Regarding meeting of the mouth from the board of education to order, please. Call the roll. Missus Cahoon? Yes. Miss Hammond? Here. Doctor McFadden? Mister Shepherd? Mister Walker? Here. Missus Walker? Mister Rickman? Here. A quorum has been established. Next on the agenda, pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next on the agenda, our citizens' comments.
This is a portion of the meeting where you, the citizens of the Mount Clemens Community School District, can address the board with any question, comments, or concerns. We ask that you stand, come to the center of the room, state your name and address. Be mindful you have three minutes by which to make your inquiry. Also, be mindful you may not receive a particular response here, particular inquiry this evening. If you would request a written written response to your inquiry, We ask that you write that question out and provide their their, this form miss l has.
Write it out. Provide it to miss l. You receive a written response within seventy two hours. Last but not least, I ask that you address all questions, comments, concerns to the chair. The agenda is now open for citizens' comments. Second call, citizen's comments. Last call, citizen's comments. Seeing or hearing none, moving the agenda forward. Next on the agenda, I'll be item five, district presentations. Mister superintendent. Yes, sir. Just a second. Good evening. As you know, we do our updates, at least twice a year, not two times
a year. So we have a lot to present to you tonight, so it's gonna be a long one, but it should be an interesting one. Tonight, we, wanna begin by grounding ourselves on our why. Right? Why our updates matter? School districts do not exist to preserve systems. They exist to serve students and as the needs of students, families, and community continue to evolve, it is our responsibility to pause, reflect, and ensure that our direct that our direction and our decisions and our resources are aligned with the matters most speed
most, aligned aligned with what matters most for student success. The other thing is not about change, the sake of change. It is about clarity. It is about transparency, and it is about making sure our Plymouth Community Schools remains financially stable, operationally sound, and academically strong, not just for today, but for years to come. So with that being said, I wanna go through and and the central office team will do some district overview updates, and then we'll do we'll get into each building level update and, some celebrations, some acknowledgments, some data, and and the information at the
end. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Alright. Always beginning with our wire purpose. Most of you, were not most. I can't say that anymore. We have a lot of new faces, but, a lot of you are aware that when I first got here in 2021 2023, one of the things that, we did not have in place was a a functional, strategic plan. A A lot of people in this room as far as other community as well as other community members, have really came together to participate. We had over a 100, participants in our strategic planning process, met in this room
and a series of meetings throughout the the year. Took us a whole year to get this this plan developed. And it was important because we didn't have a vision. We didn't have a a a functioning vision. We didn't have a wide there was no clarity. So when for a lot of new faces in this room, when you sit in interviews, and you sit at the interview table with me or in your first round of interview, you know, this is something that we've always talked about. This is something that we've always asked you to how does this fit with your personal philosophies? Is this is this something that you you know, we wanted to be clear what people are signing up for, who we were as a district.
As I say all the time, my Columbus Community Schools is one of the best places to work, and there are a lot of things that we believe, philosophically that are important for helping our students in this community grow and be successful and and and and not just, survive, but thrive. And so it is imperative that we have a vision a clear vision of mission and that people that work here believe in that clear vision of mission. Really quick. Support for teaching and learning. So we'll get into, what is broke our our presentation is broken down in in
some of the different areas of important not really of importance, but, of significance from curriculum, restructuring, academic, operations, and finance. And then we can tell our building level. Why? First. So this is the core mission of the district's student achievement and instructional quality. At the end of the day, all the great things that you see and hear and feel that we do, they all feel good. Right? And and I say this to the team and the staff all the time. Things feel good. We're doing great things. But if they don't equal student achievement and performance, it doesn't mean anything, unfortunately.
However, we know the importance of developing the whole child. And so when we talk about student achievement, we're not talking about proficiency on the state standard standardized test necessarily. That is important. That's a big part of what we're trying to do, but we want our students to grow. We know that, who our community is and who the students we serve are. And wherever they come to us, we try to capture them and bring them up to where we need them to be. Sometimes that's at grade level, below grade level, above grade level, etcetera. And, it is imperative for us to for them to just to grow. Right? And so we spend a lot of time working to close gaps, and there are
a lot of, pieces that go into that. There are a lot of people that contribute to that. I'll have doctor Lewis come up for a second. Doctor Lewis, as you know, when we restructured last year and moved some some things around position wise in central office, we are former curriculum, director of curriculum instruction, and our special populations coordinator or special needs coordinator. Those roles were overwhelmed. Our our past human resource, assistant superintendent of human resources was also our curriculum and
director and director of instruction. Those two things, with our jobs in themselves. And so as we restructured last year, we brought on doctor Lewis as mister Lavender retired. We broke up those roles, and and we we we needed to focus on curriculum and instruction. So we added doctor Lewis, and now that's her main main goal. She's gonna share with you some of the things you hear about when you when you when people research our school district or any school district, they go to my school my school data, and you get these these report cards. And and doctor Lewis is gonna go through what those things indicate, give you some
insight on what they mean, and kinda give you an update on how we scored on the state, report card, if you will, or assessment. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to doctor Lewis. We'll kinda jump in and out where need need, where needed to break any clarity. If you if if you have any questions, you can also ask in the mid in the middle of the real mind. So Thank you so much. Good evening, everyone. So we're going to go over the school index for all three of our buildings. We're starting with the elementary, and we will do some comparisons to last year.
The school index is always one year behind, and so you'll see that we're comparing it to '23, '24 because this information really is from 2425, so last school year. What you'll note in the elementary school index is that in every one of our areas, we increased the points. And so that is huge. Last year, our overall index score was 23.21. The target was 23.88.
So we were labeled last year as a TSI school. This year, we are labeled as CSI, which is comprehensive support and improvement. That does push our elementary into the partnership agreement this year. But what's important to note about that is the biggest reason that we are in that partnership with the elementary is because the target moved. So last year, the target was 23.88. This year, the target is 35.33,
and our elementary school shifted from 23.21 to 32.94. So they improved drastically, but the mark moved. And so, they will go on a three year plan just like the high school, but the plan will, similar to the high school, have goals that we have to hit at our eighteen month and our thirty six month review. A lot of it for elementary are centered around attendance and proficiency and math and
ELA on our state assessments. But we wanted to make sure that we highlighted that this is improvement from last year to this year. And, again, that's '23, '24 to 2425. And all of the initiatives and supports that we are putting in place, which I'll get to momentarily, are helping to drive our improvement. Our middle school, we had, a few things that stayed virtually the same, and then
we had some things that were increases. And so our overall index score increased by 2.02. Our growth index, which is on our NWEA scores and that is what, superintendent Roper was talking about that while proficiency is the goal, we know where our students are and it is very difficult to get a ninth grader who is reading at first grade level to grow eight grade levels in one year. And so what we're looking for growth until we can get to our proficiency.
Growth is our major thing. You may be able to get a student to grow four or five grade levels, but if they are eight grade levels behind, we haven't reached proficiency yet, but that does not mean that our students are not learning and growing in the way that they should. And so our growth index went up 7.42, and then our label for our middle school did not change at all. It is an additional target support or ATS, which means that we also have some subcategories that need to be addressed, and I'll get into how we're addressing that as
well. And then finally, our high school index. So we had some increases in our high school index as well. I wanna make sure that I go over the graduation rate a little bit because I know that is heavily talked about when we, are in the community and when we come to board meetings and the understanding of what that means. And so last year or 2324, our graduation rate for the school index was 64 index points. And this year, we are at seventy four seventy four point one nine.
That does not mean that we did not graduate 100% of our class of 2025. We did. One hundred percent of our students graduated for 2025. But where the actual overall graduation rate index comes from, It is a weighted average of the four year, five year, and six year graduation. So a student that comes in and I believe, superintendent Roker spoke about it at our last board meeting. We get a senior that comes in second semester and they have three credits.
They are now in our five or six year graduation cohort, and there's nothing we can do about that. We can give them all of the supports, But there just may not be enough time to get them caught up on credits, so they no longer count for that four year graduation rate. And so we're penalized when we move to that five year and six year graduation rate, and then they combine it. They are not necessarily equally combined either. And so, anything that you see in a but we do have so we have
English language learners. But if the number of students that qualify the test are 30 or less, you will not or less than 30, you will not see anything in the index. And whatever that point is for the index gets dispersed throughout the rest of the index. So all of the categories that you see are what make up the overall index score. And so they use a percentage for how that looks to create the overall percentage score. Our high school did not come up with the CSI list, and so we knew
that we've been talking to the board about it, at various board meetings, and it is not because we are not improving. We still have a lot of improvement to go. As superintendent Roper said, a lot of our drastic, changes have come in the last three years since he's been here. Some have started or initiated when he got here, but it wasn't until last year that they were rolled out or they were rolled out last year, and they didn't actually get implemented until the beginning of this school year.
So what have we actually been up to that says we really are improving? So we've made a lot of curriculum purchases because the district did not have a unified curriculum. And so people were working in pockets and individual curriculum resources that they had. And so we decided that that's just not acceptable for a district. We are, as you can say, one band, one sound. The district needs a common curriculum for across the board.
And we need all teachers to be doing the same thing technically at the same time, giving still some of that autonomy to work within the level of our students, but we know what they're teaching. We know that it is guaranteed and viable curriculum and that this is dedicated to support the academic growth of our students. So we purchased a new curriculum for math six through 12. That's our Envision Learning. We did that in the spring of last year, so we actually rolled out in September.
We purchased amplified CKLA, which is our k five English curriculum that will roll out second semester, so it doesn't roll out until this coming February. We renewed and relaunched Newsela. And with Newsela, it brings in some ELA science and social studies curriculum resources. So it is not a curriculum by itself. It helps to support all three of those curriculums that exist. We also purchased Planbook recently, which is a lesson planning software, and that is also
to unify the district in how we are communicating what it is that we teach, how our principals can see what exactly is happening in those classrooms. It is housed in one space, so we don't have to go and find the information to make sure that we are all speaking the same language across the board and that when we sit down in those PLCs, we can have that conversation of what a strong lesson plan looks like because we know that that is important to actually teaching our students.
If we don't have a plan, then we're planning to fail. And so we wanna make sure that our students have the best planning possible and that it's unified. Again, teachers are turning in lesson plans, but they all look so different and have so many different things in it. And everything, that we've been doing is to make sure that our district is speaking the same language. As far as our curriculum updates and revisions, so this is the actual curriculum and what we're doing. So at the beginning of the year, we talked about how we're focusing on our
tier one, MTSS tier one, and that is for all of our students. And so, at the secondary level, they are doing math for all. So every classroom is teaching a little bit of math, giving a little bit of math in every class to help support the proficiency and the growth in our math scores. We also have, during advisory, we have targeted time for them to get their interventions based on their e NWEA scores, and that is using the program IXL because the
NWEA scores go directly into the program, and it gives out what information the students have learned and what they have deficiencies in. So they can actually work on their targeted deficiencies in that class, and it's a dedicated time supported just for that. It is hard as a teacher to do all of the things, to teach the curriculum that you're supposed to be teaching and to make sure that you are addressing the prior needs of students if it is outside of that specific, standard.
And so we want to make sure that we gave time to have some intervention time that was dedicated to just that. We've also increased dual enrollment opportunities. And so our dual enrollment used to be only for our eleventh and twelfth graders. And now we've increased it to be our ninth and tenth graders as well because we wanna make sure that our students have the best opportunity possible to do whatever it is they wanna do in life and make sure that they are succeeding. And then we are also expanding our CTE courses. We're looking into a pharmacy tech program.
