Community school board of education regular meeting called to order at 06:02PM. If everyone would please rise and join with me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This board of education regular meeting is a meeting of the board in public for the purpose of conducting the school district business and is not a public community meeting.
However, we value community input and public comment will be heard under agenda item six. If you wish to speak tonight and have not already filled out the yellow card, they are located near the entrance to the cafeteria. Once you've completed the card, please put it in the box on the same table. Please note that the cards must be completed prior to speaking, and I'll call the names of those who I have a card for during public comment. I call on my board colleagues to abide by the norms that we've agreed to. These include keeping comments remain to the agenda item, that we don't surprise each other at the board table,
that we have one speaker at a time that's recognized by the chair before speaking, to be honest, to refrain from attacking others' motives, to uphold the chain of command, and to truly listen to each other. On behalf of my colleagues on the board, we're grateful to be able to serve this community and appreciate your support. For roll call, all board members are present with the exception of trustee Lausanne who is absent with notice. Moving on to our agenda, is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? Moved by trustee Gupta. Is there support?
Support from trustee Blake. Is there any discussion on this? All of those in favor of approving the agenda as presented, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a six oh vote, and the agenda is approved. So next, we have our spotlight on success, which will be on generative AI in education. And miss Caruso is this you? Thank you, madam president. Mister mister Cusmano, would you like to introduce this? Yes. Very excited to, bring up Rachel Monero, our instructional technology specialist in the teaching learning department,
and I'll let her introduce some of the staff members from Rochester City Schools to share where we are with AI GenAI in Education, where we've come from last year's steering committee, and some examples of how it's in in action right now. So turn it over to Rachel. Thank you, Pasquale. As Pasquale said, my name is Rachel Monero. I'm our district's instructional technology specialist, and I wanna thank you for the opportunity to be here today to talk to you about the work that we've been doing. And I have three colleagues with me that will introduce themselves later on when they get to the discussion. When we talk about AI, I feel like it's important that we're all on the same understanding,
and so I I have just, a couple of slides to explain what we mean when we talk about generative AI. Artificial intelligence itself is a general term that is applied to functions carried out on machines that are commonly associated with human intelligence. Example, modern day Celsius is a form of AI. If you've ever used Siri or Alexa, that's a form of AI. When your emails are routed to spam, that's a form of AI. You ever received recommendations on a streaming service, that's AI. Or if you're ever doing a text message or you're writing in a Google Doc and it's predicting the next word is gonna come,
that's a form of artificial intelligence. What we really wanna talk about today though is generative AI or Gen AI. Artificial intelligence itself is a very great umbrella term that has multiple layers. And so we're kind of getting down to the bottom layer of AI. And this is the ability for large language models, which are trained on lots and lots of data that are able to create text, images, code, videos, and more that were only previously created by the panelists. The important thing to note about generative AI is it requires human
name of the model, what it is it's wanting to get, and then the output is there. And then from there, the human is able to say, I would like this or that based on It's important to note that, AI cannot think or feel really good at data, and it's been trained on. So a little overview of what's happened the past year is last year, we formed an AI steering committee, which comprised of 26 k through 12 admin and teachers with the goal of creating some generative AI guidelines to make sure that everyone in the district had the same
understanding what we meant when we talked about generative AI and then what was acceptable in regards to education goals. So this team spent an entire year researching AI. Testing. We looked at, policies at the local state and national level. There are some states that have entire, statewide policy. Michigan is not one of those states, but we turned to Oakland School, that's doing a lot of this work around Oakland County and also Michigan Virtual that has helped, the state in regards to developing AI guidelines for their after we came up with
a draft, based on this, we sought student input. We wanted to make sure that our voice was involved, the guidelines we were developing. We met with teacher groups, and we brought it before the, SBCC, and we're looking to get that insight as well. And at that time, they had asked that we could come and present an entire board in the fall to give an update on what's been happening. So last June, we developed, completed that comprehensive guideline, and then this August, August 20, when we had our PD, we rolled out the guidelines to all of our.
As we rolled out those guidelines, it's important to note that these guidelines were shared with you, in one of our cabinet updates from the teaching and learning department, so the entire 13 pages are there. But I wanna point out a couple things about the introduction of our our guidance. We recognize that generative AI technology is relatively new and rapidly evolving skills. The guidance will be revised over time for plus any additional changes, and the goal of our guidance is to promote AI educational benefits, foster AI literacy, and equip our community with the skills to navigate AI while upholding academic integrity in
the learning environment. And these are our five guiding principles that apply for both our students and for our educators. We We wanna make sure that AI use is focused on student centered learning, that there's ethical use in regards to the way that I AI regenerative AI is being used. So we're focusing on this promotion of AI literacy and understanding how do we use this effectively will often maintain our own critical thinking and understanding that sometimes AI will create what are called hallucinations, meaning that everything that in the output is not natural. And so you need to critically analyze that output is there before you can say,
hey. I'm gonna share this with a large audience. We really focus on academic integrity in regards to transparency, letting people know when AI is being used and when your own original time, and then adapting this idea of continuous learning. AI, as we mentioned, is quickly evolving, and new things are active daily. So not only informal, but formal professional development. Generative AI and the role that it's playing. We also rolled out what are called some AI best practices, guidance for our students and staff, as well as developing this generative AI and technical use to know.
So across the board, regardless of which class the student is in, we all have the same expectations of what's allowed to be used as a class. I like to think of AI, understanding in this continuum. We're starting, for some of our younger grades, really building this AI awareness. Actually, what is AI? How to spot AI? It's very important to understand when AI is being used and if it's being used in the wrong way. We know if that's actually useful. And then truly understanding that AI is not then we work to develop this AI literacy, making sure that our students are engaging with, age appropriate tools with also teacher oversight.
You know, here today is a grant that. Helping our students understand understand and decide when AI can be used and when it's not based on what they have and truly developing those critical thinking skills when they evaluate any AI output and use generative. And, eventually, I'd love for us to get this idea of AI fluency where students are using AI to also solve the real world problem. When we start to better understand what's gonna they have to be. Because we wanna make sure our students are developing the skills and knowledge that they
need to be lifelong learners, contribute to a diverse and interdependent changing world, and that is developing AI. So I've said a lot kind of to help you get to this journey and understanding where we are in a very short period of time, but I think it's so important to hear from our teachers some examples of the way that they're using AI in their class. Alright. Thank you much. My name is Brian Lindstrom. I'm a teacher at Rochester Adams High School. I teach our regular economics classes AP micro and AP macro. And, throughout this journey that we've been going on, we were just literally talking about,
our regular economics course, how it's already changed the web already. When you go to do a search, instead of a website popping up, you get data from AI back. And we're we're already seeing just websites like WebMD. People are not going to it because they get this information right away. And so in talking about our economics classes, I'm like, how can we use this on the teaching end of it? And so, two of the tools that we've white listed in, Rochester Community Schools for our teachers to use, the first one is NotebookLM. And I absolutely love this tool because instead of it going to all of the
metaverse and everything that is out there, it's only taking a look at the documents that you enter. And so on the example that I have up here, I took some of the PowerPoints that I had for my regular economics class, dumped them in there, said, hey. Be an be a high school economics teacher. Give me a set of guided notes with a word bank for me to be able to differentiate my note taking guide, for some of my students that have, IEPs that require guided notes. And it I took all my PowerPoints, put it in. It spit back a a set of guided notes with word banks, and ready to go, for my students to have into access.
And so on the teacher end of it, being able to put in whether it's student data or my own data, and asking metacognitive questions of it, has been absolutely huge. I've taken, test feedback that I've had, dumped it in there, asked the questions, hey. What problems do kids struggle with? What can we do better off of this? I've made lesson plans out of it. Here here's the the PowerPoints that I have, the Google slide deck. It's made videos off of just my own information. And so, NotebookLM is one of these things that is amazing because it houses in its own sandbox.
And so, when I put my information in or students' information in, because of the work the AI committee has done and our tech department has done is they've kinda created as just a sandbox to play in. And so the data stays within there. And that's one of the things that when this all first came out, we didn't really understand where the data goes and what the data is. And if I were to take students' information or students' test score and put it in the chat g p t, it would just be out there for everybody, and that that information would be gone. And so our tech department's done a great job of white listing some tools with some parameters, that help keep that data in house but allow us access to these tools.
So, notebook l m has been, you know, pretty pretty big heavy lifting taken off of some of the teachers' shoulders. We use it a lot, in working with being able to, diversify instruction, being able to get, you know, special needs into, you know, just certain situations. So I have a student that, is over here from China. It's her second week here. I've taken all my PowerPoints and dumped them in and translated them all into Chinese. And, to see her face when that Powerpoint pops up that, you know, she's trying she does her English translator out taking pictures of stuff.
It's been pretty amazing for that. So that's the first one is NotebookLM. And then the second one is SchoolAI. And SchoolAI is kind of like its own chatbot, for students to use. And so in SchoolAI, what I did was I took a project rubric that we're doing in economics on public goods. I put my rubric in. I told AI what I wanted to help with with the kids. And the kids went through and plugged in, you know, their own ideas and thoughts. And so it really is a thought partner, and I see it as really multiplying the teacher in the classroom of 36 kids. Like, it's like, hey.
I there's one of me. Everybody has questions with this, so they can put their own questions in. And based on the rubric and based on the information I've given it, it'll spit back some feedback with it. And so, if I have kids who are kinda going off into one direction, and instead of letting them get to the final end of the project and being like, oh, that's that's really not what we intended for you to do. It doesn't really meet the rubric. It asks some guiding questions along the way to really guide them to what they're doing. So using that as thought creation, we've all had and hopped on websites where you get the personal assistant that helps you for shopping or ask questions with and kind of that FAQ piece.
And this is designed for in the classroom, with school. So, I have colleagues who are using it for, test study guides. They upload their test into it, and they say, hey. Help the kids study off of this test, giving them that direct information. So, two two tools that we've white listed in here that we've used in the classroom when we've done PD on, from the staff. So thank you, Moi. Alright. And I'm gonna share with you some student examples of how they're using AI. So my AI journey started, 12/01/2022, the day after ChatPPC was released to the public.
My students were working on an essay. And a student was asking me very strange questions, like how many words should this be? Just word questions that I could not I didn't know why he was asking them, but I had just read an article on AI. And it was right after COVID. We're back to semi normal. It was the 2022. And I remember reading the article going, just take get a break. I cut us some slack here. I had no idea that a week later,
I would be dealing with it. So I was walking around and the student had chatty. Yeah. So I pulled him over. We talked about it. He accidentally left his Chromebook in my room. And I opened it up, and it was we had it, compose an essay for him. So I just flipped the script. I put the prompt for the essay into tattoo three. I had it write an essay, and then I had my students critique what, Tattoo3 did. They had to find the strengths and the weaknesses.
I will tell you, I have been teaching a really, really long time, and I have never in my life seen kids so engaging right as I did here. They were they wanted to be the computer. They wanted to prove that they were smarter than the computer. Everything I have ever wanted them to do with their own writing, go back and look at your own writing for word choice, sentence structure, and best of evidence. Somehow the first time they do it, they think it's perfect. But they as you can see here, they have really, really analyzed,
critiqued this essay. So this was kind of, twofold. They, worked with the essay, but then they also kind of saw the limitations of Chatterjee because they were not happy with the output. So I I hope they kinda learned a little lesson there, but it it was it was pretty phenomenal. I was, like, looking out in the hallway for an administrator, like, come in. Come in. See what's going on in here. It was pretty cool. Then, now, we all have access to Gemini, and the students have access to it. And so I've been playing around with it for, I'm assigning an essay in a couple of weeks.
And I want to use, Gemini for a writing assistant for my students. So they will write by hand. Old school. And then once they have their first draft, they will type it in a Google document, and we will prompt Gemini to use, their essay. We'll upload my rubric, and then Gemini will be a writing assistant for them. And it is really important. I practice. I uploaded an essay I wrote, and Gemini liked it. But I also uploaded, a essay that was, you know, more of a student,
example. And it gave some really good pieces of advice. But in the prompt, it's very important to put in there that do not rewrite, provide feedback, assist the students. So there's definitely some prompt engineering that needs to happen along the way. Excuse me. Ninth what what what grade level were you? Oh, this was ninth grade. Oh. Oh, sorry. I'm Sarah Melage from Stony Creek. I see. Hi, everyone. I'm Mikaela Youngs. I teach, English at Rochester High School. I teach, Co taught LA 10. I teach literature, and I'm also the newspaper adviser.
I have been using AI over the last, probably, two years really trying to figure out the best way that I could use it. Rachel actually came in last year and helped with our newspaper. We were having some issues with InDesign, and she was a great source for having our paper transfer over to Canva to design our app for her. The kids have really loved it. It's been great. As you can see, there's some of those, AI tools that they that makes it a lot more accessible, and we can all collaborate together on one job. That's helpful.
In my ELA classes, I've been using Gemini a ton to help me differentiate my instruction, whether that is adjusting reading level for text that we're reading in class or adjusting worksheets and really trying to meet where they are. We've also been given for the English department common lit this year, and it's been a great assessment tool for our students. And so I'm able to look at where some of the candidates are, with our common core standards or some of their writing. And I can directly ask them that I I need help with this specific common
core standard. And so that's the focus on the school right now is, our students were struggling with creating information, and we were also doing school at the same time and in some grades. So I asked them to create an activity for them to actually have creating information and review wanna thank you for inviting us to come and share some of the work that we're doing with generative AI in the classroom. And hopefully later on this year, we can share more of the student perspective of of how it's impacting their learning as well. But do you have any questions for us before our segment is open?
