Ready, Frank? Alright, thank you. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to our regular scheduled board meeting. The time is now six o'clock PM and we are going to call this meeting to order. Madam Secretary, roll call please. VP Palmer, president, I'm present, Trustee Dooley. Present. Trustee Gross. Present. President Hannah. Present. Trustee Miller. Present. Treasure Terry. Present. We have a call. Thank you. Can all stand for the
pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Yeah. So what we doing as well? Can I get a motion for the approval of the agenda? It's been moved. Support. It's been moved by VP Bowman supported by Treasurer Terry to approve the agenda. Any questions? Roll call. I'm voting yes. Trustee Dooley? Yes. Trustee Gross? Yes.
President Hannah? Yes. Trent Trustee Miller? Yes. Treasurer Terry? Yes. VP Bowman? Yes. That passes seven off. Alright, thank you very much. Moving down to awards and recognitions, Doctor Leverette. Good evening. Thank you, President Hannah to our trustees, to our esteemed guest, staff, our wonderful students that are here this evening. To our parents, to our mothers, our fathers, our grandmothers, our grandfathers,
our aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers and cousins and everyone in between. I am so excited to see you all this evening. This is a very exciting event because we get to celebrate and acknowledge your children our children. This is a village and you all are an example of what it takes to educate our students. You are also an example of what we have intentionally identified in our
district strategic plan as it relates to student academics as well as social emotional well being. So, I just want to congratulate all of you and thank you so much for being here this evening. At this time, I would like called Principal Johnson who is the principal of Alcot to assist me with these recognitions this evening. Thank you. Read the first one, take turns because I don't know would you like for them to come up as you say their name? Yes. Doctor Levert said, please come to the front as we call your name. Itzel Borja.
Recognition. In recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of proficient on the twenty-four 25 MStep state testing assessment. Just keep going. Oh, okay. Daniel Harris. In recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of proficient on the twenty-four 25 MStep State Testing Assessment. Ethan Liu in recognition of achievement of obtaining a level of proficient on the twenty-four 2five
MStep state testing assessment. Gabriel Lavell Dimbo in recognition of achievement of obtaining a level of advanced on the twenty-four25 MStep testing assessment. Sorry baby. D'angelo Miller. In recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of proficient on the twenty-four 25 MStep state testing assessment. Kang Chi Moa. In recognition, of your achievement of obtaining a
level of advanced on the twenty-four 25 MStep testing assessment. Aven Coates in recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of proficient on the twenty-four 25 MStep testing assessment. Caleb Cruz Maldonado. In recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of proficient on the twenty-four 25 MStep State Testing Assessment. And a brother, Josiah Dembo. In recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of advanced on
the twenty-four 25 MStep state testing assessment. Jose Gomez Flores. In recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of proficient on the twenty-four 25 MStep state testing assessment. And he's student of the month. Prince Gray. In recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of advanced on the twenty-four 25 MSTP state Testing Assessment. Randy Martinez, In recognition of your achievement of obtaining a
level of proficient on the twenty-four 2five MStep State Testing Assessment. I'm not sure Randy's here. Joey Newton He's here. In recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of proficient on the twenty-four 25 MStep State Testing Assessment. This is a good thing to have to read so many. Amaris Reyes in recognition of her achievement of obtaining a level of proficient on the twenty-four 25 MStep testing assessment. Tahia White.
In recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of proficient on the twenty-four 25 MStep state testing assessment. And of course, last but not least, Amaya Wright. In recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of proficient on the twenty-four 2five MStep State Testing Assessment. These are your Alcot achievers. Thank you. Next, we have missus Yvette Yeah. Missus Yvette Williams will help me with the Whitman school
Recognitions. Where is she? Doctor Fo. Hello. Doctor Faux. Thank you, Doctor Powell. Sugar. Sugar. Sugar. Sugar. Sugar. Oh, it's so good to see you. Good to see you. In your own way, doc. Okay. Well, good evening everyone. It's good to be here. Um I had to come out for my sugar puddings, okay? So, Yvette, thank you for willing to step in but I told my daughter, I said, no, you
gotta get me to the board meeting because I gotta see my sugars and to see you all. So, I'm here to congratulate my students on their achievement over the MSTAP test. Um and one of the things when the kids know you believe in them, they will achieve. and yes, it was a lot. Um, getting them organized and getting them to sit down. And but you have to make sure that the environment for testing and I thank you Doctor Nevare for all of this. That you have to make sure that the intestine environment is conducive for them. Cuz some kids
test better with other people. You know, so you have to know your kids as well as know your student and who would test better with who. So, I'm going to My first one I have is Omari Beck. Um Omari, I thought I saw Omari. Omari. Omar. Not Amari. I'm sorry. Omar bae. Um in recognition of your achievement of obtaining a level of proficiency in math on the twenty-four25 MST
testing session. Thank you Kennedy Briggs, and those of you who know me that I said I'm sorry. I called all of my parents and I'm thinking I wanted to make sure that all the parents showed up tonight because the kids need to be recognized. And when as a parent, parent involvement is so important. So, I know that I've been out for a while but I know that Toya and miss Lane had made sure that the parents got the letter but I just wanted to reassure that they got the letters
and then I did a phone call too. So, Kennedy Briggs. Is Kennedy? I didn't see Kennedy. She's not. I'll take that one with you. Sakayla Gaines. I talked to mom. Tekayla's not here. Aubrey McCollum. So, I ran into Aubrey's mom yesterday. I was at Sam's Club and you know how you go in my style and you look at and I'm like, Aubrey not with me no more. So, but then when I saw mom, she said, well, Doctor Paul, she might be coming back
to you but I want to recognize Aubrey for her achievement of attaining a level of proficient in math on the twenty-four25 MStep testing assessment. The next scholar I have is Chris Man Christian Powell. Christian I talked to mom Saturday. They have moved back to Atlanta. And she said Doctor Powell but somebody had called her and said that the board meeting will be live. So mom if you're on yes. If you're on we're here
congratulating Krishna. On his achievement. This level of achievement, proficient in math on the twenty-four twenty-five. Congratulations. We are so proud of Chris Miley and I miss him. Amari Rutlett? Did Amari say? No, he's not here. But I know what they say. Chasity C. Chasity. I don't see Chasity. Brayden Barcus. The twins? I don't see them either. Also the his brother Jaden Barcus
received proficient on the ELA twenty-four 25 assessment test. Fernando, Galena. He was another student that we had to move and I haven't been able to contact the family to see exactly where they moved to. But I will reach out to Miss Miss Carmen in student services to make sure I can mail this to him. And when I tell you I love my Dexter, I call mom and I talk to her Saturday and I said, mom, please make sure my
dexter be here. So, Dexter, Didn't I see that? So, in recognition, Dexter received, I'm sorry, obtained a level of proficient in math in advance in ELA. For the twenty-fourth, twenty-5 state of Texas. So, congratulations, Dexter. Thank you. That's my taxi. You can go over there. Lanasia Evans. Is Lanasia here? I want to congratulate Lanasia for obtaining a level of proficient in math even though it took her all day.
Two days. Well, I kept saying, just take your time, Sugar. But yes, Danasia got and she received proficient in math and this is also my roommate. My next scholar, I have Aviana Jack who received proficient in both math and ELA. I saw Aviani. Congratulations. And my last student, another, he's in sixth grade now, Kadari Rutherford. Kadari who took all day, all night, maybe three days to take the test, okay? But I didn't rush him. Um, he
received proficient in math in advance in ELA. I just want to say again, congratulation to Whitman scholars. Um I believe in you. I've always believed in you and we're going to be proficient this year. On the 26th assessment. And thank you all for taking time. Alright, let's give Whitman and Alcod and their families a big round of applause. Thank you so much. Thank you. Alright. Four trustees, any comments? Secretary David Smith,
any comments? I just want to say congratulations to all the scholars. Job well done. Thank you. Trustee Dooley, congratulations to all of you that exemplified good student achievement and I also want to say to those that achieve that advance proficiency, don't stop but you, I was especially impressed on those that did ELA because I was a ELA teacher. So, keep going. You will definitely need to
know how to speak and write properly. So, that's a good foundation. Keep up the good work each and everyone of you. Mom, dads, keep going. I support you in your endeavor of making sure your children learn. Keep that environment in the home. Make sure and Imma stop in a minute. Make sure that they are you they have a particular time to study, stay with it. If you don't understand something that they're doing, please reach out to the teachers. They are readily available because we want to increase this and keep it
going. Thank you. Thank you, Trustee Miller. I just want to say congratulations to our scholars at Alcott in Whitman. Um congratulations to the parents, principals, and teachers and everyone involved in their education. Thank you. Alright, thank you. Trustee Gross. Where are all my students at? Where you at? Raise your hands. All the students, raise your hands. What school district you attend? What school district do you attend? Say it one more time. That's what I'm talking about. Congratulations.
Thank you parents. Thank you. Anybody else? Bp bomb. Um I just wanted to say congratulations to the students and parents like you all continue to make us look good and keep up the great work. Thank you so much. Alright, treasurer Terry. Yup, I also want to add on congratulations as well to all of the achievements and accomplishments. It's wonderful to see this crowd out here today. All the parents that have came out, family members, and support. It just goes to
show how much love and support they have behind them. Pushing them for that education and it's very important. Especially moving forward. So, continue to be that example for your peers. Continue to help your peers if you can. Every little bit help is going to help, you know, achieve and push everyone forward. So, congratulations to everybody and thank you all for the staff. It's been helping them, preparing them, getting ready for this test and as as as it was said, sometimes it take you a little longer
to get things done but you got it done and you were successful at doing it. The race isn't always time. Sometimes, you gotta pace yourself. And I'm proud of all you guys for pacing yourself and getting to that finish line and making it successful. Thank you. Thank you, treasurer Terry. And parents, again, we just thank you for your support and continuing to encourage your students to do their best and to the students, thank you for being role models and keep on doing what you're doing. Thank you.
And you don't have to stay during the whole the rest of the meeting if you don't want to. You guys are welcome to go. Alright. No school tomorrow. Oh yeah, no school tomorrow. Yeah. Alright. Moving down we'll let them move out those that are leaving. That's our whole problem. Maybe we should but it felt good for them. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Alright. Well, trustees, we are going to continue with our
agenda. I don't see any elected officials here. Do we have any other elected officials here? We do not. So, good evening. Again, trustees. We're going to continue with our agenda. Moving down to the consent agenda. Can I get a motion for the approval of the consent agenda? So move. Support. It's been moved by BP Bowman supported by Trustee Gross for the approval of the consent agenda. Any questions? Roll call Trusty Dooley. Yes.