We are looking into some automotive programs. We're looking into some drone pilot programs. So things that make our kids ready for that that make them college and career ready so that what whatever path they choose, they actually have viable access to it. For our MTSS tier two, that is the bottom 15% of your students. Those are the students that leave need a little bit more support. And so at Seminole, we are going to be rolling out a win time. We, have worked with the principal to see where we have time in our day
to actually do some of that targeted intervention. Right now, teachers are working with their students in small groups, but we wanna make sure that we have a dedicated amount of time to it just like we're doing at the high school. They also have a math interventionist. We've unfortunately not been able to hire anyone yet at the high school for that position, and then they have a reading interventionist at the elementary school as well. We're doing the IXL during advisory three days a week. The other two days a week, they will get enrichment because we know that that
is super important to expose our students to the career paths that exist in this world and the next because we're preparing our kids for careers that don't even exist yet. So we wanna make sure that we're giving them access. And then also at the elementary, we are continuing their high dosage after school tutoring to make sure that they are getting the support they need. And then those also count as tier three because when you move to tier three, it is the bottom 5%. And at that point, they're getting one one one help to make sure that they
are supported in the additional things that they need. We've also been doing a lot of professional learning because we know that as we are, teaching and supporting our students, we wanna make sure that our educators are equally as equally taught and supported as well. And so we know that, in evaluations, professional learning is one of the evaluation pieces because as educators, we are supposed to be lifelong learners, and we are supposed to
make sure that we are perfecting our craft. And so we've done conscious discipline coaching, on top of just the actual training that the full staff got. Eight of our teachers are getting individual staff coaching by our conscious discipline trainers to make sure that we are growing our own. So once they are done with those teachers, they'll move to their next cohort of teachers. And all of these were teachers that volunteered to do the training. It is to make sure that we have the tools that we need to deal
with the students that we have right now. The students that have trauma, the students that have, that come with all of the things that we didn't necessarily have when growing when we were growing up. And we know that this is a different generation. So we wanna make sure that our teachers are supported in how to deal with what we consider the new age student. We've also been sending our math teachers to guaranteed and viable curriculum training. Math is one of our greatest needs of growth. And so our math teachers have been going once a month to guaranteed and viable
curriculum training with the MISD. They've also come here to coach them. They are going into classrooms to make sure that we are all again speaking the same language, that our focus is the same, that we are supporting our tier one, education to make sure that our students grow. Everything that we're doing is based on making sure that our students are growing academically and and socially. We want we wanna make sure that we're educating and supporting the whole child. And so, you'll see a lot of academic things, and then you'll also see that
we have some behavior things in there as well to make sure that we that you know that we understand that it is hard to teach kids sometimes when they have behaviors that are less than desirable in our classrooms. But we also know that a lot of times, our babies just don't know how to communicate any other way. And so we wanna make sure that our babies are trained and that our staff is trained so that we all know how to to coexist. We have MISD literacy learning module cohorts that are for k through five.
We are doing restorative practices training so that, all of our staff, not just our teachers, but every staff member in the building knows how to actually have conversations with our students when they are having those less than desirable behaviors to understand what the root cause of them could be and how you are supposed to deal with them so that we're not just kicking kids out. We do not wanna be an institution that is just putting kids out because that's our business, students.
And if we are just sending them home, then we're doing a disservice to them and our communities. We have the Macomb Elementary Principles Connection, the secondary Principles Connection, and then our principals are also going to leadership learning series. So this year, we dedicated a lot of time to making sure that we have while we are increasing all of the curriculum, and enrichment for our students that we're doing the very same thing for our adults as well. And then our final thing that we are listing is our ongoing leadership development with
our central office cabinet that is led by superintendent Roper, and it is a book study on the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. And I will be the first person to toot, superintendent Roper's horn when I say this is the first district, and I've been an educator over twenty years, that we actually did the book study, that we did not just get a book, and then we never revisit it again. Every cabinet meeting, we are actually going through. It is the very first thing that we do is go over our book study
and actually talk about how it can be used to support us and as leaders and how that support translates over to the staff, the students, and the community. It does take a long time to get done with a five minute turn. Yeah. We do. It's a five minute review. And then when we move to our culture and climate, this is our behavior thing. And so we have lots of things going on for our behavior. Those are tiered as well. They are a part of the MTSS tier system. So we've done conscious discipline training for all. We will have restorative justices, restorative practice training in February.
And then our classroom teachers are also doing POCs, that are they have some that are centered around classroom management strategies and just what to do for our students and how to best handle their behaviors. We have restorative groups with our social workers. We have girls and boys mentoring groups at the high school. And then tier three, again, these work the same way as they do academically. These are for our students that need one on one support. And so we, outside of our individual social work services, we do also sign students
up for when the need exists for my best therapy program to make sure that they can get the one on one support that they need. And then all of the other feel good stuff. What are we doing for the community? So, we had our inaugural golf outing in September. We did a community partnership luncheon in September. We had over 40 community partners attend. From that, we were able to get donations from those community partners. But more importantly, we got their time. They are coming into the building and figuring out how they can partner with us
to help teach our students to help provide opportunities for them internships, to come in and just talk to them, mentoring, to make sure that our students know that they are not just loved inside of our building, but that our community loves them just as much as we do inside of our building. We did the annual turkey giveaway in November. We gave away 750 turkeys. That is 250 more than we did last year, and the weather was not nearly as cold this year. So, it was definitely on our side, but it was an amazing thing to be
able to give to families in need. We did the our Christmas giving tree is something that missus Monk used to do when she was here before, and it dwindled away when she left. And because she is back, she's brought our Christmas giving tree back. And so we know that we have a lot of families in need, and the ornaments on our tree are the students and what it is they would like. And any staff member can come in and just pull names off of the tree, pull your ornament, and you just deliver the gifts with kids' names, no questions asked.
And it's just to make sure that our families are supported that while we are supporting them educationally, we want them to know that we care about them in other ways too, not just their academics. We care about them as human beings. And so we also want them to have a good Christmas and to be able to get the things that they want sometimes. Like, all of us have the things that we need, but we don't always get the things that we want. And so we wanna make sure that they get some things that they want too because when our students feel loved and supported, they come to school.
And they just show up. They show up when there's no school. A snow day, they're here because they're looking for that love and support that you are that we're giving them. And so we wanna make sure that they always feel that way when they come home to us. We had a staff wellness event today. It was amazing. Our, I hope all of our teachers got to go and participate it. They got massages today, on their preps and a healthy snack to go with it just to make sure that they know that while we love our students and we are all about making sure our kids are taken care of, our adults have to
be taken care of too. And so we wanted to show them some gratitude and let them know that we love and care about them as well, and we wanna support their mental health as well. And while, ten minute massage may not seem like a lot, it goes a long way. When it's December, you're looking forward to two more days before a break. You might just barely be holding on by a thread because that one kid, had way more less desirable behaviors than you like them to have. And you come in and you get just a quick massage that says, just release.
Just breathe. And as adults, we don't get to do that often. And then we also had our annual back to school bash, in August. And so we're doing a lot of events to make sure that the community sees us. They know that we are here, that we are changing the narrative of what what the community thought we were, and now they get to see who we actually are. Got it. Let me let you see if girls will go back. One thing that I'm I'm proud of, another thing that I'm proud of is and a lot of people that I'm proud of is a lot of people helped us, participate in the, the San Jose parade in the city.
I did. It was, it was probably one of the most powerful events that I have taken part of and party in since I've been in this district. And then and to find out we've been on at least over five, maybe more years since the district has participated just blew me away. Right? Like, it's a huge parade that takes part in our city. We're the local school district, and we're we haven't been in. And to see all of, these other districts come here and the kids are are put on the stage and and to see our kids get that experience.
And I don't know how many adults have ever walked in a parade. And and just to be a star for a day, and we have well over 50 students, families, you name it. Our, PAC leader, miss Coronados, and the PAC organization, our parent advisory committee, they participated. They came out and represented. Those things that we're just trying to unite and connect our our district back to this community. I think, if you don't see us, you can forget about it. We're gonna be everywhere and put our kids anywhere, to highlight them and celebrate them
and, and and we're gonna let people acknowledge and see our kids. And so I was very proud of, the participation, and thank you to everybody that that came out and participated in that. Alright. Well, next. So this is one thing mister Pippa, come on up. Is he back there? Alright. So, mister Pippen, I have 30 director. This is his presentation. I'll get it started just to keep it moving. One of the things that has been has been big for our culture is providing
extracurricular opportunities for our students. I I'm a I'm a product of of athletics. That's why I'm standing here before you today. And there are a lot of people like me, probably in this room and all around that, it could probably could say the same. Athletics, it's not just about playing the game. It's about the other pieces that you get from, athletic athletics and extracurricular opportunities. We're talking about athletics since he's doing an update, but, I mean, we're talking in in all extracurriculars, but for this presentation, it's athletic. So, mister Pivens has his presentation together. When I got here, correct me if I'm wrong, I wanna say that we barely
had a varsity basketball team. Something that happened a year prior, it got canceled. I don't know if we had anything for our middle school students, any opportunities for our middle school kids, very few for our varsity kids and nothing for our elementary. And so we know, as doctor Lewis mentioned earlier, it's important that kids these are the things that make kids connect. They may not always connect with that algebra or math lesson or reading or, you know, the things that we have to, to do to push them. But when it comes to something that they can find their lane in, whether it's athletics, robotics, whatever with extracurricular things that we're doing is important.
These are the things that, get kids to school. Then it's our job to keep them here and to educate them while they're here. And so we're very proud of a lot of the things that we've done. A few of these updates, I'll read through it. We had 24, student athletes on our football team. The average GPA, more importantly, was a a 3.1. So, as a foreign athlete and and I let it direct you as a former former college athlete as well, We know that you can be a great player and and participate in in an outstanding athlete if you don't have a great great point
average, if you don't have a GPA, even if there is a scholarship opportunity available, you're not getting it. That's the first thing that, colleges and universities look for. And so we're not just trying to build a a kid that can play. We want student athletes. And so student is the first priority. Girls high school volleyball, we have six student athletes with an average GPA of well, that there was a 3.6, and we're very proud of that. Cross country, four student athletes with a GPA of 3.4. Again, I say this all the time. Athletes are typically the, that's usually your largest fraternities and sororities in school.
Right? Like, they a lot a lot of times are your leaders of your building. And sometimes I've been in environments where because I'm this cool athlete, I don't have you know, I just run around the building, and I don't have to do these other things. I don't have to be a leader outside of the sport, out off the court or off the grass, off the field. And that's just not the that's not the expectation here. If you're gonna play sports here, it's character first. Right? Commitment to character is a priority for us. If you're not representing our organization, our school district, yourself, your family, this, our staff, well, you won't play. I don't care how good you are.
Mister mister knows when he got hired, my director was I don't care if we lose every game. We're gonna do it with dignity. We'll do it with respect, and we'll do it with character. And that's just what it is. And so although we wanna win, don't don't don't be confused. We won't do it at any cost. Come on now, mister Pittman. I'm still in your company. So I'm a throw up mister Pittman. He's come on up here. He doesn't like to, do this, but he's really well. And and I want him to get want him to celebrate because these are things that he has led. He's, he never he lives here. He sleeps in the back over here. He probably just taking a nap.
