Good evening everyone. We're going to call the meeting to order at 7:04 pm. Um, welcome. I am President Lauren Christensen. I appreciate everyone who's here in the audience this evening and those who are tuning in on YouTube. I'm going to ask my fellow board members to introduce themselves. Starting with my
actually to my right today. Jennifer. >> Hi, I'm Jennifer Voss. Thank you for being here. I'm Judy Wester. Thank you for coming out tonight. >> Hi, I'm Patrick Hugh. Thanks for joining us this evening. >> Hi, Anupam Sudu. Thanks for being here. >> I'm Cheryl Peard. It's nice to see
everyone tonight. I'll have our student co-chair introduce himself. >> Hi, I'm Arjun Swami Nathan. I'm a sophomore at Kenton High School and SBA co-chair. Thank you all for being here. >> Thank you. Dr. Merritt, can you introduce yourself and your team? >> Yes. Good evening and welcome. I'd like to begin by introducing my executive
assistant, Miss Diane Robertson. We want to thank her for being here, capturing our minutes. Also, Mr. John Kger, who is taking care of our technology needs. I'd like to ask the remaining members of the team to introduce themselves beginning on my right. >> Thank you, Dr. Merritt Curtis, assistant superintendent for student services. Welcome.
>> Good evening. I'm Jen Curry, chief academic officer. Welcome, Liz Vartan Gibbs, assistant superintendent, student and family engagement. >> Great. Now, let's all stand for the pledge, please. To the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Now we're moving on to the adoption of the agenda and the approval of the consent
agenda. Can I please have a motion? Madam President, I move that we adopt and approve our consent agenda. The action item is 260239. >> Can I have a second? Second. Okay. There was a tie. So, it was moved by Treasuro
and I'll uh I the second was with from Secretary Wester. Um Dr. Merritt, can you please take us through the agenda? >> Thank you, President Christensen. This evening, our consent agenda consists of human resources transaction since our last time that we were together. We have
new hires for your consideration. We also have the approval of minutes. That's from our regular meeting on January the 27th, 2026. And that's it. >> Okay, great. Thank you. Um I'm going to call for the vote. Those in favor, please say yes. Yes. Those opposed say
no. >> Motion carries. 70. >> Okay. Um Dr. Liz, can you take us through human resources, please? Yes. Thank you, President Christensen. So, I have the honor of welcoming two teachers to our school district this
evening. So, first I would like to welcome back Susan Balden who will be teaching psychology at Canton High School. If you're here this evening, please stand up. Okay. And also Christy Major. Are you with us this evening? There she is in
the back. Christie. Christy, can you come forward? We We just want to say hi and welcome you. Chrissy will be our new resource room teacher at Bentley Elementary School and Miller Elementary School. Welcome. We're
so thankful to have you. And I have a um chocolate bar here to welcome you and congratulate you to the district. >> That's it. Great. Thank you very much. Okay, up next we have celebrating success with Vice President Sadu
in case the policy update comes up. >> Good evening. This is such an honor and privilege. Um, it is every time, but tonight's extra special. Tonight, the board of education is proud to recognize the robotics teams from Gallamore Elementary and East Middle School as
this evening's stars award recipients. Students, please join me here at the podium. All the students that are here, please come up. >> I BELIEVE >> this is all about them. So, I don't want to start without them here.
Do I have to fill in here? >> Yeah. >> Come on, students. Come stand right next to me. So close. Why don't you go up there and thank everyone? Everybody stand
your shine and get this recognition. >> All right. If you want to face everyone, >> I want them to see your beautiful faces and be acknowledged for all the work that you're doing. >> Yeah. Someone want to come on this side? >> There you go. Perfect.
>> Thank you. Awesome. >> As STEM skills become increasingly important in an ever evolving world, Plymouth Canton Community Schools prides itself on introducing our students to STEM programs throughout their time in our classrooms. Today, we celebrate two
historic achievements for our district's robotics programs, which demonstrate the success of our commitment to STEM education and preparing our students for the future. Joining us tonight is the Infinity Tech Robotics team from East Middle School and the Robo Relic Hunters
from Galamore Elementary Schools. Here they are. The Stars Award stands for students with tenacity achieving and reaching success. And the teams that we are honoring tonight exemplify that spirit. Through their hard work, perseverance,
and teamwork, these students have indeed achieved remarkable success. This December, Galamore's Robo Relic Hunters won the robot design award in their state championship award. Their exceptional work has earned them a spot in an elite invitational event this June
where they will compete alongside over a hundred other teams from all around the world. And this is only one of five global locations. So that is a huge accomplishment. Congratulations on that. Now to the East Middle School's Infinity
Tech Robotics team. They also made history at the first robotics state championship event in Grand Blanc. The team placed fourth out of 72 teams in their competitive division, becoming the first PCCS middle school team to qualify for the First Robotics World
Championships in Houston, Texas. Infinity Tech also earned third place in judging for the prestigious Inspire Award, which recognizes excellence in robotics design and performance, as well as community involvement and outreach. Joining us this evening is East Middle
School Principal Ted Yungalas to say a few words about these outstanding students. Mr. Youngless, would you please join me at the podium and say a few words? Good evening, Dr. Merritt, members of the board, and community members. I stand before you tonight with immense
pride to recognize a group of students who have truly reached for the stars. I would personally like to congratulate the Infinity Tech Robotics team. This spring, Infinity Tech will be traveling to compete in the World Championship. Congratulations,
This is truly a historic moment for our community. For the first time in our district's history, a Plymouth Canton Middle School robotics team has advanced to this elite global stage. The journey to the worlds is paved with hundreds of hours of coding, mechanical design, and
perhaps most importantly, resilience. These students have proven that they are not just builders and programmers, but you are world-class problem solvers and collaborators. To the members of the Infinity Tech team, please know that your peers, your
teachers, and the entire staff at East stand behind you cheering loudly. You've set a new bar of excellence, and teams to follow in the future have very, very big shoes to fill. Congratulations on this record- setting achievement. We
can't wait to see what you do on the world stage. We know that you will make us proud. Congratulations. Mrs. Bell uh from Gallamore was unable to attend tonight, but she did ask me to say a few words for you fine young ladies and gentlemen. Uh Mrs. Isabelle
is sorry to miss this, but she asked me to share this message of congratulations with the Robo Relics. It is an honor to celebrate the Robo Relics Robotics team as they head to the Invitational World Championship. This achievement is a direct result of the
dedication, curiosity, and perseverance these students bring to every challenge. We also want to say a huge thank you to our Gallomore parents who have given up so many weekends, week nights to support this team. A special shout out goes to
Carara Wagzerin. Sorry. >> All right. Um, we are so grateful for the hours she has put in as both a staff member and as a volunteer coach. We are incredibly proud of everything this team has accomplished and we can't wait to
see you shine at Worlds. Good luck. So to the students on behalf of the Plymouth Canton Community Schools Board of Education, it is our honor to recognize all of you for the robotics teams for your hard work, dedication, and success. And we will be presenting
you with some awards and I will ask the coaches for some help. But before that, would any of the coaches like to say a few words? >> Coaches. >> Okay, students, who's going to speak? coming up. >> Infinity Techch Robotics has made history as the first middle school team
from Plymouth Canton to advance to the World Championship. Out of over 15,000 teams worldwide, we earned our spot through hard work and dedication. Our robot Bali, built by 15 passionate students, is ready to compete against high school teams in Houston this April. This is a unique opportunity for us to
grow, learn, and represent our community on a global stage. Beyond competition, we're committed to mentoring new teams and giving back through community service. We are so extremely proud of you and I hope you're proud of yourselves for getting to this stage and going beyond.
This concludes tonight's celebrating success segment and if the students would join me outside and we will take some pictures and we'll give you your awards. So everyone big round of applause for them. Come follow me. Is that what they That's always a hard act to follow. I
have tears in my eyes just every time we do our celebrating success each each week. But it it's a special uh moment when we have our students here to to recognize. We're so very proud of them. So, thank you. Uh moving on though to our board committee reports and action.
Um up first, I have a a brief president's report. Um just a couple board updates for the community. We had a special meeting for the purposes of superintendent midyear check-in that was actually scheduled yesterday. today. It was a a a great uh touch base and we have another one uh scheduled I believe
April 15th. Um we also had a close session meeting this uh prior to this this meeting this evening at 5:30 to discuss contract negotiations. Um during our discussion portion of the agenda, we'll open up our calendars and look at
another date as well uh for for a future close session meeting. Um, I also want to uh shout out a reminder to my board colleagues to mark their calendars for uh the Wayne County Association of School Boards general membership meeting. Um, this is scheduled for
February 26th from 5:45 to 8:00 p.m. at Wayne Rhysa. Um, usually this this meeting uh will consist of a meet and greet of fellow uh school board members within our our uh county. It's a networking opportunity. Um and although
the the agenda is still being formed, there's usually a legislative update as well. Um so I encourage our board my fellow board colleagues to attend if you are able. Um and then another I guess my last update and you'll hear this later in the agenda too. Uh member Sadu was
able to uh attend the uh NSBA advocacy institute in uh DC this year and so she's going to provide a conference update um for us this evening. And that concludes my president's report.
Um, up next we have student performance and achievement committee with uh, Secretary Wester. Good evening, Madame President. Uh, the student performance and achievement committee meeting. Committee met last on February 4th, last week. Uh, we covered
two topics. One was an update on the evaluation that the district is doing on their digital ecosystem. That is the onetoone computer program or um onetoone computer one computer to one student
program. Um they're doing an evaluation to understand where um the existing program is working well, where it needs where it can be uh improved upon. Um so we had an update on what the plans were
there. We also had an elementary um ELA curriculum update which will come to this meeting next month I believe. Right. It was uh very very wellreceived very very uh very good news in a lot of
respects. So I'm looking forward to having it presented to the whole board. Our next meeting is um February 24th at 5:30. Wait a minute. No, no, that's incorrect. >> 5:00 p.m.
>> March 4th. March 4th at 5:00 pm in this room. Um we hope that you can all come. We welcome student or uh we welcome uh community participation and comments. >> Thank you for your update. Um up next we have policy committee and actually member Amed, can you give us an update
there? >> Sure. So for the policy committee, uh we haven't met since the last meeting, but our next meeting will be February 24th, 5:30m in the collaboration room. So please join us. Thank you. Have next we have finance and operations and I'll
provide an update for that. Um we met last Thursday and we reviewed a few things that are on the agenda for consideration and discussion this evening. Um part of our 2020 bond uh technology awards. So, there's a bid pack number T-12. Um, it's an -ate
network infrastructure and cabling for upcoming bid packages. We also have a bid pack number T-13 technology related to upcoming bid packages that we they're both kind of tied together that we will discuss this evening. Um, we also discussed the award
for district fiber maintenance service contract. Uh, resolution to purchase uh 450 HP Pro laptops. again on the agenda this evening. And we also reviewed the 2025 2026 midyear budget amend amendment
that you will um have privy to to listen to this evening as well. Our next meeting is Thursday, February 19th at 5:00 pm in this room and we of course encourage anyone who wishes to attend to join us.
