 20 applicants for a single principal assistant principal other types of jobs right that candidate experience is also going to involve a lot more people hello um you're going to interact with multiple different hirer managers you're going to interact with Ben at some point in time you're going to interact with our senior directors of schools it's going to take take a little bit longer and so we know that that candidate experience score is a little bit lower we have objectively work to do there however again that's a lot more people also didn't get the jobs they applied for um and they maybe were frustrated by uh the lack of that as well I I just I just want to add to that you know what I'm impressed by is you know you've got a lot of folks uh secretaries and assistants and teachers that like the experience leadership does not I think we probably have a lot to do here um some of it is that we have such large applicant pools that I'm not always sure that we are responding to every applicant and if we are is it just a form letter saying hey look sorry but maybe you know it's a phone call maybe it's a meeting but I will also say that in some of these meetings you know to get to me kind of for principal for a principal job you know you've already made a lot of Hoops it takes a long time but I've also noticed that some people will apply for jobs that they are just blatantly unqualified for and if they're applying for stuff that they just are unqualified for and they don't get an interview we have received emails like how could you do this I would be the greatest principal of ever ever and you're like you've taught for a year and you don't have any test scores right so you know there there are some things that we see out of the applicant pool that's a little bit different but I do want us to acknowledge that that those jobs in Lassa take a long time and we can do a better job doing it quicker we can do a better job making them more personal and we can do a better job with probably giving feedback as to why because I think a lot of times what will happen is thank you so much you're not moving on to the next round and we don't necessarily say it's because in your interview you said X Y and Z so absolutely um one of the cool data points we get out of lever is actually where candidates are coming from right so every single LSA or last job that I can think of top my head requires the degree right and so people actually have to enter the institutions they went to and it's it's not a type it in because when people type things in they might say MSU they might say Michigan State they might say they might misspell Michigan hope they don't but they might um this is a preset list right and so actually allows us to track really good data over the course of time where people are coming from as you can see we have a very local candidate pool that makes sense right um laning I love Lancing I moved here intentionally but laning is not a city often times that that attracts people like nationally right and so we don't have to fight that I think in fact we should lean into this on this list almost all of these universities that we're drawing our top candidates from are from local or Michigan based institutions right Michigan State Central Michigan eastern western um Grand Valley right our candidates are coming to us from the Michigan context we need to continue to lean into that and focus on these people focus our efforts we do have some limited resources in terms of hiring in terms of time so the more we can focus on where people are actually coming from I believe the better right I know that we've talked about the potential for recruiting at like HBCU right you don't see any on this list um there are not any nearby us right that is something that we can continue to talk whether or not like the the the value of investing our time and resources there versus leaning into like the BSU at Michigan State um as as Alternatives that might have a higher impact in terms of actually drawing people into to work with us again from our backyard um because they know us they understand who we are um it might be more likely to actually accept a job with us at the end of the road um rather than flying all over the country and trying to go out of our way yeah you know this is a difficult one I I probably disagree with Andrew here but I also defer uh to my wonderful HR department we struggle with this um if we're going to have more Latino teachers I'm not sure that looking at Michigan is going to give us the pool um we have certain populations from certain regions from certain places I think we need to consider what it means to reach out to places around the country but I think Andrew is 100% right which is it would be a huge mistake to not focus on our home because the truth Tru is until Lancing as a city is a different city it is not one that people graduate college in Albuquerque and go you know where I want to go I want to go to Lancing now I would love them to think that I think that's super important um but it is it's tough right we want more uh diverse candidates but we also want candidates that understand our experience well what does that mean and so I think Andrew is right that we absolutely need to double down on all the folks here because they are the ones that know us and they're the ones that uh feel comfortable with us but we also have to have a conversation around what is it going to take for us to diversify for real and bring in other other folks and and we'll see um the HR department's done a great job as you saw going from 60-ish to 20ish vacancies we'd love of course to get to zero you know but it is striking I will say it is striking when you look at this list and every single one of those schools is Michigan except for Walden which is an online school Western Governor's University which is an online school and I don't know Cairo University it could be kro in Illinois it could be Cairo Egypt and if it that is the case it might be because of the other programs that we are running in this District but when you look at everything else the question I would ask us is what is it about Lancing that people from outside of Lancing are not wanting to apply to us it's a different lens not uh anything's wrong with the fact that we get all these wonderful Michigan people but there are there is a reduction in the number of people going into teaching programs in this country and if we're only focusing on house we might not be able to fill the void so the question we have to ask ourselves is why is this the number is there something we could do to attract Talent from both within and without so this is a slide that we talk about a lot because we have to figure out how to get from 20 to zero and I'm don't know if we can do that but we also have to go back to the SC to the Chart we saw earlier is where are latinx teachers where are Pacific Islander teachers where are Asian teachers what are we looking at and is that the diversity that we want for our own children and is that a diversity that we're going to necessarily see from the universities we're looking at and I don't know and we just that's why I defer and I really mean it Andrew and Clayton are the experts here I want to always defer but I also want to be honest with this this board and the community when I look at this there's a part of me that goes wow what is it about Lancing that nobody from outside of Michigan wants to come here and I think it's it's really good point and I and I also say like we've had in the past what three months I think that's the right um an influx of people wanting to move here from Florida and from Texas and from some other places uh south of here um moving here as couples right which is actually really interesting and we will definitely continue to lean into that and tap into that um like off top ah head there's literally three couples from Florida that are all trying to move here at the same time um four different jobs which is really cool um so so right like it's it's not an impossible task to continue to go out and diversify we'll also talk a little bit about another diversification strategy that we've been uh pursuing recently that even goes beyond United States um which has led to some really cool things um but yeah it's it's a it's a it's a conversation to continue for sure um the other cool piece of data that lever provides us is where as I mentioned where people actually are coming from um obviously a lot of people is finding us through our job board right that is a little bit misleading because that might be the other places are directing them to our job board but I think there are some interesting takeaways with that whereas Lassa obviously it's it's more than half people are finding us through a job board to me that means people are actually seeking out roles in laning school district coming to our job board and applying to specific assistant principal principal um director roles which I think is a really cool thing um with Lea we have a ton of people applying through indeed that makes sense indeed is the hot spot for hourly type jobs so our Lea jobs are most of our hourly positions that makes a lot of sense to me that a lot of those are coming through indeed um with lsca I think it's really interesting that that percentage of people applying through Linkedin is higher than it is for for lass in particular um a place for us to definitely lean into and continue to to put resources there the big thing with this though that stands out to me is the lack of referrals um this is an area that we have tremendous amount of room for growth um I know that's not actually true like I know we are have people who work for us than is shown right here that come to us as referrals but we need to spend uh we me I need to spend a lot more time developing and really formalizing our referral program and and and familiarizing it with our entire staff because the best way for us to actually like recruit and take that number from 20 to zero is turn every single person in the L School District all 1600 into recruiters themselves um and that also help I believe diversify our our staff uh Elevate K12 is something we've were using this year we piloted it last year um and we're using it very strategically we don't want to say you know we tread light we have a great relationship with the Union but we also need to respect they don't want us to throw virtual teachers in and replace their members so none of these folks replace a teacher in the classroom it's just if they're not certified or if there's a point2 so there's some scheduling issues where we're not going to find a teacher to teach one class at laning Tech we do have somebody who can sit and be the classroom coach and sit there and have a math class an English class a social studies class and cover that so we're using it to to basically fill in gaps and if we have somebody leave one of these are are Everett um somebody is out on leave and we're back filling essentially until because we can pull the plug on that when that teacher's back um so this is our second year with it um this quote on the bottom is actually from one of our our uh teachers uh I didn't put her name there I don't want to call her out but uh she was in the report we had and she is science teacher pursuing science CT we said we have this split class Math and Science let's give you the science or the uh math class and she was a little reluctant and she's super happy with it now because she gets to be in the classroom doing management teaching her science classes but then the content piece is being delivered by the teacher on the screen that's you see this is an example of it up there um but she gets to gets to see modeling half her day of somebody who's a veteran teacher they average I think it's like 17 years is the average teacher of the ones we have from Elevate so 17 years of experience on a platform where they know what they're doing and you're a second-year teacher I think that's a beneficial thing to use you know strategically we don't want to we don't want to throw it into a building where there's a six vacancies and just say there we've covered it cuz that's not going to work we know that other districts have tried this on a large scale and it just doesn't work kids are just putting their lapt I mean it's you have to manage a class it has to be it is a real classroom it's not a genuity where they're doing it at their own pace this is they take attendance they call out kids there's it is a classroom if you're ever in there it's running at Sheridan Road stop by and visit it I won't I won't say that that's the quote from her or not but that might be a good place to start um and then they also because they're a company that wants us to use more of them and we say no we're going to use them as a last resort however we like your service um they they want to provide us with data so they're always saying here's our surveys they're doing student satisfaction surveys they're showing us data um pre- and post all of that stuff because they want to be on top of presenting the product to us and I'm really not worried about the product I want to know how our students doing if you can get that data to me that would be great so um they are they're very good with trying to show the value of their product but again it's a last resort but it's a useful one yeah so as I mentioned U our conversation with Ben we we've also developed some really cool Partnerships with some uh Staffing Partners I'll say um one of those being Teach for America one of those being the International Alliance Group I'll talk about each of those separately future America you may or may not know about