Trustee Gross? Yes. President Hannah? Yes. Trustee Miller? Treasurer Terry? Yes. VP Bowman? Yes. And I'm voting yes. That passes seven oh. Alright. Thank you. Moving down to information from the superintendent and administration, Doctor Leverette. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, we'll have a report presented by miss Jennifer Watkins. Yo and Yo, this is the twenty-four 25 audit report. Hi, Jennifer. Hello. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Um so, it's on
the screen but you guys also have it in front of you, the PowerPoint presentation. Um it's just a summary of what your audit is. It was due today and it was done on time. So, that's a good thing. Um couple just I guess cleanup items. The federal government has not given us a compliance supplement yet. So, this year, we filed your audit, your financial statements on time, and they changed the law that your single audit you normally get reports.
One's your regular audit, one's over your federal dollars, called the single audit. That one cannot be done because we don't have that compliance supplement. It's the whole state of Michigan. It's the whole United States but the state of Michigan, Michigan Department of Ed has given us 30 days once we get that report. So, everything will be done timely. We'll make sure of that. Um but just so you know, those housekeeping rules and you'll get those finalized statements as well. But this is a summary over everything. So, the first slide is just a little bit about myself. Um I am
the principal on the job and you have some managers as well that help out and staff. That's a great team. Next year, I get to move that to twenty. I've almost been auditing schools for almost 20 years and I lead up our education department at Yo and Yo and we do 80 plus school districts. Next is a little bit about the responsibilities. This is a snippet right from your audit report. The audit report is kind of the base of why you get an audit but it talks about the difference responsibilities from the district's point of view to the
auditor and that the school district is really responsible obviously for the day-to-day operations. The internal control structure, making things sure, things are, you know, getting to the statements properly and then, your auditor is coming giving it that second look to make sure they're free from material misstatement and can we say that at the end of the day? The next slide is somewhat of our procedures from beginning to end starting with a lot of those internal controls, understanding the process, making sure things are getting to the right
place properly, that there's review, monitoring, things like that. Also, I'm not going to read everything to you but there's a lot of compliance testing, a lot of testing. You have all these they require testing. Michigan Department of Education has their own testing and their audit manual. So we're doing all of that testing to make sure they're that you're compliant and there's no issues. The next slide goes over your overall results. So, you received an unmodified opinion. That's what you want. It's considered a clean opinion and it's the highest level of
assurance we can give you. So, that is good news. The next few slides are snippets right from your audit report. So, overall, at the end and this is as of 630, 2025. So, it's last fiscal year and I always mention, this is a snapshot of that day and time where things were. So, some things have to do with timing. Things get accrued for things that happen in July and August. Um for example, your total assets for the end, for all your governmental funds is 49. 5 million
but things that are included in as like July and August date aid, it gets accrued back. Um here too, you have the general fund that's major and then sinking fund is another major fund and then all the other funds combined is that non-major fund columns. So, like debt funds, the project funds, food service, things like that. And then your total liabilities for the district is seventeen 6 million. Um and again accrued back like summer pay for
teachers and including their benefits. And then the next slide if you go two more. And then the next one. One more. Sorry. Um is your fun balance for the end of the fiscal year. So, overall, fun balance was 31 about 31 million. Um 22. 7 million of that is general fund dollars and then everything else really besides general fund is restricted for some purpose. So, if you get money in for capital projects, it has to be used for those capital projects. We're testing
that as well. Same for debt service. Making sure it's going for debt payments. So, general funds really the only one that you have kind of an what they call an unassigned fund as well In that general fund column, you'll notice there's $2. 9 million. That's assigned for next year. So, it's your original budget that you approved for twenty-five 26 that the expenditures were over the revenue. So, we marked that as a sign so you kind of know it's got a placeholder. The
next slide is your over. Before you continue. Yeah. Yeah. If I miss Doctor Henry. Please tell me. The last column, whole governmental funds, total liabilities, deferred inflows, resources, and combatances. That just for says 49 hours. That's it. So, it says. Something cut off? Yeah. I think there's a snippet in front of it but it's not in your financials like that. I promise. Yeah. Talk to me because. For. You can see it on me. Yeah. On the boards. I noticed that
when I was reviewing it on the way here and I'm like, as many times as I look at these, there's always some little things happens. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. Um the next slide is your overall budget comparison. So, you have your original budget that the board approved for this twenty-five twenty-six. Final budget and then actual results. You did as well oh this is just general fun. So, it's not your other funds that you do budgets for. It's only general fund and it's all the funds
that make up your general funds like eleven, 12, 13, etcetera. So, final budget was for a different an increase your overall fund balance of 3 000 and you ended better off at about an increase of 6 million. And I would note too your expenditures are under by 13%. And those do have to be under if you go over an expenditures. Um that is a compliance issue. Excuse me. Yeah Jennifer. Sorry. No you're not. We do
have a question. Okay. Hi. Hi. The document that you're reading from on page seven with total liabilities deferred inflows or of resources and fund balances. What is the numbers after forty-nine? Do you have that on your statement? Yeah. Um no but I can tell you what it is. So, it's if you flip back to the slide before that one, it matches your total asset number. So, it's 49 million 500 twenty-four thousand two nine nine.
Yup. Yup. On page six. See that? Sorry about that too. And then I will flip over to the first pie chart. So, these again are just for general fun dollars and they're for the twenty-four25 fiscal year. So, this shows your revenues for general fund, kind of the buckets that it makes up overall for local and state together. That really makes up what your foundation allowance is per child that you're getting and any
restricted state dollars. So, you have 62% of your overall pie for that and then, 30% is your federal dollars and that to point out, this year was the last year for that User dollars, that extra spending. So, next year, that percentage will go down quite a bit and your state and local will increase the overall pie for that. The next slide is your expenditures, same general fund dollars. Um overall, if you add instruction and support, that's 83% of what the
district is spending for their general fund dollars and also to point out this year, Capital Outlay looks, I guess, higher than usual at 10% but it is made up of a grant over 9 million dollars of that was a grant for those cleaning bus program. So, you have an offsetting revenue for the exact amount there. The next slide is your general fund balance compared to current operating expenditures. So, this percentage is used quite a bit in schools. Um you ended for
twenty-four 25 at 20. 1%, which is a healthy fun balance and I actually when I was getting this slide together, I was looking back and really I think, I don't know if it was 19 or the year before but it was in a deficit condition. So, you've really been doing well and increasing that fund balance to a healthy amount through the last seven, 6 years. The next slide is the overall findings of the whole audit. So, financial statements and single
audit, you both had unmodified opinions for both areas. Um for the regular financial statements, both of the findings that we had this year, we had last year. Um I would note that I think you're headed in the right place. We just have certain levels and they were for material audit adjustments and reconciliations and then overall budget variances. Um we no significant deficiencies and we also noted no fraud, abuse, or
anything like that. And in your federal dollars, we test those a lot very stringently. Um we tested title one in education stabilization funds which is the Esser dollars. Um we tested both of those programs as major and we had no findings in your federal dollars at all. And overall, just a summary and I'll still take any questions that you have throughout the audit. If we have recommendations, things that aren't to the level of a finding, we're going over those with management, things that from our
perspective aren't considered significant but things that we can do better. We call a management comments and we also had no disagreements with management, how things should be recorded. We had new implementation of standards this year which I feel like we always do which keeps everybody on their toes but it was overcompensated absences this year which turned out to significant of a calculation but it only affected the full accrual district wide statements and not your fund level statements that you budget for. I think Gatsby and the
accounting people that in are in charge of what I do just try to keep us busy But and then overall I just wanted to say there was improvements this year related to the findings even though there was turnover. I think you guys are headed in the right direction with that. And that you ended with that 20% fund balance which says a lot. And I'm happy take any questions. Yes. Okay, on page twelve for material weaknesses and non compliance, you identify budget variances. Mm hmm. Can you specifically list what some
examples of budget variances are that you determine? So, we base it by function level and just overall and I went put a exact percentage on it but normally, the budget variants is usually three to 5% and we look at kind of what did you budget for final amount that you're going to increase your fund mailings and you put 300, 000 but it increased much better and there's reasons for that. So, I know property tax I think came in a little bit higher
than expected. There were some deferred inflows and timing issues last year that caused federal revenues to be more this year. Usually, that's a net zero but because those timing differences, that increased and I think something between and they might be able to better look at it because we look at just the overall variants but with by function level, things weren't properly put to the right group Um and a lot of it does have to do with kind of
grant expenditures and timing but to us, we do it at a certain level. So, the variance was just too high. Um and that's why it hit the level of a finding still. Can I ask another question? Yeah. Still on page twelve. Um there must material weaknesses, material audit adjustments, and lack of timely reconciliations. The lack of timely reconciliation did it produce a barrier for you to be able to complete the audit efficiently? Oh
and if it's lack of timely, it's always a barrier. I would say that a lot of things that are done reconciling for audits are one time a year things like fixed assets for example. During the year, you're recording them. I don't want to say on a cash basis but all in your general fund are those funds. One time a year for audit, we book them all to fixed assets. We do all these full accrual statements. So, things like that. I mean, we would love for everything to be completed. A week prior to coming
out and I think, you know, this year, it, there was more completed, more timely, but not everything. So, that's why we left it on there. Thank you for answering my questions. I appreciate it. Yup. Any other questions, trustees? Yeah. Yes, trustee growth. We're here to say that you guys took a look at the or auditing the bond and our grants. So, this page that we're on right now, which is page twelve, just goes, it's
a summary of your so the federal awards is your grants portion. Um that page where we go over audit procedures does hit on the grant compliance testing and where it says, I think it says MDE compliance testing. So, the state of Michigan is who puts out the instructions for the bond testing and we do that. We also issue it changed last year. We issue a bond certification letter which was also submitted with today is the
deadline for that. Um that says we tested your bond. And there's a footnote in your big like the big report you'll get as well. Right. Thank you. You're welcome. Um I know it's important with this audit and where we are and how well we do because it also determines our bond rating and I and I ask that every year after the audit where we are and I know triple A is the best but I think last year we were double A or something in the area and we expanded our bond