It's a very fun and uh lively meeting. Right. Okay. Up next, we have student voice and action committee with uh Arjun. >> Um we have not met since last board meeting. Our next meeting will be Tuesday, February 17th in the Pioneer
Media Center. It'll start at 4:30 p.m. and we look forward to seeing everyone there, especially since we haven't met for a while. >> Okay, thank you very much. All right, up next we have the superintendent report. Dr. Merritt, >> thank you, President Christensen. As I reflect on our celebrating success and
our students and the opportunities that we have here for them, although I respect all families and I know families have a choice, I believe that PCCS is the number one educational choice for opportunities for our students. With that being said, I want to invite any
eighth grade student to our spring shadow day. These are eighth grade students who currently live in Plymouth Kenton boundaries. resident students who are not attending PCCS. This is an opportunity for them to shadow our PC or
our high school park to really get in there. I would say as a parent myself, it's always intimidating when we think about that park. Three schools, close to 6,000 students, but the opportunities again are just endless. So, we are opening our doors to our resident 8th grade students. That will take place on
February the 20th at Salem High School. This program fills up quickly. We have slots that are available. So, you have to have a registration. That deadline is February the 13th or when spaces are filled. It's available on the PCE page,
PC page of the PCCS website. During this time, we have our students that actually are paired with a current student at the park. So, they really get an idea of what it's like to live that park experience in a day. And I think it's just wonderful. So again, I just encourage our families that are not
currently attending PCCS but live within our boundaries to take an opportunity with our eighth grade students to have this shadow day. When we're looking to our families that may not be within our boundaries but are looking to join PCCS, our schools of choice applications
window will open on February the 13th. That will be this Friday. That's a non-school day for PCCS, but that application window is open. If you know by law, we have to advertise for 30 days. Now that application window is open, a minimum of one seat will be allocated in each grade level from
kindergarten through 10th grade and we have a maximum of 500 seats available. Remember in this process, schools of choice families cannot select a school. They are selecting the district. And so we are able to place students according
to open seats in our current enrollment. Families can apply for the school of choice seat during the 30-day application period. That's from February 13th through the March the 14th. Again, information is available on our website. I always take an opportunity to brag
about staff and students. Tonight, I want to brag on our very own Canton CTE teacher, Mr. Jeff Boykins, after he was recently named the February 2026 Michigan Teacher of the Month. Please join me in a round of applause for Mr. Boy.
He received his award on February 6 from Michigan House Minority Leader Ranjie Pereie. Mr. Boyin received the award for his commitment to his students well-being and academic success and for the innovative teaching methods he uses to engage students in active learning.
In receiving this award, he continues our district's tradition of seeing how our amazing teachers are recognized for their outstanding work and service to our students. Congratulations, Mr. Boyin. I want to invite the music lovers in our
community to enjoy a day celebrating everything from vinyl records to band posters at the annual 881 the park record CD and music mir me memorabilia show that will take place this Saturday February 14th from 9:00 a.m. to 400 p.m.
in the Salem High School cafeteria. If you haven't had an opportunity to uh participate, this show will feature thousands of vinyl records, CDs, importonly releases, t-shirts, posters, and other collectibles. And proceeds from this uh vendor and admission fees
will benefit the nationally recognized student radio program at PC. So again, if you have some free time on your hands, you will not be disappointed. Please come up to Salem and participate in this event. Finally, I'd like to close this evening by inviting the community to join me next week for our
winter edition of Coffee with Monica. We're opening the doors at the Rock Cafe that will take place on Wednesday, February the 18th from 5 to 6:00 p.m. That really gives us an opportunity for you to engage with me with our uh administrative team in a more informal
setting. Unlike a board meeting where we aren't able to respond to your questions, this gives us the opportunity for that two-way dialogue. So, if you're here this evening and also want an opportunity to come out on Wednesday to engage anybody who's not here, we also encourage just to give some uh feedback
on how the district is going, your vision for how we would like to move forward and any questions about our programs and operations that you may want to have answered. So again, please join me and the administrative team as well as any board members who would like to attend. That will be Wednesday, February 18th at the Rock Cafe. And
again, it's another incredible program of our students. So, being able to experience that is always a treat. No pun intended. That concludes my report this evening. >> Thank you, Dr. Merritt. Okay. Up next, we have citizens comments. Looks like we
have a few. Thank you, Diane. Okay, so first is at the bottom. Okay, just as a reminder, this is the first segment of citizens comments that will last 30 minutes. If we have citizens comments that move us past that
30-minut time limit, we will hear the remaining comments later in our agenda. Each citizen has three minutes to speak. The board will not respond. This is your time to share. The administration will follow up with each individual um who participates in citizens comments. As a
reminder, please do not share any names when sharing concerns or criticisms unless you have their permission to do so. Okay, so starting at the top of the pile here, oops,
we have Sophia North. Hello board. Um, I would like to talk about my concerns with ICE and I am very concerned on the fact that it's been so long and um that PCCS
has yet to release a statement on what what they plan on doing in the event that ICE comes to one of the district schools. And uh and I know that uh PCCS is a district full of immigrants and um
I'm very concerned that about the fact that we haven't had a um a statement released by the district saying hey this is what we're going to do in the event ICE comes to a school and I'm very cons just concerned about because
transparency is important and also reassuring that this is a concern that will be a addressed uh it for parents so that and um that parents aren't worried. Okay, what would happen? And yeah, that's that's the end
of my comment. >> Thank you for your comment. >> Thank you for your comment. Up next, we have David Champagne. >> Hello. Um, I am David Champagne. I am here with my wife Lindsay to address a
concern that we have with a teacher at Honda Elementary. Um, our our student is a fourth grade student um that started the year off with a long-term sub from the beginning of the school year to mid November.
Um when the teacher came back um she was gone more than she was from mid November through the middle of January. Our student during that time covered no
new topics, took no tests, took no quizzes, had no homework. We started to get concerned when we kept hearing that there is different teachers and subs inside the classroom. So we
inquired. What we found astonished us. They are three chapters behind in math. They are being forced to catch up. It's not fair to our students. We
brought this to the principal who has responded to us. He has constantly communicated with us. We have brought this to some of the board members. We are being told that there's a process
and a plan in place. But to us as parents, that is not acceptable. Our students are suffering by lack of education, a lack of trust in the teacher.
It makes it difficult for them to learn. There are things that can be done. I understand labor law. I understand schoolboard policy. I understand district policy and labor laws. However,
at the beginning of every single union contract, there is a rights of management. She is entitled to employment. I understand that. I understand that the school, the district, and the board has a process that they have to go through to address
issues, but that should not be at the expense of our students. I have asked that she be removed from the classroom. I I I struggle to see why that can't happen. It continues to happen because we just
found out that to catch them up, they have skipped a whole section, three three chap or three sections in one chapter to move on to the next. How is that fair to our students? I'm asking the board to please look into this,
verify what I'm telling you, and then take action and change it. Thank you. >> Okay, thank you. Up next we have Rachel Hayes. >> All right. Now Love y'all.
>> Good evening. My name is Rachel Hayes. Before I begin, I want to speak directly to the PEP students who stood up in response to ICE activity. What you did took courage. It took care for one another. And it took a belief that your voices matter enough to
be heard. You showed this community what it looks like to lead with humanity. And you reminded us that students are not just watching, but have real power when they take action. Thank you to each of you for standing up for your fellow students. You are making a difference.
So folks, tonight I'm proud to officially introduce the Plymouth and Canton Education Squad, CAPES. We are a community-based group united by one non-negotiable belief. Every student deserves to feel safe, supported, and
fully included in our schools. Over the past year, members of this community showed up to engage, listen, and build relationships with this board, district leadership, and staff. From those efforts, CAPES was born. Capes exists because people are paying attention to
students, to families, and to how district decisions shape real lives. It grew out of concern and the sense of responsibility caring adults feel to speak up and protect kids. What you see here is what happens when concern turns into conviction and conviction turns
into action. When shared concerns become too important to carry alone, people organize. This work takes care, coordination, and a commitment to showing up consistently and together. CAPES is a nonpartisan organization. We believe in strong, inclusive public
education for every child. Whether you're a parent or guardian, student, educator, or ally, anyone who shares our values is welcome. If you believe in the power of collective action and want to help build a safer, more accepting school environment for all, you can find
us at capesquad.org. That commitment to showing up together has already made a real impact. Cape's members have elevated student voices, strengthened follow-through on hate and bias reports, begun critical training so protective policies work in practice,
and have pushed for clearer safeguards for immigrant students and families so schools remain places of learning and safety, not fear. Tonight, I've asked members of Capes to stand with me. This is what community looks like. These are people who show up when it's
uncomfortable, when it's exhausting, when staying quiet would be easier. They come anyway. They stay. They stand up for kids who need adults to be brave for them. My friends, you carry this work with your whole hearts. I have endless respect and love for you. And I'm
incredibly proud to stand with you. To the board majority and administration, thank you for your engagement. We are attentive, committed, and ready to continue working together to ensure a safe, inclusive, highquality education for all students. To our students and
families, you are not alone. Capes has your back and we're just getting started. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Up next, we have Ma Mandel Reyes. Ma, yep, you're up. You're up. >> Hello. Uh, my name is Ma Mendel Reyes
and I'm a grandparent in the Plymouth Canton Community School District. I live with my granddaughter, Hope, who's in the first grade, Bentley School, Mrs. Lee's class. Other people are going to talk about policy tonight. I want to talk to you about the values that I
think underly the policy, particularly the policies that affect uh protecting our immigrant children and our students who are just trying to be who they are. I want to share with you something that hope learned in the first grade and I
think it captures these values, the values that this district and parents are trying to teach our kids. Now, she does a better job of this than I do, so bear with me, okay? Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King. Monday is the
birthday of Martin Luther King. Peace, love, freedom, and brotherhood. These are the things that Martin Luther King stood. Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King, Monday is the birthday of Martin
Luther King. Now, let me break this down. Um, peace. Every child deserves to feel safe in the classroom, at the bus stop, on the playground, on their way to school. Love. Every student, regardless
of their immigrant status, who they want to be, their gender identity, deserves to be valued in our schools. Freedom. Every student should be free to learn. and brotherhood. I would say brotherhood and sisterhood.
Uh we want all our students in this school district to feel united. We don't want to contribute to any more division even though we know that's what society is trying to do. So this is what we're teaching our children.
This is time I think when it comes to immigration and to gender identity that we need to walk the walk. Our students have already walked out demanding a policy on immigration. Time for the board, time for the parents, time for
the grandparents to back them up. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comment. Up next, we have I may be saying this wrong. Is it Hudis? Allan is Can you correct me? How do you say your name? >> Hades.