Trustee Lacoury? Okay. One thing I was wondering with was when you're having students produce work using the AI, what are some of the biggest advantages you see in having them use it, and what are some of the drawbacks? Well, I definitely think the drawbacks are students just wanting to use it to side step the learning, just to be on task. So I think it's definitely the quality teacher oversight and teaching about AI literacy and teaching how to use it. And, unfortunately, like, we have GoGuardian, so when my students are using it, I can watch what they're doing.
And I I think some of the, pros of using AI is that, you know, we have I think about I have 38 kids in my ninth grade classroom. That gives me a minute and a half to work with them on right speech. And if I can have AI kinda help assist, then I can work with my most needy students, the ones who might need more than a minute and a minute and a half of my time. That's definitely a problem. One way that I'm seeing is that we're helping, I I guess, teachers and even students understand that learning is a process, and it's not that we just care about the final product.
And so how can we better check and see, hey. Maybe we're gonna do an outline, then a rough draft, then we're gonna do some revised humanity, then we're gonna get to that final product of learning. But the learning is an entire journey, and it's helping us to refocus and reframe our our pedagogy in that way and understanding that there are benchmarks along the way as we develop as opposed to, I'm just gonna put it into a pump, and it's gonna give me the answer. But really seeing the value in the work that they're doing and helping them understand through having those conversations of why is it important for you to be able to
have your own original thinking here, and then where's a good spot or time for you to maybe get some assistance from AI that still say to your so it's definitely a lot of AI literacy and and practice, and supporting our students along the way as we ourselves are learning with them too. That's a tough one. Oh, okay. I guess a follow-up to that, I was gonna add, what are some of the telltale signs that you've noticed that you can tell that that AI has been used instead of their their original phone game? So today, I helped a Spanish teacher. She goes, hey. I introduced words to kids and,
this this question in Spanish and Spanish too. And she came over to me and said, I I don't think this is theirs. They're they're using words I haven't introduced. And I was like, oh, let's take a look. So I took a picture of Chad GPP and I pulled it up, and it was word for word exactly what, they were looking at. So, I think that is that is the one piece of the skipping over. And from my end of the the the aisle, I see this. It's it's drastically help kids create ideas. And this is one of the things where kids get stuck. And we do this public goods project and just like, hey. I want you to estimate the cost of putting in a streetlight here.
Estimate the cost of putting in a drinking fountain. They would never find that information just searching the web. Like, going through and, like, it would take them such a long time to come up with estimated cost, and this kinda helps them out. Like, hey. This is gonna be x amount of dollars per light. You might wanna consider about installation. Was it cost per hour to install stuff? And so I just I think it's when they go to search with that, it's really adding depth to what they were doing and and shortening the time span that they have to spend researching, on certain topics and ideas. So, when when I see something that's produced, I teach economics,
so it's kinda hard to do graphs and stuff like that, and it's not really there yet. But as far as what my colleagues have seen, they can tell right away, hey. We haven't we haven't really talked about that stuff or they're using it in a different context, and I think that kinda sets the light bulb off of, okay. This might not be their. I have a follow-up on that. We did develop an exceptional use policy, and, teachers are letting students know what level of AI can be used in regards to the assignment. So helping sure that there's that active identity that they are following that chart that we develop for all areas regardless of what school you're at.
There's those same expectations. And I will throw out there there is no product on the market that can prove that something was generated with AI. So our teachers are really getting to know their students. They're understanding their writing style. They're understanding the way that they talk day to day speech. And so once we we we invest in our students and we know who they are and we can tell if something is not truly them or if they rely too heavily on AI. Trustee Anderson? Thank you all for being here and giving this appreciation. I really appreciate it.
My question centers around the AI best practice. And obviously, knowing that you want to improve it. So my question is, at what point do you introduce these, AI best practices? And I would think that in many ways, it would be beneficial to have AI that with also, emphasis that we put on, media media awareness and and integrating, the very question that we asked. How can we differentiate whether or not what is done is done by AI, or how can you differentiate what you see in the video is done by AI?
Because, I mean, there are adults that so it's kind of a deep question. To your first part, we have incredible, information literacy specialists, that we're really looking at, our digital citizenship curriculum and seeing ways that we can better embed some practice with AI literacy. So that's one way these AI best practices are being rolled out. Two, part of the work with the AI steering committee, we had a couple of elementary teachers come forward and say this language. I think we can adapt it to better meet some of our elementary, students. So we're gonna be working on that to help adapt it to be a more user friendly for some of our younger learners.
And you will find that teachers are learning alongside the kids and are introducing it in different ways as they start to explore more use of Gen AI with their kids. Trustee Blake? So, excuse me, I guess building on a couple questions from colleagues, you know, I know one thing that I hear a lot of concern about are, you know, cheating and people not doing their own work and I'm concerned about that. It seems like it would be easy to do. But also some of the use cases that you talked about today sound interesting. I hadn't thought of those. But it seems like it would first need for a student to have the foundation.
So to know how to construct how to construct a paragraph and construct an argument and a sentence and then bring this in to kind of enhance that. Is there an age range at which this is introduced or when did they start using this? There are different levels of, I would say, use within generative AI, and it can be reintroduced at at different levels. We have some fifth grade teachers that are using it as writing assistance. Students write everything and then they use it for feedback.
We have, there's a tool out there called writing coach that we have some high school teachers and middle school teachers that are using. And students are doing all of the writing themselves, but there's a built in coach alongside to give feedback based upon the rubric that the teacher has input into there. So part of, the acceptable use guide guidance, the purpose of it is to set those levels of what type of AI could be used when. And then we also do in the best practices, one of these is students to understand what do you miss out on in the learning process when you rely too heavily on it.
So it's building in that own academic integrity with our students. Because, yes, there are ways that could be the easiest way out, but is that truly learning for you and having those conversations with students? Yes, please. I would also like to add that AI has really made us think about our assignments that we're giving and making sure that they are AI proofed. For example, I have my students now writing in class where I might have given that for homework in the past. I do a lot of Socratic seminars where I'm hearing my students speaking.
So then when they turn an essay into me with verbs like galvanized in it, I know that they got some help with AI. Like, so I do I think that there's just we're learning alongside our students, but we're also trying to just make I mean, this isn't going away. I was at a conference over the summer and the keynote speaker said something that I cannot get out of my head. It said, We need to stop preparing students for our past and start preparing them for their futures. And this is their future.
And so we just have to get smarter. They're way smarter than we are with technology and AI. They are. But we just, we have to learn alongside with them and we just have to teach them how to be ethical and be good humans. And there's a lot of research out there. Like, I teach ed careers and my students just did it, does AI belong in the classroom? And they did debates. And they had to do all kinds of research. And there's an article from MIT that came out this summer where there's all kinds of cognitive offloading, like, from students using it to write their papers.
Like, I think getting kids to read some of this research and see what can go wrong with AI is really important too. I guess I have a question on sort of like next steps, right? You said there was professional development on August 20. Well, I mean, a one day PD is really not enough for, you know, most people anyway. And so what kind of tools do we have for people to for our staff to educate themselves more or to learn more and sort of, you know, where are we going with that space?
Sure thing. We followed up with three through five, at our last PD that we just had in September. We have an asynchronous PD in November where there's offerings around AI. Each month, we send out a teaching and learning newsletter that's filled with either AI articles, additional webinars that they can go to. We do in person, embedded PD. It's kind of what my role is for the district. And I go into each of the buildings and offer professional development in regards to our instructional technology tools. And a big focus this year is, doing sessions that are wrong, artificial intelligence and how it connects to the work that they're doing in their classroom.
So it's definitely not a one and done, and it's built into this entire professional learning plan that we have going on this year. And I wanna add, the it's part of our strategic plan. So it's a plan for year two, and it I don't think it's going away. It might continue on for ever and ever because it's something that's gonna evolve. And, I wanted to say this the steering committee's work last year and then teaching and learning, we said we gotta rip the Band Aid off because kids are using it. So we need to we need to get up to practice. We gotta get our staff up to speed and, very proud of this team, steering committee to rip the Band Aid off,
get it going, and now we're we're using it and talking about it and and getting better at it. And it's gonna evolve, like Rachel said, throughout the year and in years coming. So Just to follow-up on that, are, are the some of those PDs, are they recorded or, you know, somehow so people can go back and watch them later? Yeah. I make, videos all the time, that they can go back and and watch. Some of them are real bite sized, like TikToks, like, hey. Did you know you can do this? And some of them are much longer, YouTube videos, that are available for them to reference. And then I also meet, with teachers one on one, either during their prep or after school if they have regards to questions around any
of these AI tools, and how they can best support their students and their professional, work as well. Trustee Lecui? You mentioned the acceptable use policy. Is that something that the committee created that we would be able to find somewhere? Or is that that something that's more individual teacher by teacher? So the acceptable use policy is in regards to technology use within the organization, but we have what is called a, generative AI acceptable use. It's published on the website. We shared it in the cabinet meeting notes that, from teaching and learning in the August,
but I can share those out as well too. It's published on the district website too. Cool. Alright. I don't see any other questions. Thank you so much for coming. I appreciate the update, and hopefully our community does as well. So thank you. Agenda item five is communication, and this is where we reference various communications that have been received. Item 5.1 is communication received by the board. Secretary Blake, do you have an update for us? I do. We received, eight communications and they are in the packet. Thank you. Now we have the portion of our meeting I always look forward to.
We have our student representatives from, our high schools with us. And, Libby, are you starting first? Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I am Libby Schultz from Adams High School, and it is my pleasure to be back with you all tonight speaking on the recent and upcoming events at our school. This weekend is our homecoming pep assembly football game and dance. One of the highlights that we are looking forward to this year are LED light up wristbands that will be used at our pep assembly and dance. At our pep assembly, students will enjoy performances from our band, cheer team,
and dance team, as well as games including tug of war, knocker ball, and our annual boys dance team competition between all four grades. Our spirit days this year are geared towards the theme of a night in Vegas, including themes such as red versus black day, where upperclassmen wear red and underclassmen wear black, representing the different the different suits of cards. After winning our football game against Stony Creek this past Friday, our record is four and two, and we are determined to continue to improve and make it to playoffs. With football season slowly coming to a close,
our senior night will take place on October 24, where we will recognize our senior football players, sideline cheerleaders, and dancers for all of the hard work that they've put in over the last four years. As for other fall sports, volleyball is also having their senior night tomorrow at home against the Rochester girls volleyball team at 7PM, and we are wishing the team the best of luck. This past weekend, our girls swim and dive team had counties and had an an outstanding performance while preparing to qualify for states.
Our men's soccer team has their first playoff game this Wednesday against Stony Creek, and we're so excited to see how our boys will fight throughout the game. While many other sports are constantly continuing to improve for their finals, playoffs, and states, we wanna say good luck to everyone. Throughout our fall sports season, our Adams athletic boosters have continuously been putting in hard work for every sporting event. We are incredibly grateful for our PTSA and community for providing concessions, fun tailgates, and Adams merchandise to represent what it truly means to have Highlander pride.
Recently, we had our RCS Marching Band Festival on September 20 with an outstanding turnout throughout all RCS schools, and fans who showed up to cheer on the bands. Congratulations congratulations and good job to all three schools. Following our festival, we had professional development day on September 26, in which staff had a much needed time to work on strategies within their departments and learn about new technology tools. After our club fair in September, we had an extremely successful start for new and returning clubs for the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six school year. With several clubs,
our students have the opportunity to explore and improve unique skills throughout the year. Alongside Homecoming Week this week, we are also having parent teacher conferences where parents have the opportunity to meet with teachers one on one to discuss their children's behaviors, grades, and actions. These meetings give parents the chance to reflect with their children and themselves for the most successful outcome of high school. With our feeder schools in mind, in late October, Adams will be hosting our annual trunk or treat for all younger members and families and community. This is a fun event for us to host as high school volunteers decorate their
cars, play music, and pass out candy. It will be in our auditorium parking lot from five to 7PM. Feel free to bring your children and receive some free candy and Halloween cheer. On October 31, our Link Crew will host our trunk or treat for freshmen. This is a fun way to remind our freshman body that Link Crew is always there to support them. Our theater program will be putting on their annual haunted house on October, where Adams students are encouraged to bring their friends and have some fun while getting a good scare. Looking forward ahead, our student council will begin preparing for our canned food drive,
where we will donate thousands of canned goods and dollars to our local Rochester area neighborhood house. Those are all the updates from Adams. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to seeing you next month. Good evening, everyone. My name is Grace Clucci, and I am Rochester High School's board representative. RHS started this year off strong with many opportunities for our Falcons to get involved. The forty two Strong Foundation visited Rochester High the Rochester High School leadership cohort on September 24. Leaders heard from mister Buckmeyer and his team about the pillars of their program, trust, love, and build.
We are very grateful for this opportunity. Mr. Wrinkle and miss Harris are continuing to prepare our students for the upcoming SAT for the upcoming SAT taking place on October 15. They recently hosted an informational meeting during advisory about SAT learning opportunities and national merit qualifications. In addition, many college reps have hosted presentational meetings in the RHS Auditorium about requirements for their admissions process. And afterwards, they are open to answer any questions students have. These visits have been very helpful for our juniors and seniors. In accordance with multiple opportunities to get involved at RHS,
many exciting events are taking place as well. RHS had a very successful homecoming the September. We hosted a pep assembly to enhance school spirit Thursday, September 25. Dance decorating, alumni night, and the homecoming game, Friday, September 26, and finally, the homecoming dance on the twenty seventh. All of our homecoming events were a huge success. We've gotten lots of positive feedback from students about the deck the dance decorations and the pep assembly. Since homecoming is now over, StuGo is beginning to prep for our annual trunk or treat event. This is one of our biggest community events apart from Falcon Frenzy,
taking place October 23. Falcon Frenzy was also a huge success last September 12. We had a huge crowd and lots of community involvement. In the future, RHS is hosting breakfast with your baby on October 17. This is a great event for our seniors and parents to unite. Many of our fall sports programs have continued to head have great seasons as well. Tennis has officially been declared as White League champions as of September 26. Great job, Falcons. The Rochester girls swim and dive team had counties this past weekend at Royal Oak Middle School with 10 girls competing. We had many amazing swims and times.