them they're a national uh very large National Organization um traditionally their main focus was what they called core members core members are entry-level teachers um often times their first teaching job um they get hired at TFA nationally and then they actually get placed in Lancing right so I will have conversations with them still and talk them through what might be the best fits in terms of schools in terms of grades in terms of subjects but they get hired nationally and then sent to us and it's our job to place them um this past year we we hired four of what are called core members right it was our first year doing this um we were supposed to have seven um three of them had to back out for personal reasons the last minute hopefully this upcoming year we'll have at least seven if not closer to 10 um they're great because they're they're super it's a really really competitive process to be selected as a core member um they may not have a traditional teaching background but TFA actually provides a ton of professional development on top of the professional development that we can provide them um and the cor members we have this year have been doing a phenomenal job from what I've heard in the schools that they end um they also have this thing that's a it's a newer element of their organization called the teach Michigan like Fellowship so we have uh eight so the five early career Educators and the three national board certification fellows those are actually people that are still in the classroom are going to stay in the classroom but they're getting paid additional money and they're getting additional professional development to stay in the classroom and go through professional development with Teach for America um they also have uh a combination of people that want to be leaders as well as people that are currently currently leaders some in this room um who are going through additional training additional development as well to strengthen their skills overall all teacher America is an organization that we partner with to help bring us people as well as help keep our people with us um it's a two-fold thing both in recruitment as well as retention and a and a partnership we continue to lean on um iig is totally different their their role is they recruit um and then provide the Visa sponsorship for international teachers right um so this is the first year we've done this we brought teachers to the Lancing School District um from around the world from the Philippines from Kenya from Mexico from Venezuela from Nicaragua from Chile which is really really cool it's a really unique opportunity usually the J1 Visa process is incredibly strenuous it's really expensive and it doesn't always result in success so they take on that responsibility obviously not for free but they take on that responsibility and then in return like we do the interviews with the teachers they don't just send us whoever they want to we have to do the interviews we select teachers and then we actually Place teachers we place teachers in hardto fill roles Middle School Math middle school science and these are teachers that are certified have experience in their home country and they're bringing that here to the United States here to laning um where this is incredibly powerful is that our language immersion schools right in particularly at Luton so obviously there four countries at the bottom there those teachers are all teaching at Luton in a Spanish immersing classroom um those roles traditionally are very challenging for us to fill because finding people that are are bilingual that that are good certified teachers is really really hard and so L also has an international immersion element to it be on the language immersion component so these teachers are able to come in speak to their home country um as well as just teach students what they need to know um I believe there's there's and there are a variety of grade levels right some are in second grade some are in third grade some are in fourth grade and I believe one is in fifth grade um it's a really cool way for us to continue to bring in people from Beyond just Michigan beyond the United States going global um which has been a really cool experience for me as well just getting to meet them and know them so we're yeah on we're reviewing um a contract right now to hire mid year they had some deadlines that they we had to meet uh but now they're looking to open that up for Rolling uh hires so now we could probably expand that given the we have to we have to have contract reviewed by our attorneys but we're in the process now don't ask me to explain the difference between J1 and H1B visas I am not we let them do that we let them handle that but there are very complicated reasons why j1's than H1B but essentially they have now secured H1 visas that they can provide us um which allows us to now actually bring people in middle year as opposed to having to have them start like August 19th um this is something I'm excited about this is our attempt to get creative um we created a turnaround teacher position you know we sat around what are we going to do with a particular School it happened to be North at that time um six vacancies the culture you know there's a Tipping Point in school culture where there's not enough to save it with just great teachers that are currently there and then now it becomes a uh issue where we take take people out and tour the building and they have other options in the building we have other openings so we created this turnaround teacher position we created in collaboration with the Union um it is an Loa that I signed with Chuck that goes through the end of this year we're experimenting we're trying something new we're trying to attract people for a year and if they like it then they stay next year they're just back on regular salary but it gets them in the door um they have to have three years of successful teaching experience um the interview process was different we gave them a a set of student data they had to talk through questions about how they've used student data they had to talk about how they would use that student data and they like it was a little more rigorous and the union president was there like it's that's typically not our process this was something we're trying to ensure everybody that we're being fair and it actually so far it doesn't go into effect until Monday but um I think it's a great opportunity to do something creative to incentivize hard to fill areas and hard to fill positions it creates a sense of all these people are starting and becoming a cohort even those that are in the building are excited about being in the spot they're currently in but having a little extra responsibility a little extra ownership and trying to turn around culture midar which is not an easy task so I'll turn over to Andrew to talk about the results of that um and who we've hired yeah um so as you can see we've hired hired six of our current teachers into this role right they're actually staying in their current classrooms they're not moving um we've hired two of our current teachers within the district and asked them to move into new classroom placements that we deemed as these high needs placements that like we need an excellent teacher like you in that classroom immediately AK Monday and then my favorite piece of this of course is the bottom right we've actually hired four teachers that are brand new into the district starting in these roles um I will be very transparent and say that uh two of them again applied for different jobs one of them applied for assistant principal job one of them applied to instructional coach job through our conversations I was like this is an opportunity that like is the best possible way this is genuinely true but you get into the district show off your stuff crush it we can have those conversations going into next school year right getting them into the district and roles that we know they'll succeed in right away way um it's going to be and and obviously we don't know exactly how this is going to pan out yet but we're really really excited the the energy in that building right now is just like palpable um and the individuals aren't even there yet um so it's going to be a really cool place I highly recommend you stop by North sometime in the next couple weeks yeah I really want to highlight this first of all I want to thank Clayton and Andrew and the entire HR team for thinking like this but also I have to give a huge shout out to uh LS Chuck Alberts the entire uh Union this is when you know that a district is working collaboratively is when you put your children first and you make decisions that's best for the school as somebody who very much very firmly believes in unions and in collective bargaining and in the idea of protection for employees the the drawback as a superintendent as man agement is that the contracts tend to be inflexible but that's okay that's kind of the point but the fact that we were able to do something that was putting kids first compensating our staff o over and above but with very clear delineation the school north is one of our lowest performing schools it was one of the schools that had the most vacancies it was one of the schools that had gone through turmoil so our job as Leaders here is not to say well there's nothing we can do our job as Leaders is to say what's best for kids how do we do right by our children and can we be creative and so when the leadership of uh collective bargaining and unions and the leadership of a of a district work together you start to see things that are really powerful and you know this has been done before uh this is not a new idea but it was new to Lancing uh even even in New York where you all know I'm from years and years and years ago we're talking about the 60s they used to have what were called 500 schools and what did that mean it meant teachers got an extra $500 to just teach at a heart to staff school now we're really being thoughtful about what does it mean to bring in Talent what does it mean to F focus on our kids and we've done this and I hope that this works I have a lot of hope uh in this and then it can be a model for for others because the biggest fear was that we were going to somehow cannibalize our own district and as you can see that didn't happen two teachers that's it two teachers from within our district that weren't at that school already have decided to do it but four midye four people outside of our district two of whom wanted leadership positions were willing and able to take these jobs and so I think that's really something that's special now look in 3 months from now if they all leave and it totally collapses that's on us but you know the idea is that we always have to look at the problem and try to find solution for our children and this turnaround teacher model is pretty special so thank you for doing this and and the the one of the things to highlight is that there's very people want leadership positions well that it's often just a jump to Administration there's not a lot of ladders to climb within a teacher Rank and so this gives we have somebody who's like I can't start we were just talking today she's like I can't I have to start Monday because I want to come in there and I want to be accountable for what I'm losing a week like that's the mentality we need like we're trying to say well we have one backfill let's and she's like I need to go Monday because if you're telling me I need to teach these kids and I'm being I'm GNA show you that I can do this I don't lose a week and that I think is the model of a turnout teacher it's somebody who wants results and wants to show you that they can get them yeah as and as talking about like the teacher career ladder right I think for a long time has been pretty limited right the career ladder is you go and you teach for 25 30 years and do the same job for a very long time and there's not a lot of differentiation over the course we love we love them all and and that's but I think the way the workforce has has evolved and changed over the past few years is continuing tode like these mid-career incentives and midcareer places for people to really like set new goals themselves and Achieve new levels um is a really cool thing and this is just one of those steps but we're also experimenting and ideating some other ones as well because yeah it's important for the I don't know the profession overall all right here's a summary slide we've talked through a lot of things a lot of lot of stuff we've tried a lot of things we saw that were here's some data that you know I want to show you it's not glowing and then some real highlights I think are good um there's the takeaway uh significant reduction teacher for us I will lead with it on this slide um because I think that's that is the highlight of this uh then the Improvement in use of data like we're not doing yes I did some qualitative coding but we're not doing you know multivar regressions here we're talking about what information do we have that we didn't have in the past and what are we using it for like a lot of the stuff is just we didn't collect it or we collected it halfhazard or we're learning what tools we have to work with so this is this is something I'm really excited about and our data specialist is super excited she's like I've been trying to do this for a long time this is my skill set um uh educator diversity we're making stri we know we have long ways to go we've had some little discussions about it but we're so welcomed for ideas because we know it's important and we know we want to keep that Trend even incrementally going in the right direction