And so when he's been here this is only supposed to hit the second year. Right? Second year. Second year. Yes. And so, I'm just very proud of the work he's done, and I'll let him talk to you right. Okay. Yep. Sorry. Excuse me. Don't play. We got a girls game getting ready to start over here, so I'm running back and forth. But just wanted to share out some of the things, that we started since I've been here. But I just want to tell us, like, it's not just me. It's a team. We're all a family. We all do this from our board, our committees, me and mister Riggman, mister McFadden. We all sit down, and we talk about these things with these sports. So it's very exciting that we started these things right now.
But as you see, we're starting baseball this year. We had middle school football that has some success this year. We have the only black girls' middle school team right now that's playing. They're the only one in their league that is all girls. It's the coed lead, but they're the only girl team female team in there, and they're competing every Sunday. And that's that's big for them to get out there and do they do a phenomenal job with coach Kurt. I'm sorry. Wrestling has started we had a wrestling meet yesterday against East Point. That's part of our strategy to get back into the MAC. That's one of the things that we wanna really look forward to doing. So we're starting these sports.
So we have enough to participate in the MAC. Middle school girls volleyball, again, that's another feeder system. So this year, we're freshman basketball. So we had 20 freshmen try out for basketball this year, but we also had 20 sophomores try out. So we didn't have enough for JV because we only have 15 jerseys. So we say, hey. We got the participants that start freshman basketball now, and they played their first freshman game at four or five today. So it was pretty exciting. I love it. I keep, I keep saying, like, I'm sweating. I'm talking bad, and I'm passionate about what we do. But and middle school girls basketball, again, it's another theater system for us.
Our girl our girls are learning young. A lot of girls, like, start to stand stand away from them playing sports and athletics when they get into high school. But now we're starting to reintroduce them to them when they're young and keep them going, and those are our theater system. So I'm happy with the things that we're going on. I'm proud of all our student athletes because they're not only one in on the field, on the court, but they're really kicking butt in the classroom, and they know that they have to keep kicking butt in the classroom. Weekly privacy reports have helped us study all have been amazing. So when your kids are starting to hold other kids accountable or they're mad in class that they got the answer right and they got the answer wrong, we're doing
something right because they're competing out on that classroom. I mean, on the field or, of course, in the classroom as well. So that's fine. And the other so the other thing that's not up here, I know mister Pippen has been working with mister Neil, and we're trying to coordinate some opportunities for our elementary kids. I know we talked about soccer, flag, football, potentially flag football, and then three five basketball for boys and girls. So that's why another thing that we're trying to put down our elementary. The toughest part is we'll be the only school with three five basketball and for boys and girls because I don't know. Start today, get to middle school, but we wanna start y'all here with the development
of all our student athletes. So that's what we're doing. Alright. Thank you, mister. I got it. Alright. Again, like I said before, mister, fitness presentation, it's imperative for for us to just find you know, we have kids that are interested interested in everything. Right? And so we are trying to bring everything that we can. The staff in this district know that if there's something that's best for kids and we have kids that have interest, we gotta make it happen. I don't care if it's sports, whatever, club, whatever it is. The goal is to make it happen because this is their school. Without kids, we don't have jobs.
You know? And we, unlike some places, accept whoever walks through our door. Right? Wherever they are. And so, we are constantly taking a pause from our kids. They have a voice in this district. This is their district. The things that they wanna see and do, that's what we do. Oftentimes, as as some of you may know, I've talked to a lot of educators in the room, so I know they get this. But for the community that's watching, a lot of times, in my experience, schools create these things that they think is best, and we missed the mark all the time. Right? We're doing things that were cool for us, exciting for us, and and we we
say it all the time that these kids have changed, but we are still shoving the same thing down their throat. So why not listen to them and make adjustments and make changes and do the things that they are interested in now? It may take some learning on our end. Right? But that's what we have to do because this is their school. Student services and support. Why? Addresses the whole child and equity and access. So this is important for us, and this is important in our our, this was an important part of our strategic planning process. And I asked, missus McNamara to come on up in the second year to present.
As she's coming up, I wanna say that, like, we are specializing in being a trauma informed environment and developing the whole child. Right? Mind, body, spirit, academic, whatever you wanna call it. But this this is who we are as an organization. And, I take pride in that because it is what our community needs. Not all places have to worry about developing a whole child, or they may think they don't. You know, that's not a a priority or maybe the the need for that family. But if you bring your child to Mount Clemens, our goal is to help them
develop and reach their fullest potential wherever they are, whoever they are, whatever they're interested in. And so developing the whole child is important. Differentiate I'm sorry. Talking about the president. Diversity is important. And when I talk about diversity, I'm not talking about just race, ethnicity, or those now talking about ability, skill set, interest. We have kids that, from that are top 100 in the county to need, intervention at the lowest level, whatever you wanna call it.
We have a very diverse community on all fronts, and so it's important that we meet all of their needs. I was I mentioned differentiation because differentiation just doesn't happen in instruction. And differentiation and I won't I don't know if you get into this, but differentiation isn't accommodations. Right? Accommodations are accommodations. So if I have a disability, we accommodate me by building you know, I'm in a wheelchair. We build a ramp. That's an accommodation. Differentiation is you have a need. There's I have to make sure that I give you the same opportunity in a in a way that you can get it, in a way that you can receive
it and be, successful at doing it. And that's what we asked our teachers back there. That's why they look so tired. Right? Because they have a class that is super diverse when it comes to ability levels. And we're asking them to meet all of their needs where they are. I don't care if they're special need. I don't care if they're, if they are advanced wherever they are at the same time. Right? And that is a tough task, and that's why we appreciate them. And we and the timid massage, whatever. It probably didn't really help. But, but now in all seriousness, but we have to meet the needs of all
of our kids where they are. And and so when you come to work here, and they'll all tell you that, that's an expectation. And at the same time, deliver the grade level content. So we still have to expose them to what they're supposed to be exposed to if it's in third grade, ninth grade, and fill all those gaps along the way. So we we commend our staff, and we commend everybody that participates in and puts forth puts forth that effort to meet all kids. And I and and I heard something recently at a conference I was at. And it made me think, you know, when you often say meet kids where they
are. And so I'm challenging that theory now in my own brain, and I'll get into that later. But, you know, we wanna bring kids up. Right? Sometimes we meet them where they are, and we never leave that space. We stay there. And so, we gotta be very conscious conscious of that and very intentional when it comes to that. So I'm gonna I'm gonna introduce, Alyssa McNamara. Most of you in this room know her, obviously. When I first started here up until, oh, when did you start? August. August. Our our special, needs coordinator or special we didn't have one.
We had someone from the ISD, from the MISD that came out and supported us, and she's been around forever. I've worked with her in other districts before. She knows her stuff, but she was she was servicing us twice a day. I mean, twice a week is all the time that she gave us. We have some of the highest needs and and, most accurate students in our county. Our our students that receive special, specialized services is all close to maybe a little lower this year, but double the state average. And so to expect our students all students to grow academically and not have someone
to support our our special education teachers, not to be able to support our our special education students, make sure our IEPs are up to date, current, relevant, and in the best interest of kids, and just have somebody that was here two days a week doing the best they could was was pretty insane. Was I don't know what we expect, but it is what it is. We are grateful and happy that we have miss McNamara here. Her title is, special populations coordinator. It gives her a wide range and reach, and I'll let her, talk to talk to you all about what she has done and and the things that are happening,
since she has touched down. Thank you for that introduction. Before I get started with my slides and any I just wanted to say thank you to everybody in this room and also the people not in this room and people who have shared me who have supported me transitioning into this role. Special education really is my passion. So I'm very thankful to have the support of everybody as I have kind of come in here. We're changing some things up.
So I just really appreciate the opportunity, and I'm thankful to get to work with all of you. But now we'll get down to business. So I just wanted to first start off by sharing the numbers that we're looking at right now, as far as students that we're servicing. So right now in our ECSE and GSRP programs, we currently have 33 students receiving special education services. At Seminole, we have 85. The middle school, we have 36. The high school, we have 36. And then we also provide services to Saint Mary's as well.
So 22 of those students are receiving special education services. So that grand total comes out to 212 students as of today. This number changes, like, every day, to be honest. So we have 212 students receiving those services. Within those 212 students, 155 of those students receive special education programming. So they're either receiving pull out resource room support where majority of their day is spent around their general education peers and they get pulled out for a specific subject
area or multiple subject areas where they might need some additional support in. And that also includes our students too that, function in more of a self contained special education classroom for our students that have higher needs. We have 162 students who are receiving speech and language services. We have 61 students who are receiving social work services. So here's just some updates and things that have been happening in my arena. So, the first thing I wanted to share is prior to me being here, the
district was given two corrective action plans from the Department of Education. So those were findings that they found, for Mount Clemens that we were out of compliance in. So the first one was issued in February 2025 for timely IEPs. So our students that have disabilities within the school setting, every twelve months, they have to have their IEP meeting held, update all their present levels of performance and things like that.
I'm happy to share that actually yesterday, that corrective action plan was closed out and approved by, MDE. So we just got that news yesterday. We have worked very hard this school year on compliance and making sure that we are doing things in a timely manner and not just for the sake of compliance, but that's also what is best for kids. So we're happy with that. Yay. Thank you. And then our second corrective action plan that was given to us was in May 2025 for transition planning, which we submitted a progress report in November 2025.
And our final submission for that is coming up in March, and I'm confident that we'll be able to close that out as well, and do what is best for students in that sense, too. Another thing we've really been working on this year is the least restrictive environment. That's kind of a buzzword in special education and education in general. Right now, really looking at the student and seeing where we can best serve them while also trying to keep them around their general education peers as much as possible.
So something I've really been emphasizing with the staff is the continuum of services that MDE offers, looking at all the different ways that we can service students, whether that is in the classroom or pulling them out. So a few highlights there. At the elementary level, some of our students in our self contained programs have had opportunities to participate in inclusion time with their general education peers, whether that's specials, lunch, recess, some amounts of academic time.