Congratulations to Adi Kosh for getting a state cut in the 100 breasts. The mountain bike team remained second place overall after their race at Warner Trail in Three Rivers on September 22. Shout out to Owen Barker for solidifying his position as the sir series leader in his category. RHS First and Finest took a visit to Adams High School to play at their annual festival September 20. Great job, Falcons. Their next big performance is on Wednesday, October 8 at the MSBOA district event at Troy High School. The boys' soccer team hosted their future Falcon Night on September 25,
where future Falcons were able to witness the empowering spirit of the soccer team. To conclude, I would like to give a few shout outs to a few things happening at RHS that has helped contribute to the greater culture of our school. Trevor's at risk cancer awareness. The Rochester football team currently has their pink fund open to donate. RHS will continue to show awareness at our game against Southfield on October 10 with a pink out theme. Our theater program has been hard at work on the fall musical, White Christmas. Thank you to Jacob Windmer for visiting the for visiting RHS to talk about his experience in White Christmas on Broadway.
RHS Counseling and the Talent have had a recent growth in their social media platform school wide, spreading awareness on events happening at RHS and important information. These platforms have been a perfect way to spread word about updates and spread school spirit. On the PD day we had on the twenty sixth, RHS staff took this as an opportunity to learn about their specific curriculum in the morning and more about CTE opportunities, technology updates, and discuss the building goal of increased rigor in the afternoon. RHS also installed a wall of honor featuring all the names of RHS staff and
students who have served our country. This prom this prominent wall has been an empowering contribution to RHS. The official unveiling day is on Veterans Day. That's all for today's report. Thank you for your time and attention. Hello, everyone. My name is and I'm the student representative from Stoney Creek High School. It's great to be back tonight to share all of the amazing things happening at our school this fall. We've had such a fun and spirited week few weeks at Stoney. Our celebration of the Creek and youth night football game was a huge success. It was amazing seeing our feeder schools come out to join the fun.
The energy that night truly showed how connected our community is. The fall play, Pride and Prejudice, is already well underway, and rehearsals are looking incredible. The shows will take place November. Tickets will be on sale soon, and we can't wait to see our talented theater students bring the story to life on stage. In athletics, our volleyball team recently hosted a special home game where they invited staff members to be honored. This was such an amazing way to show appreciation for teachers and staff members who make a difference every day. Our men's soccer team also celebrated their seniors at their senior night game on October
2, recognizing their leadership and hard work throughout the season. And our cross country team did an amazing job at the Hansen's Invitational, with a special shout out to Leah Corby for finishing second overall. On the academic side, college visits have begun. Representatives from different universities have been coming to Sony to meet with students and help them explore their next steps after graduation. And, of course, we just wrapped up homecoming week. This year's theme was Viva La Hoco, a Las Vegas homecoming, and it was one for the books. We kicked things off with the all in lunch games where clubs hosted fun activities
and raffle baskets for students to enjoy. Throughout the week, grades competed in the Cougar Cup, earning Cougar credits for spirit day participation, bank decorating, and assembly games. After a week full of excitement, the class of twenty twenty six seniors took home the Cougar Cup title thanks to their amazing participation, spirit, and honestly, one of the best lip sync performances we've ever seen. Our bank decorating on September 25 was a great community effort, and our homecoming assembly on October 3 brought the whole school together. With games like the caterpillar race, finish the lyric, and the annual lip sync battle,
plus the presentation of the homecoming court, it was the perfect lead up to the big game that night. The homecoming game itself was full of energy and pride. The halftime show was amazing with performances from our cheer teams, dance teams, and a great combined performance with our band along with Adams' marching band. The student section or the corps brought incredible spirit, and we're so proud of how our team played. That same day, student council transformed the school for the homecoming dance. From the decorations to the photo booth and snacks, it was a fun night for everyone. A huge shout out to our student council for all of their hard work in
making homecoming unforgettable. Looking ahead, we have PSAT testing and parent teacher conferences coming up on October 15, followed by our fall concert with choir, band, and orchestra on October 16 at 7PM. And later this month, the college and career fair will be held at Rochester High School on October 21 from six to 8PM. To keep the spirit going, student council is already planning some exciting fall events and a spirit week to close out October on a high note. With so much happening already, this fall has set the tone for an exciting year ahead. From new traditions to familiar ones,
Stony Creek students are showing what it means to be involved, spirited, and proud to be Cougars. We can't wait to see what's next. Thank you so much for your time, and I hope you all have a wonderful evening. Good evening, members of the Rochester School Board, Cabinet, and community. My name is Nanny Lee, and I'm excited to give you the updates for Ace. Friday, September 26 was Rochester's high school football game, and Ace's very own Eli Johnson played in the Falcons' tough loss against Tony Creek. On Saturday, September 27, Ace students attended the Rochester homecoming,
including me. We had a great time, and it was amazing to see how much work their student council and the Rochester high school team put into making the event so special. On October 26, students from both ACE and ATPS walked around a mile in green shirts to raise awareness for mental health awareness. Music played as we enjoyed the sunshine and heat of our extended summer. We plan to hold more mental health awareness days each month. Our next event includes a field trip to Westview Orchard And Cider Mill.
Ace students will take a hayride and pick apples. Our new Bulldog Bragg has been a major success. Students are being recognized for a variety of achievements including having a positive attitude, excellence in academic achievements, and displaying an outstanding character. We have over 20 students recognized so far this school year and are sure many to come. This award celebrates the best of ACE, and students are excited about positive energy it has put into the building. As tradition, ACE will be having our Michigan versus Michigan State tailgate event in late October.
We will have chili dogs, hot dogs, all the fixing, including pickles, and lots of fun and games. This is a great event that shows the culture and positive atmosphere at ACE and allows students from all backgrounds to join together. Even when marine fans go crazy. At the end of the month, we will have Halloween fun with our first ACE Spirit Week. There will be fun events centered around Halloween and some end of quarter events including movie day and Starbucks. On October 1, we had our first senior portrait day. Prestige Photography visited ACE,
and some seniors were able to take their headshots for the for the yearbook. Juniors at ACE are preparing for the PSAT on October 15. ACE teachers are using targeted lessons each week during fourth hour that focus on skills to prepare students to score their very best for the test. Finally, I'd like to give you some classroom updates as our teachers have been working very hard to create engaging and learning lessons for students. Biology created many ecosystems out of
soil, moss, and plants. And they're having a contest to see whose can live the longest without intervention. Wilderness Survival held a contest to see who could build the longest rope using grass. Eli Elliott won using creating a 10 foot rope in just forty minutes. Also in wilderness survival, students foraged for food then created delicious meals for their parents to eat at curriculum night. Scared at first, some really enjoyed their kids' creations. Art and science classes collaborated on a creative project to use per to produce
cyanotypes using natural materials gathered from around the school grounds. This multi class effort combines scientific exploration of plant structures with artistic expression throughout alternative photography. Students work together to create to collect leaves and flowers and other organic materials using sunlight and chemistry to create striking blue tone prints. The project fostered a deeper appreciation for both the natural world and the unique ways art and science can intersect. In film, students analyze
why exactly the 50 year old movie Jaws became an instant classic. We are so excited for the month ahead at ACE. Thank you, and have a great evening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Alexia Boda, and I'm the senior representative for International Academy. I'm here to update you on the happenings at IA. I hope everyone has had a good start to the month and is excited to see what this month entails. I know our seniors had a stressful start as their extended essays, which is their 4,000 word research paper, was due last week. To recap on what just happened, we had our Olympics on September 26,
where for the second time in IA history, the seniors lost. It was a very fun event and many parents came out to watch, especially their favorite event, which is watermelon eating. This is where each grade competes against each other to eat a tray of watermelon fastest without using their hands. Another thing that just ended were our psychology internals where our seniors had to replicate a study with a few minor changes and conduct their experiment. Luckily for next year's seniors, the curriculum changes every seven years so they won't have to actually conduct their experiment. And we also had our senior night where parents were able to come out to
the school and learn and hear all about the important dates and all the due dates that are coming out for the seniors. Now, to look at our current events, class of 2,030 applications are currently being placed on the school website, and we will start hosting Shadow Days again. Shadow Days were started last year, and it is where we would have a group of 30 to 40 prospective students come in to shadow at the same time, instead of individually. That way they get to meet more people that they might come to school with and make some friends. As of right now, we have four coming up. In addition,
some of our clubs are conducting meetings and interviews to choose new board members. Looking ahead, we will have Powder Puff at Bloomfield Hills High School on October 21. I know this year's juniors and seniors are extra competitive, especially because of Olympics. Our student leadership is starting to play on our charity ball that will be held in November at IA. The theme has just been chosen and it is Hollywood. It's super exciting. That's everything that's been happening at IA, and I look forward to our next meeting. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much to all of you for those updates. Moving on,
agenda item three 5.3 is the section where members of the Board of Education share communications that were sent directly with them and not sent to the full board. Did any board member receive communications from the public? Trustee Blake? I received an email. It was a follow-up from, an email that had gone to the entire board, but this was just to me from Elise Henderson, who, was complaining that she would like Harry Potter to be removed from reading lists, libraries, and classroom discussions throughout the district, as well as K Pop Demon Hunter songs to be removed from the district.
I also received communication from Jacqueline Cunningham that was questioning why we were teaching about the Boston Massacre in our district. I received another, communication from Jacqueline Cunningham, upset that the free school lunch program had been continued. Alright. And I had, one from Skye Teaton in appreciation for the safe gun storage information that was shared with the community. Alright. Now we are moving on to item six, which is public comment. This provides an opportunity for board members to hear from community members.
If you wish to speak tonight but have not already filled out a yellow card, please do so at this time. When your name is called, please move to the microphone. Although I'm not seeing the microphone. Oh, I'm sorry. It's, in the back. When addressing the board, you'll have three minutes to speak, And I'll try to let you know when you have thirty seconds remaining. Please be mindful of this time limit. When addressing the board, please state your name and your relationship to the district. We ask that you address your comments to the entire board and not to individual board members, school district employees, or to members of the audience. The board will not be responding to comments or questions during the meeting.
However, someone will follow-up if needed. At this point, I have two right now. First, I have David Tallman. I am Dave, and I am very blessed to be part of the Reuther community. I have a couple of boys here that are loving it, growing, and and having a great time. And that's what I wanted to talk to you about tonight, the same thing I always talk about with the getting along, but community. We are all in community together, as you know. It's right in the middle of our name, the RCS, where there's 15,000 students, so with parents and teachers and alumni.
Talking about 40,000 people in a community together. And you are on the stage with another half a dozen people, the leaders of a community of 40,000 people, where by any measure is very successful and happy and moving in the right direction. And everything I saw with the AI and the other discussions we had, they only confirmed that. Now there was a letter in the packet too about, one of the board members, put with something on their Facebook about Charlie Kirk that they didn't like. I wanted to talk about that. But, I'm a member of a community like you all you are all we're all members
of dozens of communities. I don't really need that. And I'm definitely a member of whatever community you think Charlie Kirk was in. I'm a Christian conservative, I'm a Republican operative, I'm a Christian nationalist, I'm all of those things. Whatever it is, I've said I've said all those things dozens of times, and they're absolutely true. And, I had the great honor of seeing Charlie talk in person eight times, twice, with, the little one minute, you get your picture taken. But one time, I got to have about four minutes where he just looked at me and I looked at him and we talked to each other. And I can assure you that if he were here tonight I'll act as the
Charlie Kirk expert in the room since there's only about 10 of us and I have met him and everything he would for sure say that whatever was on that Facebook post, is appreciated. That we should all be able to say what we wanna say on whatever form we wanna say it, as long as we're not saying I'm gonna kill you or something like that. I wish I was as mature as him because my, knee jerk reaction would be to write a similar letter saying, I'm mad at you for saying that Charlie Kirk's a propagandist. Charlie Kirk people would say that to right in front of him and he would
say, Thank you for coming. I appreciate your input. He was very famous for talking about, e pluribus unum. I always say that wrong, but out of many, one. And that's that's what communities are. There's a whole bunch of us and we're all different. And but where we intersect is the most important thing. And, things like Randy Weingarten's new book, which came out six days after Gerald Kerr was shot, by Fascist Fear Teachers. I read the book over the weekend and, I was shocked to learn that I'm a fascist. And so is Carol Beth, by her definition. That we're running and Stephanie,
we're running the district and we're fascist. That's what this book's about. And I just hope that we can get along better than that. Thank you. Thank you. And next, we have Stephanie Van Dale. Thanks, Michelle. I really appreciate you pronouncing my name correctly and, for reminding me with your little prologue that restricts my First Amendment rights about addressing grievances with individual board members. And I'm exercising my right right now with this speech because the RCS board is
a nonpartisan position. Yet, Barb Anas has run as a Democrat for state representative, and don't forget, she lost. God, that's wonderful words. Barb Anas lost. So my question is, how are we supposed to believe that she's nonpartisan after all of the last election nonsense and the current round of her disgusting social media posts about the assassination of Charlie Kirk? Because time and time and time again, she provides examples of her nonpartisanship.