our stable retention rate I put stable because it matches some national averages and some um some uh Michigan averages State averages but I do want to keep track of that exit survey data and who we're losing and being very mindful of what like who's going who's staying and the reasons why so that retention rate certainly we don't want 100% And we don't want 70% but we want to make sure that it is the right people who are like it's just not for me and we can honor that or I thought it was for me and I had and I was on an island we we want to make sure we're addressing both of those things equally um in effective Partnerships we've started with some good stuff we' tried not to go all in on things because a lot of times you know we Chase shiny objects we want to make sure like is this really the tool we need let's use it figure out what we can use it for and then adopt it um a little more at scale uh years to come and then support for in inexperienced teachers this is what the data shows we need to do this is where we've met two out of my three goals that I've that I've set for the department and that goal I think is really about the beginning of the year we focused on hiring we brought a bunch of people in we changed onboarding and we put it on a lot of on one person and we said on board these people you're great at it and it's like there's just so many people coming in that we have to give them a better more robust experience next year so we're already planning with Jessica's team and the instructional team to collaborate on what do they need coming in as first year teachers not first year employees because we have to get past like I don't come from HR I come from the classroom and I think teachers but you get lost in the paperwork of getting the i9s right like that's not the world that we should be in that needs to be right but we also need to think what is the building they're going into how are we handing them off to the principles how are we introducing them to staff what can they expect in their first week who's there to check in after that are we checking in um even just there's some some surveys that we have started to say after the first 30 days what is the after first two weeks two weeks yeah so so those are the things I think we are we know the data says we have to do we are aware we have gaps in that and that we have very clear um directives to do that um always open for ideas though because we don't we don't want to make mistakes and not Tak in the the wisdom of the greater the greater crowd that's it no it it doesn't there it is they told me it doesn't uh burn um trusty stro thank you um first off uh Clayton and Andrew great presentation I really thought it was very informative I of course as a data analyst have some follow-up questions um but before I lead with that I do want to highlight um the conversation around the interview process um the changes to that I think it definitely opens the door by having that applicant pull and that's why we're seeing some great changes there so definitely great work and I wanted to highlight that um when I look at the conversation surrounding leaving the district I know that that's an internal data source which means we do have the houss of that data the question that I want to know or that I want to see is are we able to Trend that over time by month are we seeing when teachers are leaving um is it a certain period of time I know that we get into the weeds when we talk about schools but at a bird's eye view um I'm kind of curious where they're falling from comparative to the previous school year um so I brought that up as a mention um and another question I had again we talked about the slide with the internal data as far as you know why are you leaving the district and we were talking about there's areas of personal reasons right other opportunities and it's great feedback that you're getting from the supports of the questioner or the exit survey but compared to what um and so I'm curious about what that retention looks like compared to the retention of of teachers as well as when they're leaving I know that kind of gets into the weeds of it I'm probably one of the ones that want to see it um but I would be curious to just take a peek at that yeah actually sorry go ahead go ahead yeah excited I'm open for feedback go ahead no I'm really excited because that is something as CL we I really would like to implement and I've talked with a couple folks about this Implement some form of a stay survey right a stay survey is mirrors the exit survey with basically the exact same questions so that we can do exactly what you're talking about right fig fig out are people that are leaving are they outliers or they just kind of they've gotten to the edge of what everybody else is feeling and a stay survey would be designed exactly like you're talking about it be shorter version because they don't want to take that much time it has to be really quick or people won't fill it out um but a state survey where we're working on implementing that to get to that exact point you're making at the end there and I'll say to their point about the month breakdown we could do that I think as we talked about with the numbers like the overall end I think is 120 and so when you break it down by month it loses I it's going to lose some of its power because the fact that it doesn't have like as many people leaving per month um like per reason right so we just don't have that many which is a good thing but you rais a really good point like are there Trends and so I think part of the reason why we have them sent to us immediately the second people fill them out is CL pick up the phone and call like if he sees two in a row that are the exact same we're not waiting for a third right um and fixing that immediately does that make sense yeah absolutely and I think it's if it's something we're tracking over time yeah you might not have you know there might be four months where there's zero which is amazing but that's something we still want to see because if we compare it to two years ago or three years ago if everybody is we get to October and school started in September and they're leaving or they're pulling we want to know why we want to know what's happening with our culture at that point if we're 48 days into school and we're losing losing five teachers um my other question is when we talk about the cury and how we're pulling it I'm curious do we have number of teachers that are leaving the district and returning right I'm curious about that if we have any measurable data for that um but other than that fantabulous I just made a word fantabulous presentation um but I would definitely love to hear that data okay trusty Williams I have a lot of questions so my first question going back to your very first slide is that where it says let me go back to it where it says recruit hire growth support retain is that just for our new teach teachers because I think this should also be a component on how we maintain and retain our teachers being at that growth point um what are we doing for them some people that have been here 5 years versus though that been here 35 years you know what are we doing to keep them growing providing them the supports and keeping them that's one of my first questions my second question again is the support piece because it looks like in the esset survey most people say because of support what what that that sticks out and it's kind of a Source because if we're not providing the supports that they need how are we're going to maintain the adequate Workforce system and then how is it going to be seen through our children as hey we had this teacher yesterday now they're gone so um the the stressfree environment was another key that just really really stuck out at me um what are we doing about that because again if 42 43 people say that what about the people that are staying that are in there what are we providing for them regarding that something else that stuck out me was the terminated or nonrenewal I see we only had are we not doing surveys for any of those because I know we've had several non-renewals over the last few years and I've only seen one survey based on what you provided us um anyone I can that one's that a quick on anyone who anyone who is terminated or non-renewed um or resigns they all get the exit survey okay so that one uh that says terminated or non renewed that actually they selected that and that's incorrect selection but they're in there because that's not the time of year that's a midyear that's not there's no midyear non-renewal here in that this case um so okay you talked about the work another thing that stood out was the work environment leadership and support um how is that is that just from what's the Dynamics of that because I know there's multi- teers and so how can can you address that because that one that's that's interesting for me which which one was that the work environment leadership and support because one was open-ended and that was the one that we one is openend one is a drop down so that's what I would need to there's this oh is it this one here yep leadership and support and then yes so that these are the ones that I that I coded so if somebody mentioned in their open-ended um response if they said I did not get any support whether it's at onboarding I wasn't aware of things I was just given curriculum and I didn't know what to do with it my principales never in my building my colleagues were onh help like whatever it was if it was leadership or support my my principal you know get you know never there was there was actually some of this in there from the four that left early that I never saw my principal I'm going to I'm going to count that as leadership or support lack of um so that's what that is referring to it's a it's a broad bucket but that those are examples of that okay then going forward you I I looked at the recruit we're doing a lot in Michigan but the Cairo University that is overseas so we're recruiting from there but we can't go so okay we're not yeah so as actually been brought it up exactly that is from so our adult ed program I actually have a lot of applicants that come through our adult ed program we just had enough people that actually registered on the top 20 list um so we're not doing I'm not flying to Cairo we're not doing any I might be cool we're not I'm not going over there um those are people that are actually within Lancing that have degrees from University of Cairo and there's enough of them that have applied to those jobs that have registered in our top 20 list okay um one of the things that really stuck stuck out is your um I iig program but we're looking at certain but we have multiple languages why are we not looking for language Specialists for people who just speak different languages to help our elas as a second I mean we're not looking to recruit those type of people um maybe they they're a student getting their degree but they speak five different languages they go to MSU why are we not trying to tap into that type of person and bring them into our narrative would love to um I think we need we need to have open roles to put people into right and so those are all people that filled open roles that we had like vacancies for right so um for example um I'm not going to use their name but there is a teacher one of those teachers up there there's two of them were science teachers from Kenya right and it's really cool to have for the students I'm not going to name the schools but like those two schools have students there to have science teachers that are actually can bring multi like uh a Global Perspective into the science classroom right so but I think the really cool thing again is also like there teachers that can actually bring the Spanish Immersion component into Lo um when we have things like El teacher openings um we're looking at everybody right so whether it is somebody coming from MSU who is multilingual who's a certified teacher that can fill um and uh a multilingual teacher position amazing yes we will happily do that um we'll take as many multilingual individuals as we possibly can it just happens that those those nine individuals filled openings that we otherwise were not able to fill does that make does that help it it makes sense it's just a little disheartening because we know we have students that speak other languages and predominantly more languages than just those nine and we're not out there trying to feel those voice even by saying let's find a contractor who can help us at least cover five of these languages something because again that means we're not we're failing our students at that point because they may speak student needs but we don't have somebody so they're sitting there you know trying to work through it and it's not working so how are we going to fix that because that's that's a big component where we need somebody to help those students so looking at the iig how do we build that or open that to bring that in yeah I mean I to just just to be clear the the like we interview th those applicants we interview them for jobs that are open so if there is an uh ESL job there's there's one at uh at North if that position becomes open we would absolutely fill it we would go let's look at who can speak that language and this job we would fill them fill that job with somebody who spoke that language preferably three others like that that's absolutely ideal but there has to be the position open and that's that's we're talking about so that does that make sense it it makes sense but again it it you know so we may have to look at how do we create something just for that I mean because