And at the end of the day, that benefits everybody. It benefits our students in special education so they can be around positive peer role models, be exposed to grade level content. And then it also teaches our students in general education some empathy and some leadership as well. So that really benefits all of our students. At the secondary level, we've been utilizing the co teaching model more this year. So instead of pulling out all of our students that have an IEP and a disability for reading or math, we have a general education teacher and a special education
teacher in the same classroom teaching, a class mixed with all students. So again, instead of removing them, we're trying to be more inclusive. And then something else we've really been working on is just routines and procedures in general. So with the corrective action plan of timely IEPs, we've really been working on holding those at least two weeks before they're due. So that's just a whole shift in culture. And I really appreciate the staff because they've been hustling, this first half of the
school year, getting things where they need to be. So I really appreciate them and all their hard work they've put in for us. We've also been working on setting our documents to review, so I am able to give feedback on things that our staff are writing just to make sure that everything is written appropriately and just best practices moving forward as well. I've also had the opportunity to work at both the elementary and secondary level in the child study process. So if we have a student that we have concerns about, whether that's behaviorally, socially,
speech, academically, we kind of come together as a team and come up with a game plan for our students. And that doesn't always necessarily mean a special education evaluation right away. We really try to focus on making sure that we exhaust all of our options and just try supports within the general education setting before we move right to an evaluation. So that is what we have been up to, and, that's all I got. Thank you. It's alright. It's okay. It's fine. One of the things that she just ended on and and and if you've been
to a meeting before, heard a meeting, or watched a meeting, you know am I am I okay. I'm sorry. You know that that was one of when I first got here and did my assessment of where we were, this was one of the issues. My findings, early on were that we, I believe, were sometimes identifying students that have disabilities just because of their behavior. And that's not just unique to us. That happens in a lot of places across The United States, unfortunately. And unfortunately, sometimes, not all the time, sometimes when students or kids or people in
general get a label of having a disability, unconsciously, we lower expectations. I've seen. Not always, but it happens. And, so we want to do our due diligence to make sure we are correctly identifying students' needs, and making sure that we are, really setting them up for success in the future. And part of one of Alyssa's challenges that she has taken on and been doing a great job with is just that making sure we have a to to eliminate that, having a child study process in place, which is a team of people coming
together, people that work with these students, and they talk about different strategies, what may work for you, what may what doesn't work for you, what are you what success you're having with this student goes a long way. Because we'll oftentimes, we'll find out, well, you know, in my classroom, I don't see that side of that student. Those things don't happen or they put in more effort, but then they'll get in another classroom and not do it. And so maybe there's something else in between there. Maybe it's on a certain day. And so the child study process really helps identify not just what's going on with them, but strategies that, other adults and staff members that work with those students may
wanna utilize and, implement in their environments with the kid. So it's a it's really important. And then and and in all actuality, every student, every person, I believe And our district should have a a educational plan. Right? It doesn't make you have a disability, but we all need a plan. And I think all of our students need a plan. That's something that we have discussed, with our especially with our secondary, and from our in our counseling department of making sure we have a an academic, plan for all
of our students. So just a little something I wanna share with you. It was shared with me at the ISD. We actually were just I just got an email yesterday. I'm very proud of all of the efforts. I know the elementary. I haven't I don't know if I shared this with miss McNeely, Tina yet, and your team or even our team. I I don't know if I sent the email, but I got an email yesterday from the Michigan Department of Education, and they because of our our decrease in chronically absent, absenteeism in chronically absent students, they want us to we've been selected if we
would like to go and do a presentation to the rest of the state on our efforts and initiatives that we have taken to impact our chronic absenteeism. So I think that deserves a big round of applause for everybody involved. So when we talk about all of these things that we're doing, students can't learn or grow academically if they're not here. And as you can see, this data, I don't have to go through this exact chart, every detail with you, but at the end of the day, we have decreased in the number of chronically absent students. And chronically absent is, I believe, ten percent. They've missed 10 of whatever window we're looking at the school year or a period
of time that we're looking at. And as you know, that's a lot of of, of missed time in school, a lot of instructional time lost. And think about it, especially for a student that may already have some deficiencies or some gaps. So you add in another twenty days of school, and I'm already behind. Some are lost and everything. I mean, it just compounds and, we need our kids in school. So the elementary is and and the secondary are doing a lot of positive behavior interventions and supports and celebrations, and other bribing tech techniques to get our kids to wanna come to school.
And I won't steal Tina's miss McNeely's thunder because I know she's gonna talk about it, but we're very proud and we were honored to, get asked to present on the strategies that we are implementing, with the state. It may not seem like a big number, but that's a big jump when you go from, 84% to 62%. Am I reading it right? Chronically absent. From '69 to '62, and you see in '21, '22, we're at 71. So we're headed in the right direction. If our kids are here, they can learn. If they're not here, it doesn't happen.
District enrollment. We talk about this regularly at our board meetings, and so this is this is just it together. One thing I'm proud of, and I say this this is a personal thing, and I'll go on the record and say this. Robbie's gonna kill. I don't typically do a good job of celebrating. Right? I think it's a humility thing, but at the same time, the work is never done. But it's important. It's important for the people out there that are working, their butts off every day, to make sure our kids are successful and and hear sick and doing things and going over and beyond. And so, I I I need to do a better job of that.
I just I just never I'm never complacent and and the and the job is never done. And so one of the things I I am very proud of, and it's because of all of the things that you have heard and you'll continue to hear tonight, is that, you know, we are one of the few districts in this county that has increased enrollment for three years consecutively. I don't I don't care what district you name. You go look it up. And so no knock on them. Enrollment is declining across the country everywhere. We're probably one of the very few schools anywhere that has increased enrollment, three years
consecutively. So that goes to so I'm very proud of that. I'm very proud of you if you've been here or you read before we got here, the narrative of what it was. Enrollment was declining rapidly over a number of years, and so I don't care if we go up two kids. Or when I first got here, I was just hopeful that we stop the bleed. Alright? Let's just pause. And so as you can see, to increase year after year, and it lets us know that we're doing something right. Parents and community are trusting us and coming back. We have kids that are coming back from districts, that left us initially.
We have kids that are coming for the first time. And it's all the things that you're hearing socially, emotionally, and academically that I think are contributing to that. At the end of the day, the number one marketing strategy is how you treat kids and and what you do by those families. And at the end of that, we'll increase our enrollment. We don't have a big marketing budget. We don't spend a whole bunch of money on marketing. We do some things. We are very proud of our billboard on CAS, I must say. I am at least. But it is how we treat people and what we do and how we, treat
our students and expectations we have for our students and how we treat our families that is driving our our increase in enrollment. So thank you to all of our staff, our customer service teams, which are the people at the front door, from our our secretaries to our our security. That's the first line of defense. Everybody has value. Everyone contributes to this. Our custodians, their expectations are just like our teachers. They'll tell you. That's why out here cleaning now, our kids deserve to come to school in a clean and safe environment. I don't care I I grew up poor. You've some of you heard this story, but we were clean, and I didn't know
it. I didn't know we were poor because we were clean. Our kids, it I don't care what funding we have or don't have, it still can be clean. And so the expectation, for our our custodial staff is the same as the expectation for our principals. They all have the, equally impact, equal impact on, our students' experiences here. So I'm very proud of that. We should be proud of that as a district. And, hopefully, we I'm very hopeful if we keep doing the right thing, those numbers will continue to increase. Facilities and operations, that's when I talked about restructuring, one of the things we did
to lighten the load on some of our central office staff is I became the the operations, director, and I've taken that on. And, actually, it was it's been a great experience because I've gotten a lot of insight and things that I don't think the average superintendent will get to experience when you have somebody else doing that. And so it's it's been able to give me some behind the scenes, information and insight insight that has been very helpful for making decisions for us, and sustainable decisions. Operations building assessments were done during our bond work, as you all know, and we
were provided with a a list of priorities. Considering our contingency plan with the bond not passing, we will begin to work on some of our critical needs. So you all know we went out for a bond, and we're still here, like I had said, after the bond didn't pass. And we're and we're growing. And one of the things that we have to do now is with our resources that we have, we have to begin to start taking care of our infrastructure. Our buildings are old. Our things need to be updated. Our kids deserve the best. And, we're gonna do everything we can to make sure our resources align with, giving them the great experiences.
So when we went out for the when we did the bond work, the preliminary work, like I said, we got a priority list for all all those of you that don't know. And so there are some things that have to happen immediately, and they they kinda they label them, like, priority one, two, and three. And so we are gonna begin to target some of those priority ones. A lot of those have to do with safety, and with throughout our district. So you'll begin to see some we'll go through our process of bids and opening up some some things for our students, for our campuses to make sure our students have, the best facilities that we can provide them.
Preventative maintenance is happening. Routine HVAC lighting and and restroom checks are ongoing to reduce emergency repairs. And so because of, us being small and because of, our resources, it's imperative that we're proactive. I talk about this all the time. And so our our custodial staff, our maintenance staff, they are constantly assessing. We're constantly asking where we are, how we're doing, because any day a boiler can go down, something major can happen, and it's a it's a different game. We're in a good place right now, thanks to our our CFO and and the
and the measures she has taken that we could probably weather a storm in the event something happened, catastrophic. And so we're we're we're pretty confident with that. However, when you spend money, it goes away. So, work order process, everything that we do, just to give you a little background, it's it's not just you see something has to get fixed. Our facilities director, excuse me, Alicia miss Alicia is very has been very tough on us because we wanna track the data. Right? Everything that we do, as you know, is to be, data driven.
So even when it comes to maintenance and facilities, things are data driven. So when when there are needs, they have to be put into a system, and then we can track how many times this has gone out, how many times we had to service this. And then we get a we get an understanding and use that in you know, to, be intentional with the direction and the things we need to focus on. So it's important. And and our staff knows that if you need something done, it has to go into our FMX system, and then we get, you know, we get it serviced or whatever. But we're tracking that data constantly so we can be ahead of the game and proactive when it comes to ensuring, that our facilities are are up and running and
and and we don't have to close and, you know, because of a a a mechanical issue, and our kids can be in school every day. Winter readiness, right, snow and ice response plans, entry. Maddie, as you came in the door, we have, we are working with Centaize now, and you'll see the throughout the building. We didn't really have too many of them, but every rug, we have rugs and mats throughout the building, that have the MC logo on them. And they look cool, but it actually is for safety. And it's also to to to protect our the inside of our school, our our
floors, and and within our classrooms. Transportation. You all know that we, outsource our transportation, and we work with Divergent. Divergent, so far, overall, has been doing a a good job. We haven't had many challenges with Divergent. When there have been some, they've been addressed, right away. And transportation is always one of those things that's never perfect. But, things are going, well with them right now. And so our families have the opportunity to to sign up. If they if they can receive transportation, they can sign up online. There's a QR code. They scan it. It tells them they're stopped, and they register for transportation if they are provided transportation.
So, we're we're excited about the continued opportunity of getting our kids here. Uh-oh. Safety and security. So as as you all know, is we have to have, safety and security is our priority. Not just we we talk about our students a lot, but for all of us. It it is the number one priority. So, from and safety, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally as well. From an operations perspective, we're talking about the physical pieces. So we are in compliance with all of our drills, at every building every year at the beginning of the year.
Miss McNeely and mister Ville have to send to the state, dates and the calendar of when they're gonna have every drill for the year. And sometimes, mother nature doesn't act right and and things happen, but, those drills have to happen. So we're in compliance with those things. And one of the other things that we're very, that we were very intentional with was having emergency operation plan. So we're glad to say that that was a goal of ours. We've developed emergency operation plans at both campuses, and we begin and we continue to meet to try to update those on as needed basis. There are some physical things because of the bond didn't pass at the secondary campus.
If if for you elementary folks, you know, like I don't know if you really pay attention, but when you come into the elementary, you gotta get buzzed in a couple of times. Right? Here, you come in that front door, you're in here. So one of the things we did until we, are able to develop our secure and safe vestibule entry, we, we got a metal detector, not because we had issue, because we wanna be proactive. The biggest thing that metal detector, helps with is cell phones. Right? So our sixth graders can no longer have cell phones in the building. They have to turn them in in the morning. And so that's actually, that's what we catch the most.
Would you say, mister Bill? Cell phone. And so, our six that's been going really well. And, with that addition and and so our kids turning our sixth graders have to turn their cell phones in every morning. They're in lockboxes, and then they're delivered to, back to the students at the end of the day. And that I'm I'm I'm really pleased because we went back and forth on how that was gonna be received. Out of our whole, sixth grade class, we only had two parents that called and inquired to have something to say. And so at the end of the day, I think that they see the the positive impact. But we'll continue to assess our our physical needs. Like I said, there are gonna be some big projects hopefully happening soon.
We're gonna engage with the board, put our plan in place. I mean, we need a we need a track. We need a a number of things that are, have a huge impact on our kids' experience and safety here. So, we'll be looking forward to those things coming your way soon. Now for the fun stuff, and she loves to present and talk to audiences and crowds. So I'm a ask missus Dawes to come up, our our CFO, and talk to us about our finance and our resources. For the finance, I just wanted to talk and do a recap on the audit
review that we had for the 2425 school year. The reflection from the 2425 audit was, an improvement in physical controls documentation and overall financial stewardship resulting in a clean audit opinion. At that time, in June, we have to present the final audit for 2425 and also an estimated for this school 2526.