So, Barb, you can't seem to figure out that your mask slipping will be used against you in the next election. So please save yourself some embarrassment, and just don't run. Just retire. Be kind. Let go. Let others have a turn. And stop being a boomer. Thank you. Alright. I see no other public comment at this time, so we're moving on to agenda item seven, which is the consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature by the Board
of Education and will be acted upon by one motion. There is no separate discussion of these items. If any member of the board requests discussion of an item, that item will be removed. Please note that the items removed will now be discussed separately under the consent agenda and will retain the same number. For instance, if Item 7.1 was asked to be removed, we would vote on Item 7.2 through 7.4 and then come back to 7.1 for a motion discussion and vote. You may still request just one item in a report to be removed from the consent agenda. If this is the case, we would approve everything else,
and the item removed from the report would receive a new number. In this case, it would be 7.5 but still under the consent agenda. Our consent agenda tonight consists of: Item 7.1, human resource recommendations Item 7.2, Board of Education regular meeting minutes from 09/08/2025 Item 7.3, Board of Education special meeting minutes from 09/15/2025 and Item 7.4, Board of Education regular meeting minutes from 09/22/2025.
Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Moved by Trustee Gupta. Is there support? From Trustee Blake. Thank you. Does any board member wish to remove an item? All right. Seeing none, all of those in favor of approving the consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a six-zero vote, and the items on the consent agenda have been approved. We're moving on to agenda item eight, which is reports, and we have three tonight. First, we are starting with our budget. And is this Mr.
McDaniel or Mr. Russo? Yeah. Thank you, Madam President. Just I'm going to go back a second and just on behalf of, Mr. Murphy, who couldn't be here tonight, I'd like to welcome the 11 new hires for the REA that were just approved by the Board of Education. We're excited to see what you can do in our organization. To move on to the budget, a couple of things have happened, right? So I think when this was initially placed on the agenda, we're going to look back at the twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five year. And now, on October 6, we have a state budget that is just awaiting signature from the Governor.
So I'm going to try to talk a little bit about both. For the twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five year, I'd like to thank Mr. Russo, who presented on that on my behalf when I was unavailable at the last meeting. I don't have a lot to add to that. As Mr. Russo said at the November, I think, '10 meeting, the audit will be presented where we'll go into detail with the numbers. I have a meeting later this week with Brian Dixon from Yo and Yo to kind of finalize and start that presentation finalize the audit and start the presentation for what we'll bring to the Board on November 10. I did want to talk a little bit about modified accrual accounting and why there
are some challenges and why it takes a little bit of time for us to get those numbers solidified between June 30, our fiscal year ending, and the audit presentation in November and the field work that occurred in the third week of September. So if you don't know modified accrual accounting, I'm gonna try not to bore you with too much information on it. But essentially, it means that we have to get things in the right year. So, you know, I think you're most familiar with, cash accounting, right? Cash coming in and cash going out, that that's what matters. That's the same for us until the last day of the fiscal year.
So if you didn't know, our teacher salaries for the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six school year start in September. Those salaries are paid through August for most of our staff who select or elect for a twelve month paycheck. So if we were to look at our financials at the August, it wouldn't look like we're spending any dollars for our teachers. Our teachers are getting paychecks in July and August, but it's not going to that fiscal year, it's going to the prior fiscal year because that's considered work for for, or payment for work done during the school year. So there's other nuances like that that make it difficult,
and that's one of the reasons why we have our field work completed in Sempepper is historically, we wanted those numbers perfect. So if you get your audit done in July or August, you have to make a lot of estimates. So as this Board knows, we get a state aid payment for the previous fiscal year in July and August. And so we true up those numbers to actuals rather than trying to make a guess. And as Mr. Russo mentioned at the last meeting, that was one of the reasons why we, added the fund balance instead of using the $5,000,000 that was originally budgeted. We got more revenue than we knew at the time when the Board approved the
budget in June. So I just wanted to help the Board understand that there's some nuances, there's some time things with modified accrual accounting that makes, July and August a very busy time for our business office as we try to close the books, make sure that they're perfect. Any questions on twenty four-twenty five before I jump into twenty five-twenty six? Just a quick question. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Trustee Liqui. I was just gonna say that that sounds a lot like what we heard from Mr. Russo at the last meeting. My request from the last meeting was if we could have an updated budget report
so that we could see what those final numbers look like for the twenty four-twenty five school year so that we can just compare them and see how that $5,000,000 swing went that way. But I see we didn't get it by this meeting. When can we see that budget report? Do we really have to wait until November 10 or can we see it sooner than that? Yeah. I think November 10, once the audit's closed, that is the final, I guess, nail in the coffin for the 2425 school year. So we're not able to produce the report earlier than that? Yeah. I think we'll schedule it, you know,
as we said, November 10 to put everything out there. Right? That's when the auditors will be here to speak to it as well. I had a question. I was on a, webinar earlier today and I'm gonna say some words that I don't necessarily know what they mean and, they were talking about section 18 compliance supplement that was late and, that that could affect your audit. And I just wondered if that had any impact on Rochester's because they said otherwise the audit's due by November 1. Yeah. I don't know that that was, had too much of an impact on us.
I think that's one of the reasons, why November 10 is the key date because there are some pieces where I know that in talking to Brian and Jordan from Yo and Yo that they were waiting on, that supplement to kinda define what needed to be audited in 2425 and how things should be interpreted. So there is a Michigan school auditing manual that comes out that really relies on some federal guidance because we have a federal single audit. So we need that information, before they can close out their audit for the twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five year. Okay. And I guess they based on what I was listening to, it said that was not out yet.
And so, I think there was something about you had 30 after that is finally dropped in order to complete your audit. But I I think our intention is that we'll have everything button up by November 1 and submitted to the state on schedule. Alright. Thank you. Trustee Gupta. So I'm just looking for some clarification because at our last meeting, my understanding was that the 5 well, dollars 3 of the 5,000,000 difference, was, explained by, by underspending, budgets that were allocated across the district. But what I heard you just say was that we had more revenue than is
expected. So or than was expected. So I guess I need some clarification on that. And I would also say I I think it's some sort of budget update to help us understand that would be useful before November 1. But if there's a reason we can't get that, then I'm open to hearing that. Sure. So I think Mr. Russo communicated both that there was about additional $1,000,000 in revenue that came in as well as about $3,000,000 worth of department and building budgets that didn't go spent.
And so that led to the difference, Salary and benefits, when you exclude grants, I think we're pretty much spot on from a forecasting standpoint. I think we're off about $200,000 on a $240,000,000 budget. As far as presenting updated budget numbers, we can, but it is somewhat of a redundant presentation and not finalized until the audit's completed. So we could do that, but we would do the same presentation, I guess at the October 20 meeting, with a little bit of, additional input from the auditors at the November 10 presentation.
May I respond? Well, I was just gonna say, I don't think we need a presentation here. I think it could just be in our superintendent cabinet notes. Did anyone else have any questions on twenty four-twenty five before we move on? Okay. Alright. So on twenty five-twenty six, this is passed the legislature. So it is on to the Governor, to sign. So I think the one of the biggest things that we've been communicating is about free meals for all. We expect that that's going to continue. The Governor has been supportive of that. We know that there's many of you asking for how do I get my refund,
right? We sent out the message that we were going to start charging for meals October 1, got some positive signs from the state that we didn't need to do that and believe that the governor will sign that maybe today or tomorrow to make it official. So once the governor signs the budget and it's official, that's when we'll send out the communication as to how and where to request your refund so that you can get your money back. You can always leave that on your students' account. But I know in talking to Marsha, our Food Service Director, there's been some pretty large amounts put on there because people were expecting to pay
for lunches and breakfast. So if you need a refund, we'll communicate that shortly after the Governor signs and then we'll start processing those. Of course, again, you can keep that on your account. There are a la carte items that our schools that you can our students can purchase as well. There's a lot that we don't know about the twenty five-twenty six budgets. I would say what's a little bit foreign to me is that this process was very tight lipped. There wasn't a whole lot of information coming out about the budget until it was kind of ready.
So what we're hearing is a $10,050 per pupil increase, which is slightly more than we budgeted for $25 $26 we budgeted $10,000 so that's a $50 per pupil increase. We're hearing that there's some retirement changes, some increases to categoricals like 31A and English learners. There's some other language in there that we're waiting on additional guidance from the state and the Michigan Department of Education to see how that will affect us. There's some concerning language about free and reduced meal applications and requiring every household in
the district to complete those. Otherwise, you get a state aid penalty. So we're awaiting to see how the Michigan Department of Education interprets how the states wrote that into the school budget. So depending on those things, that will kind of shape our next amendment. So I know that our Director of Finance has been working on the portions of the budget that we can, which is mostly staffing. You guys know that 80% to 85% of our budget is people. So she's been working on those and then we've just kind of been waiting to get some final information from the state on next year's budget.
What the Senate fiscal agency, I believe, has put out, looks like it totaled about $6,300,000 or $6,400,000 dollars in additional funds to the District taking into account the major changes. So there's like the 31 that I mentioned, the English learners, there's some retirement money that looks like it went away. But we're really waiting to see that full picture once the budget's signed. The governor has line item veto power. So if there's money attached to it, she can strike that with a red pen, and then that means it doesn't go into the budget.
So those could have little nuances on what our our budget will be, but we'll have a budget amendment by the end of the calendar year for the Board. Trustee Ospa? Thank you for the update. I have two questions. I understand that the governor hasn't signed it yet, but I'm wondering, have we seen a draft of it, or have you not seen all of the language yet? I think we saw, the language from, I think, the Senate Bill 166 that went out. So that's what we're kind of sifting through. Because it was so, tight lipped until the very end, there's a lot of pieces out there that I would say,
our colleagues across the State and the County didn't have a chance to provide much influence to say, Hey, in practice, this might be a bad idea. So I think everybody's kind of going through and trying to decipher what this budget means for school districts. I know I have some colleagues in Bloomfield, in Birmingham and Troy. We're on a group text where we're talking back and forth and talk throughout the weekend to say, Hey, we think this is going to do this or that. So, waiting to see what actually makes it through. Most of the budget will, right? I don't think there's any, doubt on the $10,050
or the free meals, but there may be little nuances in the budget that the governor decides to veto. Trustee Ospa? And then my follow-up would be, I understand the governor could line item veto and that could definitely tilt things one way or another. But you're saying that, a lot of people are sifting through this and you're waiting for guidance for how MDE interprets that. A lot of that guidance and sifting through is going to impact some of our budget decisions. So do we have, or do you have a historical sense of when we'll have a complete understanding of
all these pieces? Does it take three weeks, you know, thirty days or three months for us to really understand what this new budget is? Yeah. That's a good question. I I think some of these some of the way things were written, we're going to be waiting on MDE. I know that they have a new state superintendent incoming, and I don't know how much that will influence the timeline as to how they interpret things. I think on most things, it should be pretty straightforward, right? The foundational allowance is pretty clear. 31A, I don't think has changed much. A lot of the larger categorical funding,
I think are about the same. One of the pieces of language that I was mentioning was Section 164, which talks about 5% penalty if all households don't complete a free and reduced lunch application. And it says in the language, to the extent practical. So that may have different meaning to the Michigan Department of Education than it does to Rochester Community Schools or Matt McDaniel. I don't think it's practical for us to have about 9,000 households in the district complete a free and reduced application, especially based on our population who it's like a fifteen minute application that won't receive
any benefit and will lose fifteen minutes out of their day. So to get 9,000 households to submit that, I hope it seems practical that we would not be able to do that and we would not be penalized, therefore. But, again, it kind of comes down to the Michigan Department of Ed's reading of that language. And to just President, I just want to add a couple of things. So in addition to what Mr. McDaniel has stated regarding, food service, for example, safety and security monies that are what we know about in this bill and the way it's being read, by our legislative liaisons and other folks who are trying to sift through this is
that it could be tied to specific vendors or specific interests. And so, again, these are when I say the word could, that's what that's what we're interpreting now. So to say that, you know, for example, I think the media has said that there's an increase in funding for safety and security for K-twelve education. On paper, those numbers are bigger than last year, but what we qualify for might be less. So we're just we're taking everything with a grain of salt until we can get interpretation of that because quite frankly when this came out and the media released it,
I think the media and people at this table knew more than a lot of our legislators because the process kind of went around the norm. And so people are trying to figure out what is actually being put into law. I think one of my biggest concerns, with this budget is, the shifting of the MPSR's offset, and how that will impact school districts and specifically our school district. Can you speak a little bit to that, Matt? Yeah. I think we're waiting to see, what that does as well. We know that they removed about 1,100,000.0 of,
NPSR's funding for us. But there's also language in there which is, unique in my experience that the state budget director, has given the authority to, I guess, end the 27 k student loan repayment program. And if they do that, then they can allocate money to this and that. So it's in the language. It's kind of up to the state budget director to determine whether or not they want that program to continue or not. And that has repercussions for us. You know, we have teachers that participate in the 27 ks program. But at the same time, we would also receive some of those funds if the state budget director were to
end that. So that's unique language to me. I don't think in my, you know, thirteen years in school finance it's ever been, a state budget director or one person's ever been given the authority to end a multimillion dollar program. So as a follow-up to that then, essentially what you're saying is that individual will be able to say, that the amount going to aid teachers would be shifted, and only allocated as a MIFS are offset to districts. Is that essentially what you're saying? I think that's part of it. I think, if I recall correctly, that the legislature,
if the state budget director ended the 27 ks program, some of that would go to retirement and some of that could go to teacher compensation educator compensation. Okay, thank you. So this may be a premature question, but when we passed our budget back at the July because we had to vote at that time, there was going to be a $6,000,000 deficit or fund balance used in the next year. A lot of us were very uncomfortable about that. We had asked to have options brought to us. What would it look like if it was only $4,000,000 $2,000,000 and that was done? We looked at that at the last time.