yes there has to be positions open but with the way our district is set up we still need to think about our children and what can we do to make sure that everybody is learning efficiently and then everything across the board is but I'll leave that there and then you said that you don't really go to the hbc's you know Chicago state is really like 4 hours away that is a HBC so just something to think about Wilber force is the other way three and a half hours something to think about because again it dynamics of what our district needs and should look like thank you trusty Williams um trusty narez Martinez thank you so I also have lots of questions um first of all thank you very much for doing the qualitative uh coding and the research um I think it was my very first meeting where I was like why aren't we doing this so thank I'm actually looking forward to for you to jump in because I you know it it would probably be far more accurate so I'm I'm I'm happy to pursue this later yeah so um first of all uh I'll start with some of the numbers not the qualitative stuff first but you uh if we compare the ethnicities at race and ethnicity of our students versus that of our leadership like our principles um both African-American and white students are over represented um by quite a bit uh so we have 37% African-American students and 50% principles who are uh African-American and then 22% that are white and 43% in leadership and so uh Latin students are almost on par with the uh White students at 21% but only 5% principles what are we doing specifically to um recruit uh principles who are latinx do we have a strategy are we um what are we doing well I would actually turn this over to Sergio who is the founder of my Alice in Michigan uh to possibly talk about some of the great work that you're doing not only in Lancing but across the state um and I think first of all I love the question um but yeah it's as I highlighted that is our big draw we it's leadership in terms of uh latinx and it's also teachers in terms of the latinx are low so uh we care so much about it that Sergio created an organization so want to talk about it a little bit yeah good evening um the the ability to find Latino leaders in the state of Michigan it's a complicated case that we're learning through the state uh we've been to Grand Rapids we've been to laning last week Friday we were in Detroit um the pool of Latino leaders is very small and the network within the Latino leaders is very weak so we're trying to create a pipeline now because if we don't identify and we don't get teachers we're never going to get administrators so and a and if we only if we're want to get teachers we also have to go to the colleges and promote education to our Latino students so that's what we're trying to do is a long-term plan um I hope I see the fruit of this tree someday but um we're going to help laning because we're already identifying uh Latino um administrators in other areas that want to come and work here so it's a it's a long process Serio why don't you tell them what my Alice is my Alice stands for Michigan Association of Latino administrators and superintendents the scary part about it that how we say there are only four um administrators in the state of Michigan that have the title assistant a superintendent and actually um we got our first superintendent about two or three weeks ago on the west side of Michigan that became the first Latino super intendent in the in the state that we have right now so I'm saying that and the superintendent wants me to share this to say that we are recruiting this and these guys are working their butts off but we do have a shortage that we have to develop we have good associations of Latino teachers like m mission Association of Bing of bingan education but we have a gap in administrators in the state and our goal is to uh bridge that Gap and hopefully I'll see you someday yeah it seems that we may have an opportunity if we are able to recruit more latinx teachers to create a pipeline for to Administration um and so that it's an opportunity that is exciting um so going into the qualitative data um I was also interested like um board member Williams and the question about stressors um were there any um patterns or on what these stressors were that maybe are like looking for things we could address um and if so what what were they and and I also have a question about whether you maybe could put together like a one pager on recommendations based on your experience coding um and uh things that maybe um could be done to help with some of these things so not just why people left but something that we can do to um kind of uh avoid other people leaving for the same reasons um and uh yeah so uh stressors so off the top of my head I know a lot of the a lot of the stressors I I include like student Behavior was was one of them and and you know student behavior is one thing because it it's also students respond in the the environment and structure they're in so that also it it delve tailes pretty closely with leadership and support and culture and all of that so I was really trying to be careful about are they talking about students and are they coming from a building where I'm like that's not really the case when I'm in there right um and so part of that too is the way they talk about students in there you can see this is a very deficit mindset approach this isn't a cultur yeah and I've seen uh we went through one interview together like X and that person was talking about the students like in a very disparaging way so it's easy to kind of see um that that person shouldn't have been in the classroom right um and so another thing that might be a stressor that you see is I'm expected to be on task with this curriculum and I in that's been just off the top of my head with that one it is I'm supposed to teach right and we see it all the time and it's like I understand you're frustrated this is a new curriculum we are adopting it we're adopting it as a district and if you don't like that then and I don't know what you were planning to do you know like we're flexible with this but but you if if somebody comes in and said you're teaching third grade but you're in high school you're teaching high school that is an administrator's job you know that's not one that we should say well the kids are at this level and yes it's easier if it's just busy work but if they're calling that out yeah that's stressful for them but on us that's just holding them account yeah a PD issue on some of this stuff so like a professional development on like needing additional resources I mean I think it's yes and right is that and I I love the idea and I will certainly ask the HR department to do this is I think putting together a one pager on the the that question and maybe some of the other ones because you're right if if a teacher comes in and says look I was expected to do this I really didn't feel comfortable I didn't have the support this is a brand new curriculum who's helping me like absolutely Ely that is different than a person who says I don't want to teach this curriculum because I want to teach what I've been teaching for 30 years and I'm not going to change and even though no kid has ever been proficient in my class I'm a terrific teacher that's very very different and so I think your point is really well taken which is let's get some qual response here and then we can try to break it out because I think that there are some here that are like super duper legitimate where it's about PD and support and love for the staff and I think some of them are people recognizing that in the school district of Lancing we're actually going to hold you accountable to having kids learn and that's something else yeah some of those stressors are also the expectations they'll call out I I I don't have time to do anything I'm I'm pulled in every different direction and yeah that teaching is hard it is well I will also call attention um Jessica's team implemented a a really cool classroom management um like professional ment for new teachers um in partnership with ISD um that's an option available to every single teacher in the district I believe um but really we're having principles be like new teachers look at this because we know we know that was a huge having them know that this exists yeah as well yeah and other thing I want to toss out there going back to the question about how do we get more like Hispanic and and latinx administrators that definitely a medium-term longer term solution we also have a shorter term like immediate solution um or or strategy I guess I should say which is tool called LinkedIn recruiter it's a little bit creepy but basically what it does it provides me access in the back end right to go through and like contact people directly through Linkedin who have profiles that match roles that we might have open that we want maybe not not open right now but in the future right and so I I worked when we have time right to schedule time with people that match profiles whether they be in Michigan whether it be in California Texas Mississippi North Dakota right time to chat with them on the phone talk them through our district and just trying everything we can to bring them here um it's very hit and miss um but that is like something we're trying right now to again Target the types of people that we really want to be here um and again past three months have seen a genuine uptick in interest which is promising that's great um so with teacher um vacancies we've gone down quite a bit uh what would be the one thing that each of you would say was made the biggest difference between last year and this year when we've gone down a lot good question I'm I'm gonna answer why he's thinking because I can I can see it um he's usually visible when he's thinking uh and and also he's he's in the weeds with it uh from my end it is we have a new platform that allows ease of access we've seen an uptick in applicants there's a there's a way that which we can use that platform to say look at how many people we have we can send messages email within it scheduling we go here's we don't have to call up when I when I was hired I got a call and said we joke about this I had a call and it said uh we're going to interview you um are you available 2:30 and I was like I am not I am in Rhode Island and I'm at my desk no I'm not and so now it's you we send it out and say Here's my calendar pick a time and they have options and so it's the ease of access I think people feel like oh it also sends a signal that we know what we're doing and even if sometimes we don't we're we're on the back end screwing around trying to schedule stuff at least from their end it's like oh there's calender I pick a time I get it's recorded here's my here's the people that are constantly contacting me it's automated um that that part of it sends a signal to people that there's a process that moves with some I I would say uh two things I think a lot of hard work I don't want to Discount the actual work well I say two things so part of it being like the interview process like the way the applicant pools kind of changed but that was that's only enabled by like gen like the investment like this board and Christina and her team have like made in the HR department like giving us the ability to like hire more people um to actually like because having a centralized applicant pool doesn't work if you don't I'm not saying like me but like having somebody in a role like mine it doesn't really work because there's no one to actually direct people to other different places um and so that that investment in like an HR team that's actually able to to create that pool and then like push people through it um because when I got here my experience from just watching it was like people would like a list of people would be sent to a principal and we may not ever hear back and that was just like alarm Bells being like we can't like we have to we have as a department to push people through this we can't just rely on people to like make their way through this on their own um so I think that investment Honestly by Christine and her team and this board and this department has been like gamechanging and I appreciate the question wasn't necessarily asked of me but I think I think the real difference from my perspective is having a fully functioning fully funded HR department during the summer is hiring for schools happens really in Earnest from April to July and if you're really desperate August and you can see that the big change was we were hovering around 50 60 and then we make this incredible journey during the summer and so we didn't the last you know the you know I was hired in July one so I that first year couldn't make big changes then the second year the summer got better but they planned right for the summer and of course our hope is that this coming summer is going to take us down from the 20 to you know the five or the zero or whatever and so um summer and then having the team in place is is what we didn't have La two summers ago and three summers ago right well I'm looking forward to seeing all these things continue um and so uh I don't remember who but somebody mentioned that a strategy to recruit um a more diverse pool of teachers would potentially be reaching out to like the BSU on campus or like the going to the Multicultural Center having some kind of presence there have we done that so this is a a personal story um we had all sorts of plans to do that last spring right because as Ben mentioned kind of hiring is like a spring into summer situation especially with college students as they find jobs um lots of plans to