>> Hades. Oh, I misread it. I'm sorry. >> Sorry. Thank you. >> Thank you for correcting me. >> Yeah. >> Good evening to everyone. So I am one of the many students who participated in the league walk out last Wednesday and I think I see a lot of reaction online as
many of us do and there were many people who were confused about how and why students would organize something like this and I think a lot of us probably know many immigrants or first or second generation. I grew up surrounded by
first and second generation immigrants in my small private school. Um, and I cannot fathom anyone justifying the deportation or harm against people like who are not born here. I cannot fathom
not speaking out against the harm of these people. Um, so I'm 15 and obviously I can't vote or participate in government. And so when I when my friend showed me that this walk out was happening, I decided to go because I
wanted to speak out against all the things that I know all of us see, especially with our phones and social media happening online. Um I think some people have asked me like why did you go to walk out? You know, you could being
marked absent or staying outside in the cold for an hour. And I thought why not? Because why would I not speak out? And why would I not say, "Do you not see what's going on? Um, do you not see the people who are saying nothing or the people who are saying this is fine?" Um,
I don't want to have to worry about all these beautiful and incredible people that I know and I'm friends with today worrying. I don't want to have to worry about them worrying even just because of how they look or how they identify or whether or not they are a citizen. And I don't want to worry about seeing them
never seeing them again one day just for no reason. And I want everyone to feel safe enough that they never have to worry about that. Um I want to be able to amplify all of our voices by coming together as a community. And I just want
everyone to know that we do see what's going on even as people who cannot participate in government by voting. THANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR your comment. Up next, we have Karen Cecilac. Am I saying it right?
This is going to sound kind of boring compared to everything else. I don't have a chair or anything. Um, but everybody's doing a great job. Um, I'm Karen Sislac. If you don't know, I was elected to city commission here in the city of Plymouth um this past fall and I was assigned to be the liaison for the school board um by our mayor. Um so I
just wanted to introduce myself, tell you I'm available if you ever want to meet. Um having a liaison doesn't mean you don't still have access to Chris Porman as city manager and the mayor and all the you know you're always working with the city I'm sure. Um I'm just another avenue if there's something you need help with or um I my personal goal
is to come here at least once a month and just sit through the meetings and you know be here at your you know so um my email is on my form um feel free to reach out to you me if you want to meet and have a coffee um that'd be great but um just wanted to say hello if there's
any way I can help I'm I'm here. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Up next, we have Holly Mitchell. >> Good evening, members of the board. My name is Holly Mitchell and I am not here only as a parent, but as an advocate for my child and for the
students at the deserve a stable, safe, and effective learning environment. I am asking this board for your help. My daughter Ava and the other students in her classroom are struggling academically and emotionally due to ongoing disruptions, inconsistent
instruction, and a classroom environment that is not meeting their needs. Children need to feel safe, supported, and capable in class or in school. Right now, this is not happening. I'm going to go back a few seconds. My daughter in second grade had this exact same
teacher. It was apparent at that time that she needed a significant help outside of the classroom. Ava loved having this teacher in her class at second grade. Come to find out, it was a free-for-all. It has cost my family alone thousands of dollars to get her
back on track. That should not be a responsibility of families when children are in a public school. We trusted the district to provide a competent and consistent teaching and we are not asking and we are asking to honor that responsibility. Now this is not about a
punishment. This is about protection, opportunity and fairness for our children. No student should have to endure instability, anxiety and academic loss because of circumstances outside of their control. Our children deserve better and they deserve your immediate
attention. Therefore, I respectfully ask that the board take swift action to ensure that Ava and every other child in that classroom is placed in a learning environment led by a qualified, present, and engaged educator who is committed to teaching and supporting students. We are
asking you to prioritize students first, their education and well-being and their future. Please help us ensure that our children are not left behind. And I will had a comment on to this as well because I know it was mentioned obviously about skipping a few chapters. We did receive
a weekly newsletter that we were told that we would get. We were told that it was substantial enough that in the findings of what they learned that they were able to skip on to the next section. I don't think an exceptional C plus that my student got along with
other students who got lower grades is exceptional to move on to the next level. Hereby I ask you is for your help to help our children get better, educate them and provide a safe learning environment for them. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you for your comment. We have uh
Lori Mayors. Uh, President Christensen, Dr. Merritt, and members of the board and administrators. I'm Lori Mars, uh, longtime resident of Plymouth and a member of Capes, the Canton and Plymouth Education Squad. I want to applaud the
students who walked out of home room last Wednesday to protest ICE and to exercise their First Amendment rights to peaceibly assemble. We've heard students say that they're worried about whether immigration agents will intrude on or near school property,
concerned about the lack of communication from the school administration, and fearful for their fellow students who are immigrants. Protesting can be dangerous, as we have seen in the tragedies in Minnesota. In the words of Becca Good at her
partner's memorial service yesterday, "Renee was not the first person killed and she was not the last. You know my wife's name and you know Alex's name. But there are many others in this city being harmed that you don't know. Their
families are hurting just like mine. Even if they look even if they don't look like mine, they are neighbors, friends, co-workers, classmates. and we must also know their names because this shouldn't happen to anyone.
I am old enough to remember the protests of the 1960s and 70s against the Vietnam War. Young men 18 years old were being drafted to fight a feudal and cor a feudal and corrupt war against communism. In 1968, people killed three
protesting students and wounded 28 from two H.B.CU CUS in Orangeburg, South Carolina. In 1970, National Guardsmen killed four students and wounded nine during protests at Kent State University in Ohio. And 11 days later, two students
were killed and 12 wounded at protests at Jackson State and H.B.CU in Mississippi. In all of these cases, police claimed they were fired upon first. These claims were later proven to be lies. Sound
familiar? >> I bring up this history to say that our students are justified in not trusting this government which has told us countless lies and demonstrated shocking racism. They are right to protest. We
all have a right and a duty to speak out against injustice and the cruelty we see happening on the federal level. We should be proud that we have taught our students to believe in democracy and to take action to defend it. Thank you.
>> Thank you for your comments. Up next we have Nancy Fairbear. Good evening. I'm Nancy Farber. I'm a Canton resident and I'm a member of Capes. We'd like to call your attention to a ballot initiative that we support
called Invest in My Kids, MIDIs. We're asking the community to support this initiative by signing a petition so that it appears on the November ballot. This ballot measure addresses school
funding shortfalls. As we know, public schools in Michigan have been underfunded for decades, and now we're seeing federal funding cuts. Invest in my kids provides a way to
shore up funding. So, here's how it works. If you earn less than $500,000 a year or less than a million as a couple filing jointly, you pay nothing, not a penny.
So that covers 99% of us. The top 1% though would pay a 5% sir charge that would generate about a billion and a half every year for K
through 12 public schools. So imagine what a billion dollars or more would do for our schools every year. This could boost pay to attract and retain teachers and support professionals, expand career and
technical education, address building issues. I mean these are just a few examples. So how can you help? Visit the investinidsmids.org. org website to find a petition signing
location. It's really simple. You can go to the website investinmykids.org and you can search for a petition signing event near you. You can also host your own signing event uh and you can pick the day and time that works for
you. and educators, administrators, and board members. We're asking that you wear red fored uh from February 14th through the 28th to show your support. Again, the website is invest inmykids.org.
Um, and we're asking that people sign the petition by the end of February. So, Valentine's Day is approaching. What better way to show your love for the beating heart of our community, our Plymouth Canton schools, by supporting
the Invest in My Kids ballot initiative. Thank you. Okay, up next we have Mary Miller. Good evening board and uh Dr. Merritt um and members and community. Um my name is Mary Miller. I'm a grandmother in the
district. I am also a member of P Flag, a member of Western Wayne and Divisible and now a member of Tapes apparently. So there we go. Um, but as a parent, a grandparent,
um, in the community, and a concerned citizen, I would like to talk about belonging. Um, it's something I've wanted to address since the December 9th meeting. at that meeting after a very impressive
presentation showing the measurable successes of belonging centered practices, improved attendance, stronger relationships, higher engagement. The only question one board member had was what does it cost?
That moment haunted me. I it made me wonder what's the value of belonging and and what's the value of kindness? What's the value of ensuring that every child feels safe and welcome and seen?
Belonging is not a luxury item on a budget line. It's a foundational condition for learning. Research is clear. When students feel they belong, they feel valued, they they uh rather than marginalized, they attend school
more regularly, they take academic risks. Um they build trust with teachers and they achieve at higher levels. Districts that prioritize belonging see gains in literacy, graduation rates, and overall school
climate. These are not abstract ideas. These are measurable outcomes. And this matters profoundly here in Plymouth Canton. We're one of the most diverse districts in Michigan with over 80 language backgrounds. We are have immigrant communities, multicultural
families, LGBT LGBTQ plus students, students with disabilities and children from every income level. This diversity is a tremendous strength, but only if every student feels they belong. Belonging is
not political. It's not ideological. It is a basic human need to feel safe and to learn. When belonging is undermined, students disengage, families lose trust, attendance drops, and students who are already most vulnerable, immigrant
children, LGBTQ plus youth, multilingual learners are the ones um maybe that suffer the most. No district can thrive when any portion of its student body is pushed to the margin.
But when belongings is protected, the opposite happens. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. Up next, we have Heather Gatney. >> Heather. >> Hi. My name is Heather Gatney and I live in Plymouth with my two kids who go to
school in the district and I am here tonight as both a parent and a member of Capes, the Canton and Plymouth Education Squad. I want to begin by expressing my support for the hundreds of high school students who staged a protest last week in
response to recent ICE operations in Michigan and the rest of the country. The student leaders of the protest explained their purpose this way. This is their words. Unlike other school districts in Michigan, PCCS has yet to
release any statement nor show concern about the rise of ICE activity and their impacts on students. As a district full of immigrant families, students are taking a stance that the school district will not. The purpose of this protest is to not only criticize the actions of
ICE, but as well as our school board. I understand that leaders of our district and most of the members of this school board are concerned about the increase in ICE activity. However, for students and families who are worried about their safety, it's
impossible to know what steps the district is taking. Without clear, proactive communication from the school district, families are left feeling uncertain and unsupported. That's why I urge the district to release a statement to reassure our
students and families that their well-being matters and that their concerns about ICE are being addressed. Next, I want to address the district's protocol for responding to ICE officials on school grounds. Several of my fellow Capes members have been urging the
district to implement comprehensive training for all staff on these protocols. This request is similar to my ongoing effort to have all staff trained on the district's anti-harassment and transgendered student policies. And up to now, the district's response on that
has been to train principles at the high school and leave it to them to educate their staff. As far as I'm aware, this approach has not resulted in the successful training for all high school staff. And that's why I believe the district should take a different, more
direct approach when it comes to training staff on its ice related protocols. Recent ice activity in nearby communities like right over here in Northville and in Ipsellani also show that this is an urgent issue and the
district must treat it with the utmost of seriousness. For these reasons, the district should dedicate some time during the next professional development day on March 4th for all staff to review and understand their responsibilities if
they encounter ICE or other federal agents on school grounds. If this initiative is communicated in a statement to district families, it will not only ensure that staff are prepared, but also reassure families that the district is actively addressing their
safety concerns. Thank you. Hey, thank you for your comment. We are actually at our 30 minute mark. So, we do have a few more citizens comments here in this pile. We will hear those at the second segment within our agenda. Um, we are going to move on to um
section F, administrative reports and recommendations. And I will kick it over to Miss Minnik. Thank you. >> Good evening. It's our pleasure to present to you and walk through with you the recommended mid-year budget
amendment for our general fund for this current school year. So recall that this budget was adopted in June of 25 uh at the very end of last school year by law. They must a budget must be adopted for the following school year by June 30th.