But now I heard you say $6,300,000 additional funding, but I don't know if that was like net, fund total net funding or what? Like, does that wash that 6,000,000 and now we're looking at balanced or where are we going to? So we budgeted 10,000, per people or that amount. So there's some some benefit to us, but it's about $700,000 ish, because it's $50 more per pupil. So we're still looking at a deficit budget. However, this First Amendment is really the first one that sort of matters, right? We were projecting a budget that we have to adopt by June 30 that we
don't know how many students we're gonna serve. We don't know who's gonna work here. We don't know at this year how much we're gonna get paid per student or a lot of the categorical grants. So this is really the budget that will, shape the organization for the 'twenty five, 'twenty six school year because, you know, we'll have our staff. There'll be some changes, right? You guys saw the HR report, right? There's been resignations and new hires. So there's some nuance there, but we have a much better idea than we did in June when this budget was approved as to what our staffing is, as to what our student count will be and as to now what our state
budget, will allow for us. So I'm sorry, but then what was the $6,300,000 in additional? Yes. When you look year over year, the Senate fiscal agency does a calculation, based on, I think, our most recent student count and they compare what twenty four, twenty five looked like versus twenty five, twenty six. And there's some nuance there because they just picked the big things. So there's other pieces that, for example, they didn't include. We got $5,800,000 in revenue instead of a foundational allowance increase last year. That isn't part of that number. They didn't take that into account.
So there's some nuance there, but that's what the Senate fiscal agency put out was about $6,400,000 more than last year based on those categories that they showed. And Jason, I guess, just I want to make sure that you understand that, as Matt said, that $6,300,000 is more than what was last year, not more than what we budgeted. Yes. I do get that now, that I didn't get that at the beginning of the question. Okay. Are there any other questions at this time? Trustee Licui? Just one final little follow-up.
I heard you mention potentially including a twenty four-twenty five budget report in our superintendent cabinet notes rather than having an additional presentation. Is there anything that the board needs to do to officially make that request? Because I didn't hear any confirmation about it. I mean, the cabinet notes come out every two weeks. If you're looking for some type of, like if you're looking for something specific that you didn't hear mentioned, maybe now would be the time to bring it up. I guess the question is, I think she's asking, are you committing to being able to provide something that would be the comparison for
us? Rather than waiting until November 10 for the budget update, providing the budget update than waiting until November 10 for the budget update, providing the budget update in our next cabinet notes, do we need to make an official motion to do that or is that something that will just happen on its own? I will say that the I will say that the cabinet notes that are coming up this week I don't know that Mr. McDaniel can get it in for this week, but maybe in two weeks from now, Mr. McDaniel? Sure. We can make sure the board gets them sometime in October. Okay. Fair? Yep. Alright. Any other budget questions? Alright. Thank you very much. Mr. McDaniel, this may be yours as well. Enrollment is our next report. Yes.
Thank you, Madam President. So on your table, there is a report of the headcount of students. It says receiving services, but there is a small amount that are just residents that are receiving services elsewhere, like in a special education center based program, something like that. But this is, again, headcount, this is not FTE. So we are serving about 15,500 students in the District. Again, not all of this will be FTE. Some of them are pretty obvious that it's TK-twelve students when it says a building,
right? So Baldwin Elementary, five eighteen. When you get down to about the middle of the page, you'll start to see programs get a little bit more specific, right? So you'll see ACE High School, you'll see the adult transition program, you'll see Rochester Adult Center for Education. So those students are all at the Schultz campus. We don't receive foundation for all those students, but they are being served by Rochester Community Schools. You'll see Birth to Three and Early Childhood Special Education programs. Again, this is another area of students receiving services, but we don't receive full FTE for these students. And then you'll see GSRP tuition based pre k.
Again, tuition based pre k GSRP, we don't receive per pupil funding for that. Temporary, these are students that have been enrolled but are still waiting on a placement either in a building or program. And then students at International Academy, the Virtual Learning Academy Consortium, VLACC, private schools. There's some, students at private schools that receive some services from Rochester Community Schools. And then out of district special education programs, that's center based programs that we're sending students to and paying tuition for. So again, $15,004.96. It's hard to give an FTE amount at this time.
So I wanna share a little bit kind of like I did with the budgets, some of the challenges there. So, count day is actually more than one day. So Wednesday, October 1 was count day. It's good news. We only had about 1,000 students that were absent from one class or one period, out of our, you know, approximately 14,000 plus students. Our supervisor of student enrollment, reported today that we're about down to 300 that we're still monitoring. So what I mean by that is if you're absent on count day, if you're, missed on count day. If you're unexcused,
you have 10 to return. So about 70% of those students that were absent on count day for at least one period have attended those periods. So there's 300 that within the next either ten school days or thirty calendar days, need to come to class. Otherwise, we'll start losing, a portion of our funding. There's also students on here, I think, like our birth to three or early childhood special education program that they actually, we get to take, I think, the best of a four week count period.
So that determines Feet attendance best attendance over four individual weeks. So there's a lot of nuance, to how we get these numbers. Right? You You guys are well aware that $15,500 is not the FTE that we're getting paid on. So those numbers will be submitted in early November to Oakland Schools, and then we'll begin the audit process. But it's a little difficult right now to give you an idea of how many FTE we're going to be paid for based on the full count. Trustee Ospa? You're bringing back a lot of memories for me.
Tell me about our audit processes. Is it a full desk audit or is it a sample? Yeah. So I know that, for every audit, there's a few on-site visits and then there's desk audit questions. So, I don't know that I know the answer to the question if it's a full, desk audit. I think you get a if you get a on-site audit, then there's not a whole lot of desk audit questions on that particular building. But they usually come to visit three or four buildings. It used to be, I think, typically one elementary, one middle and one high school. And I think that they've been through all the high schools. So I think last year or maybe it was last spring,
they visited two or three elementaries rather than some of the secondary buildings. Trustee Blake? So if you were to use this exact same methodology, not FTE or whatever, but lining up just like this and you did this a year ago to today, where what is the difference? That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that. I would assume we're down as well. But it's hard to say if that's going to be proportional to what we might see as an FTE decrease. So I know, from our K-twelve projection, You guys see it in our cabinet notes every other week that we're 44,
I think. In the most recent one, forty four from the, PowerSchool predictive enrollment analytics presentation or, projection. Excuse me. But there's some nuances there too because, you know, last year we had a, virtual campus that was part of those numbers. And now those kids are at Virtual Learning Academy, all of them rather than just, I think, the elementary portion last year. So while we're off 44 or we're lower 44 students, there's about 60 students, I believe, in the Virtual Learning Academy Consortium. And some of those, last year likely would have been in that number.
So there's some nuance to what you see on that report. I can, for future cabinet notes as well, try to pull headcount, for about the same time in the 2024 October 24, time period. Trustee Licui? Well, I've been noticing in our cabinet note updates you've been providing FTE estimates and it's been around 14,300 the last three cabinet notes or so. And I know our conservative projection was 14346. Do you have an idea if our FTE is going to be higher or lower
than that? I'm wondering why we wouldn't be able to have some kind of an idea of an estimate of what the FTE would look like at this point, but we can do headcount. So why would we be able to do headcount and not the FTE? Yeah. So I used the example earlier of we have, a thousand students that were absent on count day. So if they don't return, those 300 that haven't returned yet, we can lose 300 FT feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet E. I mean, that's overly high number because hopefully those students didn't miss full days. But if let's say they did and they didn't return in the specified amount of
time, then there's $300 FTE lower. Right. Okay. So let's go to the other parts of the question. Do we have an idea whether you think it's going to be higher or lower than the $14,346 And then are we going to get our final numbers in about thirty days then after all of the monitoring? The monitoring won't be done in thirty days. That's when the submission to Oakland Schools is due. I think once we have the Feet sorry, Feet prepared, we can share what's being submitted to Oakland Schools. But at the same time, that number gets audited in their section 25e, which allows for adjustments.
So, you know, count day occurred October 1. It's possible that we've enrolled students, say, from a occurred October 1. It's possible that we've enrolled students, say, from a neighboring district that we would, get additional FTE for. Great. I'll also be interested in knowing the number before the 25e audit because usually it's pretty close. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we we do a lot of work, for not a lot of increase or decrease, which for us is fortunate. For other districts, isn't as fortunate because other districts, there's winners and losers and we're kind of a tie for a draw. So about when then you said not thirty days. So about when would we get to know what our FTE estimate is then before
25 e happens? I think it's once we submit to Oakland Schools. However, you know, that again goes through an audit process. So, that number could change in the audit. I'm just I'm just saying, like, do you know about when that might be in terms of the timeline? Yeah. I'm I'm I'm sorry. I think I said we submit to open schools in about thirty days in November. Okay. So when it's due to open schools, that's when we'll, have an idea at least of what we're submitting. It won't, it shouldn't vary much but will vary from, what we actually get paid out for. Okay. Thanks. Trustee Oltzweig.
Mr. McDaniel, correct me if I'm wrong. I understand that one of the reasons that you can't predict how exactly what the FTE will be is because, as you said, I think it's GSRP and special ed that it's the best of the last four weeks, so up in in attendance. So up until the last the fourth week, you really don't know. I know for many virtual programs, there's two different ways to count them. There's either log in on count day and do an activity, or you can do the two way interactions. And that is it's not over until that last, like, midnight on that last count day.
And then I know with working with Oakland Schools, you know, there's a wonderful team out there. I know Carolyn's still not has retired, I think. But it's still a really strong team that I know a lot of people out there. But they are auditing every district and every program in the county. So they get to you when they get to you. So it's not like they promise you you're going to have your report card on a particular day with that FTE. So I understand how, while it seems like a hard number, I need a number. And, you know, we struggle with deliverables.
I understand there's a lot of pieces of the process that aren't over until that thirty day window is closed. And then there are some you know, we are at the mercy of the auditors of Oakland Schools who also have a lot on their plates. Yeah. And in some ways too, like, we're at the mercy of our our parents and our guardians, right, to get your students back in school. Every year, we lose FTE because we don't meet those attendance requirements. Right? They don't return to all periods within thirty calendar days or ten school days. So, you know, that's a a variable as well that,
you know, on this number, you could probably lump in all those school buildings as close to being, an FTE, and then you'd have to work through all the nuances of the other programs, that have the different, pupil accounting rules. But, yeah, if students don't return to class, then then we lose FTE for those students, and that happens, every year. And I know as a parent, it's really hard when your child if your child gets sick or something at this time of year, but this is one of the reasons it's so important to excuse your child so that we have a longer period of time to recapture them. I know when things are going on and it's hard to remember to call into
school, but excusing us just by creating just by excusing your child gives us a lot more opportunity to capture that count. Yep. And by no means do I think a 100% of our students should attend, right? There's certainly, acceptable reasons why students may not not be able to return in the given time frame. I'm not I don't wanna, come off as negative to any of our parents who are making the best decisions they can for our kids, but I'm just wanting to point out that we don't get the full FTE, when it comes to all of our students enrolled because families aren't able to meet those requirements.
Alright. I do not see any more questions about enrollment, so thank you very much for that. Our final report is on peer districts. During our MASB training session on September 15, the board indicated an interest in discussing the establishment of some peer districts to compare ourselves to when reviewing academic achievement. Currently, the administration identifies the state and county averages for a comparison. Mr. Russo and his team have worked to identify some districts we may want to consider. And at this time, am I turning it over to you, Mr. Russo? Yes, please, ma'am. So as President Buton mentioned,
you had an MASB session in which you were deciding as a board to have a consensus around what we'll be looking at moving forward in terms of comparison districts. I've provided you two data sets, based on that information. The first data set is focused on some of the highest achieving districts in the county and the state. The second data set includes districts that resemble RCS in terms of enrollment size both inside and outside Oakland County. You will notice that some of the districts are present on both of these data sets and some are not. On each of these comparisons you will see the same data points for discussion: enrollment,
per pupil funding, percentage of fund balance, percentage of economically disadvantaged students and special education students, composite M STEP scores, and SAT scores from the twenty four-twenty five school year. In looking at potential comparisons, I wanted to present options for the board to consider. For achievement comparisons, my recommendation is to include districts that have similar achievement as well as similar enrollment, knowing that part of the discussion should always be in context with the acknowledgement of variances in providing funding, enrollment, all of the things I mentioned. It's important to note that these variances, especially when comparing ourselves to peer districts,
for other purposes, not achievement, if or when that should occur. I would recommend the Board choose districts that are close as possible in size and achievement knowing that finding exact matches is not a reality. So, in front of you if you take a look, and I don't know what order you're looking at them, this comparable by size you'll see, we have you know, there's a very big variance even in our enrollment size when I give you this data set. Our lowest in terms of comparable on this sheet is Birmingham with 7,300 students approximately, all the way up to 25,000
in Utica Schools, which is our neighbor. One of the reasons I chose them is because it is our neighbor, it sits in a different county. There are things to discuss about that, like, some of the different funding mechanisms that are made available to them aside from per pupil allotment. Plymouth Canton seems to be very close, if you take a look, in terms of enrollment size, but when we look at economically disadvantaged, we're a little bit off. Troy looks to be, similar in size a little less by almost 3,000 kids, maybe 2,500 students, but their foundation allowance is $400 more per pupil,
and I'm rounding these numbers. So, in looking at both of these datasets, when we look at the next dataset in terms of achievement, you'll notice that enrollment size is also there's a huge variance there from Rochester with most of the school districts that you're seeing on the higher achieving side being very small, in size. Now, there are a few on here that I would recommend if I was asked to be a comparison model, Troy being one of them, because they're in our county. They're about two fifty I'm sorry, 2,000 students difference.