do that last spring um I tore my achilles uh last February um and was not able to actually do anything um at like we had a lot of career Affairs planned not a lot of that didn't happen that's going to be different this year great yeah um I'm on campus so I don't know if I can be helpful but absolutely can be awesome and just for the board to know um I'm in a lot more contact with the new Dean of The Graduate School of Education uh jando Jackson who is wonderful and in fact I think I'm seeing him next month and we've been planning on a lot of these kinds of things um though I love higher ed and MSU sometimes it's not the easiest organizations to work with and so now with new leadership and some real drive from both the new president and the new Dean I I would I would like to believe that this uh April May uh and of course with your wonderful support as a faculty member there I think we can do some good work so so um I don't know if this is something that be of interest but um the school of planning design and construction at MSU is having a job fair um and I don't know if there may be students there that would be interested in coming and teaching and doing some kind of job with our students I know our construction management students are um very uh you know um good with some of the the things that we're doing here so um yeah that might be a you know a a place to do some recruitment if if uh we think it would be useful um the I a um do we recruit is it year by year so like the person gets the J1 for just the Academic Year and then they have to for three or five three three is the minimum okay they don't have we're not holding against their will but like three is what the base Visa starts at we have an option to extend it to five years um from my limited understanding the fun part about the H1B is that actually can be extended even beyond that do these folks come here by themselves or do they bring family members uh it's a good question um they're supposed to come alone um many of them do choose to bring family members but they are not they can't work they can't sometimes again I'm learning all this myself with the help of of IG they're they're very supportive um some of them do work we actually one of their wives just applied for a job this week um I don't know how we're going to make that work but we'll do our best um so uh but yeah usually it's it's just them okay um and finally so on the HR side is there a way to maybe and I know that this is probably also kind of related or going to be tingled with like Union stuff but is there a way to use benefits to like recruit so I could probably recruit 10 women uh to with phds to come work for us if we did IVF uh benefits so um what are like is are those a way to like a strategy to recruit folks potentially because I mean you were saying like oh how can we get somebody to just choose oh I'm going to go live in Lancing I literally have a friend who has PhD who worked at Starbucks because they gave IVF um benefits so I that would be a way to get people to move to Lancing right Sim we' had several different about different kinds of things including like weeks for fraternity leave and all different kinds of things that we know that like parents and um or just people with different types of things like how can we explore that so we've started to go in that area one of the other things I just want to pinpoint this um because I have the opportunity to is we have a healthcare center through the district and for us that is a huge it's a it's a free service um that we have through our um through our insurance um and it's you know dedicated to our staff solely and they're able to go on site and have one-on-one appointments and prescriptions and you know really no out of pocket expenses and so we do promote and push that and let people know you know that's an additional benefit that most school districts do not have access to but thank you so much for lifting that because it is something that we are starting to explore one thing I will add I'm talking to folks that are coming here from other places and this is conversation that I've not had with Ben yet or with Christina or Clayton but one thing that I would like to potentially explore is some sort of relocation like incentive in terms of compensation um it's really hard for teachers um who want to make a move who maybe don't have a tons up and it's not easy for them to move across the country even if they really want to move to Lancing right um but it's also hard for us again in a collectively bargain situation to to make exceptions like that and so figuring out a way to make that a reality could be really cool um I don't know if we tap into foundations that are willing to do it separately but um conversations that we can have in the future but that is like I love the creative thinking so yes that's all I have thank you trusty Boer I appreciate you all um hi Andrew so lovely to see you hi Clayton nice to meet you U my name is coutur um I will say say as a disclaimer that I downloaded the presentation I put my comments and questions in so you don't have to write them down I already sent it to you as well great it just I like concise so one thing I would love to say is on slide number six um we're talking about how many new teachers there are um this is the teachers years of service and so in knowing that I myself was a I was someone that was assigned to a mentor teacher I know having 120 new teachers and not having as many veteran teachers especially specifically in the building my question that I put in here specifically is how do we how do we help our veteran teachers assist the new teachers without adding strain to our veteran teachers because that is another thing that will push them out the door is when they feel like there's too many too much right also I put in here idea of is there a possibility to use our highly effective and effective retired teachers to then come back and be mentors because some of them do still want to be active in the school district and so whether it's volunteer or I know there's a certain amount of time they have to be out of the district before they can come back and work again right but some of them especially if they are pensioned may not want the pay they just want to help the district that they have loved for 30 plus years I think that's a benefit um the the next one was on page 11 I appreciate that you highlighted the alternative certification yeah there you go um the alternative cert C program programs because I myself did hasht te while I was teaching in the district I did this program and it was amazing I don't know that it was as popular or marketed as much to say you can actually teach on an emergency CT and then actually be in the classroom and be teaching so one of the questions I put in here was in the hold certificates or hold permit emergency Sears is that in the permit or the C certificates because I know it's kind of you know the the wording so um that was a question you don't have to answer that now I was I was going to say I do you want me to wait like yeah you can answer so that the the um the permits are if you don't hold aert there's two types of permits one is you either have let's say you you're a you're an English major you have a MFA and you want to come back and teach English um you have a you have a degree in that content area you can get a full year basic permit which allows you the full year to teach if you don't have that and you still want to be permitted you get a daily permit which allows you 90 days so that's the the permit landscape we can renew those but allows you it's it's a different type of permit mde treats them differently okay um deserts there's different endorsements and that world gets you don't even want very convolute C on one thing your back rest started on MD yeah yeah I was emergency certified and then I did pass the mtcf first time by the way I'm just going to toot my own horn All right so um yeah it was not easy and I hadn't even taken the classes yet but they mandated I take it before I took the courses but that's one of the challenges is they say take the test you can get an interim teaching SE which is one of those it's only good for five years you can't renew it you they have to be an all route program and so people don't even know it's an actual did yeah that that world uh slide number slide number 12 when we were talking about the exit interviews I really appreciate that you all are doing this does this account for those of us who were denied an exit interview I was one who when I was leaving the district I requested an exit interview and my administrator denied and Flatout ignored my request so I know there were those instances as well um so I'd be interested in that and knowing people who prior to these met how many people had actually asked for exit interviews where the administrator didn't want to know and it was like nope you can just leave um and then lastly um I will with the employee experience on slide number 14 I know one of the reasons when it comes to flexibility and schedule a few years ago when I first came to the district my children's school started at 8:00 then it was 8:05 then it was 8:15 when I started teaching it was 855 5 well then when my students when my personal children started going to other schools well then their start time was back to 7:35 and 745 so I know for me personally the 8:55 start and then my other my personal children were starting at 7:40 I just couldn't do it anymore because if somebody got sick and I had my husband wasn't able and I'm in the middle so just for that flexibility of schedule I know for me that's what it was it wasn't that I wanted to come to school 2 hours late it was the times kept getting pushed further and further back and I'm like I just couldn't I'm like this I that's clarification on what flexibility might be I think we maybe thinking very narrowly about your own schedule for since your children's in and since you were denied the ability to share your points we would never have known uh which again is ridiculous and that's why we're fixing it um but I think one point about that flexibility which is really important um and I would probably defer to the folks who are ET who have been here for many years one of the things that was also really damaging that this District continued to do was change start times every year so so schools would be at one time one year and then another and then another for years on end and so we've been really happy that the last now two years if not three years we've actually kept the school's start time as the school start time uh and our plan is certainly not to change with that but it's a great point because it is something that makes the teacher who is also a parent a very hard thing to do yes for sure so I appreciate thank you for um letting me share last slide page number or slide number 23 so I love the thinking out of the box I will take Ben's terminology Thinking Out of the Box my concern is while we had six teachers who selected to stay in their current classes I have been in a building where a teacher left midyear and her classroom went completely Bonkers and so I would say that's probably one of my biggest concerns with you're taking two current teachers from their placements and then now you're putting them maybe in a different building my concern is just for the students because again having witnessed it I myself had to continue to go across the way like hey Miss so and so would really be disappointed if you were acting like this but yet it was kind of no warning and so I some of my questions in here is like how how are we going to support those students because that is hard to get a new teacher mid year but then also I do question is that what's best for the student to have a teacher change mid year knowing that buildings yes need a lot of help but that would be one of my major concerns and how are you going to track that making sure that culture and climate in that school is not changed because a new person comes yeah it is probably was my biggest fear of this whole program and so Jess I don't know if you want to talk to this but uh the two that are let's say we're cannibalizing that we're taking from our district in inum the first thing is we did uh wait till the end of the semester so there's a real break and the second is working closely with the principal of their of the school they're currently at before they're going to the new one is to make sure that those classes will be covered and supported but Jess I don't know if you want to speak to that or anybody else yeah uh I may have to pass this one over back to Clayton only because I agree with everything that you just said as far as working with the principles and really working through that situation but I know Clayton has actually done that leg work with the principles um and then I would also say that uh he has worked really hard to make sure that there has been a plan in place for that classroom it's not just okay well we'll figure it out there has been some very intentional work even before releasing um these two individuals but I'd like you to speak to that if you if you and if if I could just clarify I think plans are fabulous but when you're dealing with students and children change like this can be very difficult so I love that we have support for the principal and the new teacher going into the classroom again my concern is for the students who will be experiencing a new teacher Midway through the year and we have two sets of classrooms two sets of students who experience the change one will be in having not had a teacher and so that's also what we're trying to balance too