rating or are we the same or are we headed in the right direction or do you have that? I'm not sure with the financial results, I would say that you have a chance to do better. Your overall results even on your district wide statements. The full accrual you're in a better position than you were last year. Oh, good. Cuz we were pretty good last year. Yeah. Thank you. Hm I'm good Meadow too. Alright, any other questions? I do. I quite have a question. I and I just want to ask for clarity purposes as it relates to
fraudulent. Anything in your audit. Would you have detected anything that would have alluded to some type of fraudulent activities or anything that would have deemed us or made it required or recommending that we have a forensic audit. I understand that you all have been doing our audits for some time. I do under stand what the results say but I
just wanted I just want to know based on the audit that you all provide if that is something that you all would have detected and would you be the audit firm to recommend to us that those type of measures are necessary. So probably a multi-part answer. Sorry. One your audit that we are hired to do is not designed to detect fraud. So that's just typically usually I mean, I do some presentations for MSBO on how to
detect fraud and it actually normally comes from a whistle blower or somebody taking time off or changing position. So, you may have been detected with a change in turnover of the business office if you had any. Saying that, if we find anything during the audit and we do, we test bond projects. We're testing sinking funds, dollars. We have to test all of those. We test bid agreements to make sure it goes to the proper bid policy and then we're testing individual payroll and disbursements especially related
to federal dollars. If we see anything that would be that one, we would take it to a higher level within the district Um so, whoever approved it, it would be to that higher level. We would notify the board and if necessary, we would notify Michigan Department of Education. So, we found nothing that would give us any indication of fraud as well as we, ourselves, would have to do additional testing in that area to come up with, okay, was this a one-time issue Was it really, you
know, what's the magnitude? If there was an issue or if the board decided to get a forensic audit, we have people at the firm that would do that for you. I'm not licensed in that area with a specialized license for that but we do have a forensic audit team that can do that but no, we didn't detect anything. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Alright, do you need a question? Yup. On here, you stated, there's no significant deficiencies notified. What were
some less what were some deficiencies that you noted? They didn't have to be significant. I'm just curious. So, it kind of goes in levels we call a management comment, a comment for management's consideration and that could be anything as to outstanding checks on your bank wreck that are $100, but they're over three months old and we'll say, management, you need to clean those up. Um anything like that, any small adjustment that's made during the audit by the
auditors, that's something The only one we had this year that was written was dealing with the amount spent for parent involvement. So, but that's a carryover grant with title one. So, there's rules on how much you have to budget for that and then there's rules on how much you have to spend of what you budget and it didn't meet that in the current year but there's funding that's carried over to the next year that's spent. Um so, that was noted and I could get you a list but after that level, it's significant
deficiency which is I mean, almost, I don't know if it sounds worse by the terminology than material weakness but it's something that's to the level of we feel the board needs to be made aware but it's not the level of a material weakness and then, material weakness and material non compliance is to the level of a finding which obviously, the board is made aware of and that's put in your report as well. So, this says, no fraud or abuse identified. Point of
clarity, I heard you say you didn't even look for some. You didn't look for it? No, we do not design your audit that you it for your financial statements is not designed to look for fraud. So. We're always looking at things with what we call in our CPA, what we're hired to do with professional skepticism. So, we're always looking for it but it's not designed to detect. So, if it's not designed to identify any fraud, how can you unequivocally say no fraud or
abuse was identified? Because when we do all of our testing and everything we're looking at, we did not identify any and we by your own admission, you're saying, this was not designed to look for it. Can I get some? I I I guess I'm in a quandary because it's like contradicting yourself. This says, no findings. Unequivocally, there was no fraud or abuse identified and then what I heard you say, this audit that we prescribe to was did was not designed to find it. So, I'm in a
quandary. Help me out. Can I get a point of clarity real quick? I believe she's relating I'm talking to her trustee. Thank you so much. I'm just trying to help her out. I don't want her help. I want her help. She's getting paid to do our audit. Gotcha. Awards if I'm correct. Well, federal awards but your actual audit report states and in your documents that you're, we can't say that we're we're hired to deduct fraud. That would be something more like a forensic audit but we're trained in school audits
and we're in being a CPA. We're taking classes all the time to identify things. So, for example, when we're testing bonds, we're looking at it to say, okay, what address did this go to? And we found things before, not at, your district, not during this audit, where the address that was being sent to, was not the school address. We noticed that right away. We detect that and then, we would take it to the right level but we're not coming up with tests to look for fraud
if somebody brought it up to us, we have a duty to then, as well, do more testing, or if we see something, dig into that farther, but we're not going after it, it's just not what this audit is designed to do. It's designed to tell you if your financial statements are free from any material misstatement. So, that was kind of my distinction. But if we noted anything, we would let you know. We would notify the board, and we would notify, like I said, Michigan Department education. We
have to. Alright, any other questions? Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Alright, Doctor Laverette. Giuseppe. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, we'll have Thomas Henry, the SFE, general manager of operations to do a presentation as it relates to food assistance programs to families. Good evening, everyone. Uh my name is Thomas Henry. I'm the general manager for the food service department for Pontiac Um just here with a brief presentation on resources that we have for families
that are affected by the Snap benefits. I do have flyers for all the board members upfront and some upfront too for everybody to take with them. And on the flyers, it's QR codes for everybody to scan. So, the first one we're here is pantry net. org. Um it's a place where you, it's an interactive map where you can find locations close to you. All the places that we resource are close to Pontiac to make a little easier for people to navigate to get to. This one here can be categorized by pantry,
soup, kitchen, shelters. Also, the ability to select days and distance as well. The next one is Glenner's Mobile Pantry. So, it's a drive-up distribution events, nutritional education, they have access for several links and like I said, secure codes for each one as well. The next is going to be the Oakland Livington Human Service Agency. Here is packed with community resources, not just food, it's employment support, emergency utility assistance, foreclosure,
and homelessness support, and is veteran support as well. The next one is the Michigan two one one. This one here has food and other community resources. You can get help with housing and utilities, clothing, and household goods, transportation, vehicle driving assistance, medical services, home visits, and bereavement assistance as well. The next one is Forgotten Harvest. It's providing food five days a week. Community Choice Market for guests to select what they need
and it's me, dairy, and other items as well, not just dry goods. Our next slide is Lighthouse. This one here has food pantries, satellite pantries, and limited home delivery services. It's personal care items, baby supplies, household items, and a shelter and eviction services as well. Our next slide is Oakland Hope. This here has a food pantry weekly assistance sign up for other benefits such as Medicaid, Social Security, Disability, and Veterans Benefits, and this has an online
thrift store to purchase gently used and never used items. below market pricing. Our next slide is Hospitality House. This here, you can shop here free twice a month for people who qualify and have a distribution calendar that you will look on as well. And our next slide is United Way. They have emergency food and shelter resources, health care services, foreclosure and protection employment services, and financial coaching. So, these
are all the resources that we have contacted that can be great resources for the Pontiac District. Um we're also trying to partner up with the district to provide snacks that they can take home after school as well. Um just making sure that we qualify for that grant. Um and then we do have after-school programs like Accent, Project Excel, and then once we get tutoring going on as well too, that'll be another avenue for kids to have a third meal of the day as well too. Any questions? Trustee Gross? Thank
you. Good evening, my friend. Good evening, sir. Uh thank you for this information. Uh Doctor Leverette, if we can fit all possible because we know what's happening in Washington DC. As it pertains to food for the community. If we can place these resources on our website so parents can go to them. Plus, I'm sure there are churches too. I know Trinity does where food is passed out through the week at different churches. If we can get those anybody has knowledge of those churches and and the dates and
times where they pass our food because it's extremely important with the Snap program and and what's being done there with the shutdown in congress. So, this is this is extremely helpful. Um for our children and especially our parents. So, thank you for providing this information and let's put this on our website along with the churches that are also helping with the food. Thank you. No problem. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? In addition to these services, there's a program called Meet Michigan and Energy Assistance
Program. That program has reset for the fiscal year. Those persons that have a DHS case, they are entitled to get $600 per utility as far as DTE and consumers energy. They must go to the Department of Human Services and request an SER that's application for emergency assistance. It has reset. You can get $600. You must have that. In addition. Christian response team,
CCRT located at fifty-three West Huron in the city of Pontiac Assist providing assistance with to keep you from being evicted. They also help you with security deposits, food, clothing. So, that is another resource that can be added to this list. Again, I encourage all of you to go I'm speaking to the audience out there to go and get that $600 per utility You are entitled to
it. Okay, any other comments or questions? Thank you very much. Alright, now under our regular working agenda, we have for discussion our neola policy updates. VP Bowman. Good evening, everyone. Due to my horrible voice, I'm going to ask my trustee Miller along on a policy committee to read the bear in regards to the first reading for our new policies. You want this or do you have a Okay, good evening everyone. Thank
you VP Bowman. Today will be the first reading for Neola Policy Updates. Alright, the background and rationale, school board policy served as the foundational governance framework for district operations, ensuring consistency, legal compliance, and transparency in decision making. The Neoli Policy Service provides comprehensive, up-to-date policy recommendations that are aligned with federal and state laws as well as best practices education governance. As legislation and educational
standards evolve, it is essential for the board to review and revise its policies to maintain compliance and operational effectiveness. Neola's policy updates incorporate recent changes in state and federal laws, judicial decisions, and regulatory guidance. Updating the board's policies according accordingly ensures that the district remains compliant with current legal mandates and reflective of sound educational practices. The policy committee and administration have reviewed the proposed updates and are
recommending that all of the proposed update as listed below, be adopted by the Board of Education with the noted modifications and option selections. As presented to the Board of Education in final form today. Alright, it is a recommendation of the policy committee and administration that the Board of Education approved the following updates from Neola as presented in final form today. Policy twenty-two one zero two four one two four one six two five one two zero five four six zero seven five
four, one, eight, three, zero, zero. Thank you. And further upon we'll get a date for our next policy meeting coming up here. We'll get up some dates out to you all. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Trustee Miller. Alright, next on the agenda is our curriculum. Curriculum and instruction. Doctor Labratt. Yes, at this time. Oh, excuse me. At this time, I'll turn it over to Doctor Devison. This is the curriculum.