And at that time, we estimated, FTE of 789 students, and the foundation rate of nine thousand six zero eight. That FTE, reflected a decrease in students, but the result from our fall count was, 826 FTE. So that was an increase, and we also received an increase in state aid, $10,050.
So with that projection, when we come to the amendment of the budget, we'll be adding, roughly $600,000 to the amendment time. We still are unknown on the final allocation for federal funding. And we set aside 2,000,000 for capital improvements, which mister Roper had talked about, for
the track and other, facility improvements. Our next step would be the budget amendment, and we'd like to get the allocation from or the approval from MDE for the final budget allocations and approval before we turn that amendment to the board. And our focus is to maintain a sound and physically responsible budget. Next is the human resource. With the transition from mister Lavender retirement.
We combine that an HR team of myself, and then we have miss l, miss Holliday, and miss Meador. And we have made some progress in strengthening of processes and procedures. We're trying to keep a consistency and compliance and skill building with our team and teaching staff overview. We have district employees, 45.8,
and the point eight comes from a part time position. Standard, interim and certified teachers, out of that 45.8, 39.8 have certifications, and that's an increase from last school year. We have a CTE authorization for HVAC, one teacher, and, five of the 45.8
are full year permits, and they're all pursuing their teaching certification. There's a list of current posted positions on the website, and I've also listed them here. That has decreased from the prior year. And we also have a number of other positions besides the teaching positions, for para pros, grant clerks, athletic coaches.
And then the next step with the human resources is tomorrow we will start our negotiations with the MEA, and we'll start that process talking about the language in the contract and then ending with the comp compensation piece, which we will our goal is to be competitive and responsible with the budget. That's it.
Thank you, miss Dahl. And so, really quick, another celebration is when I first started here, we had jobs that were posted. We couldn't even get people to apply. So the fact that, we didn't have, I would say I don't have the exact number in front of me. A number of our staff and and and, more importantly, a number of our teachers in front of students were not certified. We had some, but we had a high number of, non certified students.
And that's not always a bad thing. Sometimes we got some diamonds in the rough and they end up becoming teachers and they do a great job. Sometimes they do an excellent job. And we try to recruit those folks, but we're proud that we have increased, almost nine staff certified teachers. It is important in in this environment where we are trying to, where we're it's considered a a transformational turnaround situation. Our the students need the most equipped. Right? You need the most skill when you're dealing, with students in our community. And so, for whatever reason over the years, there's been a struggle to get people
to even apply for jobs. So So we've been happy to add a lot of these positions. And as you can see, our our emphasis is on our students. Right? A lot of these positions directly impact our kids. You don't see a lot of, a lot of fluff, a lot of we need things that are gonna directly impact our kids. So social workers, teachers, certified. We're happy we had a interview with a certified, social worker, today. And, hopefully, if the second round of interviews go well, they they may be joining our our team, and that'd be for our high school special educate our secondary special
education. We've already brought back miss Monk, as you heard earlier, who was, a lot from what I'm told, a legend in this community as a social worker, and she's here with us at the secondary part time. And so it's just important that I want people to know that our emphasis is is on what's directly impacting our kids every day. I don't care if it's teachers. Our union, we meet regularly. We have conversations and dialogue regularly, and they know that my focus, which is our focus, is on how can we do what's best for our staff, teachers, and our students. If we can the ideal is if if if we can make this a great
place where people wanna work, it'll be a great experience for our kids. Right? Those things go hand in hand. And so it is important that we get the right people on the, on the bus, but in the right more importantly, in the right seats on the bus. So there's been a lot of movement. Some people say, oh, you have some turnover. If you've heard me talk for two seconds, you know my philosophy is I can coach you up or coach you out. I would likely I I it's easier to coach you up. That means you have to have a growth mindset and be willing to to get be uncomfortable. But for those people that decided to leave us, we wish them well. It it this isn't for them anymore.
And, I'm sure there was there were students that have needs in other places, but, the standard of excellence means just that. Right? And if and excellence is being defined by me and and by this board and by this community. And so we are no longer accepting anything less, and we we were not there yet, and we have a long way to go. But we're very proud of the leaps that we have taken in the short amount of time and, look forward to the rest, to keep coming. Now for the most exciting part, we're gonna get to our building level presentations if they're still awake back there.
And we'll start with our our our preschool. Is miss Lou here? She's back oh, I see you back there, Lou. Calling up. So I have miss Lou come and talk about our g s GSRP new name, something for all. Pre k for all. They new names. Same people, new name, though. That's a a state thing. Alright. Luke, take it away. I also I just wanna take a moment and thank everyone who coordinated the wellness massages today over at Seminole. I was able to participate. Made a world of difference for the rest of my day. So I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who was involved in
making that happen. It is. Presentation. Cyclic present. Maybe it will just go up there. Great start readiness program. That has been our title since it started. We are transitioning from GSRP, which is an acronym that people don't totally understand what Great Start Readiness program is. So readiness program we're getting ready for kindergarten. Pre k for all, it's going to be our new universal title officially next fall. That one is very self explanatory. Pre k for all.
We offer free preschool for every child in in the state of Michigan. That is what the governor has asked me about. That is what she has put put through to get funding for us. Last year, 46 of our 65 students who attended GSRP last year are now enrolled in Seminole kindergarten program. That is seventy one percent of the population that we had in our program did transfer and did stay within Seminole and Mount Pleasant School District.
We are now going to start tracking that each year so we can see that our goal obviously is to increase that number each year for us. In twenty twenty two, twenty three, that's when I started, we had 72 children in GSIP. 2324, we had 80 students. Macomb ISD, received extra funding from from Lansing, and we were able to get our numbers up to 80. That was also the year that we went from four days a week to five
days a week. And we are one of a few school districts that do offer transportation and that has been a very big draw for our families because we go from their driveway to the driveway of Seminole. They don't have to walk to a corner when therefore it actually comes unless for some reason the school bus cannot get into your complex and turn around, then you may have to go to the front of the complex to get on the bus. But we do provide door to door services.
In 2425, we had 65 students. Currently, this year, we are at 52 students. That is just as of this week. We had two students start this week. So we continue to take in new students whether they move into our district. For whatever reason, they were home. Mom and dad decided they needed to be in preschool to get ready for kindergarten. So our numbers, the 52, continue to increase. We started in September 2 with only 24 students in our program.
So we continue to increase with that. And we can we can increase all the way up through June. We can take new students every single day. Myself, my secretary is Terry Friskelli. She is our new secretary, but she was with our program five years ago. And when I had a vacancy in our program, I reached out to her asking her if she would consider coming back and she did. We have four classrooms, Marissa Hilligast, Kelly Ward, Deanna Watson, Kim Stencil, Maddie Watson, Aline
Gatson, Ashley Robinson, and Shonda Donaldson. These are all staff members, teachers who have been with GSRP. Kelly has been is the youngest one. She's been with us for two years. Miss Gatson and myself, we've been with the district for eleven. Miss Gatson's been with Mount Clemens for twelve years. So the consistency, the continuity of our staff is making a big difference with our families. This is based on the curriculum that we use which is called teaching strategies. It's hard to read and I apologize the numbers are small, but what we do
is we have social, emotional, physical, and language. We have and this is just from September to December 1. K. So we have three months of information with that. 35% don't have my best. That would be 35%, below expectations. We have 65 as of in three months that are meeting expectations. So what we do, we will continue to work with our curriculum. Thank you.
We will continue to work with our curriculum to get everyone to be exceeding expectations. And we do a, a report the December 1, March 31, June 1. So each board each time we have a board meeting when those grading periods are coming through, I will be showing you a new graph. This is something new for our program so that everyone can track what we're doing in order to get these children ready for kindergarten. We also do cognitive literacy and mathematics.
So we have six areas of academic development for our students. In in September, they're all learning how to follow directions, how to share, take turns, making, friends within the classrooms. Just some of the pictures. We went to, we had Stan the fireman come to Seminole. We do a train fire engine train ride, and he also does a presentation to get the children to understand that in case of a a fire, you have a
fireman coming in with a big equipment, a big uniform. It can be scary because of the helmet. We want them to feel comfortable that if, God forbid, that there is a fire, they know that it's okay to see a fireman coming into the house to make them safe. In October, we went to the apple orchard and we had Halloween parties. You can see this year we dressed up as Doctor Seuss in Cat in the Hat. So that's, the apple orchard. They enjoy. We had competition among the the students and the staff as to who could climb
the, bales of hay the quickest. In November, there are just we, have the format so that they've learned as a reinforcement. They're learning their letters. They're learning what to write. They're doing yoga exercises. The children are really benefiting from doing the yoga because it helps them to center their energy in order to to be able to sit down in a small group or a large group and do their academic studies. This is, pajama day for them.
They always enjoy. And tomorrow is another pajama day, so we will be enjoying that with their, bright holiday, concert pajamas coming in. And in December, Santa came to visit us just last week. That is a good picture of him. The children enjoy seeing them because not everyone can go to the mall or has access to seeing Santa. Again, we give them exposure that they may have in their family and or they may not. And we found out a year ago, we did Santa in the evening.
Our families weren't all able to come back to school for 05:00 and we provided dinner. This year, we did it in the classroom during the school day and we had every child was present. We did not have one absent for that. So, and each month we do a field trip whether it's in the house or whether we're going out. In January, we're going to Imagine Theatre. Again, to give our our children an exposure to the community to see what's out
there, not just in their school or in their home. So any questions? I I have a question. Sure. So why did why was there a decrease between '23, '24 till now? Like, we went from 80 and then down to 65 and now we're at 52. So The, the year that we had 80 Yeah. Was the year that Macomb, the ISD Yeah. Opened 100 more GSRP programs. Okay. So when you open a 100 new buildings Mhmm.
Class and that's not class that's not classroom. That is actual buildings Mhmm. With, you know But but even so, we we we decreased from last year and nothing, like, nothing changed. Nothing changed. Do you so is there marketing that's happening for the GSRP side of it? Oh, we're getting plenty of marketing. Anybody who calls the ISD, we are the first school listed. The school I'll I'll give you an example. Okay? Chippewa Valley, I don't know what their enrollment numbers are.
Mhmm. They have four GSRP classrooms for the whole district. Okay? Our district has four classrooms. Mhmm. Our numbers are a whole lot smaller, but we have we offer four classrooms. So anytime somebody wants to come into a GSRP program Mhmm. They they call the ISD and the ISD refers them to us. That is why our numbers continue to increase almost on a weekly basis.
We had two more started this week. So I I I think we'll Pete has missed it like last year because I was asking questions too. That numbers will grow by the end of this year. It'll be higher than post to the number last year. They Okay. Those are the end of the year numbers that you saw. So those numbers will grow throughout the year. Yeah. Okay. So we're expecting a 165? Whatever. Are they gonna be here? So the thing that's a hard thing for us to capture because there's so much funding and there are head start programs popping up at every corner that you churn because of the the state funding that has been given to those programs.
The the county is inundated with, Head Start programs and so Head Start. I'm sorry? GSRP. They're very Head Start. Head Start. But, we're confident that it'll grow throughout the year. Yeah. Do we do we track whether they're in district or out of district for GSRP? Yes. Your resident? Yeah. I don't have that number in front of me right now, but I will have it for the next meeting. Yeah. That'd be great. That'd be good to know because I know a lot of people on the West. And that's I mean, one this is the first year we're tracking of how many from last year Yep. Continued in Seminole.