So our board did that and as part of that we had to make certain assumptions in order to build our budget. We had to make assumptions around enrollment around state aid around other types of costs and revenues that were not yet known at that time. So as a course of
our business, a good business practice would be to present a budget amendment, revise our spending plan now that some of those assumptions are now known. So as part of that, we'll get right into it. We always start our work with a connection to the dynamic plan strategic
goal. A I apologize, I have a clicker. There we are. I apologize. Uh so that connection to the PCCS dynamic plan is through our strategic goal A of PCCS will increase achievement for all students and close achievement gaps. We
will do that around strategic objective FO1 and two to align our financial resources including those state and federal resources to areas of greatest need as support for individual students as identified through academic achievement data and also through our strategic goal B. All PCCS students and
staff will report that they feel physically, psychologically, and emotionally safe and represented at school. We will do that through our strategic objective FO1 or rather four, aligning financial resources to the areas of greatest need to support the social emotional needs of all staff and
students. And so with that then if we follow our logic model, our budget amendment, then we uh will attain that dynamic plan action items through fiscal responsibility and alignment of those resources in such ways as uh aligning
those resources received through state school aid, federal grants, and such. uh to identify uh the areas of best resource use through looking at our activities, our outputs, our short-term outcome goals, midterm, and of course
long-term goals. So this evening, we'll walk through some historical financial data just to set the table and then we'll take a look at our general fund 2526 original budget summary. We'll walk through just a summary of the current adopted budget as well as walk through those recommended
mid-year amendments. Recall that in the general fund, our primary source for revenue for school operations is state aid. That state aid is called our foundation allowance, but it has a component of both state and local revenue dollars. And that
foundation allowance is multiplied in general by our enrollment to arrive at the total state aid that we receive for our oper for our operations. So we here we depict our enrollment over the last 10 years in student FTE's full-time
equivalents. It's not headcount uh but we're funded on our FTE. So with that, this chart depicts that during the fiscal years 2017, 18, 19, 20, our enrollment held pretty steady, just some
small gains or losses. But then in 2020, when we had CO, we know that as we returned to school that fall in 2021, districts across the state, across the nation, lost enrollment as a result. So with that, we also see a continuation of
a of a slight decline over the years since that time. You'll notice in 2021, there's a green box at the top of that enrollment number. That was something uh at the time of COVID that the state it was a mechanism that the state used to
help um ease our way into a reduction of funding because of that reduced enrollment and that was called the super blend. and it was just an artificial lift in our enrollment counts so that our revenue when we multiply our revenue by our state aid it wasn't such a
drastic drop in that revenue. So as I mentioned the other component in that equation is enrollment times foundation allowance and there's a lot of information on this chart that I want to walk you through. Just at first glance you see there are green bars and gray bars. green bars are our actual
foundation allowance amounts for each of those years. Calling your attention to the far right column or bars, if you will, for 2526 this current school year, our foundation allowance is $10,50 per pupil.
The gray bars illustrate inflationary amounts. So if our foundation allowance had kept pace with inflation over these past 10 years or so, you can see that we would have possibly achieve those
foundation allowances to keep pace would have would have been at a much larger amount. We're using an inflation rate of 2.7% as our auditors noted when they presented the audit report in November. So with that then to keep pace with inflation it would be anticipated that
our foundation allowance this year might be $11,959 per pupil. So when you multiply the difference there of about $1,900 times our FTEES as we showed in the previous graph that's a variance of
about $30 million just in one year alone. So when you think about each of those years uh what that compounding effect could have been and what that could have meant for students. Another general takeaway from this chart is to show that our foundation allowance though whether the green bar or the gray
bar has generally somewhat increased uh very gradually over these past 10 years. Our final graph that we'll present this evening is a look at our year-end fund balance amounts. So what is fund
balance? It is not cash in the bank. It's simply an accumulation of each year's revenue in excess of expenditures. So it's that net difference between revenues and expenditures added to the next year's added to the next years. Now be even though it is not cash, it is still an
indication of fiscal health. It's an indication of being able to meet our financial obligations. Uh it is an it's an illustration of our resources and our liabilities and where those meet. So with that we can see that over time uh
we didn't label this with any numbers because the takeaway is that our fund balance has ebbed and flowed but it's generally hovered uh within the ranges that are depicted in those navy blue boxes on the right hand side. So we have some rules to live by with our fund
balance. Our first is in the middle. It's our our board policy around fund balance which calls for our fund balance to be at least equivalent to 10% of our expenditures. So as you can see each of those well the the markers really indicate the 2526 original budget
amounts where we anticipate our fund balance to land. And so you can see for 2526 we're we're certainly uh we certainly meet that 10% of board policy. It is in excess of that but we also are meeting that 15% of expenditure marker which is
our auditor's recommendation and best practices as noted by the Michigan School Business Officials Group and other business school of business professionals and we are right there at 15% with our current adopted budget. There is also a state statute that
requires our fund balance to always be in excess of 5% of our revenues. And you can see where we are far above that amount. So with some of that data in mind, we'll take a look at our general fund original budget. We'll summarize that just to remind you all where we are with the
budget that was adopted last June, and then we'll move into summaries of our recommended budget amendments. So a quick snapshot of the original budget with which we are working with now. Our spending plan for this school year, the total revenue is anticipated
and adopted at $224.9 million nearly $225 million. Our anticipated expenditures $231 million. That is an excess of expenditures over revenue. So, we have a planned use of
our fund balance in the amount of $6.1 million. When we add that use of our fund balance to our beginning fund balance, which at the time in June 30th, at June 30th, it was not yet audited. It was our anticipated beginning fund balance for
July 1. That budgeted amount was $40.9 million. So when we add that use of fund balance of $6.1 million to that amount, we arrive at a budgeted ending fund balance for this coming June 30th of $34.7 million. And we note there that we
are still aligned with as a percentage of revenues and as a percentage of expenditures. So with that, I'll turn it over to Jod Melbourne, our executive director of finance and accounting to walk you through the details of our adjustments that we are recommending.
Thank you. As Jill mentioned, our original 2526 budget budgeted our revenue at $224.9 million. The changes that we note um we've summarized and to our local property tax, we're
increasing our revenue by $1.4 4 million which is mostly due to increases in taxable values in our boundaries. We also have a slight reduction to our projected interest revenues and other local income sources. That's the first two lines that you see on the
spreadsheet there. The following five lines all are related to MIPERS which is our retirement funding and um expenses. This is actually related to the revenue. So, if you add up all of those lines
from the $1.2 million down to the $6 million adjustment for the state aid uh Mipers's UL rate stabilization, that nets to a net reduction in $3.6 million in our MYIPERS revenue.
Beyond that, when we look at intermediate revenue, um we have a couple reductions for state aid uh categoricals and transfers to our act 18 fund. Uh, one the thing that I did want to point out on line 10 is that in our
original budget, we had a line item called other categorical funding and we budgeted that at $2.3 million because we anticipated that the state would come through with some type of categorical funding like they usually do. We weren't quite sure what that would look like or
what it would be. So, we've replaced that line in our current uh mid-year amended budget to be the educator compensation um categorical funding that we received, which conveniently was $2.33 million. So, we're adjusting up that revenue by
the difference of the $33,278. And then a couple other um minor adjustments to land at um a net reduction in our revenue estimate of $2.8 8 million for a midyear amended revenue of $222.1
million on the next page. See if I can get there. Okay. As we look at expenditures, we started our original budget with expected expenditures of $231 million. And you'll see the first line there is
the educator compensation. Because we were not anticipating that revenue and it is a pass through directly to our staff, we have to budget for the $2.3 million worth of salary and benefit expenses. We also had a net reduction in other salary and benefits to the tune of $1.2
million as we finalized negotiated salaries, benefits, staffing, and grant placements within our accounts. We have slight increases for substitute costs, tuition expenses, and other services. On that other
services line, we netted at $319,000. That was comprised of some budgets going up, some going down, and it came to a net of that 319 figure. We've also reduced our estimate for textbooks for the year. um increased our utilities
estimate and then some other miscellaneous um supply budget and miscellaneous expenses which is a total of adjustment of an additional $1.2 million in expenditure bringing our midyear amended expense budget to $232.3
million. Thank you. So now we'll take those detailed revenues and expenditures and assimilate them into what does that mean for our bottom line? What does that mean for our revenues and expenditures overall? So on this chart like to walk you through that
on the far left column we see the 2526 adopted original budget. This is again a recap of the slide that I shared. our total revenue and expenditures that planned use of 6.1 million uh added to our budgeted beginning fund balance for a budgeted
ending fund balance this year of $34.7 million. Moving to the total amendments column, then we see that net reduction in our anticipated revenues of 2.8 million as Jod shared two slides before and then
that increase in expenditures of $1.2 million in the last slide. So when we add those two together, we see then a reduction of revenue and an increase in expenditures is another use of our fund balance of $4 million. Our far right column then would be that
the proposed amended budget for our total revenues and total expenditures. We arrive at those values by adding a cross. So our new uh proposed amended budget value for revenue would be $222,137,628. total expenditures
232,337,196. That results in a total net change in our fund balance of a depletion of about $10.2 million. Now, as we draw our eyes down to the beginning fund balance amount, we now know our audited value. So, we adopted
the budget on June 30th of 2025. We had our audit over the course of the summer and the fall. And we now know that our audited fund balance amount, our true fund balance amount, we started the year with $44.9 million fund balance. So now
we apply that use of 10.2 million to the beginning fund balance to arrive at now a projected amended fund balance, ending fund balance of $34.7 million. We see beneath there some percentages depicted and that just shows that we are still
aligned with those three benchmarks of exceeding that 15% of uh expenditures as well as uh exceeding 5% of our revenues. Now the takeaway from this slide is if you compare our ending fund balance as
we budgeted in 2526 that was 34,77485. When you look at our amended fund balance as adjusted here of 34 million762049 that difference is only about 12
$15,000. So we are still projected to end. We're moving along that pathway to land where we had originally anticipated. Yet we just see some shifts in those revenues, those line items for expenditures. Where is the money coming in? What what
pockets are they going into? And how are they being dispersed? Uh so the net takeaway if uh is that we're still on track for where we were originally anticipating to land. So what are our next steps then? We will absolutely continue our financial sur
financial surveillance. We're going to continue as we always do in our finance department to analyze variances and trends against our expectations. We're going to validate oh yep that's what we expected or no it is not and if not why. We're going to monitor our budgets
against those actual collections and our actual spend. So we have two payrolls a month. We pay our vendors every week and we collect revenues as they come in. And so we're always monitoring where are we landing? Is it as we expected? What are some of those trends that we're seeing?