I'm sorry. I put my page just on. Alright, finance update. Sorry. Curriculum and instruction. Thank you. Alright. So, as promised, the business office is presenting a condensed version of the year-to-date statements through August 31st. So, we're two months through the year and then as we had indicated, we anticipate then for our next board meeting to have through October 31st and then, what we are on track to do is to present
monthly financials at the second board meeting of every month. So, that's that's where we're headed. So, we'll we'll briefly go through these. So, the first, the first slide here is our general fund cash balance at August 31st and as we can see, at September which is that first column, the very first line. We had a twenty-nine-million-dollar general fund cash balance. When we roll for the 12 months and we go to the bottom there at August 31st, we have a twenty-four-million-dollar balance. However, we've remained
consistent because of the fact we paid our tax anticipation notes off early of $4. 5 million in July. where in the prior year, we paid those in August and September. So, Overall, we're keeping consistent throughout the year at a at a at a at a at a level that we need to in order to move forward through the year and then if we move to this next slide, this is our general fund budget to actual through August 31st. The budget is the annual budget. So, it's
our annual budget, 12 months for the year, and the year to date is just two months through the year. So, you're going to see some variances that hold on let me just get one item that I going to speak to. So, your local is your property taxes that come in. So, your bulk of that is your summer taxes that the school district taxes millages are captured. So, that's going to be a little upfronted and that's why you're at 23 percent. Um the state funding there is basically
consistent 2 percent, two months through the year and that's going to be your state aid formula at risk, special education, and GRSP so that aligns through the year with the annual budget. Uh our federal funding, that's a little bit higher as well at 26% and a lot of that has to do with the grant funding that we're we received for the second fleet of electrical bus vehicles coming in early that will that will pay for that
second fleet. So, that's why that's at a little higher amount. As well as our title one, title three. So, that just doesn't always come in consistently when you're looking at the annual budget. Um other financing sources, again, that is, that looks a little low, obviously at at 0% but what that actually, the largest point of that is we issue our tax anticipation notes at the end of the summer to get us through the summer. So, a lot of that involves
around that and then also we have our I ASD and food services and some other grants that come in, you know, as we move through the school year. So, that's why that's at a lower level. So, currently, total revenue is at 16% of our annual budget. If we move to our expenditures, you can see that salaries, benefits, purchase services, supplies all all running, you know, consistent to where we are through the year. We're at 4% to 8%,
which is our first 2 months. School has really taken off yet. Um so that that remains, you know, at a consistent level to where you would have been at in the prior year. Then, when we move to debt service, that's at 78% of budget but the reason for that is as I mentioned, our tax anticipation notes, a 4. 5 million were paid off early. So, it's a large portion of that. The remaining amount of that to get us to our full budget would be for the bond series
debt which we're paying in October of twenty twenty-five. Again, not a consistent flow but that's why the variants you see there. Um capital outlay Uh that one is at 0percent but again, the the second a large part of that budget revolves around that second fleet of EV, electric vehicle buses which we had have not outweighed yet. That that happened in September. So, that's why we're behind there and then some of our other capital funding for this
fiscal year that's slated for general fund has not occurred yet. So, that's why we're at that place. A lot of our Capital. Um a lot of our capital outlay happens during the summer months when school's not in session. Uh just for so it's you know not disturbing. Um this school year. Um, and then other, really, with other, that is that's really at a level 3% that stays consistent with the school year as well. Uh, so that
we're in a good spot as well and read consistent to last year. So, we're only at 7. 3% of our annual budget in total expenditures in the general fund. A surplus of $598000, which means we're maintaining our fund balance throughout the year which is important. Alright. So, we move to the next graph Oh, this is basically what I just went through to explain but you can look at that. Everyone has a copy of that but it really gives you insight of what's coming in through each category and
you know, so that you have a good understanding of the dollars that are funding us and each of those categories as well as where our expenditures are housed. This is basically what this is the pie graph that the auditors had gone through to show you your key sources of revenue in the general fund and then also our functional expense expenditures. Where do our dollars go? Obviously, the majority of our dollars are going to go to instruction to support our children and that is consistent. The
revenue sources will become more aligned in what was created for the annual budget. Right now, as I indicated, our property taxes, are little ahead and federal taxes. So, that's why and those other percentages were throughout the year. But we still wanted to list the different categories that make up all your funding. And over on the expenditure side, we see all our functional spend. And where our dollars are going. And like I said the majority is to support our students as you can see. Alright. So now when we
move to this fawn. So this is our sinking fond. And this is a rolling cash flow of our sinking fund. So again if we kind of look at it in the same way we looked at it as general fund. We see the 12. 3 million at September 1st. And we're down August 31st to 5. 4 million. Um as we know, our our sinking fund basically is to maintain our school for our students and it's for building improvements,
you know, repairs and maintenance, renovation, site improvements. It allows us to avoid debt which has costly interest that you know, we'd have more dollars going towards. So, obviously, this is what this and making sure that our sites are where they need to be for our students. As you can see, why we moved from 12 million to 5. 4 million, you can see, we have the majority of our capital outlay in the later of the year, you know, April, May, and June.
You can see those expenditures on that line because that's really when that ramps up because of the students not being in class. And then if we move to the next slide, this is our fiscal year twenty-six, sinking fun. The annual budget against year to date. So, again, property taxes are at twenty-four percent because again, that's at summer tax bill that's starting to filter in in July and August and September. Um and then, so we're at 23% of budget because of that. When we
look down at our expenditures, we're only really the the key is our repairs and maintenance and capital which has a budget of 7 million. That's 7 million is really slated for elementary school because the middle school and the high school really has is coming to a closure. So, that's what that's there for for this year and that's what that's targeted for in the budget. And then, if we move to the next slide, this is a new slide I think that we've
presented. This is all of this is a cash balance report of all of our funds in one place. So, as we just touched, the first part is your general fund which we already discussed that twenty-four million dollars and then, below that are all of our other funds. If we move to the right there in that summary, we can see the general fund is twenty-four million and then the major of the funds are is our sinking fund that I mentioned the 5. 4 million. Slate it
for projects and then we have our debt fund which we need in order to pay off our our debt that's scheduled and then we have that bond fund of $20 million dollars. Now, that is made up mostly of series three. That's that's come in, that we're we're scheduled to spend in this year because Bond Series one and two is coming to an end. But we thought this was a good snapshot so you could see overall with all funds condensed that were at that fifty-three, fifty-two point seven five. Good
question, if a man? Yes. Cuz I don't want to leave this page. Mm hmm. Nothing on here shows interest. No, this is just a cash position. Correct. Oh, interest expense for the year? I'm sorry. Anything, yeah, because this is considerable amount of money in the account and I know we get interest from that. Oh, yes. We do. Actually, to your point, okay. That 2. 3 million. Uh huh. And the Bond Series three is is the interest. That's it? Yes, the majority, right
Chris? The majority of that, a large portion of that. Yeah, but we can provide that but yes, to your point. I'd like to see where we are as far as it. Yeah, but interest in. Yeah. What we're getting because. Yup. And so we'll give you that, but the majority of that, 2. 3 is that. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Julie and August. Yep. Okay. So do it. Oh and this is just we wanted just to review this with you this ending. Emergency purchases sometimes that occurs. You know that that we have to use funds for but today
July and August we haven't had any. Um again I already mentioned in the beginning our plan for the November 17th meeting through October 31st. Our first budget amendment will be presented for review and approval at the December 16th meeting. Um and then again as I indicated that we will you know stay on track then they have monthly financial statements at the second meeting up every month and what this will help also lead to is, you know, what, like, working
towards improving a couple of those audit findings, when having that each month, we'll be on top of, if we need budget amendments, making those timely, you know, as we go through because of the knowledge that we're sharing, and everyone's aware of. So, that is the goal. Thank you. Are there any questions? Trustees, any questions? Yup. I I have some questions. Back to page fifty-seven, the page with the pie
charts? Yes. Sorry. I'm trying to follow yes. The the colors are a bit blending. So, what I'm seeing, I'm trying to get a actual of the percentages of what where our cash flow is. Is there a version of this where it breaks it down with numbers or is it just a pie chart that's being presented? Like for example, here, I'm thinking this is light blue at 1% and that's athletics and then it's zero percent. It looks like this
services or I don't know if it's debts. I I'm not sure because the colors are quite similar. So, I. Okay, curious. Maybe we should change that. Adjust the colors but yeah, this is basically just it it's color coded for your expenditures to date and the majority. Um some of the expenditures wouldn't have occurred. The the ones that are at zero percent for July and August. Yeah. Until the school year. Um so, which one are you, which one are you? Well, this would be a help me
understand. These are expenditures the year to date for school year of twenty 2-five, 2026. Yeah, but just July and August. Okay. Yeah, just July. It's not the budget. I understand. Okay. It's just July and August expenditures and then July and August revenue. So, it's just 2 months. Okay. And obviously, these pie charts will change. Mm hmm. And we can we can bring in the budget too, you know, as a pie chart for comparison as we move forward. Okay, thank you. Okay. Any other questions,
trustees? This information will also be included in the report to give us the Yes. Yes. Mm hmm. Yes, it will. Complete what God. Yes, complete one done and we're we're going to have that run through October 31st. So, we'll be up to date. Yeah. Mm hmm. Okay. So, anything else? Alright. Alright. Thank you. Alright, Doctor Leverit now moving down to curriculum and instruction Thank you. At this time, I will turn it over to Doctor Devison. She has with
her, Doctor Charmin, mister Carafa from ITA International Technology Academy, the Curriculum and Instruction will present updates from every school throughout the school year and next steps for instruction at ITA. Doctor Davidson, good evening. As Doctor Lever has already stated, we have mister Carafa and also Doctor Chairman. Just want to let you know that we're still trying to maintain our transparency what's going on in the building. So, we're in the end of a cycle of POC number one. And that's
the data that's going to be presented every time that we present. The goal is to present some form of data depending on where we are. POC number one. PLC number 2. And we're being specific about that. But one thing that I would like to celebrate with ITA is that we did start the project based learning. At ITA this school year. So we had the summer where we did the project based learning. And then again want to Doctor Chairman and also mister Carafa and also mister Upton as they have been facilitating the project-based learning on the
professional development days at ITA. So, if we could just give them a round of applause. And I'll turn it over to them. Good evening, everyone. To the board, to Doctor Leverette and the Pontiac community, It is a pleasure to be here. So, we will get started. Alright. Okay. So, for enrollment, I'll just briefly run through this. You can take a look at this. It's self-explanatory. We are at about a total of 389 students and so as you
know, as ILA and ITA merged, I inherited about a good hundred 1seventy students. So, it's been a whirlwind of beauty. I'll say that. So, but yeah, so we have a lot more students now and if you look at, you can just go ahead and look at the numbers. I don't have to read those to you and I will hand it over to my partner. Okay. Thank you. We're going to switch off every other slide here for a little while but for the 612 enrollment, you can see that we haven't broken down there. That's
middle school and a first left side and high school on the right right hand side. So, a total of four fifty 6 twelve add that up to Doctor Charman's numbers and that's that's a pretty good number. Okay, so attendance in September and October was right around 88% for us. And then ITA six twelve a little bit different there especially for the month of September. We're we're experiencing an attendance days daily in the ninety high mid to the high nineties percentage and then in
October, we kind of fall back to our level where we are it's pretty consistent in that. That's the mid to high eighties. Kinda like what Doctor Charmer talked about for for ITA elementary too. So, we're we are pretty excited about those numbers too and we'll talk a little bit more about some of those things coming up here. Real quick. If I make that. Attendance wise. Yes. How has the threat of federal agency Ice affected your attendance? Um I'll