it's like they've had an edust staff Sub in that building and so we're saying this great teacher you're going to get them so those students are going to get a benefit or gain there is a whole fill like that's you know there's there's only trade-offs in in those situations um and I think we have to he was over there today a new teacher that is that is applying touring the school we want to make sure they're touring touring the school not just a virtual Zoom interview you're stepping foot meeting the principal this is who's going to backfill your spot and we we have two more to go um and the other one I will say is moving within the building and is back fill for resource room position which we can fill which isn't as disruptive because it is a case Lo versus an actual um uh classroom all day with those students so it's a little bit of a trade-off on that one that I think is there's is a little bit easier she's and that teacher's still in the building sheing roles in the building stuff only because my experience was the teacher was taken from the classroom and she stayed in the building which was worse because then you had the students begging her to come back so again that's I know we'll watch it but well I'll say but she actually have it's fascinating she actually has most of her students now in her classroom as opposed to setting that she's in that's that was one of her considerations I also say we we made another off so again there's only one teacher that's moving actually from school to school right made another offer to another teacher who turned it down because of this exact reason right so like it's it was a really strong consideration that we talk through with every person we were putting in this in the spot as well as again principles um because that is our fear as well um and so yeah we we will do everything we possibly can to to as you said plan for it and then evaluate figure out where do we go wrong where do we go right what can we proove for the next time if we have to do this again I like that and I'm really glad you highlighted it it is our fear we didn't talk about it and you're right it's it it's about that child in that classroom what is their experience how are they being supported and I think that in this case it'll be really interesting because in that one teacher they're now becoming a teacher having actually served many of these kids so I feel less I there is one classroom that I am worried about that an amazing teachers leaving in the middle of the year and we're going to have to throw every possible support at them so yeah trusty Dr Rodriguez thank you thank you very much who did the study the your office did the whole thing my office plus do all the work and Hing teachers that is a lot of work and a great presentation now during all this presentation and the dialogue my mind was more with the students they were with the teachers or administrators because every student come to the school every morning to find a teacher teacher and that go alone in what everybody here is talking about I am going to talk about the summary because the questions that the concern of this board right now I heard is what we are going to do to change not just to have the somebody telling me what you already told me in the presentation what we are going to do this different I give you an examples you have 220 people they had teaching permits can you imagine if we don't have that we will have 200 teachers less that we have now that we Chang the teaching certificate we didn't change the teacher profession and we give it to other people they were not having the same training I don't like they were training the many teachers in the past and I don't want to talk about history but I tell you was a time lunch in school district we have more teacher that we need and I had 140 teachers vacancies and 14 teachers um September 5th were in the classroom I want to know now what we are going to do by August 28th to have all the vacancies covered knowing the historical moment is different what we are going to do that we don't have every week we need Sixx teachers in a special 20 teachers in the other I mean it's painful for the students but what we are going to do then um that is the first thing significant reduction and teacher vacancies we know that we we need to do something about that then are you having a plan that you can present to to the board and said from now we are going to start going to other universities doing that go to whatever I need to go with Michigan State or whatever they by August 28th we don't need to say we have vacancy that is one then maybe that is something do we want to to to hear um about diversity you already heard about that but you didn't tell us you told us now because we're asking we are going to be doing that that that and that and that then maybe now you go back and in your wisdom with all the support that you have tell us tell The Bard we are going to be having this kind of plan for diversity and everything I know that it's going to be difficult to accomplish but at least we have a way to go to correct what we are having in the district right now retention we already talk about retention and the only thing we tell our retention rate remain steady well you had 120 teachers in the first year and then we go to four mean that we lost a lot of teachers in one year then how we are going to retain that I didn't hear anything that how you are working with the school principls for retention God I think somebody can retain the teachers you know who is that the principal because he or she is there every single day then that is another thing we can be how we collaborate with the leadership of the schools and the rest because thewi we don't do that we will continue having the same problems I am not complaining I am giving some Vision some ideas for moving our district forward um effective partnership and I think the the you have this or you do that many teachers don't have experience I don't think any teacher had experience the first day went to the school I you started without knowing even how to read then but how we are going to have this support do we have meetings with them what what is the Strategic we are going to use to retain the teachers and how the principals responsible in that because you cannot do it alone this B cannot do it either then how we are going to has a plan they can do that and I don't think we have that strategy plan but it's something the students are waiting for the are waiting to have the teacher the first day and continue with that teacher for good for bad then I don't have any really question I have the ideas and how you can change the trajectory trajectory and what we are come in the last few years I don't blame the superintendent or anybody here today I mean we still don't have teachers because something change in the society okay that we don't have teacher for some reason when I remember being Michigan State University and 5% of my student they want to be teachers you go today and teacher what is that then peace anybody who's listening we need you we need good teachers we need people that care about the young people to promote our society and do a better society and education is not perfect status education is a process of perfection if we don't do a process of perfection we are not going to arrive there then please it maybe in another presentation or whenever you have time give us to the Bor we give you the presentation and we at this point we are going to be doing that that that that that that is my point no it's I'm really glad you brought that up I'm gonna have maybe Jessica highlight something that we're planning on doing and then a more full presentation but you have your spot on Dr rery is um what are we doing especially for the new teachers to support them and to get them to stay and so that is something CU you saw that big number that 120 and the 25 was zero that's all new those are new people we don't know if they're going to stay or not what do we do to help and support them and so we've actually just couple of months ago started to have a conversation on creating a new teacher pipeline program and network and support and so just maybe give a little highlight on what's Happening and then I think your a presentation to the board maybe in six months would be great about what we're doing so thank you uh Dr Rodriguez and uh Trust where you both lifted something that I think uh really lends itself to the to this topic which is the need for really good mentors and we do have really good teachers but there's a huge burden on that right so when we have 120 new teachers that's only first year so we know that they need mentors from their first to third year and then you talk about how many actual veteran teachers that we have that can fill that role it takes a special person to be a mentor teacher just like it does to be a person that has interns in their classroom just because you're a fabulous teacher to children does not mean you're a good teacher to a colleague or someone that you need to coach and so actually Ben I've been talking about this for almost three years now but trying to figure out exactly the right pathway and way to do this so we're going to try and pilot this spring um just to see how it works so we can kind of work the uh Kinks out of it before we really launch something in the fall um I'm working with Becky Stevens who's a retired uh L and School District principal and she is going to be working with our new teachers in collaboration with Kelly who works in the HR department who's also kind of our new teacher Whisperer in HR and one of the things that we really want to do is have very targeted um things that happen every single month so what'll happen is a social event because they need to get to know each other one of the best things that you can have in Lancing is colleagues and we've seen that even with the surveys that they're saying I really enjoy the people I work with and who better to say like I'm struggling I went home in tears this is happening oh my gosh that happened to you too they need some people to lean on that are not that are of their same um realm or what they're going through or the challenges that they face um but then they also need a strategic plan of the things that we know new teachers need for example uh we talked about how orientation is going to be different this year um we did a really fabulous job I felt like two years ago we did a partnership with tntp um and because of our reap grants going away and some different things we're now revamping how that um will happen for the fall but we're really excited about that and one of the things that we even noticed was um making sure that teachers have this before they even step foot in the classroom like where is the checklist to set up your classroom who are some retired teachers that we can have come in and kind of go oh you know what what are you going to do when they walk in the door or you might not want to put the names on all the for folders just yet because you're not sure if those kids are like things that a new teacher thinks that they know and if you haven't been through a traditional internship program like a certified teacher you don't know that information you only know from the perspective of being a student and so one of this is the program that we're going to Pilot the big vision for all of this work really will be for example in the fall all of our teachers will come in to filled all of our vacancies and uh what we will do is make sure that they feel like they're a part of something really special they will have a calendar of all of the topics and events we've even talked about doing popup PDS meaning as um Becky works with the teachers to uh talk about some of their struggles things are happening she can say hey everybody let's pop on Zoom for about 15 minutes if you're interested I'm going to go over how you put jobs in the classroom to really get kids engaged in um you know keeping the space tidy making it orderly whatever it is we want it to be very um in the- moment for the teachers um and responsive to their needs so that's one aspect of that but the real bigger vision is that this would be a three-year cohort so for example the first year would get monthly support and then you would have a second cohort of year two so they would kind of graduate up to year two then the third year they'd graduate up to year three and then by year four they can help and then be supports almost as mentors to those first year teachers knowing that they've gone through that process so we're really looking forward to launching this because the first year teachers then can tell us this year what do you wish you would have had because we didn't have this program so what could we as a district as a principal as a HR department as a office school department whatever it is what could we have done differently so that you would have had the best start possible to your school year so we're really excited about this new teacher Network um I know that um Becky is super excited about it she's got great checklists and manuals and things that she's already developed to make sure that we have this that can be very responsive to the teachers but we I was really lucky to go through the five-year program in Michigan State I had the five-year internship I was saw the year from beginning to end and so we know what those Rich experiences look like in internship programs but because of our alert programs we know that we are now having a different population when I hired in 26 years ago there were I think 42 people applying just for my one fourth grade teacher job that is no longer the case and