And why or why not are we landing where we are? And in that process then we're validating continuously our projections. So what does this mean for our bottom line? What does this mean for overall revenue? If this happens, how might that affect our expenditures and so forth? So
that's a continuous process no matter what time of year it is, whether it's mid-year amendment, original budget. It's always budget season. Uh so then we will then continue that monthly financial reporting on our finance and operations committee. We always present a monthly financial statement of what's
been happening over the past month. What does that mean? Uh and then we will continue to prepare our final year-end amendment which we will bring forward for the June to review and adopt in June by state statute. And alongside that, at
the same time, we are beginning to prepare a 2627 budget because that is also by law to be adopted by June 30th. Uh so with that, as we prepare our year-end financial uh financials and our financial amendment and we're preparing
our budget, we will continue to bring forward a number of things here for that work. We'll be bringing forward some highlights of the consensus revenue estimating conference that occurred in January. We will have details and highlights of the governor's budget proposal. Through the spring, we will
start to see the Senate fiscal agency budget proposal, the House budget proposal. And those budget proposals will start to give us an idea of what are those budget priorities at the state level. Will they want to continue free meals? Will they want to increase at risk funding and so forth? And so, as
Jod mentioned earlier, last year as an example, the House, the Senate, and the fiscal agency both indicated quite a bit of money for categorical funding. We didn't know where that would land, but we had a pretty good guess that we would earn some type of categorical funding.
So, as she mentioned, we had a revenue lump sum figure there in our budget of about 2.3 million and that's about where we came in. That doesn't always happen, but that is our process. And so, we'll be bringing those things forward for your review as we move through the rest of this year. Now with that, we have
mentioned at our audit when the audit was reported in November and in previous budget meetings and so forth that we do have budget reductions to make. We have been presenting for some time around a fiscal cliff as as uh they call it out
there. Uh but um it is real. We do have some budget alignments to make whether those are revenue improvements or uh expendure expenditure reductions and that is our work and we will we will work uh to do that and bring those trends and things that we're seeing uh forward for your review.
Uh so with that um we uh that concludes our presentation uh but we're happy to answer any questions you may have around this midyear amendment or budgets in general. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I'm going to start with member Voss. Do you have any questions?
>> Thank you for this presentation. I know it must have been a lot of work, but thank you for it and I have no questions. >> Thank you. >> Um I echo me member Vos, thank you for all of the work on this. Um I don't have
any questions because you went through it very thoroughly. So thank you. >> Thank you. >> So I missed the uh FNO meeting. with the most exciting meeting of the of of the month. So, I do have a few questions and comments to to weigh in. Um,
the big thing that I'm drawing from this is is that we often times see a little bit of differences between our budget and our final uh audited amendment or I'm sorry, our final audit. And in this case, it's about $4 million. And that's
less than 2% uh a little over a percent of our our budget. So, it's pretty consistent in terms of what we're doing of making that budget overall. That extra that we had from the audit is really just offsetting the extra costs and the decreases in revenue that we're
seeing at this time. So, we're able to retain the same um plan use of fund balance. Uh but this is different than what we've seen in past years. oftentimes in past years, we've seen uh a tiny net increase in our plan use. I'm
sorry, uh our our our fund balance after we go through this kind of audit process. It's great that we're able to keep the b uh the audit um sorry, the budgeted um amendment consistent, but it is really a challenge for us. This is a structural problem that we have. We
can't continue to use uh this kind of money, and so we're really in a hard place as a district. we are not getting enough revenue coming in from the state to support the initiatives and the programs that we want to do to provide uh funding for our educators and to
really invest in our kids in the way that we want. We're lucky in that we've been able to have a healthy fund balance in the past that has allowed us to use that money, but we're essentially rating our rainy day fund to support the initiatives and programs. And this is going to make for a very difficult
budget year as we go forward um in this process. Again, I want to commend, as my uh fellow board members did, all the hard work that goes into this, but this is a really challenging situation for us as a district and for us as a state because we're not funding public
education in the way that we should. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. If May I append, please respond to a few things you noted. uh you noted that $4 million that we added to the fund balance last year >> and to speak to that point there will
always be adjustments >> uh and that is to be expected. If we were never to adjust anything that would be a a red flag in my estimation and as part of that then we also know that there are some line items that go unspent. Maybe we don't fill a role we're not able to find a proper
candidate. But I also want to thank this district for their stewardship around their budgets and these programs in our schools and particularly Jod Melbourne's expertise too in her work to really dive into the details to help bring forward this budget amendment. So thank you. Um
but with that um when it comes to the audit time uh we will always take every advantage to be sure that we're protecting the general fund. So if there are bond eligible expenditures for example that were accounted for in the general fund,
we will transfer those to the bond fund so that we're always protecting the general fund and keeping as much money in reserve for our classroom instruction and our key uh primary mission. So I just wanted to mention that we should always see some adjustments there. >> Yeah, absolutely. And and it they're not
huge adjustments. They're, you know, less than a little over a percent. So it's it's very consistent. And again, I commend the administration for the work that they do. Sometimes you see budget holders that work really hard to spend all of their money because it's like, "Oh no, if I don't spend my money, I won't have it." We don't have those
approaches and those attitudes in this district. People spend the money for the things that they need, and if they have excess money, they let it go back into the fund. And that's why we see that $4 million that that showed up in the in the audit. It also means that when there is unusual expenses, we're there to
support pe uh people for the extra expenses that we need. And that's a great way to run uh to run the uh the administration and the district. So it it's it's my my broader question point was just really on the really it's a plan use of fund balance. We're using
$10 million out of our fund balance to fund our programs this year. That's not sustainable. >> Thank you. I have no questions. Thank you for the presentation. >> Yes, I want to continue to echo the great work that you both are doing. I also want to commend Treasure Kho and um
the whole team that works with the treasure committee in making sure that there's oversight um with the budgets. We've seen districts that haven't been able to provide that type of oversight. So, I commend you all for this transparency and keeping us um accurate
midyear and as well as the at the end of the year. So, thank you for that. I do have some comments and some questions more wonderings. So I look at this graph. If you could go to the foundation allowance graph >> one more
>> there. Oh, foundation. >> Foundation. Yes. So you know when we look at this, you're looking at this as a public. I look at this, we start from 2016 and we've made gradual gains and we're like, it's not that bad. And then I started to look at where were we 10
years prior to this because I was in K12 education since 1995. So I'm seeing these trends. So I go back to the charts and look at where were we prior to 2016 2017. In 2008 2009 school year, the foundation
allowance was 7,316. Not far off where we are in 2016 2017. And then we went three years, maybe four, of budget freezes and budget cuts and districts had to make sacrifices.
Teachers made sacrifices. I don't want people to forget those sacrifices because right here it looks okay. We're doing okay. But there were some really tough periods in Michigan with public education with those incredible cuts and I want to commend
the district for the leadership that they continued to grow and do the best that they could for our students with what little they had. But my wondering is if we could get a graph and you could put in board notes to go back to 20089
because at that point we were kind of stable you know just like this we were growing a little bit every year. 20089 everything shifted and I think it's good for us to have that visual and understanding what those eight years did to us in how we got here. So I'd like
that along with um our student trends at that time. So going from 20089 >> I'd love to see it go back to proposal a sure 1994. I don't know that if that data is really readily available but
>> it is I but I think the the stark changes >> the shock really comes in at 20089. >> So um if you want to add treasure khost to that we can do since proposal a look at the foundation allowance as well as our enrollment for each year so we can
get a broader perspective as to how we got here >> enrollment in terms of FTE for funding. Mhm. >> So that's the the bigger question I had. And then just to echo Treasure Kho's points about this is hard work for what
we're doing with the little incremental changes that we're seeing. And we need a lot more and we can't forget the fact that IDA is not fully funded. So that is coming out of general fund as well. So we're again doing a lot with what little
we have. Just a reminder, IDA is a special education program. >> Yeah. Special and it's a federal uh program that promised what was it 40% reimbursement to schools. We're lucky if we get 11 to 12% reimbursement for our
our students on IEPs. So, thank you. Thank you for your comments. If I may just add, there's a number of revenue sources in addition to grants that are opportunities that we might explore as a district around syncing funds and other ways to defay costs for
>> that's a great general fund. >> Okay. I look forward to that conversation member. >> Yep. I do not have any questions, but thank you go for going over that twice now. >> Member Hamemed. >> No questions, but thank you very much for this diligent work.
>> Our student co-chair. Thank you for this. Um I have a few questions. The first one being if you go back to the student enrollment section. >> Sure. >> Um I know that you mentioned after COVID we see a decline but you also mentioned that this was a big source of our fund
funding and I was just curious if um the decline that we have not just the big drop after COVID but the slow decline that we're having coming into 2026 it matches up with the patterns of other schools around this area. Thank you for that question. We've not compared
ourselves at least in our finance department around uh comparable districts and their enrollment trends. Um but I appreciate that question. We h we will take a look at that. >> I will say as a state though that we do know that there's a decline. It's a decline in birth rate across the state
as well as students that are actually attending public schools. >> That's that's correct. From a broader standpoint, the state of Michigan is losing public school students each year. Mhm. >> Um, and then this is a point made by some of the other board members. I was
just curious, are we taking money out of a rain check fund or like out of, you know, a rainy day fund to put into pro programs to enhance the schools, districts, enhance learning? >> Thank you for your question. I might
interpret that to mean when uh, Treasurer Kho mentioned the rainy day fund, he I believe you were referring to the fund balance. >> Fund balance. Yes. >> Yeah. We don't have a separate fund to account for any type of savings in that way. >> And the answer to your question is yes. So as we look at our dynamic plan and
the programs that we want for students, we do have a planned use of fund balance to say hey if we want to for example I'll give u dual enrollment or u early middle college. We have expanded those programs because those are opportunities for students. So if a budget was before
$48,000 and now it's how much to support that program didn't quite quite a bit more. So we would utilize plan planned use of fund balance to invest in programs for students that we also believe will attract our families to the district as well.
And so on that topic, I'm just curious if it's worth considering that on a time right now with you can say the storm's on the horizon with the current state of the government, you know, the value of the dollars dropping and we don't know what could happen. I could say um in
next couple of months, couple of years, is it worth taking the time to maybe consider, you know, making sure that we have backup plans? We don't want to be left, you know, um, empty-handed if something happens and we
want to have, you know, something that we can fall back on. Is that worth considering or is that something you already considered? >> So, in that vein, we do long-term budget projections. Uh, the farther you get from the current year, the more nebulous it is. It's a always a gamble around how
much might state aid go up or down, what might our enrollment be, but we always plan for that so that we can see any action we might take today, what that compounding effect might be. And we build in those what I think are realistic um possible increases or
decreases in state aid and enrollment and other kind of grant funding or categorical funding. So that we have a number of scenarios available to us but we can always take some measure or some action apply it to today and see how that might affect ongoing operations.