I'll start because I probably have about eighty eighty to 88percent. I'm just going off top of my head in terms of ELLs, English language learners, bilingual students, and so yes, there has been, you know, we've had some who have been deported. Um we've had some, we've had some fear around students not coming to school at certain times. but for the most part, it's been, it's been pretty steady but we have, we have seen some of that, we have seen some of those changes. Because we
hear things as, you know, throughout the the community and the district. When there's a threat of ice being there, we've had kids who have not shown at all because of the threat alone. Yeah. And that has affected you because majority of students are black and brown students. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And not only that, but also same thing with some of our older students, our high school students Um many of them are the head of the household or or you know and so they are also kind of worried about their well-being too
if they're if their their parents are you know involved and stuff like that. They don't want to be involved in that too because they may be the one. The head of the household. So it has a it has affected a little bit but again this year so far to start I think we've had some good numbers. Um and I think it's because the students and the families believe and know that our schools are safe from that type of outside threat because we've all been you know told by our our our our higher ups, how we should handle these situations. So, we really have been fortunate, you know, thus far, as far as that goes. And and that's,
that's why I'm asking this question because I want our students to feel safe. Yeah. That's important. And you share that information and let them know and we have to continue to keep that information out there. Yeah. Because this threat has not left us. 00%. It's not even here yet, really. You know. So, thank you. And and And that's important. Listen. One of the piece I wanted to add said is also, it's another way that we're keeping up on the attendance this year at ITA is through an attendance tracker we use. Is something that we use for all of our teachers. They have
a daily attendance tracker they look through and when students reach certain thresholds of absence we are alerted. So, at the three-day mark, the teachers are alerted. Well, they would know because they're making the marks. They would make a phone call to the parents and have a conversation at the five-day mark. Uh it alerts our secretaries who will then send notification at the seven-day mark. Our councilors will then meet with parents or talk with parents and at ten day, it's the meeting with the super Principal and counselors and and and teachers if need be. So we haven't got any and we're close to the ten-day mark for
anyone yet but you know, last year, we did have some of those conversations and we felt like it was working. So, we're continuing this year with that attendance tracker at ITA. So, we're hoping to keep that attendance up there. Yes and same here and I stole that idea from my partner. So, we're doing the same thing at ITAK five as well and I was just going to say also getting back to the immigration piece. We have a lot of support. I have two Spanish teachers. We have ESL tutors and ESL team Actually, I
gained an additional ESL teacher this year. First, it was just Peggy Barker and then, my first grade teacher from last year, missus Batier went through the training for Project Seed. Now, she's one of our ESL teachers. So, there's so much support and of course, Carmen Guzman is a very, very strong support and sociology. Yeah, Isaiah too. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And so, they have beautiful, beautiful relationships with our families. So, they do feel safe. I mean, we'll we'll hear concerns but we partner so much and our families do feel safe and I will say with our with our
attendance platform, MyStar, it does alert us I think what once it's under 88 percent. So, we've only had, we've only had 2 days so far where it was under 88% and sometimes, we look at attendance in half days. Sometimes, parents are like, you know, I'm not going on a half day So, we're we're going to be looking at how we can ensure that our students are here all the time. Okay next minute so. Oh, no, that's me. Okay. Alright. Okay. Um I hate to just
read off of slides but I will do that quickly because I'm a quick reader. Um so, we think about our goals, K5, overall, I Ready Data for ELA shows that most students struggle in the area of vocabulary development. Which impacts comprehension of both literary and informational text as well as critical thinking. And so, that's one of our, that's one area that I really want to focus on is vocabulary development because what happens is that if students are
unable to understand vocabulary whether it's academic or literary, they can't make sense of the text. And so we can't expect them to critically think about something they don't understand. And so that's one of the areas of focus this year. Even as I spoke with teachers with their individual conferences. We call it IPGP individual, professional growth plan. And so we meet with all of our staff every year. And I've been had some some of my staff talk about focusing on academic language
because sometimes there's a disconnect between what happens on iReady. We'll have students on grade level but it won't translate to MStep because sometimes it's just that gap in understanding academic language. Does that make sense? You know, so for instance, in math, they won't understand sometimes we say quotient or product. They're accustomed to two times two equals what? But please, you know, we're going to focus on that type of language so that when they see it on Instep, they can recognize it and so, and then I'll go down to math goals,
struggling in areas of numbers and operations as well as algebraic functions. I will say this when it comes to math, you know, I taught ELA and and music and arts. So, I mean, I did receive As and Bs and Math but I'm not a math expert. So, I always like to consult the experts. So, I did speak with one of the math coaches and I said, could one of the deficits be math games and we have a curriculum but teachers are not necessarily using the math games and so some of
those things, it just takes practice and so, that's something I really want to do leveraging the math cycle, the coaching cycle, and really focusing in on those math gains because practice, the more they do that, the more it will become second nature to them. So, just don't want to read all the slides. That's kind of a summation. I have a question. So, since you have identified these areas using breast practices, what comprehension strategies have you decided to implore? You know what, what I would
do is I'm going to talk to my staff about that and when I say that, it's because I could come up with some ideas but I want my staff to have input on what makes sense to them because they're with the students every single day. So, yes, we want to deal with in the classroom, I've dealt with frayer models, things like that but I I want to talk to them and say, where do we go from here terms of academic vocabulary with our students. To answer your question
In all honesty, no. Okay. But I'm I'm going because and and I say that because I'm a retired educator. Yes, ma'am. And and and you should have been able to identify some strategies just off the top of your head. Um well, I can tell you we use contest clues, we use Frayer models. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Alright. Okay, so 6 12 goal updates for my hip. Uh here is what we are looking at for the reading and writing goals for middle school and high school. Uh this year, we've
implemented some intervention courses in ELA for middle school and high school students. Um our data which we will actually come up here in a little bit. Um we'll show showed us a decrease in student performance in six, eight, and 912 since the spring of last year. So, we're looking at kind of that summertime maybe drop off or summertime you know, where sometimes students lose a little bit over the summer. So, this is these are the test that we take here. So, our iReady test and things like that. Our iReady or NWEA and what we're showing
is a decrease in performance from the spring to this fall. So, we knew that was going to happen anyways and so we decided last year when we were talking, we're going to get some intervention courses going for ELA and then also, what we're doing is in our PLCs, our staff are bringing to them the most up-to-date common assessments, common form of assessments that they have em. Um a lot of our teachers only teach one teacher teaches the course so we don't necessarily have common form of assessments. They'll bring their assessments or their local pre and post data to our PLCs so we can start
looking at those students more closely. We have obviously the list of our students. We look at those students more closely kind of like tracking their their movement a little bit to see where they're at. Um and then at those PLCs that's where you decide a little bit more about a strategy or strategies we might use moving forward. Um but again we have those intervention courses in middle school and high school for ELA. Um and that's supposed to say I'm sorry that second one's supposed to say intervention courses in math for middle school ELA. Uh but again, we reviewed the iReady data and again,
that phonics data should be up there. I think I'm going to put those two in the on the wrong lines there. Um but we look at some of the data for ELA excuse me, IReady and map data to for math as well and it showed that we did need math intervention. So, we are also intervene in math and small group instruction for our students in math conference competencies for our ELLs or ELL our ELL students or English language learners are also being mediated, I
guess you could say, in math, and of course, obviously, they're reading and writing in their in their classes with our additional supports. Now, this year, we do have additional ESL teachers. So, we have three of the teachers at the middle and high school level. So, this board approved from the summer studies a new track of learning No one transferred that same curriculum over to now because we just got it to bring and improve scores. I I guess I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm in my mind I
can't conceive how we're not already going into this with a developed plan. This this is nothing new. You you guys are teachers just like I was. We we POCs. Let's start to look, let's work backwards. Let's do backward design. Where do we want our kids to be? Our students to be when when they leave here. We want them to be productive citizens, intellectually sound. So now, how are we going to get there? That should
already be. We're. Well, that is. Curriculum. Direct. What we're doing is we are, what we're doing is we're reviewing this data and every PLC we have in our monthly staff meetings as well. We do it we use staff meetings more for PLC and data now than for house cleaning items. So so my thing is we're you're you're continuously saying we we we know we're in a failured state. Okay. And then by your own admission we continually fail. We're decreased
in learning. My question to you. And not you personally. I'm talking about you as overall instructional team. You must create a comprehensive plan that can be implemented that will support academic achievement. Now, if you don't know how to do it, I'll come help you. Because this is ludicrous. This I'm passionate about. Order. Please. Delivering instruction to
the students. And I I really will try to make my schedule to come because we even even with the PLCs, the instructional learning cycles. You have goals. We know where we want to get the kids. We know what we're looking for. So not to have a strategic plan in front of you is unacceptable for me as a board member. More specifically as a teacher. And I'm so glad I don't have a student in the district right now. Well, I would just like to address some of that. Um we are definitely, when you talk about PLCs and
professional professional learning communities, this is something that we do across the district and it's something that we are constantly growing. All of us have a growth mindset. We're constantly growing in this and so, even at at the district level, that we streamlined what that looks like. Um we make predictions about data. We analyze data and then we begin to look at root causes. So, it it may seem redundant but I do want to add we are
working at this. We have seen growth even tonight as as we we were witnessed to the advanced and proficient students. We are growing and this is going to continue But I I do want to mention a testimonial. I I need to mention this to you. What I have seen, there's one teacher. Well, let me let me say this. I I have a student who and remember my population is primarily ELLs. And I had a student years ago. He's in fourth grade now. He came in
kindergarten speaking absolutely no English. Um and so but I'm looking at him now in fourth grade speaking fluent English and he's a straight A student right now. His teacher is just raving about him. So we are making strides and also that I have I've seen a lot of growth. When we talk about the the the PLCs and analyzing data. We have to keep at it. And we're seeing growth. Like I said you saw it tonight. But what I will say is
something that I think will be a game changer is that and this is this comes from a testimonial of watching my teachers and that's why I say I always go to them like they're the to me they're the experts not that I haven't been in the classroom but I always want to be collaborative with my team and so there's one particular teacher last year she had three students who were at the kindergarten level okay then, no, I'm sorry, three that were emerging
in terms of iReady and by the the end of the school year, she had eleven who were on grade level and we talked about her secret sauce. We talked about the panacea. We talked about what we're trying to do differently. She gives up her her she sacrifices her prep time. She comes to the job at 630 in the morning to tutor students and so, what we're looking at is a deficit of time, of will, skill. So,
our children need all of us to learn and grow. There's something called language dancing. When a child does not have appropriate and meaningful banter with their parents between six years and six between zero and 6 months, they're already at a deficit and so sometimes we look at our families and what our children are dealing with. We have to be the answer for them and so it takes all of us. So, when I see this teacher who went from three students grade level to 11 in one school year.