Again, their founding their per pupil is a little higher, and but their economically disadvantaged is very similar and so is their special education. If you look at their M STEP scores and SAT scores, they're also very comparable. So I now give you all this information to have this discussion. Madam President, I don't know if you wanted to ask the board any questions. I guess I'm going to ask you a question first. Sure. Does it and maybe to the board as well, right? Because does it make sense to have, you know, not only the county and the state, just so you see where you fall in regards to that,
but to have two groups, one high performing and one of similar size? Or is it something that we want to have just one other comparison on? So I just want to make sure I'm understanding the question. Are you asking, when you say one other comparison, kind of taking some from each? Well, or however, or saying we just want to look at high performing or we just want to look at districts our size. Right. Or if we have four comparisons. Do you know what I mean? State, county, high performing, and similar size. So, I am opening that up.
Or just at least start there so we know where we want to get to. Trustee Osmo? So, I think it's always important to compare ourselves to people in like situations, but we are always holding ourselves to the highest standard. So, thank you for putting together these datasets. And when we talk about, you know, I think it kind of depends on what our topic is, but for a general set of comparison, I would like to use both of these sets of data because we kind of get neighbor and the top 10 type of, perspective because we are competitive in the top 10.
My feeling is that there is a, ad nauseam end of this. And if we went to let's go four, did I say Cisco five? I think we're getting kind of too complicated at that point, so I find these two datasets useful unless the question is specific. I like you looking at these, and I'm concerned about if we go to too many datasets. Anyone else have thoughts on, Trustee Blake? Well one, I'm really glad to see that this put together because I think we always talk about our scores and we compare them to the county and the state.
And then we always have people saying, Yeah, but that we're not really comparable to them. We're in our own tier. And so now we'll be able to see that. So I think that's helpful. I'm really glad that we're going to start doing this. As far as the size comparables, the high performing would be more important to me because that's, that's who we're competing against. But if it's not that much more difficult to do both, then why not do both? I generally agree, that both are probably going to be helpful, for different reasons. And I I definitely agree with,
trustee Alsbaugh's point about, it just depends on what we're looking at and what we're assessing for. And so, to some degree I think that will be nuanced. But I also think it's really important, I think that you, mentioned this, that it's always presented with context regardless of what the reason is for assessment because, a data point or a few data points on their own in comparison doesn't tell a full story. And, some of these things can look really, kind of distorted if we start comparing apples to oranges and presenting it in a
way that isn't clear that it's apples to oranges. So, for instance, you know, the per pupil funding allowance, being different in a hold harmless versus a not hold harmless. So, percentage of economically disadvantaged. These are all things we know impact outcomes. So, if we're I support, you know, having all of these on our list as, comparison, districts, but, you know, and then kind of maybe tailoring it to whatever we're looking at in that particular conversation, but always with context. Trustee Lecui? Yeah, I agree with my colleagues and I think it can be valuable to have two
different sets for when you're looking at enrollment or when you're looking at at achievement. I also think it's probably more helpful to have these sets than just comparing to the entire county or just comparing to the entire state. I think that's helpful and, it seems like it looks like this would be the right set from what I can see when I was looking. I thought that makes a lot of sense to use those. And so I can see I can understand the value in looking at this and understanding as one piece of information, like, where do we fall in terms of other districts? That's a valuable piece of information.
One thing I would caution our board just to keep in mind is that nearly every district in Michigan has been slipping over the years. So comparing ourselves to that decline, there's a danger in that giving us a false sense of progress or risk normalizing a lower bar. I think the most important thing for us to be looking at is where were we, RCS, at our peak, which, from what I've been able to tell, was in 2018 and how are we doing relative to that and what could we be doing to just keep trying to strive towards our own history of having,
you know, those clear standards of excellence and college readiness. I'll just I just would like to make a comment and maybe some of my other colleagues would too. Because while I think, obviously, we want to, we want our students to do the best they possibly can, I think you have to take it you have to look at it with everything that has occurred and that those issues are not only affecting Rochester, they're affecting everyone? And, so I guess I would just caution some board members to, be careful about being so narrowly focused on one number without taking all of these
other things that are impacting our students now that did not impact them before. Madam President? Trustee Alsbaugh. So, I would agree with that. And I think we have to look at our current context, just as Trustee Gupta said. You know, data points without context don't tell a story. And, you know, while we can look nostalgically at the history and what we could have done in the past, we're no longer there with that context. That's like saying, before airplanes were invented, it took me thirty minutes. It took me three days to get to Chicago. Now that we have airplanes, let's forget that, but let's try to keep up to those same travel standards.
So I think our current context is important. We do have a very good historical data set and a very good historical record, but it's got to be put into today's context to see today's challenges. Trustee Liqui, did you have a comment? Yeah. I wanted to follow-up on what you just said because I found it interesting. And you said that, you mentioned that there's a bunch of things that are impacting our students now that didn't exist before. And I was just wondering if you could expand on on those things and what you think are the things that are impacting our students so that they might not
be able to achieve what they were able to achieve in 2018? I think there are things that have changed since then. I think, our kids went through COVID. I think we have, even more 2018 is prior to that though, so Right, But the kids now have gone through COVID. You have, students who I mean, the social media use has grown even more. You see increased anxiety and those types of mental health things that are going on as well. I just think that these are things that are affecting everyone, not just Rochester. And so that's why you have to continue to look at,
you know, why is everyone having this change? I think there are environmental factors that are affecting all students. So not that we don't want the best for our students, because of course we do, but I think you need to take it in context that there are things out there that are affecting all students. As wanting to make sure we're not, using kind of a low bar of some average across the state or something like that as maybe an excuse to not push ourselves with doing our best for our students, which I don't think, anyone here is doing.
But, we also need to be aware and conscious of, you know, are there systemic things going on or cultural things going on that as, president Huchtel stated are affecting all kids in some ways. And we also have to be conscious of, you know, changing demographics in our own community. Our, we may, you know, if we have an increase of kids with, who are neurodiverse and have some different needs. Right? Like, that's gonna make make a difference on our outcomes in some places, but it doesn't mean we're not doing good work to educate kids.
So, so it's just that's why I stress the point of context. It's not to, have a low bar for anything or anyone, but it's more to just understand, you know, all the as many of the factors that are, you know, extremely complex that inform a child's experience of their education. Okay. I I wanna ask the board if we could move on to discuss the actual groupings that we have in front of us. And I'm gonna say let's look at the, kind of the high performing districts first. And I guess the question is,
does anyone Trustee Blake. Just by looking, I don't have an issue, but I guess I wonder how they were selected. Are these the top 12 performing districts in the state? I would say, no. I don't think these are the top 12. I think there's a couple in there, that were placed based on geography and similar, demographics. Because I think that if you look at the highest performing districts in the state, for example, you might look at if you look at the fourth one down, very small district under 3,000 students. There are probably others that sit in and around that county,
that we might include in this, but it's even smaller in terms of size, which I did chose not to place. Even though you asked, madam president, the board on these, I just would like to make a comment on this on this dataset. If you look at if the board would we'll look at one, two, three, four, five, the sixth one down. If you want me to keep that in there, I will keep that district in there. I would say that if we do not have a comparison to that district, there's a host of reasons for that. That it would not, to remove that would be, fine by me. So if we look
If we look at that sixth district, their foundation allowance is $11,303 they have had, dollars they have had incredible ups and downs in terms of finances, that that don't that won't show here, because of different dynamics within the community and with the board. Their in terms of their SAT scores, if you go all the way over to the right and I know it's a long piece of paper because I try to make this as large print as possible for everybody. But if you if you can do the line item for that district and you look over there, in my opinion for what their per pupil allotment is and what they're producing right
now, I would say that and I'm not again, I'm not saying anything negative. I just think it's an underperforming district, and the comparison doesn't hold for what we're looking for is what I would think if you're looking at achievement. Does anyone have an issue with, removing that one from the list? Okay. Trustee Blake? I guess I have a question too. I understand putting the foundation allowance on here, because that, you know, tells you what they have to work with and so forth, but the foundation allowance may explain some of the scores, but they don't make a score higher or lower based on So,
you know, we're not really trying to match foundation allowances. Like, in some ways, if we're looking at scores, that's not that's explanatory maybe, but it doesn't affect the scores. I'm not I guess I'm not sure why that's that important. I guess Go ahead, Trustee. I was just going to say to Trustee Blake's comment that but it does impact the services that a district can provide a student. You can't discount that. It depends on what he is. So, but I will just say, you know, both of these data sets,
I really appreciate that they've been brought forward and I like how it's broken down. And I look forward to seeing how, as, trustee Gupta had said, you know, you have to take this in context and look at the bigger picture, and recognize that it will help inform us when we're looking at, moving forward with our strategic plan in phase two. You know, are we meeting the benchmarks we've set for ourselves? And how does it bear muster to perhaps all these other school districts on these
two lists? But, you know, it's all the context of how you take it, how you interpret it, but at the end of the day as Trustee, Alsbaugh said, you know, our goal is to ensure that we make sure every student that we're serving gets the best possible education and walks out of here confident in all these areas, that we deem necessary. So, that should always be the benchmark. But we should also be able to look at, I think, across the state and not just in the not just within our county,
of districts that could be excelling, and maybe ask the question why. And that can help inform, you know, future growth for us. So I just want to say thanks for putting this together and, I think we have to be really mindful of nitpicking this list. I think this is just a baseline for us to begin a conversation and how we can move forward in the best interest of the kids that we serve. Madam President and, all trustees, I want to say just to clear things up. I do think this is a great exercise for the board in terms of data literacy and a data culture across the district.
So this is this is right where we should be, but I agree with all of you as every board member has indicated, about the variances, right? To look at it in context that if we look at size and we look at achievement and all of those things that can impact, where districts are going. But intrinsically inside our inside our school district is where we want to see growth. Right? This would be comparisons to I do want to put that out there that it is intrinsically that we're motivated to do better not based on what someone else is
doing. But I think we're talking about two separate things. A comparison across districts across the state is a way for us as a leadership team to look collectively at data and to build a data culture and continue the efficacy of that. So, intrinsically though, I just wanna say that's what's motivating us. It's not about what are they doing over here, right? Although we can learn from that, to Trustees Annas' points, for sure. Trustee Gupta? Yeah, I would just like to add that I think, the established research based on academic achievement does,
show a very clear and significant correlation between, resources available to students which are afforded by money, and, their long term academic success success including their performance on standardized tests which are the measures we're using here. So, I would encourage all of us to look into that a little bit further because that's pretty established research. Okay. I just wanna ask, is it about schools that are on here? Okay. Trustee Blake? I agree with what you say. I'm not I didn't dispute that the amount of money that a district gets affects
what they can offer children. My only comment was just that and we kept talking about this, but if we're looking at scores, we're looking at scores. We're not looking at foundation allowances. But I totally understand that when you get a higher foundation allowance, you can offer more services and you generally, it ends up getting you better scores. I don't question that. Trustee Lecui? I was just gonna speak to that monetary part too. And, I agree with my board colleagues that the idea is that the more money that you get per student, the more that is available to offer on services for students.
That said, I will also say some of the things that have been brought up. If you look at over this time period what has happened at the IA or you look at private schools, you don't see necessarily a rise over time or a fall over time. They've kind of stayed stagnant about where they are. And that's an interesting comparison point. Trustee Gupta? I would say a main variable there that differentiates that within that differentiates that within that comparison between us as a public school and a private school or a school
like IA which you pick a lottery but you have to, you know, meet some core requirements first to even be in that lottery is that we're not picking and choosing our students based on either socioeconomics or any sort of achievement or entrance exam. We're meeting our students where they are as they come in the door and get getting them what they need. So that is, to me, an apples and oranges comparison. Madam President? Trustee Lecui? I would just just to respond to that, I'm not trying to justify why certain schools are getting higher or lower scores. You're what you're justifying is why a school might be getting scores that are higher
than other schools. I'm simply talking about growth and if we're seeing stagnation versus increase or decrease over time. So you're not actually referring to the increase or decrease because, you know, private schools get to pick their students and that's been constant. We've never been able to do that. That's been constant. We're seeing the decline and these other schools are staying stagnant. Alright, so let's move on now to the, district size comparison one. To me, while the size is, you know,
they're all larger organizations, there is a wide variance in, you know, the percent of economic disadvantaged in here. We also have a wide variance in the foundation allowance as well. So, you know, I kind of question and Mr. Russo, you may have a comment to this, but, you know, like, number ten and twelve on the list, you know, I just I question whether those are good ones from a comparison standpoint or not. Especially 12. Madam President, I'm okay with, you know, I would I would recommend that if there's an issue there,
we can cut off the the we could not use them as a comparison, the bottom one, then the then the two up from there. If that is going to be kind of where we're, for lack of a better word, living, I would also then take out, the third one down. And potentially the fourth down as well. And for similar reasons, I guess I'm not sure about four when five, six, and 11 are all set. They're more similar in terms of foundation allowance. Oh, but, okay. And I guess I was more looking at the economic disadvantage numbers. Correct.