>> Miss could you share two slides over the year-end fund balance because that really speaks to what we do and why we have those percentages there. >> So you to your to your point we do have that the the year the the fund balance
essentially is our rainy day fund. It is the funds that we use to support things that we may not know that's going to happen. It can also be used to help support us when the money doesn't come in at the same time that the expenses do without us having to go out and borrow money to pay payroll or anything like
that. And it's $33 million or $36 million. So, it's a substantial amount of money. And that's where those policies and those uh those numbers come in. The general recommendation is to keep that number at 15% or higher. That's the uh the auditor's uh
recommendation. We have a board policy that says it must be 10% or higher and the state gets uh involved when that number drops below 5%. So we're we're we're not planning at this point to go below those numbers or to to do those things. But this is one of those
challenges that we have. >> Thank you for your question. >> That's a really good question. >> Really good question. >> Member West, you had one more question. I'm not exactly sure how to ask this, but we're talking about really big numbers, $10 million, $30 million when
the foundation allowance side slide. Can you give me some kind of analogy? Is there something in the district that like if we said we needed we need to cut $10 million, is that the cost of
transportation or, you know, is there something that physical that I can equate it to? I left the overall budget at my place setting. Um but I believe if you if oh boy
in the board recommendation page in your packets uh where we will be taking action on this amended budget I believe our entire supply line item might be right around that value. >> Transportation for example is 117
million. So if >> so we're talking about if we have to cut $10 million that's >> cutting all transportation >> transportation >> exactly >> I mean obviously we wouldn't cut transportation but >> yeah no but you're just trying to understand the order of magnitude
>> 10 million is a big number right so >> correct >> I'm trying to give some kind of >> what does that mean >> okay right any other questions from my colleagues or >> if I could add one more thing and I
think this is the overall message from coming from a student. Um it seems that there's a lot of expenditure going on to improve the district, improve the schools. Um I just want to make sure that when we, you know, spend money and
if we're on a tight budget to make sure that it's truly and fully supported by the people it will affect being the students and the teachers. Um I can give an example of this being the school the new whiteboards or the pro the
uh yeah smartboards um that we had and I know it was a bond for specifically technology if I'm right but I mean on a day-to-day experience a lot of my teachers do not like them. I don't have a single teacher in Canton and I do have a lot I have four classes in Canton who
say that they um like this smartboard more than they would like you know a upgraded projector. Um so I know it's definitely a good thing that we're investing money into our teachers and our students and bettering the district. I just want to make sure that we, you
know, get the opinion or, you know, get more teachers and students um voices heard when we're making such large decisions, especially at a time like now. >> Good. Thank you so much. >> And and just remind Arjun and the community, they come from different
pools of money. The money that we're talking about here this evening is our general fund. those technology purchases, the building additions that we're doing, those come from bond funds. So, they are different pools of money. So, just I know I think you understand that because you've been here for a while, but I'm just telling the
community that's what that happens with them. >> Jody, did you have any other comments? >> Okay. Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. Y Okay, we are now moving on to action item number 26-02-40.
consider approval of the 2025 2026 mid-year budget amendment. This is a first and final reading. Can I have a motion? >> Madam President, I move that we consider approval of the 2025 2026 midyear budget amendment. First and final reading, action item number 26-02-40.
>> Can I have a second? >> Second. >> Okay. It was moved by Vice President Sadu and seconded by Treasurer Kho. I'll call for the vote. Those in favor, please say yes. >> Yes. Those opposed say no. Motion carries 70. Okay. Up next, uh, Miss
Minnik, will you take us through this package? >> Yes. Thank you. Uh, first evening this evening is bid pack T12, which covers -ate network infrastructure and structured cabling related to bond projects at Galamore, Hoben, Discovery, Salem, and PUP athletics. This work
supports our ongoing res renovations and allows the district to receive approximately 50% reimbursement through the federal rate program. Following a competitive bidding process, staff is recommending awards to Nerds Express and Peopledriven Technology with an
estimated total project cost of $24,179 using 2023 bond funds with anticipated reimbursements of about $73,000. So, I'll turn this over now to uh Mr. Salzer, our executive director of integrated technology systems, and Matt
Stacker with Barton Mallow. Thank you. >> Well, hello everyone. Um, as Jill mentioned, we are looking to um add technology to the additions and the renovated portions of Galamore, Hoben, Discovery, and Salem, and as well as the
Peace Up athletic um addition and renovations uh south of Canton High School. Uh this bid package does cover all of our eligible items uh such as structured cabling and network access point or network switches and wireless
access points in these spaces as well as um salvaging and putting back devices in the ceilings um and other spaces that are getting renovated throughout these buildings. Um anything else? No, just uh we always try to uh leverage the
opportunities to have somebody else cover the cost and we're doing it this time, too. So, I don't know if you have any questions, but it's it's a great program that's available to us and we avail ourselves of it as fully as we can. >> Thank you. We'll open up to questions
starting to my right. Miss Foss, >> thank you. No questions. Miss West. >> Uh no questions. Thank you, Mr. Keo. Sorry, I missed the meeting. Uh, simple question I normally would have asked there. When I look at the network electronics, Nerds Express was the
chosen bidder. Their total cost is 66,000. When I see the secondary bidder there, it's peopledriven technology that at $75,000, but it looks like they've got a voluntary alternate that would reduce that cost by 8,000. Um, can you give us
some context around that and why we because I think that would be end up cheaper than uh or is it not? I think it's >> I think it's still you're right. People people driven still people people driven still cheaper. Okay, I got it. >> So to compare it um uh the total
potential award the 669 for Nerds Express would compare to uh People Driven's base bid price because People Driven had the Cisco optics in their base bid price. To do it the other way, you can compare
um Nerds Express's bid price to People Driven's base bid minus their voluntary alternate. >> And and what is their voluntary alternate that they were considering there? Was that an alternate uh fiber provider? >> So, um the switches have uh these little
transceivers that plug into them for the fiber that comes from the MDF or the uh districts. Um, and Cisco's branded optics are more expensive than a third party optic. >> I I just did the math. They're I'm
sorry. I didn't notice it initially. The math is is um Nerds Express is still cheaper with the Cisco. >> Yes. Oh, sorry. >> That's what I I I misunderstood. So, my bad. I did my math. >> Yes. >> By about $1,000. >> Thank you.
>> Actually, about $100. Actually, $200. But yeah, it's still a cheaper. Thank you. Um, I have no questions. I'll pass on to Miss Sudu. >> No questions. Um, I always appreciate you all doing a very thorough job with looking at all the numbers comparisons. I did want to say I had a chance to meet
Ed Marky who started the - program in 1996, the champion of this program. He continues to fight for public education, ensuring that all kids have access to technology, Wi-Fi, everything that we need. So, it was a really nice um
experience and just to hear the history of - which I didn't quite understand, but kudos to him and all of the work he's done for us. >> Great. Thank you. >> And I do not have any questions. Thank you. >> Thank you. No questions. >> All right. Thank you very much.
Okay. Um up next, Miss Minnik, take us through that, please. >> Thank you. Uh the next item on the agenda is bid pack 10. I'm sorry, T13, which includes technology for additions and renovations at Galamore, Hobbin, Discovery, Salem, and Pep athletics. The
same facilities as the previous bid pack. This package includes audiovisisual systems, paging and clock systems, and upgrades to video surveillance and access control. the following uh or following a competitive bid process. Uh we are recommending awards to Tel Systems, SoundCon Systems,
and Security 101 for a total project cost not to exceed $654,823 funded through the 2023 bond program. Uh with that, I'll turn it back over to both of you to uh review any additional details. Um, not to bore you with the
same stuff that she read and also in T12 because we're doing the same work but different uh types of technology. Um, any more to >> I'll just offer these are all vendors that we've worked with before. We feel comfortable with them. They're low
qualified biders and so we're feeling comfortable with this uh recommendation to award. And these are non-erate eligible bid categories which is why we split them because of the rules and regulations with the rate. So >> thank you for noting that.
>> Y >> okay it up to questions. Member boss. >> Um I thought of a question for the last one. So I hope it's okay if I ask it. Um does this mean that in the press boxes the Wi-Fi will work better?
>> Which press boxes? Um, particularly I'm going to call the JV field because I don't know if it's north, south, east, or west. >> Plymouth. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay, great. >> We actually already are working on that. >> Okay. >> So, >> thank you. The announcer will be very
happy. >> I have no questions. Thank you for the work on this. >> No questions. >> Questions? >> No questions. Thank you. And I don't have any questions. Thank you. I have one question which you sort of answered which was that you are familiar with these vendors. Do you keep a list of
vendors that you have issues with and like what is that process? If you can just briefly allude to that. >> So I'll share my part. Uh yes, we we um we sometimes uh yes, you note it's good
to note who is able to um competently uh tackle the work and and especially we have a a bit of a uh complex environment. So sometimes it's it just you know maybe they were ambitious and
then we realize that maybe isn't a a strong fit. In fact, um that might help inform a little bit of the decision even in this T13. Uh so we do keep track. We also um we don't want to be blindly loyal to any vendor. So we also uh
encourage consideration like maybe you didn't get it this time, but you know, we're we we're very open to consideration. So we do both. And I'll offer that in the state um there's a list serve that I participate in and we
uh we we're very uh candid as a group to share the good and bad that we see just because it helps each other to know if we're getting to the right situation or not. >> Thank you. Appreciate it.
>> Thank you very much. We'll just move right on uh to the next item, which is a resolution to award the district's fiber maintenance service contract. This contract supports the ongoing maintenance and repair of our fiber network and allows the district to continue qualifying for rate
reimbursement. So, following a competitive bidding process, staff is recommending a three-year agreement with Western Telkom Incorporated with estimated annual costs up to $60,000 to be partially offset through shared agreements and federal rate reimbursements. And I should have
mentioned that all of these were already uh presented and vetted at the finance and operations committee meeting on February 5 as well. Uh but Mr. Szer, if you have any additional details, I'll share a couple. So this is um one that'll come out of general fund. In fact, of the four resolutions, it's the
one that will come and as a result, it also triggers uh the requirement to adhere to prevailing wages. That's why you'll see in the packet uh the wages for Wayne County because the um the awarded contractor will need to pay the journeymen or the electricians or the
people that are digging. Um that's one piece I' I'd offer um speaking to complicated. So we have uh we're we're blessed and fortunate that the community um now 12 years ago uh you know went forward to have a private fiber network
and uh and we have a a really robust network. So, it's 10 gigs across all of our buildings. That's lovely. Um, what what does that all entail? Just real briefly, uh, it's a little over,300 poles that are out, uh, around many
miles, dozens of miles that are carrying fiber and then there's two and a half over two and a half miles of buried fiber. And we need to have people take care of that. you know, when misdig, you know, when somebody wants to dig up something or if a a car hits a pole or a
tree, you know, knocks a pole and brings stuff down. So, we we need to have a company that can help provide, you know, the repairs. And that's what this is all about is the all the fiber that we have uh going uh to all of our schools and
from our schools to Wayne Rhesa. Um that's on poles and buried. We need to have the upkeep of that. and the government kindly allows us to file and have a reimbursement of our expenses. In our case, our rate uh qualified, which
is 50%. So, it's a it's a nice deal for us and it allows us to have a network um that's really great for everybody. >> Great. Thank you. Again, starting over to my right. No questions. Thank you. No questions.