She was putting in the time. She was putting in time. Everybody doesn't have the time. Everybody doesn't have the skill or the will. So, all we can do is continue to try and to make it happen. But that is the issue. It's not that we don't have strategies. It's about who has the time to when you when you have children come in and they're at a deficit. Who has the time to help them make up that time? With with all due respect I I certainly appreciate those students that were
representational of making proficiency in some advance but when you look at the the bigger schema, they fly under the radar. That that's no percentage and then, this should be a wake-up call for the district to move past that impasse for our teachers and ensure that they are getting the pay. They are getting the support. They do have the resources. We will not move the students data, academic, achievement, and it has to be
sustainable. With this pace. And again, I offer, I'm a retired teacher, 30 years. So, so I'm I'm not talking what I don't know. I'm talking about what I do know. So, this is not a hypothetical. We we have to do better. And the one teacher I platter. Him or her. But we have several teachers in the district. In all of them. And if it's advanced training we might need to
look at what are we doing for our professional development. Let's let's let's develop our student. I mean excuse me. Our instructors in a area that will yield productivity. A measurable outcome in their academic studies. And and I I I hope my authoritative position, my voice does not make you think I'm I'm not angry but I am passionate about this. And we are here. All roads lead to
academic achievement. All roads. Everything this board does. We are to be to provide oversight. To achieve that goal. Educating our students. So we all of us. Not it's not personal attack at all. All of us. From our one employee, the superintendent, down to all of us that oversight and make up this district. We must come together and I say, let let's look at what we're
doing for those teachers because teachers cannot deliver. Imma be through in a minute. Yes. Teachers cannot. Absolutely. Deliver good instruction and put that time in if they have to worry about their wages for home. Thank you, Trustee Dooley. We need to keep going with our presentation. Okay, sure. So, PBL, that is an acronym for project-based learning and research shows that with project-based learning, students retain more, it covers those four Cs of 21st century
learning which is what creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication. So, as they learn, things will, it will be more impactful for them and so the PBO facilitators have been myself and my two handsome, tall gentlemen, my two partners, my building partner, mister Carafa and miss Kevin yeah and my central his partner Kevin Upton. So, the ITA and science teachers are engaged in PBO training throughout the year. We've had a three-day intensive summer workshop. Um there
will be five PDs during the school year and teachers are already including PBL and individual goal setting like I've spoken about before even with my meetings and conferences at their goal setting. I have two teachers who were just, I actually named them there. They might be watching. Miss Diana, miss Shinzing. They're already ready to go. And you know, we haven't had, we haven't completed all of our training but they are jump starting this this thing and so, we're excited about that. Oh, okay. And so, this is just our PBO
moments. Um as we were training myself and my two handsome partners, we were training the the ITA team and the science teachers across the district and as you can see, they're very engaged and so we were modeling project-based learning with our staff. Yup and so, and this was and with PBL, there's just there's an essential question and there's a project that would make life better for the community and so I think our task here was to build something that would be of utility.
You remember an invention. Yeah, piece of paper and roller tape and this was a very buoyant coffee table. So. Alright, next slide. Okay So, this is kind of similar, similar that to what Doctor Charmer talked about, ITA, K-12 is immersed in the project-based learning this year. Teachers are trained throughout the school year. All of our teachers and our ITA six twelve grades six through seven are enrolled in a PBL course which is taught by Miss Abdo. Uh she
was at some additional trainings last year as well. So, she's been trained trained I think she has three more days we had this summer than some of the other teachers we have but she is also leading the charge with another group of our teacher leaders for PBL. Um We have had a few different PBL projects created so far and they are the units as Doctor Charmer said, there's a central theme or a question that the students must answer and I was able to be part of two of those actually both of the ones you see up
there right now. The one on the left is making a government and middle school, miss miss Abdo had her students the essential question is what is government and the students were had to research and then they had to report out and create flyers or pamphlets for their version of a student government for ITA 6twelve, six eight, sorry, just six eight student governments. So, what would it look like? So, I got to sit through those five just five proposals that day from those groups. Uh very, very
good and it turned out that there the reflection piece for that was very strong because at the end of that, they reflected and they were able to then, now, what they're doing now is they're taking all of her polls turning into one and then they want to create a a legitimate student government six eight. So, that would be really cool to see how that works out. The other one was one that Doctor Devison was able to be a part of and air as well. Uh the hero proposals. Upstairs we had those in the international room. Uh pictures there on the very far right. Um and
students were to re re research what is a hero and then connect connected back to the local to local Pontiac and we had some great suggestions and ideas and the the whole point of it was to convince the city council to build a statue in honor of one of the local heroes for Pontiac. Uh and so what we did is we saw I think five different five or six different proposals. Five and what we would like to do ultimately with with mister Koselowski would like to
do is have the top group or the number one group there go to the city council and actually propose the the statue or the the mural whatever it may be for their heroes. Really cool and then the middle one there was Doctor missus Owen also in science. She does she's been doing PBL for years even before we started doing our training last year and she is constantly having the students answer their answer their theme question and they are always exploring and doing something different to take it to the next level. They were out at the
basketball courts the other day measuring shots in different types of wind and and just you name it. They were doing things last week. I couldn't she was calling me in a walkie talkie saying Miss Owen's class going to the you know field. Miss Owen's class is going here. Miss and she was all over the place. So they're really diving into that. So we hope that this project-based learning K-12 is springboard for the district to look at this model and say this is this is big and this is going to help increase that learning that we're looking forward to. So, this is our MTSS and PBIS just
basically supporting students with behavior and social, emotional behavior. Um so, we've got caught being good. They receive prizes when, you know, there someone can fill out a card and put it almost like a raffle and they'll they'll receive prizes for good behavior. We've had a pumpkin deck decorating activity that was recommended students and they were able to decorate pumpkins with our BIS and our social worker. We have lunch bunch incentives,
monthly attendance awards, the generosity project is something that I've done for. This will probably year number four, I think. So, every time, this is for the future and during Christmas time, each class will adopt a group of people or an outside entity and do something kind for them. So, I remember one year, one class adopted the kitchen team and they created Little Kitchen Mitts for them. So, there's calming corners. There's mindful meditation daily video that's in the
works. Um we just received vending machines. Right Miss Jeter? For books. So we haven't filled them up yet. But there's vending machines. When I first saw it I was like wait a minute. Treats and you know soda. So no but there there will be books. They can they can earn the coins and they can go ahead and take a grab a prize. Now this is something that the principal's bibliotherapy group. Um this is actually something that I worked on with my dissertation a few years ago. And I
just some socially aggressive behavior with our with some of our African-American girls. So, I want to, this is something that I see a need for. So, I'm going to move forward in that and take sacrifice some time and do a bibliotherapy and that's just what it, that's just what it looks like. biblio meaning words, therapy, helping people to cope and so, I think there's a book is called Skin Like Mine or or I forgot, I forgot the name of the title now but just some
books for them to read and to see themselves within the literature and begin to just talk about these things and some of the challenges that some of our African-American girls are encountering. It's going to thank you. I couldn't thank you. The thank you. That's it. Okay, I'm still up. Okay. So, POC, I'm not going to read all of this but as you can see, our many of our students test at least one grade level below and for kindergarten, there's really no baseline, that's that's
normal. And so, but I did, I know that my kindergarten, one of my kindergarten teachers says, it's so much some of the students have come in a lot more prepared in terms of phonemic awareness, being able to look at CATS Act, you know, and so, it's it's very beneficial or or it's it's promising and so, if you look at it, we've, of course, we've got a lot of work to do and this is commonly what we see at the beginning of the school year with diagnostics. Usually,
this has been the trend. Usually by the winter, the winter assessment, usually we have 50% of our students at about one grade level below but for some reason, it's just, it's been very difficult to get them out of that pocket from the 50percent, one grade level below to the spring, to over going over to that green bucket where they're emerging or on grade level. So, once again, we are working on it with PLCs, you're analyzing data and teachers will look at root causes and
bring some modalities forth that we see that would move our children forward. Next slide please. So, which is reteaching, intervention, ELC, tutor, I'm sorry, ESL tutoring in small groups, Haggerty which is dealing with phonics, academic, content language, focus which I mentioned before, the vocabulary initiative, administrator, HQI, or high-quality instruction walkthroughs, lesson plan monitoring, and so, once again,
these are some of the the ideas that were come, we, that the teachers came up with PLCs because you can only make make create a a plan once you see the data and so this is what we came up with. This is what my team came up with. Oh, I'm still up. Oh, jeez. Okay. Celebrations, one of my babies, fourth grade, received the $500 attendance award. Um students were recommend to engage in the pumpkin, decorating party, several
students will receive, will receive perfect attendance awards for the month of September and October. Um, ITA is ITAK five is fully staffed with certified teachers in all core classrooms. Um and I mentioned this before, miss Coco's kindergarten's class is filled with emerging readers already. Uh we talked about the two teachers who are self-starters with the project-based learning and there has been a very peaceful merger between ILA and ITA team members. So, it's been wonderful as everyone is
still is working together as a team and so, that's been fantastic and we also the first cohort of third graders attended the Pontiac Transportation Museum. Thank you, Doctor Devison. She really pushed for that. All the principals we we visited the Pontiac Transportation Museum last year and she got us all excited about it. So, we had our first cohort. Okay, there they are. Right there. Next slide, please. Yeah, you're having a ball. And this is we we were honoring
Breast Cancer Awareness. So some of us got into our pink. That's our ITA team. And this is a pumpkin decorating activity. So, now, I'll do go through a few of ours and they're kind of in the same order. So, the first one is about the PBIS Positive Behavior Intervention Supports. Um we have begun to look at our suspensions and expulsions and all those things, you know, over the past few years and we said there needs to be some sort of reform when it comes to that. So, our our behavior specialist miss Vannamin was able to
create a well, with excuse me, I shouldn't say that with assistance and work through Miss Williams, Yvette Williams. Uh we come up with this student needs referral form where teachers complete it based on classroom documentation and we are able to eat much easier, much more easily track, I guess, student behaviors and and and different things that going out there students so we can kind of intervene a little more quickly. Um we are using of course our tenants tracking
sales spreadsheet. We have student monthly awards for student of the month and staff of the month. We have our copy and good cards as well which we're also looking to update that whole scene too because I don't know we were just talking today about just some new ideas, new fresh ideas when it comes to PBIS that, you know, a lot of schools do a lot of the same things. We're trying to think of something outside the box. So, we had a great meeting today. We have a lot of good ideas and we'll we will be bringing those to you guys soon so you can check those out. Also, the book vending machine is very popular items. They, the students thought they're getting the pop and