Yep. And I'm going to, work on getting the numbers of our current students. How many are in district and how many are out of district. We actually have several that are out of district. And the parents don't mind driving because of the fact that we are five days a week all day. Yeah. We offer breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack. Not all the GSRPs, some of them are still at only a four day a week program. And that fifth day is critical. Because as soon as they find out that we have five days, they don't care
how far they have to drive. Yep. So they they they will come. Our number there is no doubt in my mind that our numbers will continue, you know. Just because, like I said, we we started too new this week and it's the week before the Christmas break. Right. So I know I know that our numbers will be going up. Okay. Thank you. One of the things I wanna add before before you can go ahead, miss. But one of the that's already they took it out. That's it. Okay. One of the things I wanna add to that is, we have a unique opportunity having that right in our right?
So we have a potential we're trying to track that and mask and move it. Let's find out how many of those kids we retained within our district because we potentially and and I've had a conversation with with miss McNeely. Miss McNeely, one of our goals is to ultimately get the collaboration between our our kindergarten teachers and our GSRP teachers so we can get early jump on some of those gaps potentially. So we can help that transition Academically, our kids can can be more prepared coming
in because you we know that all the what the research says about their early childhood experience is the most critical. That that where they start and how they come in the kindergarten is is the most critical predictor of their success in K through 12. So, we we got the opportunity to be in right in our building and we're gonna work to build on that that transition in that relationship. That was it. Thanks a little. Thank you. Well, I'll break you up. This is Bealey. She is not feeling the best today. So I appreciate her for persevering and being here.
And this is Bealey's second year of seminar. Some of you may have known her known her from being a principal here initially, and part of our, our shifts and changes to do what's best for our kids and our community was, getting miss McNeely down, miss missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus missus miss Seminole and me.
I appreciate you. Okay. One wonderful thing. We've had a lot of wonderful things happening at Seminole this year. We're off to an awesome start. We did work really hard, myself and a team to, this summer to make sure that we had, all our our staff issues, taken care of. We did get 10 new teachers, this year. So our whole first grade staff, all three of those teachers, miss Taylor, miss Bishop, and miss Brisbane are all new, and they're a really nice, good team working well
together. Miss Parmentier, our DK teacher is also new. We have, our third grade team, miss, miss Fuller, miss Wood. They're all new as well, as well as miss Kowalke and miss Sullivan. So and then miss Besedo in our stem position. So we started off strong, I feel, with a really good team. It feels different this year at Seminole. Kids are in class. Kids are learning. They're enjoying themselves. I think teachers are a really good cohesive, team.
They're supporting each other, and I think they're enjoying being there as well. And then this is also our, special education and our support staff that's there. I won't, read all of them to you. And then, the rest of the support staff that we have. So they're all essential and wonderful. Our enrollment. So this is the ECSE enrollment. So, follow it's, you know, pretty steady there. 23. There were 41 students. Now that's AM and PM students.
That's actual, children. 44 last year and 40 this year. And our enrollment in, the k through five. And, we're trending up there in in second grade. Some nice jumps in second grade. Third grade, about the same, trending up in fourth grade as well. And then we're up in fifth grade compared to last year also. Alright. Total enrollment overall, it is pretty close. We were with ECSE, last year.
We are 445. This year, we are 449. So we are up, four, which is good news. And then some, achievement scores. So NWEA. First is math. Now these are the initials. So these are, the scores that we had beginning. So this is our starting point, first yep. When they first came in in September, the first couple weeks. So this is our starting point, so we know where we're starting, and then we are definitely going to be improving from there.
We had some really strong second, third, fourth, and fifth grade starts, compared to last year. We do know that in first grade, there's a little bit of a a dip from kindergarten to first grade. We do know that in first grade, they are transitioning from using an iPad, to using the computer. So there is some learning that occurs with them on how to manipulate and take the test. So, we're gonna work with maybe the kindergarten teachers with, having their kindergarten students work
a little bit with, the computers of the, the Chromebooks. So they're used to that. You said that we had three new first grade teachers. So these three, first grade teachers, were they employed at the time of this, proficiency test, the NWEAs? Two of the three were. Uh-huh. Yes. So it wasn't fully staffed? Or It was fully staffed. We did have three certified, and then a teacher left, but then we replaced we were lucky enough to replace her right away. Okay. Okay? And this was also the Two certified to three.
No. They were all three. Math. All three now. Yep. Yep. So that's math, and this is reading. Really strong in second grade and fourth grade as well. Now, again, this is our just our starting point so we know, what we have to work on and, improve from there. So my what I'm most excited about. So we, as a a team kinda discussed what we wanna really wanted to focus on the school year, that could make the greatest impact with our students.
So we decided to focus on attendance because, when our students are here at school, they're going to learn. If they're not here, then they can't learn. So that's where all our energy was because we know that's gonna get our best bang for our buck. And, again, if they're here, they're gonna learn. So, we, have implemented a couple things that are pretty exciting here. So, last time last year when I presented, it was, I I showed it was
kind of negative, like, the number of students who, had poor attendance. This year, I am super super beyond excited to share that this compared to last year to this year. So the the blue is last year. So this is the number of students who had positive attendance. So they had fewer than 10% of their days missing. K? The red is this year. So we went from fifteen percent of our kindergarteners last year, to 71% of our
kindergarteners, have less than, 10% missing of the school year. 13% of our first grade students last year, so it's the same time period. 72% now, 25% of our, our second grade last year to 73% of our second graders are at school, 23% of our third grade last year to 70% this year, 30% of our fourth grade to 79% of our fourth grade students are coming to school, and, 13 of the fifth grade to 80% are getting there.
And I am just beyond excited. I I just I'm so excited about it. It's yeah. That everyone is doing, like, everything. I think it it the teachers can see it. The kids can see it. They're excited. So And I have this. Yeah. This wasn't just this is what's this is really shared. This is also a goal that we set down at the end of the year and reviewed and looked at her data. This was a target area for her personally as a principal because the attendance was was really bad last year. And so I just don't wanna oversight the the intentionality behind what you did.
You know, it was very intentional and what that team is doing, to target that because we looked at the data and kids were in school for whatever reason. Whether they were just absent, suspended, whatever the case may be, they weren't there. And so it was very intentional Mhmm. With with what the team is doing. Okay. So the first thing that we decided to do, is to it's our bikes for attendance program that we're doing. So what we are doing is, every week when a student has been there every day that week, they get a ticket, and we make it a big deal.
They get to put it in the bucket at lunchtime. There's all kinds of tickets going in there. So they have, four opportunities in a month, to get a ticket in the drawing. And then at the end of the month, we do a drawing, for bikes. We're also throwing in some other cool things. Like this month, we did, we had some extra, Mont Coleman sweatshirts. So we gave away, some sweatshirts for those kids who are also coming to school and getting their their tickets in there. So it's just it's so much fun.
The kids are so excited to have an opportunity to get a bike. They are telling their parents that they wanna come to school because they wanna get a bike. So, we are giving away at least two bikes every month. We have given away seven so far, and that is thanks to, the First United Methodist Church who has made a donation, Ken Elkins' agency, Zebra Canine, the Communication Workers of America, and a very special silent donor, who has, who has given us bikes
that we can last through the school year. So but we are always willing to take more donations and get more bikes to to more kids. So that's just I think this one picture is, like, he's so excited about a sweatshirt. Like, his feet aren't even on the ground there. So awesome. Another thing that we're doing is, we a best day ever, which is a food truck, coming. So, these kids got to get a pretzel from the food truck. There's another food truck coming very soon. I don't wanna give it away, but, it's a it's a surprise day when it
happens, and we just say best day ever. And, the kids who have had really good attendance, get to go out and get, a, a pretzel. So we'll be doing that a couple more times this year as well. We are also doing, silent mentoring. So every person, in the building has a, a student that they are silently mentoring. And so, what we did is we had a staff meeting, where I put the names of all of our students who had, last year, had some attendance issues that
we were concerned about. I posted all their names in the cafeteria during a staff meeting, gave all the staff, some stars. And what they did is they put a star in the name of the student that they felt that they had a, a relationship with. And then I collected those and the, names of students who had very few or no, stars, those are the students that we are focusing on because we believe and we know that if students, have someone that they, can trust and that, they look
forward to seeing and knows, looks forward to seeing them, that they have a connection that they'll come to school. So, these the staff have been, kind of the and the kids don't know that they're being mentored, thus the silent part. So, they you know, it's a might be an an extra hug or just an extra, conversation with the student, but just letting the students know that we someone in the building does see them and care about them and want them to be there. And then the other thing that we were doing to help with, attendance, was looking
at discipline a different way. So we have I think this is a a really good drop in attendance, or I'm sorry, not attendance, discipline from last year. So from '23, there were 58, suspensions to 52 the same time last year to 27 this year. Great. So a really good drop. We're being really intentional with making sure that, that we're keeping kids in school, as much as possible. And so some of the things that we're doing about that, is we're focusing on
intervention. We have still have our PBIS roar cart. That's where kids get a a ticket with punches for when they're doing something positive. They get rewarded for that, and then they get to go and spend those punches in the library. We added a restorative classroom, so, kind of put miss Dickinson in a different kind of a role in a different space, so that she can have a space where she can work with kids that are having issues in the classroom and kind of restore their relationships, help them to see what they could do differently next time, and just kind of build on relationships there instead of, sending them home.
We're also using conscious discipline, and, we are implementing paper people with the care of Southeastern Michigan as well. So that's a social emotional program that works with, our, preschool through second grade, excuse me, students. We are also, implementing monthly character traits, which focuses on our student of the month. So for September, we have focused on safety, and October was respect, November gratitude, December kindness, and January is responsibility.
So we're being very intentional, with teaching the students about these, traits. We're, we have miss Patty and mister Fringer. They read a story every month, have discussions with the kids, and then it goes back to the classroom where they also focus on, the learning that they had and reinforce it there. And then we reinforce it in all other aspects of the school. And then the student of the month, who does the pizza with the principal at the end of the month are those students who have, exemplified whatever trait we're working
on that month. So some of our celebrations oops. Oh, well, my uh-oh. I'm going the wrong way. Nope. Just hit the air arrow back on the computer. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Okay. So we did have our McLaren, physicians come out again this year and do, the the mobile unit, and visit. So you see some of our kids interacting with the the doctors there. And those same physicians did donate a whole lot of Lysol wipes, a whole pallet
there of wipes to keep us not sick, though doesn't work all the time. We had the Reptarium come and do a visit with the kids. And, we had that was the first annual trunk or treat celebration this year. It was so much fun. We had so much fun. Mister Fringer and I were six seven, which is the the big. It was it was a blast. We had a a lot of fun. Yeah. And, this is our Giving Tree, that we have.
We so this is a couple pictures. There was, we did have a delivery, tonight just tonight, this afternoon, from the Monzo Realty, and they had to rent a U Haul, to bring all the presents that they're giving to our kids. So, a lot more than this. This is just a tiny snapshot. But, we did, get donations for our students from Kensington, First United Methodist Church, Seminole staff, Monzo Realty, Macomb County Sheriff's Bicycle Unit, Junia Querio and Friends on the Mount
Clements central office helped as well. And we, did get gifts for 22 families, which included 75 kids. So, that is fantastic and headed all up by mister Fringer. So thank you, mister Fringer, for that. And, our last exciting thing is we have our Scripps Howard book fair coming back again. They'll be the books are already there. And when the kids return from, break, every student in the building will get to choose five books for free, to take home, and then they'll come back again in
March. So, no cost to anybody. So it's really fantastic that we get to get all those books in the hands of our kids and get them to take them. And I think that was it. Yeah. That's it. Okay. Alright. So next, we have our secondary pistol, mister Bill, come up. One of the things that this transition, I wanna just make sure, is acknowledged or highlighted. One of the the shifts that we have made and been intentional with trying to to to make, district wide culturally is the mindset behind behavior.