So, board colleagues, I guess that's my question. You know, I guess starting with number 12, if we want to keep that or remove it. Trustee Alspa? I think, again, without context, it's hard to decide to set the exact data set. So what I would say is before we get down a rabbit hole of number six and number seven and put in 12 and I'm drafting number eight. I think this is a good draft. It is a good exercise. It gives us a good baseline. And when we have a specific question, we should revisit the datasets. So when we come to,
I want a question about looking at enrollment or I want a question about looking at, the percentage of economically disadvantaged and growth or when we have a real question, I think that this in draft form is a great data set, both of them. And I appreciate the administration doing this. But I think if we get to picking teams here without picking the game or the question, I'm concerned this might not be the most productive use of our time. Trustee Innes, did you have I just concur with what, Trustee Alsbaugh said. I think,
at face value, you know, this is a good starting off point. I think for us to go through and try and call this list, is nitpicking to me. I think, and to her point until we know what the questions are and specifically what we want to dive into, I just think I'm fine with what's being provided. I don't see it necessary to drop some. So for October 20, Madam President, we'll use both these data sets and then if there's questions about that at that point for it moving forward, I think that puts us in a good spot.
I didn't see down here. Were there any comments? Trustee Lucui? I would just suggest just using the data sets that we have. Any future discussions, we can discount certain ones for whatever reason we want. Alright. So I guess we are set with the ones that were here. The first one, you said you were gonna remove six. Is that correct? You're gonna keep it? Okay. Alright. Okay, moving on to new business. We have, three items tonight. Item 9.1 is an amendment to our custodial agreement. Mr. McDaniel. Yes. Thank you, Madam President. So I'll refer you to the memo.
There's more information there. But essentially, the Board of Education approved a one year contract with four additional renewals, essentially a five year term. We are in year two. ABM has asked us to extend that to 02/1930, June 30 of 02/1930, and in exchange would provide $100,000 in equipment, to Rochester Community Schools. So based on this well, I guess I should also mention that, the terms of us exiting this contract are the same. So we could still leave within, I think, it was ninety days notice, for any reason. So we can leave without cause with a ninety days written notice.
So it doesn't affect the contract, too much as far as if we're having problems with ABM. So we would recommend that the Board approve, this four year term with ABM of Troy, to extend through 06/30/2030. Alright. Is there a motion to approve the custodial amendment as presented? Moved by Trustee Gupta with support from Trustee Alsbaugh and then, Trustee Blake. This seems to me like a no brainer. So we're extending it, but we can cancel it when we want and we're getting $100,000 in equipment. Am I following?
Correct. I think the benefits ABM, if you're wondering, is that it looks better to their investors to have a four year contract than a one year contract. And, Mr. McDaniel, I think it was I mean, if we happen to cancel, then that $100,000 would be prorated and we could potentially have to pay part of that back. Correct. Trustee Lecui? I thought it also seemed nice to lock in the 2.5% increase. That's a lot better than the rate of inflation in the past several years. Alright, then all of those in favor of approving the custodial amendment as presented, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That's a six-zero,
vote and the motion passes and the custodial amendment is approved. Moving on to, our second item. This is regarding a potential line of credit. Mr. McDaniel. Thank you, Madam President. So we are still going to ask for approval tonight even though, we think we'll have a state budget soon. We're very conservative in our approach. This is a multi step process where we need to get the Board's approval, we need to go reach out to banks, we have to get the Department of Treasury's approval before this could happen. So, right now, you'll see a resolution to allow us to borrow up to $16,000,000
We'll actually have to do a cash flow, to submit to Department of Treasury so that this is, again, a conservative number. That's roughly what we get in State Aid one State Aid payment. So I'm asking you to or we're asking you to approve the resolution. However, at this time, assuming the Governor signs the budget in the next day or two, we will not need to implement this. Alright. Is there a motion to approve the resolution authorizing filing an application for approval to issue a line of credit contingent upon receiving the state treasurer's approval? That was a mouthful. Moved by Trustee Blake.
Is there support? Trustee Gupta? Is there, discussion on this? Trustee Annis? Yeah, so I was looking over the resolution, and I had a couple questions. And I know you just verbalized that we wouldn't need to, tap into this, specifically, in the fourth whereas. Whereas the school district anticipates a need to borrow an amount not to exceed $16,000,000 to pay current operating expenses and or payment of prior borrowing. Can you, explain what that what that is? Yeah. The way this is written, it's really a state aid anticipation note. So districts that don't have the fund balance that we do often,
actually, before I came here, the districts that I were part of would have a a state in state aid anticipation note and would typically do, a couple issues, in the school year. One, kind of in the summer to fund the fall and winter and then another one in the spring to fund, the rest of the time period. So, that is what that's referring to. We don't have any payment or prior borrowing, that we would use this for. There are, you know, bonds and, a note on the administration building, but that's, not the intention, for this. And again, something that we, hopefully won't use at all,
but, something that kind of refers to what's in the state law. Okay. And because I did also, item two, it has that same language, in, item number two on the back, the second line or for the payment of previous loans made for school operations. I'm fine with this. I would be more comfortable with it if there was language in this resolution, that basically said in the event that the state aid payment is received by October 20, this line of credit request will be null and void. Because I don't want us to approve this and just have it be floating out
there, I would feel more comfortable if that language was included. I don't know if it's necessary. I mean, you've just given us, you've just publicly given your word that you won't be using it, but, I personally feel like that should be embedded in the language of the resolution. Trustee Innis, I appreciate that a 100% because because I felt the same way and I'm the one who kind of, urged us to do this. But I want you to know that as part of this process, your approval is step one. We more than let's assume that the governor, after legal review and known line item vetoes, approves this budget, we would not activate this. We would not go through the process of getting a line of credit.
Your approval is needed in the event we need one. So that's where I'm where we're sitting. So if we get a budget in the next four or five days and I hear what you're saying, like you're it's a for us it's a just in case and we are not going to activate that or apply for it should we not need it. And I guess my other question is why would we dip into, our rainy day fund in order to cover this? Why do we need a line of credit? Yeah. I mean, we would use our fund balance, to the extent possible. But when we first broached this,
there wasn't a whole lot of positive news on the state budget. And so if that was a long state shutdown, which if you look at the federal government, that seems to be maybe a longer one, we may have some issues. So to talk just a little bit about money in the budget, right? The state budget is about $16,000,000 of funds. The federal government shutdown as well, hopefully won't affect us yet, but depending on how long it lasts, we could stop receiving payments from the federal government for food service, for some of our grants as well, which would exacerbate the problem. But at the same time,
if you approve tonight, I think you can, you could withdraw your approval at the October 22 meeting if you felt more comfortable. I don't think we could get this done in two weeks even if you didn't trust that I would do this. Or I think you can modify the resolution however you want to say, the superintendent needs to notify you when it's implemented or before it's implemented or whatever it may be so the board's comfortable. But this is, more an exercise in being prepared in the event of something catastrophic happening with the state budget. Versus our fiscal need on our end.
It's more of a necessity based on what's happening at the state and federal level. I just wanna clarify that for our community. We are not pursuing this line of credit because We have a strong fund balance that Thank you. I don't have any concerns about our operations if we have a don't get a stated payment in October or if it's delayed. We have a $40,000,000 plus fund balance. However, we weren't sure how long this would go. And without knowing how long it would go, that meant, some additional work on our part and us trying to be conservative and ensure that
our staff get paid should there be, a state shutdown or the federal shutdown, right? They shouldn't be penalized for our legislators not being able to complete a budget for us. Trustee Gupta? So what we were approving today is to allow or authorize, pursuit of the line of credit. Would that would at any point, if that line of credit were used I know I hear you saying we might not even go for it because we probably won't need it, hopefully. But if we did, would approval of using that line of credit come back before the board?
I don't think that's legally required, but the board could resolve to do so. Now there is It says before executing the line of credit, the sorry, the district would bring an amendment to the Board of Education for its annual organizational items adding, the line of credit. Oh, yep. That makes sense. Okay. So, yeah. So, Trustee Annis, I think you're all set because, we would either not implement or we would bring, amendments, to the next meeting or to a future meeting. I just wanted to say I think it's good that you're being proactive and this
seems prudent and I don't have any concerns about it. Trustee Licui? I guess I was just curious of the $48,000,000 that we have in our fund balance, how much of that is reserved funds? Does that reflect the balance of the sinking fund as well? Because the thing I was wondering about was, why wouldn't we just do this at the next meeting if we're expecting the governor to sign this week? Then we would know whether we need it or not by the next meeting. Yeah. So, the $48,000,000 is not part of the sinking fund. That's a whole separate, balance. So all of that could be used for operations? The sinking fund could not No,
no, no. Not the sinking fund. I mean the $48,000,000 fund balance. Yeah. That could be used for operations, but it's also not necessarily $48,000,000 sitting in account, right? Because there's timing differences. Trustee Blake? Because I thought in our SBCC or I mean SBOC meeting that I asked about was that money liquid and I thought I thought I heard that it was all liquid money that we could get when it had Yes. The money that we have is liquid. It just may not equal $48,000,000 because of the different accounting issues,
right? So we talked a little bit before about modified accrual accounting. So we're putting July and August payments that we receive in cash back to the June thirty year. So there's some nuances there. I can tell you we have probably about $30,000,000 in investment or money market accounts, and then our operating account has more than that. So while I can't guarantee it's exactly $48,000,000 or whatever our fund balance is, there is a healthy amount that we have And the second part of the question was, would we be able to wait until the next meeting to do this?
What's the reason for rushing it right now? I'll answer that. So I don't believe we're rushing anything. We put this on the agenda because of things that were out of our control. This conversation that's happening at the board table, I understand the reasons for, like, why would you go for it, etcetera, but this is consider this as a self insurance policy since for things that are out of our control. We have enough money to cover payroll, to do the things we need to do moving forward, especially if she signs the if the governor signs the the budget.
If for some reason something gets, something gets line item vetoed or the feds don't come through with a budget, with the volatility in our in in politics today, having an insurance policy for the board to just say, yes, you can do this should you need to, it just makes good financial sense and planning sense. In addition, just because you say yes today or no today, if you were to say yes, it doesn't mean we get the money like this. So when you say are you rushing it, I believe we're actually trying to be proactive. And if we were to push this back two weeks and we don't get a
budget and the governor doesn't sign which, as many people are hopeful we'll have to be realists about what our real situation is here it would give us time to go get the loan. Trustee Alsbaugh? So I appreciate us being proactive, and I'm reassured by the fact that we would have another approval of this. And I know we keep on saying if the governor is going to sign, but, I really appreciate us being proactive because as the mother of two people in the military who they are looking at their October 15 paycheck being incredibly iffy because it's
based on the federal government, and they may be coming to the Bank of Mom and Dad for a line of credit, I really appreciate I really appreciate, our district being proactive because beyond, you know, we may have faith in our local governor, and we may have faith in our state representatives. But But there are other things here that we have seen a great amount of instability in. So knowing that this is a proactive measure and that it would come back again before us, I would support this because I want to give us as much time to get our ducks in a row and not hold up for the next board meeting. Thank you.
Alright. So can we vote on this now? So all those in favor of approving the resolution, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a six-zero vote, and the resolution passes and it's approved. Alright. Our third piece of new business is an amendment to our annual organizational items that we approved in June Based on the September 8 board consensus to have Star Butler continue to review and redact arbitration documents at the district's expense, we need to approve an amendment to our annual organizational item list to add Star
Butler to the list of approved legal counsel vendors. You can see on the organizational item list that they are being identified specifically for arbitration related matters. Is there a motion to approve the addition of Star Butler to our organizational item list of legal counsel representation as presented? Moved by trustee Blake, support from trustee Gupta. Is there any discussion on this? Alright, all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. Alright. That's a six-zero vote and the motion passes and the organization item list will be
updated. Alright, we are now we did not need, additional public comments, so we are on additional comments from members of the board. Each board member has three minutes and there's a timer on the smart board for your reference. If you run over that time, I'm happy to ask for additional time, from the board. At this point, Trustee Lecui, do you have any comments? Sure. Our board president and vice president will be attending the MASB delegate assembly soon to cast votes on behalf of our board. President Butel asked trustees for feedback,
so early last week I referred I reviewed the handbook, sent a few concerns, and even offered to help draft amendments. I never got a response, but I do want to share three of my points because these recommendations could directly affect our kids' education if local boards defer to them. First, strategic plan. MASB wants districts to align their goals with the state board of education. This could be harmless, but the question is, should we let Lansing limit Rochester's local authority to set our own priorities? I believe MASB's statement should be amended and clarified to reduce confusion and ensure local
control is prioritized. Second is inclusive literature. This topic topic always riles people up because inclusion is generally a positive thing. The problem is when it goes too far and then parents become upset when they discover that their kids have been reading books describing sexual acts, violence, even sexual fetishes. Take the book on my social media page last week that had some grandpas dressed up in BDSM gear. Interesting side note: it turns out that book was removed from the eighth grade classroom, but not for sexual reasons. It was because it was marketed for early elementary instead of middle school students,
so wrong age group. But anyway, the dishonest critics like to say, Parents are trying to ban books for my kids, just opt your kids out. But parents can't opt out of something that they don't know about. They usually find out after their kids read it and ask questions. So that's why I'm suggesting an amendment with a safeguard for MASB that clear parental notification and local board discretion for curriculum and library materials. Remember, the Supreme Court in Mahmood v. Taylor has affirmed that parents have the right to know and to opt out. Third is assessments and testing. MASB says they support valid assessments,
but they also want to move away from using objective measures like growth and proficiency as the main criteria for school success. But here's the main criteria for school success. But here's the as the main criteria for school success. But here's the problem: What are we using instead? We all know that subjective measures matter too, but ultimately weakening the objective standards only hurts kids and removes accountability. My amendment suggests restoring a balance, keeping objective data central while also allowing other factors for context. Now I don't know if these concerns about keeping goals local, respecting parents' rights, and maintaining rigorous standards will be carried forward by our representatives,
or if it would even make a difference for the MASB. But I'm telling you here because our community deserves transparency and schools that put students and parents first, well above the agendas of these outside organizations. Trustee Annas? Thank you, Madam President. As a proud Gen Xer, I just want to say that the antidote to parent fear of content is parent involvement. So as a parent, when my children, came to Rochester Community Schools, I made sure that I was in the classroom and I talked with their teachers and I saw the content in the classroom.