candy machines and then, when I told them it was books, they were even more excited. So, we are looking forward November. Uh we did have we will have a ribbon cutting ceremony so we'll invite the school board and our administrators to that. Um but we would like to kind of honor kind of you know cut the ribbon and and and make a big spectacle up because they are really pretty cool machines. They look really cool too. Um Other things that Miss Vanderman is working on is the Allied Minds, a ten-week curriculum she'd like to use with our high school staff which
our staff and students which is more geared towards them. She believes and I think it will definitely get us a little more buy-in from our students as well. We have a middle school holiday dance and a high school dance. We would like to put on this year in December. Um and another piece of piece and again that's just to kind of keep the morale up and the momentum. The students are really into the homecoming and the dance. They really loved it. And so one of the things they asked for was more dances. And so we said Alright, let's see what we can do in December for Christmas. So, we're going to we're
going to work on that one for them but one thing that was really big that Doctor Bledsoe brought to us when she was in for me when I was out the first month this year. Um I drop everything and write something nice to someone. We haven't done this yet but our goal is to do this once per card marking. Uh I drop everything. I write something nice to someone. Doesn't matter who it is, where they are, what they are, but just to do that and we're looking to not only do something nice for someone but also increase and improve our reading and writing as well. Uh so, that's a thing that we're
going for for our PBS MTSS this year as well. Uh some of the results from our first PLC, we talked a little bit earlier about these things and we looked at again some of that summer drop off that Doctor Charmer talked about and it's pretty consistent almost. It's yearly. Um but we we also see is that by the end of the year like Doctor Charman said, we're we're we're our students are mostly for the most part where they should be. Uh but we looked at is 28%, 28% of our
students in the sixty plus percentile in math. And why why are you 60 plus is that's pretty much the proficient and higher area. 44% were in the spring last year in math, 28% this year in map 9twelve. So, while again, we're not comparing the same students. It's not necessarily apples to apples. It's kind of apples to oranges because you get your cohorts change but still as a group, it's a little bit of a drop off over that summer. Same thing with the reading, 43% this fall compared to 58 in the spring. And we know that, again, there is that drop off but we
are looking to figure out ways to combat that even earlier than after that first card market, after our first card market, which we think we are getting a hang of it right now. Um same thing with sixth, seventh, 8th grade reading, and math. Um you'll see that. Um sixth grade, 13% above or on grade level, 11% in math, 20% in seventh grade, fifteen-man in an eighth grade, 29% grade level, 40% math. So, definitely, again,
all, there's always when you look at data like this, it it seems it's alarming but again, we're looking at this this fall down, this first data and we always talk about how those tests go students come in. They're taking iReady, they're taking map, they're taking these tests right off the bat and some of em are not necessarily completely engaged. Some of them don't know what they're learning yet and then, at the end of the year, we see the biggest, the big jumps and the gains. Uh our next steps, we have, so, as administrator in the building, I'm monitoring daily list of plans and objectives. Uh our big, our one of our
big pushes is the objectives are on the board every single day for students to see in our PBL classes that central theme question is on the board every day for students to see and they know what it is. Uh our the goals will reflect or will reflect the delivery of the instruction and student growth. So, we want them to our our goals to lead to that. Um PBL, project-based learning, and and and a renewed focus on project-based learning and and a PLCs. That was today in the office and my office and there was a old cabinet and there was two thousand and
fourteen PLC paperwork from 2014 and it was the talk was PBL introduce introducing project-based learning. Uh it was crazy. So, I was like, this is insane. So, we we've been we this has been in our blood. Now, it's really coming out onto the paper now. Uh so, We continue to monitor our students' achievements through those processes and also again, our our focus is on math and literacy through PBL but also disciplinary literacy across all content this year. Ruth and Ruth and
Same thing. Nope. Yes. Ken's not Ken. Ken Stabler's on the Oakland Raiders. Second seven is Brad Stabler. Uh Brad Stabler. Uh Ruth and Brad have been amazing with this disciplinary literacy. They have a weekly group that meets in the morning, sometimes after school and their goal is to focus on literacy across every curriculum, content not just math and English but science, social studies, specials, teachers, everyone. So, we're we're working on that during our staffings and our early release days. You should really get up get all this
stuff meshing together in one. Celebrations. So, this is this is this is a big one. Mister Davis wanted me to let you all know that we are 100% complete with Zello. He was not even here and he is a Zellow guy. Uh miss Malinsky was actually he was he was out for a back injury he had. Miss Malinski actually pushed his agenda and 1hundred percent. So he's very excited about that. Uh Iowa I'm excited to announce that we have if to just take a look at that line there the top on a yellow In last year my second
year here seven suspensions 23 days total days in September October 11 for 40. This year 2 for 2 in September zero for zero October. I can't claim that September because I can claim it. It's my fault. Doctor Bledsoe had zero for zero. My first day back. We had two suspensions for two days. Wow. Yeah. So, it's my fault. So, I shouldn't have come back that early but I just we're really
excited about that. Um I don't think it means that people are getting away with anything. I don't think it's anything to me. It seems the same as it has been the last two years as far as what we're doing. I just think that students now have an idea of the climate and culture that we're trying to establish and you know, a couple of the groups, now the seniors now have seen me for 2 years. They know how I operate and how how we want to operate as a school. So, I just think it's just kind of coming together a little bit as far as that goes. I'm not saying there's not work to be done
especially sixth, seventh, and 8th grade but we are working with them every day as well, our middle school kids. Uh I read NWA completed on time. Another accomplishment for ours and we had an amazing turnout for our pumpkins with the principal. Um I think just a couple of pictures coming up but over 70 pumpkins painted. It was a great night. Um and we also not only did that but we met with our senior families for their initial class of twenty 26. Parent night. So we started there. Um we have our monthly student staff
recognitions. We do that. Uh we put their big screen pictures on the big screen. Uh we bring them down. We give them prizes. Uh so they are awarded. We hosted the mayor for our PBL proposal. Uh we also have an IK 12 grader who was nominated for the daughter of the American Revolution Good Citizens Awards Scholarship which I didn't even know they had of those but she is a winner of that. We'll bring her I think we're going to bring her out in December to a meeting. Um and then also our robotics team fifty-one. If you've heard of those guys, I mean they're
only hall of famers but they participated in the C three competition fundraiser to benefit cancer research prevention. I believe they came in third place that night. They were just trying to take it easy on the rest of the competition. They're assure me they'll be ready this year and they are competing for another state championship so. This is just some idea. This is this is some of the things we run on our big board, our box light boards, and our North Wing. You know, some breaking news. Our students were at the fundraiser. That's kind of how we honor our students and staff of the month and
that we've honored our best dressed students so far this year and our best Halloween costumes. Um and we try to do or try to do once a month the best dressed. Because we're really focused on this year. Again our dress code has been an issue. We're really you know we're we're we're really enforcing it with a I want to say the lightest heavy hand we can, because we still understand that there is, there is challenges at home for families sometimes, but we are trying to do ways to like, you know, honor the best dress, we give them a
prize, we show them off, and hopefully that gets our students back into kind of that, that whole atmosphere, but again, we have very few, right now, it's really backpacks, that's a thing, and it's just, it's not a huge deal, but it's also something that we want to try to, you know, let's get back into the culture. If we're, we're going to do one thing, let's do it all the way, you know, so we're trying to to do that with our with our students and staff too. And then just a couple other things that we had a pink October day. There's the pumpkins thing. Um we had our cultural dress your way day. Uh and again Spirit Week was awesome.
And there's some stuff from our pumpkin day. We had a lot of people, a lot of pumpkins. Um we actually had 200 pumpkins. So, missus Peck in her class is also and some of the, I believe some of the elementary classes as well painted pumpkins throughout that whole next day from Halloween. It was pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere. So, and that is that's where we're at. Alright. I just want to say thank you to them and I want to say this about curriculum and instruction. We are committed to
looking at data. We are looking at data. We are doing our PLCs and I'm just committed to the work. We are committed to the work and it is happening and we invite all of you all to RP meetings, we invite you to come and study with us. We are actually doing the work and we have schedules for it and it's happening and thanks to you all for approving the Article 14 calendar. We have early release time where we can do the PLC time. We have staff that are doing PLCs after
and before school. So PLCs are happening. We are looking at data and we are making action. We have performance management where we looking at data through management. So, we are looking at the data. We are a work in progress. We are not perfect but we are definitely looking at data and making sure students are progressing in this district. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor Levere. Any questions from the board or comments? Any more comments? Should I say? Alright. Thank you guys so
much. Doctor Sherman, mister Carafa, thank you. Alright, moving down to the last item on our agenda, communications, petitions, and delegations. There are none. Alright. So, now we have more comments. We'll start with you, Trustee Dooley. Pink. Good evening Congratulations to the 13 students from Elcot, the Tim from Walt Whitman for their performing admirably on the MStep being proficient or advanced. Thank you to the food service personnel for
providing resources to our families as we face the challenges in in the upcoming days. Unaware of what our government is going to do. Again, I can't emphasize the need for an investigative audit to be performed especially in light of the presentation given this evening that expressly stated, the audit performed is not designed to identify or detect fraud. Again, it is not, has not, and is not designed to
detect fraud, and I still remain positive and optimistic collectively as we work in concert together. We will move this district forward. and finally, tomorrow, tomorrow, Tuesday, November 4th, if you have not already cast your vote, please get out and vote. Let's continue to remain committed to educate, empower, and excite our students of this district. I do believe that we all
have the same common goal of educating the students of this district. With that, I say good night. Thank you much. Trustee Gross. Thank you. Good evening and what an excellent meeting this evening to be able to see how well our kids are performing and most of all, the parents trusting their children here in our district. Which is excellent. Um it's good to be back here. We had the opportunity and we'll report more at our governance. I'm sure about our trip to Traverse
City to the Michigan Association of School Board Leadership Conference. And the opportunity to go there and to improve on what it is that I need to do to ensure that I be the best board member that I can possibly be for this district. Um it's also the opportunity to see people throughout the state of Michigan that I hadn't seen in a while who didn't run for elections and then and decided to run again for election and actually came back and attended a conference. What an excellent time
that we spent together. And the classes that we attended. Uh I too say less tomorrow is a very important day for the city of Pontiac Um because we're voting on the mayor, city council, and most of all the sinking fund. Um please go out and vote. Um as I stated last year and I remember the weather is supposed to be pretty good tomorrow. 61 to 65 degrees sunshine.