Right? And, misbehavior and all the negative connotations that we hear. And so while our kids have a lot of a lot of challenges, you know, we we kind of use some of the practices from the research, in a book that's called Changeable. And then that mindset with, behavior, it isn't why'd you do that. Why did a student do that? The the question is what happened to them? Right? And so it's a positive look at when kids are are having challenges or have some challenging times. We're trying to figure out what happened. And and the ideal behind it is that a lot of us say this often,
or I know I've said it often that, they make some bad choices. But the mindset is a little different, and we're shift trying to shift from it's not the kids making bad choices. They lack the skills. Right? They don't have the ability to communicate when they're in the emotional state of mind, when they're in survival mode. Right? And so as we work with conscious discipline throughout the district, it teaches not just us, but it teaches our students the three brain states. So we're trying to work to make sure students understand that they can identify when they're in survival mode, emotional state of mind, or the executive state of mind, and then do something, then build their skills to do something different.
And and I'm very, I really push the principles to be mindful of when you're doing PBIS, positive behavior intervention supports. A lot of times in my experience, those things turn into dangling the carrot. Right? So if you do good and do this, we're gonna give you this treat. Well, as soon as that treat is gone and that teacher's absent, what happens to the the the behavior? And And so they've been doing a good job at being intentional with, acknowledging all kids first and foremost and and making sure that that narrative doesn't become the the practice unconsciously sometimes. And so I'll turn it over to mister Bill, secondary principal.
Thank you. Alright. Good evening, everybody. Good. Alright. So we'll get started, talking about middle school enrollment. As you can see, our numbers have increased, over the last three years from, school year at 2324. Was at a 142 kids from middle school. And now year 2526, as of today, we're at one seventy. For high school, the same trend in the same direction. In '23, we had 227 students, and now we're up to 251 up to date. Moving along into, NWEA data and some student achievement data.
I'd like to highlight, the percentage of students that we have on the honor roll. We have 113 total high school students that made honor roll at 46%, and our average GPA for high school is a 2.6. There is a further breakdown of each grade. Ninth grade, 31% of our students made the honor roll. Tenth grade, 50% of the tenth grade students made the honor roll. And for the eleventh grade, 38% of the eleventh grade students made it. And then 59% of twelfth graders made.
Here's a list of students that made the honor roll. We do have the printer paper in, so the board will be updated soon. The next time you all come, you'll see, our honor roll board updated with these celebrities here. Moving on to middle school honor roll. Our sixth graders, 40% of them made the honor roll, 17% of seventh graders, and 49% of the eighth graders. So we've got some work to do, obviously, with the seventh graders. And that totals to one hundred one hundred and thirteen middle school students as well at 46%, with an average of a 2.5
GPA. There's a list of middle school names that made the honor roll. We've got one, two, three, four, five students that have a four point o in middle school that made the principal's list. Alright. So moving on to, NWEA data. This is our math proficiency percentage. The light blue would be fall twenty four in comparison to this fall 2025. Sixth grade, we went from 12% to 23%. Seventh, 11 to 24%. And then a small dip with eighth graders from 25% to 22%.
Middle school reading proficiency on the NWEA. Sixth grade last year, last fall, 31%. This fall, 23. So a small dip there, and you see that same thing repeated in seventh grade. 30%, fall twenty four to 24% fall twenty twenty five. And then eighth grade, almost at the same spot, but a small dip there as well. 44% last year compared to 43% this year for middle school reading.
For high school math proficiency, our ninth graders, we see growth there from 40% to 46%. Our tenth graders, we see a dip there of 27 to 18%. Eleventh grade, 35 to 46%. And twelfth grade, we see more growth there as well from 22% to 36%. High school reading proficiency, we've seen growth in every grade from last year in comparison to this year. Ninth grade, you see the biggest gap, 32 to 55%.
Tenth grade, 35 to 46%, eleventh, 40 to 46%, and twelfth grade, 40 to 56% in reading proficiency. So we're doing a good job with our ELA department. Moving on to attendance data. I'm proud to say that the secondary complex also has seen some, a decrease in chronic absenteeism. This chart, I'll kinda spell it out for you because it's nice and colorful. It's a lot of words here. Over to the left, you can see so start down at the bottom. It says tier one.
So that's for satisfactory attendance that's missing less than 5% of the total school days. So last year, in quarter one, we have 40 students, that were, that had satisfactory attendance. This year, we have 194 students that have satisfactory attendance. So I'm very proud of that as well. I want to give a shout out to my EEWS coordinator. Her name is Dariana Goodson. She does an amazing job with following up with families, having one on one meetings with those families and also running attendance contest.
And we also have that pretzel food truck. They come out and honor students. They have perfect attendance each month as well. And I do plan on stealing Tina's idea about the bikes, but but instead, it'll be Nikes. We'll do gym shoes instead because I don't think these kids want little bikes. Moving up to tier one b, at risk students. Those are students that are missing five to 9% of total school days. So last year, we were at 68 students, and now we're down to 47 students. So that's good. Tier two, moderate to moderate chronic absence, 71 students last year, and now we're down
to only 10 students. And the biggest celebration is that we don't have anyone in tier three right now. Any students missing over 20% of the total school days, we're at zero. We're doing a great job keeping our kids here. Good job. Middle school data, reflects the same trend. Starting down at tier one again, forty one students last year were satisfactory, and now we have 135 students that are satisfactory with attendance. At risk students, we had 32 last year. This year, 27. Last year, we had 48 students who had moderate chronic absences.
And this year, only eight students. And again, for tier three, zero students in middle school. Great job. Thank you. Alright. Moving on to discipline. As mister Roper said, we've been, kinda changing our mindset with discipline. And this started last year. But we've, you know, we're moving forward in that direction and and and, really trying our best and stretching ourselves on doing alternative things as opposed to just sending kids home. Kids come with challenges.
They come with emotional issues. And so we try to meet them there. I believe doctor Lewis talked about the My Best program where we send referrals, for therapy. And we have a therapist that comes in here and he does therapy for our students and services our students. Moving forward, we are looking forward to, using some grant funds in order to fund outside outside therapists to come in. So we'll have even more options for our students like we did last year as well. But I did just wanna highlight that because even, you know, when we're not receiving
funding, we're still gonna be resourceful and do whatever we can with our community partners to try to service our students where they need us. So, you can see that impact on the data. In in '23, '24, we had 79 suspensions. Last year, we had 69. Right now, we're at 28. And so we are aware of that number, and and we know that if we stay on pace, we'll be over. Okay? So, we are making a conscious effort to pull back on suspensions, and use alternative strategies. Alright. So a couple of celebrations for me.
I I'm I'm going last, so everybody kinda stole everything. So I don't have much to say that you didn't hear. But, I am happy to say that we did hire two certified teachers for social studies this year. They're both in middle school. One of them teaches one high school class, and they're doing a phenomenal job. We we also have a certified art teacher. The art teacher and the social studies teacher are brand new. Right? So this is their first teaching assignment. They came in, you know, they were gone home and ready to go guns blazing.
And then they, you know, they hit the rookie wall a little bit. And, I'm happy to say that they were open enough to to receive coaching and feedback and the the team in total collaborated. You know, we've had many meetings where, us as a family of staff and teachers, you know, circled around them and gave them the support, shared best strategies. And I'm telling you that they turned it around, and that's, like, one of my my biggest points of pride. They both are doing really, really well. We have a certified middle school math teacher as well, and it's also her first
year on this level. She taught elementary before, but it's her first year on this level. We have continued the dropout prevention intervention program. That was a big reason why we got to, 100% graduation last year, and we are committed to getting that number again, by doing the same things and then making some innovations and some improvements with that program as well. We do have tutoring scheduled to begin once we come back. Of course, we're still using the, MCREL walk through tool, that helps me. It's really quick. I can use it on my phone.
You guys know how that works. We showed you all last year. But it gives them quick feedback. It allows me to come in and hit my main points, and it also gives me kinda like a script of what I can follow as far as coaching them and having that conversation on how to improve. And so, you know, over the last two years, I would say we've, we've improved our relationships with the teachers. They're comfortable. They know that it's a partnership. We're getting comfortable with the coaching, and we're we're seeing growth because of it. And then, of course, the conscious discipline training for the staff like mister Roper just
highlighted, is very beneficial. I use it myself, you know, when when dealing with the emotions of the job on a daily basis. You know? So it's very effective and our teachers are implementing that as well. And that is all. Great job. So before, one little add added addition to the, the presentation. This wasn't in the in the plan, but she's here, and it just happens to work out. Miss Granados I asked miss Granados to come up. So when I first got here, one of the, if you don't know, what all
the research indicates is, one of the number one indicators of, school success is parent involvement. And, you know, I was looking for parent involvement organized parent involvement. We didn't really have any parent groups. At that time, it was miss McNeely was the principal here. We gotta get a a parent organization. Where is the parent, you know, where is the parent leadership or the parent engagement? So, miss Granados was one of our parents. And I'll let her just talk about really quickly how she volunteered and was so happy to do this role.
Not really. Got recruited. But, I'll let her talk about her experience and, and and and and hear from our parent advisory committee president, miss Granados, for the secondary. Alright. I'm not that sure. Hi. My name is Ashley Granados Moreno. I have six kids in the school district. I have three in this building and three at Seminole. We did have a pack last year that was started, but really didn't kinda do much. So this year, when the two other people left, there was only three of us. I decided I would try to do something, and then I wasn't confident till mister
Roper kinda pushed me and didn't let me say no. I don't care what he tells you guys. And now that I'm here, I just really wanna do what I can to help the community and the kids, honestly. The school district before I've been here in the school district for almost eight years. We bought a house here eight years ago. And I'm gonna be a 100% honest because that's just how I am. I really was just like, my kids go to the school and that's it. Like, I was not active. I did not want really much to do with it. I didn't really agree with a lot of things that were going on. Miss McNeely started the group last year, and mister Roper and them kinda pushed me
into it. And now I see the changes kind of a little bit more internally, and I am, like, your number one supporter. I will go tooth and nail for this school. I have. We did the pot potluck dinner over there. There's still food, by the way, if you guys want it, and a lot of Starbucks coffee. And I went up and down all the businesses for three days in the cold trying to basically give the word because I think, the businesses just didn't really know what's going on and the changes. But I gave him my true word, and my true word is that Mount Clemens and with the changes mister Roper has made, I will say this.
I'm not gonna sugarcoat anything, has been absolutely amazing. Mister Veal and his way of doing things kinda takes me back to my day, you know, back in the day. I'm 35. You know, where things in school, you know, with the dress code and the discipline and the ways of learning. Honestly, I probably won't pull my kids ever from the school even if I ever moved. The changes are amazing. They are. I see a lot. And as I was downs downtown, talking to some of the companies, they also see
it. And the ones that didn't, now they do because I can talk anybody's ear off. So they see it now. I wanna personally thank mister Roper, mister Veal, miss l over there who is our number one PAC supporter, okay, for getting me in this position and helping me move forward. I think you guys are doing amazing things. I think, really, you guys are. So from a parent who's gonna be honest and raw, I see some good things happening. And you guys I always tell everybody, your kids go to school halfway through the day, so it's their second home.