So that's all I have to say about that. I do want to, extend a thank you again to the team that gave the AI presentation. I thought it was very helpful. I am looking forward to, the next one and I would really love to hear student voice in that presentation. So, I hope everybody has a great night. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Blake. Well, I didn't really have anything for tonight. But I have been enjoying the school year so far. The activities I've been able to attend, the Gold Rush, we went to. It was a great evening with all of our neighbors and kids from the school.
I attended the fun run one of the fun runs. I know every school has had them and they're a great time for kids and a great way to raise money. So that's been an enjoyable couple of weeks. I'm not prepared to really respond to some of the things Trustee Liqui said, but I'll just go off the cuff on some of it. You know, and particularly the book issue because we have in this district, and we always have had in this district, a system for challenging books that you don't want your children to read. There is a I think it's on our website. I know that there is a way that you can do it and but we do have parents trying to ban books for all kids.
It's not true that parents just want to commit some that just want to control for their own kids. We I talked about one tonight and I don't want to call out a parent, but there's a parent who wanted to ban Harry Potter from the entire district. She got a response from her school and then she responded back, Well that's great for my school, but I want it for the whole district. And that is what we face here. There are people who want to control what your children read, not just what their children read. And so that's what we have to deal with, and it's hard. The Ma'amu decision that was talked about,
I could write up a whole thing about that. I read that entire decision cover to cover. I urge anybody who wants to, to read that decision, but particularly the dissent from Justice Sotomayor, which is just so good. But it explained how difficult that is going to be a very difficult decision to implement for a school district because it does not say that parents get notification of LGBT themed materials and they get to opt their kids out. It said that parents must be notified of any curriculum that could conflict with anybody's
religious beliefs. And then somehow, we're supposed to let everyone in the district know of any possible book that might conflict with any possible religion and give them an opportunity to opt out. I don't know how we're gonna do that, and I don't know how any school district will do that, which is what Justice Sotomayor wrote about for pages and pages. But anyways, that's something that we will face going forward, and I think that we'll hear more about this. Thank you. Trustee Alspa? So, Trustee Blake, I think that was very well said about literacy,
and parental rights. So I appreciate your giving us your thoughts on that. I also enjoyed attending Gold Rush, and the, Falcon Frenzy. The Falcon Frenzy was amazing. They had robots walking around and horses and, I thought it was very clever. They had bounce houses by age. That was one of the things I thought was a thing. And I really enjoyed the dunk tank and watching some of my friends get dunked. So I'm looking forward to the fall plays. I think this is, one of the wonderful things about our community is the schools are a rich anchor
for the community to have these wonderful experiences. I want to thank our food service for almost putting me in a pasta coma because we had dinner with our student representatives. I want to thank the food service department for the excellent food, and our student reps for the excellent conversation. It's really wonderful to connect with them. And, they do a great job of informing us, but it's wonderful to hear about what their plans are for the future. So I really appreciate that and want to say thank you. Thanks. Trustee Gupta? So I also would like to extend gratitude to our food services staff who really
put on a spread for us tonight and spoiled us with some really yummy food. So thank you so much for that. And to our student reps who I know aren't here right now, but, for keeping us informed with student voice at the board table. Over the last few weeks, I've had the pleasure of attending the PTSA Council meeting. And I really, have been kind of, reflecting, I guess, on their theme, for the year, which is United for our Kids in resetting to look for common ground.
Also was able to attend the Falcon Frenzy where my husband was in the dunk tank. That was very, very fun. And then also attended the strategic planning steering committee, which was, stimulating conversation with a lot of wonderful people about how to deliver education to our kids. So, with that, just wanna also say a shout out because we I don't think, remember enough to thank Christina and Audrey there in the back who support us in these meetings week after week. So thank you. Thank you.
Well, first, I hadn't planned to mention this, but since Trustee Lucui brought it up, I did receive her email. I honestly have not had an opportunity to review everything. I had asked all of our board members to review it, and, I was specifically expecting feedback on the items that were up for, a vote, which I believe there was one item that maybe was on there, but otherwise there were other pieces of their bylaws that I believe she was looking to have updated. And, I would just personally, while I will look at them and see,
I would certainly recommend that you register next year and potentially go so that you could bring these forward, if that is something you feel extremely, concerned about. But, I wanted to say that over the last two weeks, I've had the opportunity to represent the board at several great events and meetings across our district. At the RCS board, as the RCS board liaison to the Rochester area youth assistance Board, I attended their recent board meeting as well as an event sponsored by, Raya, where Diane Jennings gave an excellent presentation on helping kids and teens cope with stress.
The session was recorded and should be available on the Rochester Hills Public Library's website under events by next week. Rya also has two upcoming events I'd like to highlight. On Tuesday, October 14 at 7PM, Alyssa, and I don't think I'll say this last name right, Jessalitis will present Understanding the Functions of Emotions, a session designed to help parents and teens better understand what emotions are trying to tell us. And then on Friday, October 24 at eight a. M, RIOT will host its annual meeting at Chief Financial where they'll share their mission and
recap the past year's work. Unfortunately, I'll be attending the MASB conference that day, but I hope another board member might be able to attend in my place. I also had the chance to attend several PTA events. The PTA council meeting provided a wonderful opportunity to see how our school PTAs support one another to strengthen our entire district. I also attended the PTA Council's Screen Safe event brought here through the National PTA. And kudos to the Adams PTSA and the PTA Council for organizing the program. And, of course, it's fun run season.
I stopped by both North Hill and Musson Elementary, where students enjoyed perfect weather, they had a great time, and helped the PTAs raise funds for future enrichment opportunities. Lastly, I attended the district wellness committee meeting, as the board representative where the group is finalizing updates to, wellness policy. Overall, it's been a busy but inspiring couple of weeks, and I continue to be impressed by the dedication and collaboration across our district that make these events and initiatives so successful. Madam President? Trustee Lacui, do you have a, point of order? I move to suspend the rules to allow me a brief suspend the rules to
allow me a brief right of reply when other members directly rebut my comments since the president's prescribed speaking order specifically prevents you from responding every time this happened. The motion to suspend the, the rules. Thank you. That was moved by Trustee Lecuy. Is there support for that? Seeing no support, we will move forward. Next, we have additional comments administration to share information that they believe is valuable to the board and or community. These are comments and not discussion items. Mr. Russo? Thank Thank you, madam president.
Ms. Scott here. Let's try that again. So good evening and thank you for the opportunity to share a few updates on behalf of the special education department. First, on September 23, I had the honor of attending the first parent advisory committee meeting of the year at North Hill Elementary. We had an incredible turnout, and I was so appreciative of the positive energy from our parents and community members. Beginning at 06:30PM, our special education administrative team is available for a meet and greet before each PAC meeting followed by the regular session at 7PM.
And we would love to invite, our board members and our community to join us for the next PAC meeting on October 14 at Meadowbrook Elementary. Second, on September 26, nearly 300 special education staff came together for a half day of professional learning. It was such an energizing opportunity to gather as one team. The day focused on compliance essentials, new updates from the Michigan Department of Education, including specialized transportation and child find obligations, and then we also did continued learning around least restrictive environment.
It was a wonderful day of collaboration, reflection, and shared purpose. And then finally, I just wanna briefly highlight the ongoing work of our district behavior support model. Year is off to a strong start, and we continue to see the benefits of increased consistency, coaching, and tiered supports across our schools. So we look forward to sharing updates, on progress and impact as the year continues. So as always, thank you again to our Board of Education and to our community for your ongoing support for our students, our staff, and our families.
Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gauthier. Ms. Grein. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to invite community members, to join Mr. Russo, along with board and cabinet representatives, for, upcoming community engagement discussions. We'll have two, one in the evening and one during the day, to help with scheduling. Wednesday, October 22 at seven p. M. At Van Hoosen Middle School Media Center. And the second is Thursday, October 23 at 10:30 a. M. At the Rochester Hills Public Library. Some of the topics that will be discussed,
we have our strategic plan, year one and two, budget impacts on education, and, safety and security updates. Of course, community members, will also have the opportunity to talk with board representatives. We anticipate two additional forums, in the 2020, well, in the twenty twenty sixth, part of our school year, January and April, and more information will come out, closer to those times. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Grine. Mr. Cazmano? Check. Check. Check. There we go. Alright. Just wanna say thank you again to Rachel Monero, our instructional technology specialist,
and the RCS staff who presented tonight on the AI spotlight, and to the steering committee for all the work they've done this whole past school year and and beyond. And there will be student voice coming next. So, I had a hard time pulling that together so fast. But that is coming since it's part of our strategic plan. You'll hear more about that all year. Just like Ms. Gauthier said, we had a great professional development on September 26 at the secondary level. We were focused on classroom best instructional strategies, disciplinary literacy, continued work with that, how we use data to drive instruction through assessments in the classroom,
uses of AI, and new IFP, smart board, PD as well, just to name a few. So it was a great day. Parent teacher conferences are this week in person. Middle school is on October 8 at from three to six. Parents just need to sign up. And high school is in person on on tennine from three to six. And then virtual conferences are the following week. High school is on October 15 and middle school is on October, sixteenth. So we have both in person and virtual options for parents. Just wanted to say, Adams Homecoming is this week.
It's the last of the three homecomings for our high schools. Stony Creek just finished theirs last week. It was a great atmosphere and Rochester High was before that. If you ever want to see a school spirit or culture, go to a homecoming week, step in the building. The students are very excited, staff is very excited, and the culture of the high schools are definitely portrayed during those weeks. And my last announcement is just coming up, College and Career Fair on October at Rochester High School this year. It's a community event, so all are welcome.
And right now, we have over 80 institutions thus far that are signed up to be there to give information out to our families and students. Thank you. Thank Superintendent Russo. I just wanna highlight, an event that happened at Brooklands, last week. We had a farmer's market, so gratitude goes to our Chartwells team as well as the Brooklands, staff there. Every student was able to go home with a near corn, an apple, some carrots and then they had some wild card choices of cucumbers and potatoes and squash and probably vegetables that they never have saw before. I think it's a great event that our food service staff is able to put
on with the support of Mosheri and Sons, who provide the actual vegetables and fruits for us. But I think it's an event that's well loved by staff and students alike and it's a good opportunity to expose our students to, vegetables and fruits that they may not have an opportunity otherwise. So thank you to the Chartwells team, as well as the Brooklyn staff. Thank you. Mr. McDaniel, on that note, what do we have to do to get jalapenos in the farmers market next year? I think, yeah, if we request it, certainly we can, have some jalapenos. That is my request, officially.
Thank you. Ms. Hampton? I second the motion for jalapenos. I would also like to, share my gratitude with the food service team this evening in ways that Mr. McDaniel just illustrated as well as have been shared earlier from the dinner this evening. The team does an outstanding job in all corners seen and unseen in this district and I'm really grateful for their work. In addition, I would echo, what has been shared, with a bit of gratitude for the AI steering committee under the leadership of Rachel Monero, are really advancing meaningful conversation and work not only for educator planning and preparation,
but for the experience students are having in their classrooms. On September 26, our professional learning, was held at Stoney Creek High School for the majority of our elementary educators and it was really wonderful to have our practitioners under one roof, albeit with some different topics and focus areas. It was great to be gathered in one spot together. We took a look at supporting learners through various types of math assessment and the way we think about scaffolds, both through instruction as well as, assessment techniques for our youngest learners.
This was a repeat of what occurred in August in grades three, four, five. And our K-one-two staff took a look at that this past month. And then, also an extended session with SMART and Lumio so that the IFPs that are so integral to student involvement within the classroom are tools that, staff are becoming increasingly comfortable with and learning some new advances that are, present in our classrooms as a result of those technologies. And then also those school AI that you heard a little bit about today,
was shared with staff as well as Google Education Plus Classroom, and the ways that some of those tools are either coming alive, again, directly with students or, in the ways that educators are using them to collaborate and enhance their, instructional design work. Thank you. Thank you. Did you have anything? Couple things. I just wanted to say that I know we've talked a lot about the AI presentation and thankful for Rachel Minero and her leadership, mister Cusimano and miss Scott here and miss Hampton for their leadership in in this regard. But it is critical to to put out there that when AI first came out,
it's not only, you know, even corporate world was like, Hold on a second here. They kinda pushed back on it. In education, we have history of doing that, right? Social media came out. We did that wrong years ago. And I will I'll say that out loud in every district and every corner of the country we talk about how it could have been done differently in terms of how we use social media or not use social media and use it to our advantage or not in terms of students. But where we are in Rochester in the course of the last year, it's it's an incredible where we were to where we are is worthy of noting
and we wanna make sure that we have buy in across the district about how not only students use it but how teachers can use it as an advantage, as a tool. So, we're in a very good spot when I look at districts across the state and across the country when I meet with other superintendents or other teams. We're in a really good spot in terms of how we're rolling this out. So I want to thank Rachel Monero and the rest of our team for their leadership in that arena. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Just a couple of announcements. October 13, there is no school. And on October 20, that's the next regular Board of Education meeting at 06:00,
also back here at, Reuther Middle School in the cafeteria. If there is no objection, we will adjourn at 08:47. Seeing none, we are adjourned at 08:47. Thank you.