they were all certified and they were all went through internships aler is a new thing these people are really educated they know their content and what I'm finding is because for most of them this was not what they thought their first career was going to be they're actually super passionate about being with kids and so I think you're drawing a population that may not have had that full teacher training but they're getting in it with their eyes open of like you know what I have a passion and a love for kids and that's really what is the very Foundation of the people that we really want in not only you help this teacher and this promotional teachers you have the teacher there in that school with them and also you are helping the students that are still University that they were roommates or they study together and say I have a good time in the district can over it's it's a tremendous program job that I think we we should promote as much we can because it's not only about then is the changing the culture or retaining and creating a new culture of retaining and that is the beginning but thank you and one more time you had to hire somebody to do this work okay thank you let me go to uh those that haven't spoken well can I just wanted to you don't have to answer this tonight but I know when I first came in there was a new teachers Network and that's what this sounds like how will this be different and how will the success be measured because my experience with new teacher network was not phenomenal and so you we can talk later but I I because that's what it sounds like and so yeah I can respond to that we also were not very happy with the new teacher Network that you went through so this will be actually we have started completely from scratch we are actually not even really utilizing the plans that we had had from before this is really in response to the things that we've heard from our first year teachers this year of things that they had already wished that they had had the support of but I'm glad to hear because we one of the the PO pre and posts will be like did we meet your needs but it what can't be I'm really feel strongly that it can't be a survey in September and then one in June like this has to be a month-to-month meeting to meeting how are we doing what's happening are we being responsive to your needs are you struggling what's going on there has to be really specific checkpoints which is why we're really excited to be working with HR because they will know Kelly right off the bat or Andrew and so to tie those two pieces together but it is going to be a work in progress um so I think the spring gives us an opportunity to just get our feet wet too thank you for that yeah I mean what I heard about that program that you went through was not necessarily great and I think I mean you know I trust you so you know and I think the big difference is we we're running it we're creating it and we're creating it with our folks who are looking at all this data who have these relationships because when I mean it's true Jess and I did talk about this I guess from the moment I got here but really in Earnest now because we know that we have the right people who can do it and that's that's what makes me very happy um but yeah you are right to question what we had done previously we have totally different different people different concept and I think it'll be great so I president more I will can I can I just respond request to that because I also have a a quick um anecdote where somebody is struggling and it's about the re about the ability to know what they need and the and what the struggle is not we're going to do this great plan and everybody show up because it's sometimes it's not about that that could be a social Gathering that could be an academic setting where you do group stuff but we have a teacher that has walked out of the building we had to have a fact finding meeting what's going on like you can't walk up the job she reported it it's fine but she was ready to be done ready to quit Union president myself sat here with her what's going on with the principal and to this day she laid out what she was doing she's calling parents and she's like in middle of class it's like oh what she wasn't a teacher she wouldn't know this kids are using this as leverage and it's exploding and she's ready to ready be done fast forward with that in mind I'm going to focus on specific classroom management things that I'm going to stop in check on from an administrator's lens as a former teacher and she has one of the highest test scores because she sees oh once I corrected those things and I see some traction and I see some purpose I'm now I get it right we have to figure out what those are and they're not a training manual it is knowing listening to them finding out what questions to ask and then actually addressing them timely so that's just one example where it's a complete 180 because we actually hit the right buttons so yeah okay pres more yes um first of all I want to say the presentation was amazing thank you so much um my colleagues lifted some awesome questions so I don't need to repeat myself I was glad to hear about the mentorship program because I think it's extremely important that we support our Educators because if they're not well they can't they cannot support our students I hope I don't start coughing if I do I'm going to pass the mic um secondly I don't want us to forget about the pipeline for to our HBCU that are close Central State University and wber Forest I speak about those to a lot I don't want to repeat myself but last year Andrew I do not want you to be the one man show so I'm looking for you to have some support in all of that in all of that um and that's all I have thank you for the work that you all are doing thank you well you guys asked all the questions that I had I was checking off the questions but I have a one or two on on the teacher certification Pathways and Partnerships we have 93 in teach Michigan teach and 17 in central what is the breakdown of the uh race ethnicity of those participants if you have it if not you can send yeah we don't have it right now but I can I can get those for yeah okay on the um in your own words why are you leaving the district at this time um the work environment leadership and support and student behavior um are the three areas that we have to concentrate on not from HR but from from the rest of the teaching staff and administrators and I think that as soon as we get the student achievement committee going we need to focus on those areas because if we don't if the environment is not good and Leadership is poor it's not going to help students you know in that building so we have to focus on those things um lastly a couple of maybe of uh recommendations uh for teachers and and in the interview process I think you may have an idea if they want to move on to Administration um have a training program as as they move in and then go into what it would take to be the administrator or you know those kinds of things uh because if a good teacher who tapped to be the teacher in charge but was never trained to be a teacher in charge or offering a principal ship he or she may take it but they have not been trained and being a good teacher classroom teacher is not being a good administrator necessarily so we need to have a uh training uh program for that as to recruitment you know Michigan state has two programs well many programs but I'm going to talk about a couple here the camp program you know that they bring students from the the state and and Southwest um with the um program for um which is um I'm losing the name but anyways camp and there's students that come in I wonder if if um in the recruitment area that that you folks could go speak to those to that class or that group of students you know um talking about working in Lancing and the school district and the benefits of that same could be done with the Latino studies program you know for you have folks who are ba or Masters already but they're taking that class um likewise you know there are other programs for uh African-American students in in in in Michigan State so targeting those Niche groups to invite them to consider teaching or Administration or social work or accountants because we have a a ly of of job of jobs in the district not only teachers and counselors but I want to key on that though but anyway just just to go and talk to them to invite them to think about uh you know joining the the school district in some way shape or form um did you mention the other L com the other L is coming up and they have the woman okay uh or they have women I don't know which is correct but anyway uh there's hundreds of folks primarily women that come to this uh yearly event at Michigan State and making some sort of or having a table their recruitment or information would also help um years ago um a staff of uh School District would put together a a trip to uh traditionally black colleges and universities and took students to visit those colleges now that effort was so the students could you know find why don't we do that to recruit you know teachers and and others here and um the the last thing I I have to say is that um I agree with Dr Rodriguez that principles are key and and they should be um encouraged uh to make that school their family just about you know and uh help them be successful and I know you try different methods but I think that that's if we don't key on principles who can communicate with teachers and bring all these other resources to them uh we may be fighting a Los in battle but I am uh confident that we will do whatever we can to empower principles as well as teachers and other staff that that make up the family of the buildings and improve the climate the work environment and then and have less uh student behavior issues so that those are my comments but thank you for the presentation it's was really fine um I'm sure there's no other questions right unless Ben wants to say a closing statement on that I have my presentation oh you're coming up again gentlemen thank you very much I appreciate your your work thanks for all your feedback and now we come up to item number eight uh presentation from superintendent Mr schelder yeah well thank you uh good evening everyone um this is probably the latest I've ever spoken uh this is this is what uh happens when we combine iss's with board meetings but I think it's actually really powerful that we did that because there's something really great about hearing these presentations within a a board meeting setting so thank you so much um I am going to keep it as brief as I can um as always Transportation um great news out of some of this gas cards 2,390 uh were requested and 2390 have been given that's the nice thing about taking a winter break as you can get all this stuff taken care of and so we're good there Kata same thing it's an equal number so 622 asked 622 got um and the dean number is a lot closer so uh 344 asked 337 have gotten so that's uh a little bit more than 100 if you remember I think the last couple times it was closer to 200 so we're getting there uh you know as new kids come to the district those numbers will fluctuate uh but really I want to commend our transportation team Christina and everybody in Ops that I know are focused so hard on this um I really you know just want to thank everybody for you know coming to school today uh this week has been very cold uh I you know I hate uh cancelling school but you know when it gets to be negative -20 with windchill when it's you know cars aren't starting we do know that that we've got to make those decisions we also know that it is impactful for our families that do rely on us um for you know two meals a day and for heat and during the day and things like that so I just want to thank everybody in this community you know uh with the two days off uh and then today being on tomorrow is supposed to be a little warmer um but not by that much um so I do know that it's going to be cold uh please please um stay warm we do look forward to seeing you and lastly um I think we sent out a message but we did have uh some internet issues and phone issues at our schools today that actually was due to uh something that was off campus it wasn't uh anything to do with the district per se there was a house fire near one of the trunk lines and so it ended up hurting that we have been resolved as of maybe an hour ago uh so just for everybody to know that we will have phone and internet everywhere tomorrow and really just uh it's great to be here thanks for everybody's hard work and we'll see you in school tomorrow okay thank you Mr superintendent next we have routine matters uh committee reports we do not have any reports uh consent agenda I have a motion to yes dror I move that the board education approve the conent agenda presented second okay this is Dr Nar martinz thank okay um uh discussion yes discussion just really quickly I was looking through the minutes and um there was a portion where we were voting for The organizational meeting on the title 9 and on here it states that Levante herd's vote was yay and I thought his vote was nay on that look look me check the recordings I suppose I'm going to ask the parliamentarian yeah uh is there a way to approve the minutes except for that section where we can go into reference or is it better to just not approve the minutes today until we get clarification currently Robert states that there is no vote to approve minutes that are approved once there are no longer any corrections so if this is adopted today approving the minutes as they're written in the future a motion could be