>> No questions. >> Quick question. the clarification on the reimbursements for -ate. So I see that it would be 60,000 um under item two rate reimbursement 50% up to 60,000 and then that is out of the
180,000 that's listed at the I think the last page. >> So I'll I'll clarify. So we're we are submitting we're filing depending on you all and you know in 3 weeks or whatever we'll file and we're going to tell the government um for the next three years
every year we would be asking for approval to to possibly ask for reimbursements uh against a bill of $60,000 aggregate. So it's per year >> and it's only if you know if nobody
hurts the the polls our bills are small except for the misdig you know we have to pay for that but yeah it's it's really only um but we're just having ourselves with a cushion so that if we had a few mishaps and they cost thousands of dollars then we can ask the
government you know we we we give them the filing in July typically for all that last year and then they give us a check or they you deposit money for us. >> Thanks for that clarification. >> I do not have any questions. Thank you.
>> No questions. Thank you. >> All right. >> And for the final technology item on our agenda this evening, uh we have uh a recommendation for the purchase of 450 HP Pro laptops to replace aging devices that are no longer compatible with
Windows 11. This purchase addresses security concerns related to the end of Windows 10 support and helps ensure staff have reliable up-to-date equipment. We are recommending this purchase to the state of Michigan REMC purchase consortium with Seh High at a
total cost not to exceed 310,734 funded through the 2023 bond. We are respectfully requesting a first and final reading on this item due to an an anticipated significant cost increase and a an anticipated risk that the
vendor CI may pull this product as a result uh from the available items on REMY. Uh so with that I'll ask Mr. Szer just to provide a little bit more overview of this item please. >> So um >> yeah can I can we pause because this is a first and final we need to ask for a
motion I think to open this up for some discussion. I'm sorry. >> No, that's okay. Um, so I would like to ask for a motion, please. >> Madam President, I move that we consider approval of a resolution to purchase 450 HP Pro laptops, first and final reading. Action item 260241.
>> Can I have a second? >> Second. >> Okay. So, it was moved by Treasurer Kho and seconded by uh member Ahmed. Now, please continue. >> Thank you. >> We're a techn technology roll. Uh so um we have a patient staff, a uh a
flexible staff um and they've been using uh these laptops uh since 2018. That's a long time. Um and they're actually very um sturdy. Uh but they're unable to be updated um to Windows 10.
>> And so we had planned to actually get them out of our fleet um this summer. and we still might do it this summer. But what we've recognized is that the AI um world is causing a a real strain on
available RAM, you know, so memory and storage and that is in turn impacting the pricing of equipment and we have been seeing signaling from the market that prices are going to go up considerably. So, if you're thinking about getting uh electronics, a laptop
or whatever else, you probably want to do it sooner rather than later because you will see an increase. And we've seen already equipment being pulled from the Rimcy contract, not from this vendor, but others. And we've seen pricing from resellers already go up as of February
1st. So, we are aware that, you know, we were going to get it, but now we really need to get it sooner rather than later to ensure and lock in a pricing that is within our price point. So, we've identified we we looked at a bunch of six models. We kicked them around. We
did have a lot a number of staff look at them. I brought the one, you know, just for show and tell because we normally do that anyway and it's here. I'll just, you know, make it available or pass it along. But let me just hand that to you just to burden you with it. But that's what we're we're about. This is a a
device that uh we think will work in our environment. Uh and we're looking for um your support. >> Thank you. I'll open it up for any questions. Member Voss. >> No questions. Thank you. >> Um you said these are going to go to
staff. Is there any particular grade level or or anything that these are going to or are they just going to be spread across the district? >> So, that's a wonderful question. We were actually still deliberating on the two the the two approaches to this. So, we have um we need to replace the current
G5s that are deployed, but they're actually in a number of locations throughout the district, a number of them. So, we're trying to determine whether or not we're going to do an a direct swap, which has which would be the most efficient, or if we're going to uh standardize locations and do a a
wholesale swap there and then use those uh liberated devices to in turn offset in other locations that so we we're not sure which. What we know is we need to retire the current G5s by the end of
this year. And so those will either um you know go into to the staff hands that have them or they'll get they'll get a a Dell 3520 which is the other model in our fleet. In either way we we just need to make sure that we have enough um to be able
to offset all the ones that we currently have in use. >> Okay. Thank you. Yeah. >> Are these have sufficient uh storage and processor capabilities to support our teachers as they go into the future especially with the demands of applications like AI?
>> Yep. So, uh thank you. And uh so they have the latest processor. It's the ultra 5 12 core 4.8 gig. It's it's nice. It's speedy. Um the one you know thing that we've deliberated on is the memory.
We currently spec it for 16 gigs. We we recognize, you know, 32 for some people would make sense. We didn't want to do a wholesale um upgrade to that. So, we will likely as we identify um use cases
uh bump people up to that and probably not right away because 16 gigs is higher than we normally have in our environment right now. Recognizing it, you know, the future will require more >> and they are upgradeable because a lot of machines today are just soldered on. You can never upgrade them.
>> Nope. We're Yep. Okay. We've already opened them up. Looked them up. Thank you. I'm board. Thanks. >> Great question, Treasure Kho. Um, what's the lifespan of the new ones? >> The lifespan of the new ones. So, we
typically look for five years from a laptop. I mean, right now the its predecessor is eight years. Um, we we don't know. We we we can't afford I think industry normally is three or four years, but we're
>> we're education. Um so I I I'd like to believe if they're going to be uh and they this one is pretty I don't know where it is, but it's pretty durable. Uh we haven't done drop tests like we would normally do if we had more, but um not to scare you, but you know, we do a few things. So
>> do they give you one to just drop and test? >> Well, I mean you um Yeah. Well, we'll talk later. So, but yes, we're um we have every expectation that it'll last us for the five years that we'd like to see them
used. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Y >> and I do not have any more questions. Thank you. >> No questions. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Thank you very much. >> I need to vote. >> Yep. At this time, I'm going to call for the vote. So, those in favor, please say
yes. >> Yes. Those opposed say no. >> Motion carries. 70. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, Miss Oh, sorry. This is another final reading. So, we have action item number 26-02-42.
Consider approval of a resolution to purchase an outdoor pavilion structure Smith Elementary School. This is a final reading. Can I have a motion? >> Madam President, I move that we consider approval of resolution to purchase an outdoor pavilion structure for Smith Elementary School. Final reading, action item 260242.
Can I have a second? >> Second. >> Okay. So, it was moved by Treasurer Kho and seconded by member Pequard. Um, we discussed this at our last meeting. Does anyone have any other final comments or questions about this particular item? No. Hearing none, I'll call for the vote. Those in favor, please say yes.
Those opposed say no. >> Motion carries. 70. Okay, that concludes our administrative reports and recommendations. Now, we're moving on to our citizens comments overflow section. and we did have a few others in here. So, I appreciate your
patience everyone. Um, we will start with Sarah Krzanski. >> SARAH. >> UH, I am also here tonight to talk about the rest of my kids campaign. As you heard earlier, this is a ballot initiative. It's aimed at raising
muchneeded funds for our school children right here in the state of Michigan. People just like you and I have been canvasing the state, collecting signatures for this campaign. This proposal would require that the richest people in Michigan do more to help fund our children's futures. We're asking
that the top 1% of earners step up and pay their fair share. This ballot proposal would let voters decide if those folks should pay a flat tax of only 5% on any earnings above a half million dollars for a single person or
anything earned above $1 million for a couple. Now, anyone who has regularly attended schoolboard meetings has seen the effect of decreased school funding over the years. our own Jill Minnik, um, chief finance and operations officer, stood at this very podium a few months
ago and outline outlined some really painful cuts to professional service staffing positions along with reduction for supplies, equipment, and needed capital investments to bridge the expected shortfall in student funding to
the tune of $3.2 million. And I guess those amended budget talks tonight really underscored these challenges. So we all witnessed a protracted and often confusing fight to get final word on federal funding for the education department. We've watched
the state of Michigan cut millions of dollars in program funding. We cannot rely on the fickle nature of politicians. The time to secure our children's future is now. Currently, the richest people in our state are only paying about half of what the rest of us
are shelling out in taxes. This fair share proposal, if passed, is projected to bring in well over $1 billion of funding to our schools. This money will go into a state school aid fund with very strict guidelines on how it can be
allocated. Plus, all money spent will be subject to annual audits to ensure these funds are going exactly where they intended to. Don't you think that Michiganders should be given the right to vote for this ballot proposal? If you do, join us now. We are launching the
red fored movement, trying to recruit as many petition circulators as possible for the next couple of weeks. The signatures that we collect can open up the doors to funding for a final push to make this a reality. If you're interested in circulating, the training
is easy and takes only minutes. You can make a difference. Bring the ballots to your kids soccer practice, your weekend lunch with the family, or host a windown Wednesday with your friends and neighbors. Every bit helps get us across that finish line. For more information
or to sign the petition, please see me after the meeting today. For those of you listening on YouTube, go to invest inmykids.org. That is invest in the letters mi like Michigan.org. Invest inmids.org.
or thank you guys. >> Thank you. Up next we have Michelle Mustakis. >> Do you need your notes? >> You left them up here. >> I already signed a petition, Sarah. So, uh, good evening. My name is Michelle Mustakis. I'm a member of CAPES.
Tonight, I'd like to address the board and the students about last week's studentled anti-ICE walkout. First, I'd like to give kudos to those students who participated. The protest was organized, peaceful, and most of all, it showed
they care about the community and the country that they're growing up in. Social media was full of comments about the pet protest, but I'd like to use my time tonight to provide my comments in response. First, protests are never a
waste of time. That point was exemplified in a moving comment that was made at an interfaith press conference held in Detroit last week. A rabbi who spoke there thanked those who are now protesting in the streets. He said it often makes him think about what would
have happened in 1930s Germany if the German people had shown up in the great numbers we are seeing today to protest what their government was doing instead of staying silent as their neighbors disappeared and concentration camps
operated in their communities. How many lives would have been saved? How much horror might have been averted if the people had spoken out? Thank you students for speaking out. Second, this protest shows that the students are paying close attention to what's
happening at the local and national level. They see the deep hypocrisy going on all around them. We say bullying is unacceptable. Yet they see we don't hold the president of the United States accountable for routinely bullying
female journalists, calling them piggy, ugly, low IQ, stupid. We say we protect innocent children from predators. Yet they see those named in the Epstein files some thousands of
times continue to hold positions of power in this country while those around them seek to shield them from accountability. We teach that our constitutional rights are sacred, but they see ICE violating those rights
every day. Our students deserve credit for opening their eyes, their ears, and their intellect to see the truth even when the truth is uncomfortable. And lastly, as I talked about at the last meeting, our school should be striving to send graduates into the
world who not only excel in test scores and GPA, but are compassionate, strong, and ready to engage and thrive in a changing world. Otherwise, they risk being left behind, unable to adapt, and
afraid of circumstances they can't control. I thank the majority of this board who understand that each student has the ability to become a productive and valued member of our society if only given the opportunity. So, I close with a thank you to the PAP students. We
thank you for raising your voices to demand that our country live up to its ideals. You are a credit to our community. You are making a difference. Keep it up. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. Up next, we have Thea Sheridan.