So you have to trust and confide in the school district. Before, I never did. Now I do. So I always say to make that unity, you need a community. So That's right. You know, I just wanted to say that. So whatever y'all do and keep doing it. So, just be listening out when you get the robocalls or you hear the information about the pack. That's what it is. The parent advisory committee, she didn't have time to get into a lot of the things they're doing. They they support our our teachers. They support our to to to help support our students from fundraising. She was going around the the organization. Her her team going to businesses, getting donations to help, give to our students.
And so we just appreciate like I said, we how every great school district is a a great parents great parent support. And so we appreciate you, miss Granados, and, we'll acknowledge her at a later time for all of our efforts throughout this year. So thank you. Thank you all for your attention. Thank you, staff, for listening to us. I have a question. Go ahead, miss Rick. And this is, for us, special needs. Do we have any students that are on the spectrum? And if we do, what kind of services are we providing for those students? Yes. Yeah. So we do have, many students in the district that have varying eligibilities.
We do service students that have autism spectrum disorder, as qualified in their IEP, and that looks different for every student. So some of them just are receiving speech support or social work support, and then we have students that are pulled out to receive some instruction. And then we have students that are also in a more self contained setting that might be more attentive behavioral and communication supports as well. But we try our best to kind of put accommodations in place in general and
as much as possible as well. It it's very kid dependent, so it's kind of hard to answer. It looks very different for everybody. Mhmm. Thank you. You're talking about, like, a scenario where we could get a senior with, like, three credits. Mhmm. Would they then come into their like you said, there's five and six years. Would they still be here another two years? Or Because Like, we don't have 20 year olds wandering around that long. They can age out now. The law of special ed students can be up to what what 26. Wow. Okay. I hope we don't have that, at this time, but it's that's possible.
But yeah. Okay. We're good? I'll be right. Alright. Thank you for all the presentation by the central administrative team and our building level principals and others. Thank you so much. A lot of good information was disseminated here this evening. Yeah. Moving the agenda forward. Next on the agenda are are action items. First action item is, item c. Excuse me. Item six, expulsion hearing, like, six a, student number 1810008326.
Mister superintendent. Yep. At this time, I requested that we go into closed session to have some further discussion, regarding this matter. You heard the recommendation. Is there a motion to go into closed session for the purpose of expulsion hearing information? So I'll give it back. I'll go I heard mister Shepherd first. Mister Shepherd moved. Second by mister Walker. Any questions, comments, concerns regarding the motion on the floor to go into closed session for the purpose of expulsion hearing?
Hearing and seeing none, call the roll, please. Mister Shepherd? Yes. Mister Walker? Yes. Missus Cahoon? Miss Hammond? Yes. Doctor McFadden? Yes. Mister Rickman? Yes. The motion carries. The the meeting is going into closed session at 08:41PM. We will come out of the closed session, and we will complete the remainder of the agenda. Chair, would entertain a motion to come out of a closed session. Moved by McFadden to come out.
Second, the Walker. Any questions, comments, concerns regarding the motion on the floor to come out of closed session? Hearing a certain none. Call the roll, please. Doctor McFadden? Yes. Mister Walker? Yes. Miss Hammond? Yes. Mister Shepherd? Yes. Mister Rickman? Yes. Okay. The meeting is back into regular session at 08:56PM. Mister president. Yes, sir. Doctor McFadden. Yes. I move to approve the recommendation of the superintendent, for the, expulsion of student 1810008326
for a hundred and eighty days. Support. It's moved by member McFadden to support the recommendation of the superintendent for expulsion of student 1810008326 for 180 as presented. Second by member Dee Walker. Are there questions, comments, concerns regarding the motion on the floor? Hearing and seeing none, call the roll, please. Doctor McFadden?
Yes. Mister Walker? Yes. Miss Hammond? Yes. Mister Shepherd? Yes. Mister Riggman? Yes. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda. Item seven, consent agenda. Mister president, I move to approve the decision Hold on. Let yeah. Hold on. Hold on. Shut up. Hold on. Up. Your up. Item seven, consent agenda. Under the consent agenda this evening, seven a, approval of minutes, a one. 12/03/2025. 12/03/2025 special meeting, item seven a two.
11/19/2025 regular meeting. Consent agenda item seven b, approval of bills for payment, b one November bills for payment. Consent agenda item seven c, schools of choice, second semester, c one one zero five, and one zero five c. Mister president. Yes, sir. I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Support. Moved by doctor McFadden to approve the consent agenda as presented.
Second by member Walker. Not here except third. Any questions, comments, concerns regarding the motion on the floor? Hearing and seeing none, call the roll, please. Doctor McFadden. Mister Walker? Yes. Miss Hammond? Yes. Mister Shepherd? Yes. Mister Rickman? Yes. The motion carries. Excuse me. Informational items. Agenda item eight coming out of the business committee. Eight a, financial reports. Are there any questions, comments, concerns regarding the financial reports? Agenda item eight b, contract listings.
Are there questions, comments, concerns regarding the contract listings? Seeing none, that takes us to agenda item nine, superintendent's comments. Alright. Good evening and good night. I would like to say, really quickly thank you to all our our everyone who helped contribute, in our pre to our presentations tonight. Our building leaders, our central office staff did a wonderful job. I'm very proud to lead this team. I'm grateful for this board allowing us the autonomy to lead this district and do those great things that we're doing. So thank you all.
Shout out to all of our sports teams, winter teams that are going. Please come out and support them. Visit our social medias, on our Instagram or, Facebook or our website to get schedules or game information. And, happy holidays to everyone. I hope everyone has a safe and prosperous holiday season. Thank you. Those are my comments. Thank you, mister superintendent. Any question of the superintendent? Seeing none, item 10, board comments. Miss Hammond. Thank you, Bruce. Thank you, superintendent Roper, for your comments, and I'm gonna piggyback off of those.
And everyone have a safe and happy holidays. Thank you, miss Hammond. Mister Walker. Thank you, mister Prender. I'd like to thank all the central office staff, including administration, as well as mister Crawford for their hard work and dedication to the well-being of our students and staff across the district. This presentation tonight, shows that we have all the right passengers on the bus, to keep the bus moving in the right direction, pack holidays, and and we'll have a great holiday. That's all I have. Thank you, mister Walker. Mister Shepherd. Yeah. Pretty much the same as Semper Huddl's.
Merry Christmas, everybody. Have a happy holidays as well, and, those are my comments. Thank you, mister Shepherd. Doctor McFadden. Alright. I wanna piggyback off the superintendent and my fellow, board members. Thank you for your comments, and happy holidays. Hurry up. No matter how fast I go, you're gonna come back. I'm so I'm a get see? See? That's a record. See, you can see record. I know that he has pretty good BBA in that department, but I I know someone who put out there that our, cross country team was all academic conference.
So and they also have some, out of four four athletes, they won the conference in in cross country or charter school league, you may say. Those are my conference. Thank you. Thank you, Pac and Mac Van. Before I start my comments, I would like to, the board to entertain a motion to stand compliant with policy zero one five one. Establishing, the organizational meeting has to be can be no earlier than January 1 and no later than the second Monday, in January.
So I would like to move that we we're established Wednesday, January 7 at 06:30PM for the organizational meeting. So moved. Second. Moved by member Walker. Second by member Shepherd to establish Wednesday, January 6 January 7 at 06:30PM, for the date and, date and time in this building in this room for the organizational meeting. Any questions, comments, concerns regarding the motion on the floor?
I'm unavailable that day, so I would like to recommend, if I can at this time, a new date. Can you throw a new date out there? The fourteenth, the final one. Wednesday. That'd be past the first past the deadline. What was the It has to be about before this the twelfth. We as it'd be before the second Monday. Twelfth? You can offer an amendment to the to the motion. Okay. I move to amend the motion that we have the organizational meeting on January 12. Do you need a time as well? Yes, ma'am. 06:30. It's been amendment has been offered by member Hammond to have the organizational meeting of
January 12 at 06:30 in this room. One second. Sorry. Wait. My name wrong. Twelve. It was okay. It was, the amendment by member Hammond. Who was who second that? Second. Member Shepherd. Okay. Are there questions, comments, concerns regarding the amend the amendment. The amendment is to hold the, excuse me, the organizational meeting Monday, January 12 at
06:30PM in this room. I support the the motion on the floor. But my question is, is the organization meeting have to be before this, Monday? It has to be it can't be any earlier or sooner than January 1, and it can be no later than the second Monday. Okay. And my position still stands the same. I support the motion on the floor then. Okay. Thanks a lot for clarity, mister president. Yes, sir. Any additional questions, comments, concerns regarding the motion on the floor?
Henderson, we have to vote on the amendment first. So what we're voting on now is to, change the original motion was to have it the seventh. The amendment was to have it the twelfth. So we need to vote on the the motion the amendment to change it to the twelfth. So call the roll. Okay. Miss Hammond? Yes. Mister Shepherd? Yes. Doctor McFadden? Yes. Mister Walker? Yes. Mister Rickman? It's gonna be tight, but yes. I'll I'll support it. So the amendment passes.
So now the main motion as amended will be to have the whole the organizational meeting Monday, January 12, 06:30PM in this location. That is the new main motion. Any question, comments, concerns regarding the main motion as amended? Hearing and seeing none, call the roll, please. Miss Hammond? Yes. Mister Shepherd? I'm going on. Yes. Doctor McFadden? Yes. Mister Walker? Yes. Mister Rickman? Yes. Motion carries. Now I would like to say all the presentations were great, and if we would
ask all the questions that we we probably could ask, we will be hit. We would still be in here asking questions. But we we understand and realize that there are some areas that we grew in, and then some there's some areas that we we fell back. And I'm pretty sure in our work sessions, we we will hear more information about that. We've we've done a lot of great work. We are not where we wanna be. We're not where we used to be, and we're we're still moving forward. And there's still some work to do, and we we're we we've got staff, that
have shown growth in areas that I don't see why we're not gonna continue to to see that growth, in this district. To all the staff, the support staff, the volunteers, the students, everybody who has anything to do, with the school district, parents, our community, we wish you all a a safe and happy holiday season. There are excuse me. There over the holiday season, there are three at least three basketball games here in
Mount Clemens. The, Battle And Bay, there's will be participating. They have there's a basketball game tomorrow, the eighteenth here, in the Klim Gym. There's a basketball game the twentieth. That's Saturday here in the Klim Gym. And then there's a basketball game in the Klim Gym on December 29. And I think for all those games, the, JVs starting at 05:30, and the varsity is starting at seven. I saw a great crowd, as I came up today, and that's good to see.
I understand it was a freshman basketball game and then followed by a girls. Freshman, JV, and girl. Yeah. Those three three guys. Freshman JV? JV? Freshman boys. JV boys and girls. Generally, JV stays and plays on the same night as varsity, but okay. Alright. So but it it was a good crowd out there, in the parking lot. So, I hope that we're here supporting, our student athletes. Those are my comments. The chair, we're gonna entertain a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Support. Moved by member Walker, second by member McFadden.
It's not debatable. Call the roll, please. Mister Walker? Yes. Doctor McFadden? Yes. Miss Hammond? Yes. Mister Shepherd? Yes. Mister Rich? Yes. Motion carries. Meeting's adjourned at 09:09 in the PM. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your your due diligence support and all of that stuff.