amend made to amend the previously adopted minutes if a correction needs to be made that's not made at this time well so mean sorry meaning that we could accept it and then amend it next time with uh after reviewing the videotape yes and I believe there is a requirement uh in the open meetings act that the minutes do need to be approved at the next meeting so I think the board does need to act today with the best knowledge you have and then make any correction in the future dror yeah I I maintain the the motion and the condition that if anything changed should be for approval in the next meeting okay so there's a motion that's that's been made in seconded uh trusty Boer is are you good with that we can approve this and then come I just want to make sure the record is correct that's my concern that was it but if we can amend it later then second Super um any other discussion hearing none all those in favor of of this motion say I I I all suppose nay okay motion is approved now we're in uh action items purchase recommendation and that is for Ev bus project management RFP recommendation Mr Vice President together um let me see we can do them together can we put them no no no no no we can't we got to do it separately uh so the first motion yeah Mr Vice President I move that the Board of Education except patent Gil pod cafeteria Furniture slts purchase recommendation as presented okay we move to Second discussion uh Dr Rodriguez you when we bought the present cafeteria Furnitures for pattingill when that was bought was by what yeah how many years ago do we purchase that that would have been 2016 no at P 2016 so this is just for the new pod but they didn't say here yep it's for the for the pod pattingill pod cafeteria yep it's not for the whole school it's just the Pod okay it's only for that yes yep it's only for the new Middle School we my my my apologies but that is a good question thank you trusty boy yes thank you vice president really quickly because I see we see the amount on here of of the funds and where it's coming from so I am just curious having seen the new pod and looked at it did the current Administration are they the did they select what would go in there or is it someone else that selected what would go in there are they rectangle tables Circle because I looked at the space and so I'm like oo okay so those were some of my questions sure so what we did was we originally brought in some um Furniture cafeteria furniture that was very similar to what was in the current school which is really not at the right level for our older children um and so that's what they've been using and yeah I could get down and sit on it too but it's not very comfortable um and a lot of our six seventh and eighth graders are tall as me so like yeah um so we worked with the we just had an administrative change a little bit at pattingill so we worked with the previous and the current um and then we worked with our food service provider as well to find the appropriate level of tables so what we're bringing in is Middle School age Furniture last question knowing that we have like a warehouse with a plethora of items there were no tables that we went there first yep we went there first we absolutely did so we had some of the old like much older cafeteria style tables but they're pretty roughed up we keep those around for like event events sometimes when we need additional furniture that we cover but we really didn't have anything age appropriate in the warehouse but that is the very first place we looked that's great do they have wheels I know it's think minute but do those tables have wheels yes the tables have wheels and they fold up very very nicely so we can shove them to the side but we're also actually bringing in kind of like what we have here kind of some of the older furniture with some of the more Cafe seating and providing that elevated older more responsible like a diner yes like a diner thank you you're welcome any other discussion president Mo yes I always think about accessibility when it comes to when we buy furniture how how are we meeting those needs for our students because everybody's not the same size the same height could you please explain yeah absolutely so when we're bringing in this newer type of furniture that's a huge part of it so what it's Ada accessible and then there's different different level seating um for different students as well and then we make sure funnily enough like when we bring in like higher stools it has different level rungs all over the stool so maybe somebody who's shorter has different like levels they can put their legs on somebody who's taller has some you know different levels so we do look into all of that and the companies that we work with solely make furniture for schools and so when they're designing the furniture a lot of this goes into that um School design is kind of intense and insane what people think about but yes that is definitely stuff that we look at we look at for wheelchair accessible we work for for um people that might have different mobility issues and how easy it is for them to get in and out and so not all of the tables are exactly the same there are different abil you know abilities of different students are able to get in to the furniture thank you okay any other questions on this motion to uh uh accept the uh pill pot cafeteria Furniture tables uh as recommended okay all those in favor say I I hi all those post same sign okay motion carries uh Item B EV bus project management RFP recommendation do I have a motion Dr Vice President Lopez I move that the Board of Education accept EV bus project management RFP recommendation as presented there second second okay uh discussion pres yes I I know that we RF but I would like to see this RF go back out to see if somebody in can probably do this verus going out because we already do a lot with green I think because it was during the holiday time that you know it wasn't I I just think we should send this RSP back out and see if we can get a Michigan Bay Company any other discussion can Co discuss yeah go ahead I couldn't see there we go there's a delay in this um we did reach out to multiple people including Highland fetes the Michigan Clean Cities which is a huge Consortium um of different companies and also the Michigan Association of P people Transportation which is Michigan based consortiums um that oversee tons of different companies um that do this type of work um I personally talk to at least well one of them on the phone and two of them via email both Clean Cities and people transportation asking for the push they assured me that they pushed out we did not have any Michigan companies respond um to the RFP so I did want to at least be very upfront that we did push very hard for Michigan based companies as well I mean I'm aware I saw that but I I mean we already know we have the bus is it a major de is it any other comment I just have a question for those who are just joining or like myself um how long was this posted with the process of locating a someone to bid for this yep so it was out for 10 days the RFP was and they received personal invites um from myself and where did you get the information for the personal invite are these recommended these are solely based on the search that I did myself to find these companies and how many did you locate I sent them out to four but there's two of them that are consortiums so we have four potential opportunities for this project with a matter of just being posted for 10 days is that correct it's more than four people so the Michigan Clean Cities Consortium and the Michigan Association of Pupil Transportation Consortium have multiple different companies that are parts of their consortiums so those are two companies that oversee multiple different participants within those organizations so it's not just four but then green link education and high Highland fleets are two separate companies so four different contacts but multiple different companies and 10 days for RFP is very similar to what we do for an RFP for all like when we do construction bids when we do all of that type of thing it's a similar we use a similar timeline for posting our RFP thank you you're welcome you know the discussion go ahead just so you know I downloaded the proposal I put all my comments and questions in there so if you could just kind of read through them I would really appreciate that I do one question I do have just for tonight because you said it's 10 days and I looked at the proposed time so I guess I have two asks one is is it normal to have more than 10 days because I'm assuming this might this ask may have come over the holidays and so not knowing everyone's time office open but then also the second is on that timeline the dates are all over the place it was like sometimes it was like 25 and 26 and then 24 yeah it I don't know if it was just the way the proposal came through on the proposal it was so I'm not sure if there's a way for them to put that in actual sequential order because it was as I was read then there was duplicates on there too so just if that could get cleaned up as well take look at it thank you I appreciate no problem any other discussion all right there's a motion to approve this um RFP recommendation all those in favor say I uh I all all those post I Sor no so what was the count I would ask for a roll call vote if that's possible Mrs Boer nay Mr Lopez yes Mrs Moore yes Dr Nares Martinez yes Dr Rodriguez M stro nay Miss Williams motion fail okay president uh Dr Rodriguez thank you very much I think that this motion of this project just to come back to the board explain to us exactly what it's all about that we understand what is here and what is the benefit for the district and dreaming just not yet to read in the last minute what is that then um then I think the the if you have more information the vote can change all right thank you um moving on new business we have no business no new business no discussion items report from secretary and announcements oh yeah okay and en Vision agenda okay okay excuse me okay let's let's go with that cuz you did ask me to it I had two things one you mention about the vision statement that you want to put in the the in the minute I mean in the agendas you want to put the vision and the mission right that was my suggestion that what your suggest that we have emotion there the other one is what we are going to read both vision and Mission or only Mission I think in my view I think we need to um maybe take it to the retreat and discuss it all as a as a board um because it's just my suggestion I hadn't talked to anyone no I I mean it's not any hurry to do that nobody's going to I think that will be fine if we continue this conversation during the retreat right right okay good um Madam Secretary yes so uh this last uh Wednesday on the 22nd we had our first um ISD uh meeting um in Mason um we just were welcomed by the clerk um and we had to uh sign some paperwork and that was it uh but getting over there was rough on uh there was two accidents on the way it was um very cold uh but we got that done um and we also have enrollment for our kindergarten our young fives and preschool February 26 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. um You can call 5177 55 2820 for more information on that um we also want to congratulate Antonio Williams who has aund wrestling match wins which is really impressive and we're very proud of them um January 31st is PD day so there will be no school um and our next board meetings will be February 6th we'll have a regular board meeting scheduled and February 20th will be a regular board meeting and an information study session thank you uh we are to public comments uh do we don't have any okay all right uh comments from the board Dr Rodriguez thank you president vice president whatever you want me to call okay I am thinking that many of us went to the 40 annual Martin Luther King Day celebration and the celebration was I had a dream that one day this nation will rise up and Lead Out the true meaning of his Creed that all men are created equal never this was more important than that day and the celebration um but they also I was really an every board member they were there happy to see of 11 students they were writing essays with 11 seven are from luning school district yeah and all about high school all the high school are from Ling School District first third place second place and number one place then we are ready our student can go and win and I think that maybe next year we talk with the seven seven eighth and sixth graders the we still the other part of the program thank you very much and congratulations I hope them the administration get the names and send to the parents and then a congratulation letter and also from the board I think that will be uh that will be something the the the students and and I saw them there they were so happy not about the money but to feel winners and we were also happy because we belong to the big family or l in school district thank you vice president thank you for that um suggestion it's it's really great uh by the way you didn't say say that we had an incident I know I don't want but it was taken care of by our by lansing's finest so a little a little fire to keep us going right any other comment from board members uh I just have one uh additional suggestion for our HR department you know Haku is a Hispanic Association of colleges and universities um uh it's a network of of uh those institutions Hispanic serving institutions that could also be tapped for uh possible um you know recruitment okay um there be no other business this meeting is adjourned