>> She had homework and headed home. >> Oh, darn. Sorry about that. >> She is. and Whitmer. >> Um, I came to tonight to support my student who went home because she had homework, but um, I asked if she wanted
me to read the remarks she had prepared and she said that she actually thought it had been covered. Uh, in order to come here tonight, we prepared her for the fact that this might be a contentious meeting, that there might be multiple viewpoints on the walk out and
community issues presented and it's gone very differently than expected tonight and the crowd has been a little different than other schoolboard meetings I have attended regarding walkouts and other things. So, um, I just want to say I'm I'm a a PCAP alum
and walkouts have kind of always happened and always been a protest tool and a tool for the kids to use to voice their opinions and we continue to be really proud of the PAP students for using their voices and their first amendment rights and for getting
involved in civic issues. It's really great to see that that is still something that kids are doing. And then with the remainder of my time, I just wanted to ask that the board consider the um shadow a PC student for the day
program be extended to uh district resident students who might be at non-district schools right now who are in grades other than eight. say if there were high school students who currently attended someplace else and might also be really cur curious if the uh district
experiences for them or could handle um I have a district student who attends a nondist school um uh a specialized school um for her learning disability who is very curious about whether she
might be able to handle the park experience. She's a freshman in high school this year. Um she attended district schools previously uh and the elementary level but has been in a private school since then. Um and is very curious about whether or not the
park experience, especially some of the smaller um academy experiences might be something she could handle. And a shadow day for kids who are already in high school but looking at the district as an
option. um might be great if that's something the board is able to consider. That's all I have to say. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. Up next, we have Jennifer Fulton. Will not be lost, but people are limping up here and I'm talking about
disabilities. Um but hi I am Jennifer Fulton. I have two students in PA. We actually moved here for the excellent schools. We have been very satisfied, very happy with everything, but I do think that there is one thing that might be being overlooked at the park. Um just
see where I was at. So I love the park because it's unique design, how big it is, everything has so many opportunities for my students, both of which are gifted and talented. both of which are both of which are very busy all the time. My older daughter, the one that I'm here to discuss, she's in AP
classes, she does tennis, she's very involved with theater. Um, so she she does a lot and she she takes a lot of steps. The campus is very large. Uh, unfortunately, since she was three, we've had some problems with her feet and we finally realized, we couldn't tell until she was done growing, that
she has two malformed bones in her feet. So, she has a very rare genetic condition. It doesn't really stop her per se, but the more steps that she takes, basically the more pain she's in. You know, students, staff, teachers at the school don't really see it during the day. It's when she gets home. I
mean, we have like this crazy foot massager for we're trying to help her with. She's soaking her feet when she gets home. So, every step that she takes contributes to more pain later on. And of course, since she's a teenager, she doesn't want to slow down. I don't blame her. Uh, but I'm coming here today to
talk to the board as not only seeing her struggle with this, now she has custom inserts for trying this. Um, I've also seen her friends, one of them had a dislocated kneecap in a full immobilizing brace on the high school campus and she didn't want to go get the keys for the elevators. She figured by
the time she got all the doctor's notes and everything, it'd be too late. She'd be out of the brace because it was only beyond for a couple of uh weeks. but she was dragging herself basically up the stairs backwards with a complete immobilized brace on her her leg. So between seeing my daughter and then
temporary injuries from students, I'm just speaking to the board today in hoping that perhaps we can look into the park. It's such a unique experience. It's more like a college campus, but students, individuals with invisible disabilities, visible disabilities, temporary or chronic, it can be
difficult to get around campus. Um, I'm not sure. I have a few ideas, but I'm not sure exactly what that would entail. And I know there's budget issues as well, but I just wanted to come out and and voice my opinion on that and hope that the board might be able to look into something in the future to help
with that. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. That actually concludes our citizens comments overflow section. Um we are now going to move on to um section H discussion. And as I had mentioned in my president's report, we're going to kick it over to
members Sadu to talk a little bit about the NSBA conference. Thank you. Um I had the honor and privilege of attending the National School Board Association conference in DC. This was my second year attending and I did apply for a scholarship through um an ISD to
partially offset um the the funding for this uh conference. So I just wanted to share some highlights because I felt like this year was much better than last year in terms of the type of information that we got in the breakout sessions. So we heard from staffers working with
their state representatives on education related bills and advocacy for K12 education. The really nice thing this year was to see common ground around IDA. So I am hopeful more than I was last year that we will get some
movement, some stabilization in IDEA. So that in itself was a great um piece to hear. Then we also met as a whole schoolboard association for Michigan. There were I want to say like 40 50 schoolboard members from the state of Michigan with MASB and we did a day at
the capital where we had an advocacy day and we reiterated some of these things with IDA, mental health, safety, um teacher support, trying to figure out how to get more teachers into the profession given that there's a teacher shortage. So that advocacy day with our
um Congress people in Michigan was really good. Actually, it was their staffers that took notes um on their behalf. I did invite some of them to come to PCCS to see what we've done with our safety investments, but also to take a look at some of our needs. So they might be contacting you or us.
Um there was a fantastic session on civil discourse. So this is also professional learning for us as schoolboard members because this work is just like a you know educator you're constantly learning you're constantly growing and you constantly look for how
do we better work as a board of eight in in our governance team. So this session was really about civil discourse and working through conflict and building bridges through common understanding on behalf of supporting all kids. So the bottom line was good conflict is good
when it's done in a supportive environment when people listen to each other and have the best interest of kids in mind because that good conflict pushes us out of status quo. So sometimes we look at conflict as oh my gosh here's another thing but it really
reframed how I view conflict again as long as we are in a respectable um situation where we are listening with openness and curiosity. Um another session that was really really good and this blew my mind away
is school environment air quality and how that impacts student health and learning. Um this is a research through Harvard and they've been doing it for over four five years with other universities and they show the harmful impact that air pollution has on our
brains. Uh for those in the audience, those watching, I encourage you to research or Google Harvard Healthy Buildings Research. I'll repeat that. Harvard Healthy Buildings Research. Mind-blowing data. And and also ways for
schools to test air quality. Um there are no cost ways to see how well we're doing and we also invested in some HIPPA filters from our previous investments. So we got kudos for those kind of um investments. But it's really important for us to understand how air quality air
pollution impacts the brain and that that was really mind-blowing. Um, another favorite session was uh, student voice and um, this was supported by or led by National Student Board Member Association, NSBMA,
which is a subgroup of NSBA. And this was a great session to learn from kids and other board members about what they've done with student voice. It's comparable to our student voice in action. Um, I wrote down a lot of ideas for our team. I will be sending them to President Christensen and the team for
SBA for us to talk about and look at and see what's reasonable and realistic for us to implement with some of the ideas that I got. Um and um we had a federal law update with a lot of litigation happening all around the country. And so the bottom line
there was a lot of cases are up in the air. If you have any questions with your district, contact legal counsel. So they were not going to give us any advice because every state is different. Um, and another really nice session was AI sovereignty and infrastructure and the impact of AI and education in the
workforce. So we had a chance to test out different AI programs with our board member hats. So that was really eyeopening in terms of what kind of information we can get. Of course, you have to validate and verify this information and but the advancements
that AI programs have made over the last year because I did another AI session last year just I mean this is moving at a speed that we just cannot keep up and we have to figure out a way that how we use it as board members, educators,
students and you know this is another thing that we um put on our educators and I hope that there's adequate time built in for them to get PD and I we already have an AI policy which I applaud the district for for being a leader in that. So these are um some of
the highlights but I will put some links uh to some of the details for all of my board colleagues so you get a glimpse of all the work and all the uh learning that happened because I want you to learn from this as well. >> Thank you. I appreciate you sharing your learning. I you know I will open it up
for some questions from the board my fellow board members if you have any about your time there. I look forward to seeing the resources. So, thank you. >> Yeah, >> jam-packed three days. >> Yeah, no kidding. >> Yeah, thank you for sharing your learnings.
>> Okay. Um, another item that we had discussed earlier in the evening was just looking at our calendars to get another um special meeting on the on the docket. So, can we open up our calendars? Um, Dr. Merritt, when do you think your team
would be ready to have that? So, um, Miss Minnick looking or we going to probably try to look through the first week in March or do we want to go sooner than that? >> I apologize. Will you please repeat the question? >> So, looking for a another day for close
session. We have some homework on some information that we need to bring back and um, so my thought is maybe we a first look I could say maybe February 23rd. That's a Monday. Could that work? town. All right, we'll keep looking. How about >> this is a separate meeting?
>> A separate meeting. We need another close session. We have policy the 24th. So, I'm thinking no on that day. Um, if we want to look to the following week, how about u either Monday the 2nd or Tuesday the 3?
>> Either works for me. >> Is it second? >> I'm not sure. Yeah, either. I think either one's okay for me. >> The second one's for me. >> Okay. >> I prefer Monday. All right. And a time a start time
>> 5 or 5:30 work. >> 5:30 works good. >> We don't have a board meeting now. >> Sure. Okay. >> Yeah. This is going to be Monday, March 2nd at 5:30 p.m. >> All right. Diane will get a calendar invite out and uh >> hour and a half
>> at least. Yes. >> Okay. I just want to make sure we got enough time. >> Yes. Very good. And we won't be going into a meeting, so that's helpful as well. >> Yeah, that is. >> Thank you so much. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Okay. Got to get back to my agenda. I'm looking at my calendar. Sorry about
that. Um Okay. So, now we are moving on to follow-up board questions. I think as of um what do we have here after? So there were some conversations around student and family engagement and the data that
reflects the impact. Uh so we're working on that. Um as we kind of talked about a lot of that data is probably more anecdotal testimonial. Uh but uh Dr. Vartanium Gibbs is going to have something available for board notes and if there are additional needs we can
talk about that as well. >> Perfect. And then I captured from this evening um a follow-up board question around our mid-year budget amendment really wanting um a a graph or a chart or the data
around um the foundation allowance starting from 1994 year-over-year till now including enrollment. >> Yeah. FT >> FT. Yeah. >> Y any other >> easily available >> if it Yeah, if that is >> I was gonna say in the middle. We'll ask. It might not get get by this
Friday, but we'll get it. >> Fair enough. But Yep. Okay. Any other follow-up questions that >> I may not have captured from this evening. >> Okay. All right. That's great. Now we're at the end of the agenda. I will adjourn
the meeting at 9:21 p.m. Thank you everyone. I look radio day.