So we can't use any excuses. To not vote. And I leave you with this as it pertains to excuses. One thing that I learned during my pledge time. For excuses are a sign of weakness. For they build bridges leading to nowhere. For those who use these tools of incompetence are masters of nothing. No excuse. Get out there tomorrow. Show your support. We know this is an off year. Generally we pack
it out for the presidential election. But Pontiac right now is more important than what's happening in Congress. So, get out there and vote tomorrow. Appreciate you and have a blessed night. Thank you, Trustee Gross, Trustee Miller. Good evening, everyone. Uh I just want to say first of all, congratulations to our students at Alcott and Whitman. Thank you to everyone that was involved in their proficient and advanced MStep Assessment Achievement. I hate to be
to be a horse but tomorrow is election day. Um and everyone's votes matter. Um your vote matters. This isn't really about an individual or an individual seat. It's about us. It's about our students, our neighborhoods, and our community. It is my hope that Wednesday we can begin working side by side, rebuilding trust, restoring accountability, and move Pontiac and Pontiac School District forward. The future of our community
depends on all of us. Whomever wins any seat tomorrow, I am excited for an opportunity to work collectively with them. It's going to take partnerships on all levels to be able to be committed and do what we need to do for our students and for our community. That's all I have a great night. Thank you. Secretary Davis Smith. Good evening. I believe my trustees said it all. Um again, I
want to say congratulations to our students from Al Qaeda Whitman for their proficiency or advance in a state test. Um and also the good information at SFE had shared with us. Um I think would be great for our our families. Um our seniors and our parents as well and and others in need. So, thank you so much SFE for that information. and again, please go out and vote. Your vote does matter
and it is important to cast your vote for tomorrow for for the City of Pontiac. Thank you. Have a good night everyone. Thank you. Treasurer Terry. Uh good evening, everybody. Uh once again, congratulations to our students from Elcott and Whitman Elementary on the profici an advanced proficiency on the state test recognitions. Congratulations to all of you. Keep up the good work as well. Um also I want to say thank you for all the reports that we received today. Um
good information. Um a lot of information I believe should help us with moving forward. And also continue to make those decisions that's going to impact our students and I guess positive way. Um other than that make sure you do get out to vote. Um hopefully a lot of people submitted their absentee ballots by now. Um if not you still time and then make sure you get out to those polls tomorrow. Um there are some I guess you want to say positions that are going to impact our city moving forward. Which is going to be very
important and and we also want to make sure that we have the right person in there. So, if you don't vote, you can't complain about anything that doesn't change. You can't complain about stuff that you want to have changed. So, this is your opportunity. You want to make yourself known. You want to get out there. You want to vote. Vote does count. Just remember, no vote cast. Obviously means you just settling for whatever's out there. And unfortunately, I think Pontiac has been doing that too much. So, make
sure you get out to to vote. Even our young people. There's some that's here in school if I'm correct. Some seniors that are now old enough to get out there and vote. Make sure they get registered and vote as well. Thank you. Thank you. VP Bowman. This was a very good meeting. Um grateful for them information, useful information, and I hope that everyone has a great night. Thank you. Alright, thank you very much. Um again, congratulations to our
Whitman scholars and our Al Qat Achievers for their success on being advanced and or proficient in their testing. I appreciate our staff and most importantly, again, our parents for their dedication and their support of their students. Thank you curriculum and instruction for your report tonight for keeping us abreast. This is why we're here to talk about the academics of our students where we are and where we want to go. So, I appreciate the report that was given tonight. I'm also appreciative for
the reports from as well as SFE making sure that we have information regarding resources for our parents especially considering the Snap benefits and other resources that may be lacking for our family. So, I appreciate you all for sharing that information. Um is trusting Gross had mentioned. We did have an opportunity to go to our MASB Annual Leadership Conference and of all the sessions that I attended, there was one that resonated with me
the most and it was during our general session and a keynote speaker, he posted a quote that said, we need to make the positive so loud that the negatives are almost impossible to hear. I'm talking to Pontiac right now. Pontiac don't know about you but I am exhausted by all the negativity that is going around in this country and in this community. I limit my
intake of social media on purpose because I have to protect my peace. I don't watch the news because I'm tired of all of the issues, the problems that are happening around us. Murders, layoffs, talks about wars, government shutdown, so people aren't getting paid even though they are still working. Immigration issues, and one of the most travel destination islands, Jamaica has been destroyed. But more importantly,
snap benefits are being stopped. So, this means that people in our community may not have resources to get food, really. Actions are even being taken as we speak about demolishing public education. So all of this negativity And guess what? None of it is in our control. We are now living in a world and within our community where anger, hurt, malicious
behaviors, disregard for humanity, and chaos is what we see on a daily basis. Now, although I limit my access to social media, I do still have people sharing with me about what is being said per about the Pontiac School District. The talks about our failures, the lack of this, or that, the faults, allegations of dishonesty, incompetent
leadership, I've been serving on this board for 3 years. And some of my colleagues have been serving for multiple terms. But now all of a sudden, this board is incompetent, this administration is incompetent. I'm how did everything become so distorted and dysfunctional with this district and administration all within the last 12 months. This wasn't the narrative before. The administration and board is the same
except for a few people. And those changes was only due to retirement or elections. I don't understand it. It's not fair to those who have served in these seats for multiple terms. It's not fair. For those that were elected this year and it's not fair for all of the employees and students that hear such bashing about their employer which is the Pontiac School District. This only perpetuates the problem and gives Pontiac School
District and this city a negative view in the public eye. Continuing in this matter does not help us attract employees nor does it help us attract students to this district or to this city. Now, I've stated this before that the educational system as a whole is in a crisis This Trump administration is trying to demolish and public education and unfortunately, this will have
the worst impact on urban communities. School of Choice has already interrupted the public education system. So, can you imagine what this city would look like if public education was no more? We talk about being a problem for our families to get access to. What about our families if they are not able to educate their kids in the public system? How and where will their kids be educated? Transportation has
been a big problem for a lot of our families. I'm not going to be distracted by the noise, the personal attacks, the contention, the disrespect, there are much bigger problems and issues that we as elected officials need to be concerned about in this community. But on the concerns that I've heard in this district, I will say this, as it relates to our finances, we heard from our auditors today. Our
previous CFO, he resigned. We were able to bring in our previous CFO to assist and they manage the the work for this district for the past 4 months. The position for CFO is posted and we are currently working with the firm, Pro Nexus to assist while the position is open. Our teachers are working without a contract We are currently in negotiations to resolve it. There is a shortage of teachers across this country and several districts are in
negotiations with their teachers. We have not laid off any teachers and despite the uncertainties in regards to federal funding, we will continue doing what we can to make sure that they are not impacted. And academic achievement When we try to compare our students to our suburban districts, our West Bloomfields, the Clarksons, Detroit, etcetera. We do a disservice to our own students. We have creative,
talented, intelligent students in our district and we saw that today by all of those thirty-one students that stood here because they performed proficiently or above on their testing. This system, this educational system, again is broken. People are not you in education like they did before and unfortunately, many students in our urban communities are failing across the country. Not all of them
but some of them and I have to say that because I don't want to dismiss those students that are thriving and doing well. So, yes, we need to make some adjustments to help those that are not performing and if you look at the data for literacy and math scores, they are down across the state. When our start school not knowing the basics, they fall behind. Then most likely, they will stay behind. This is why complaining
and talking negatively about the district and finger pointing to say whose fault it is, it's all our fault. Parents, community, churches, community leaders, these are our students. Our future. And so we all have to own that. Concerns aren't only just in Pontiac. We aren't a terrible district as the narrative would imply. These concerns affect every educational system. We, the board,
this administration, is addressing them. Our country, our education system, our urban communities are in a crisis. But guess what? There is some good news. We have people, we have businesses, organizations, and this community that want to see us win. They want to support our administration. And they want to make sure that our students have equitable opportunities in our
schools. We have a dynamic robotics team that still today wins championship across the states. We are building a CTE program in our high school that will ensure every kid graduates and will land on pathway to success. Our district as law as well as the state understands how important technical education is for the future of our students. We have students in our districts that have presented at Harvard University. Our students are taking
field trips again as you saw from the pictures. We have an opportunity for a renewal of our sinking fund that will allow us to continue our projects, facilities, maintenance, and other uses to the school district operational. This is not an increase or a decrease just a renewal. Our athletic department is on the comeback and we just had an amazing homecoming. Our staff are working hard to reignite that school spirit. We are doing what we can to
support all of our families to make sure that they have the resources that they need. So yes, there will be challenges to address and yes, there will some mistakes that are made. But none of them will be at the detriment of our students. We are going to do a better job at telling our story. We need your help as a community. We need your help as parents. Don't rely on secondhand information. Come to the board meetings. Don't just come when
people provoke you to come because something is wrong. Come so you can hear first hand about what is going well. Parents involved at your kid's school. In their classrooms so that you know firsthand what's happening. Start showing up at parent-teacher conferences. And if you don't like something you see, talk to the teacher. Ask the teacher or the principal how you can help. We need a village to help us and not hurt
us. Blasting issues or matters on social media is an embarrassment. Not a help. So Pontiac School District, staff, administration, and board members. We need to make the positive so loud that the negative that people are saying in this community is almost impossible to hear. There is a big election tomorrow. Just as our trustees have reminded everybody. Please start your helping by getting
out to vote. The sinking fund renewal is on the ballot. It's on the back. And so again we encourage you and ask you. Get involved where it really makes a difference and that's in your voice. Those are my comments for tonight. I thank you and I ask for a motion to adjourn this meeting. So move. Support. It's been moved by Trustee Dooley and supported by VP supported by VP Bowman to adjourn any questions, roll call. Trustee Gross. Yes. President Hannah. Yes.
Trustee Miller? Yes. Treasurer Terry? Yes. VP Bowman. Yes. I'm voting yes. Trustee Dooley? Yes. And pass the seven oh nine. Thank you. The time is 818 PM and this meeting is adjourned. Listen. So I need flyers.