Just still closing out our first meeting here. So I need a motion to return to open session. So moved. Moved by Trustee Gupta. And did I hear support from Trustee Annis? All those in favor of returning to open session, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven-zero vote and the motion is approved. At this time, if there's no objection, we will adjourn at 06:04, and we're gonna take just a minute, before we start our next meeting. Thank you. Alright. Good evening, and welcome to the Rochester Community School Board of Education regular meeting called to order
at 06:08PM. I'd ask that you 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's business and is not a public community meeting. However, we value community input and public comment will be heard under Agenda Item five.
If you wish to speak tonight and have not already filled out a yellow card, they're located on a table near the entrance to this room. Once you've completed the card, please put it in the box on the same table. Please note that cards must be completed prior to speaking, and I'll call the names of those I have a card for. I call on my board colleagues to abide by the norms we've agreed to. These include keeping comments germane to the agenda item, that we don't surprise each other at the board table, that we have one speaker at a time that is 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 board colleagues on the board, we are grateful to be able to serve this community and appreciate your support. For roll call, all board members are present. At this time, is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? So moved. Moved by Trustee Annas with support from Trustee Gupta. Is there any discussion before we vote on this? Madam President. Trustee Lacoue. I move to add my resolution on parental rights and local control in health education under new business.
Could you please pass that down to me? It's emailed to you. I don't have it in front of my I received nothing in since our last meeting that you were going to bring this up. This would be a surprise and against our board norms. I brought it up. No. I brought it up a couple weeks ago. I said I'd like to get this on the agenda. I brought it up last week. And could you thing as last week. Right. Which was voted down. Well, I was wondering since the state passed the new framework if you might be willing to discuss it now. I'm I'm simply asking for it to be reviewed in in light of the state's recent action with the mayor.
Amend the agenda to include what? The resolution on parental rights and local control in health education. The resolution on parental rights and parental rights and? Local control. That was moved by Trustee Lecui. Is there support? I support. From Trustee Lausanne? Alright. And, again, I'll ask that, you keep it to why it needs to be added now since, again, this you know that, anything can be added if you have three people who are interested in discussing the topic. Okay. I'm simply asking for this to be reviewed in light of the state's recent action
regarding their passing of the controversial health education framework. Okay. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak? Trustee, Blake? I would say this would not be added now because the process is that we have a local board, a local sex ed advisory board of parents who I would ask that you keep it to This is why. This is why it shouldn't be now because they do their work and then they bring it to us. And then at that time, we discuss it and debate it. Madam president? Trustee Lacui? Couldn't we establish what we as a board feel we want to set as the high level Trustee Lacui,
we're talking about why now? Why we might wanna actually do it before it gets to that point. Because we could establish a baseline of we just want to respect your rights. We just want to make sure that everybody is assured that this isn't going to be the nightmare that you think it is. Okay. Trustee Lozano? I would like to back up what Trustee Lacoue just said. There are a lot of parents in the community that are concerned about this, and I think it would be a weight lifted off their shoulders if we did present this tonight. I'll just I'm just going to say that I will not be voting to add this at this time. It was not brought up that,
you were going to bring it forward again. And I have not reread it to know it well enough to speak to it or brought my notes for that. So alright. All of those in favor? Trustee Locu, you've already spoken to what you're saying right now about this, would you be willing to add it to a future agenda so that we could discuss it just because it's important to some people in the community and they might appreciate the discussion. At this time, I'm not I'm not willing to make that commitment. So Okay. So at this time, all of those in favor of adding it, please say aye. Aye. I'm sorry. All of those in favor, can you please raise a hand who said aye?
Two. Those opposed, please say no. No. That's a two five vote and the motion does not pass. We are back to approving the agenda as presented. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. That's a seven-zero vote and the agenda is approved. Moving on to agenda item four, which is communications. This is where we reference various communications that have been received. Item 4.1 is communications received by the Board. Secretary Blake, can you please give us an update? Sure. We received 12 communications since the last meeting and they are all in the packet
for reference. I believe there was one that we had received from, Steve. There was no last name on it, who was asking about equity, across the District. That's another one. Agenda item 4.2 is the section where members of the Board of Education share communications that were sent directly to them and were not sent to the full board. Did any board member receive communication from the public? Trustee Lausanne? I had Amy Verra reach out to me regarding, what happened with five zero one at the last board meeting, so I just kind of updated her on that. Trustee Alsbaugh, did I see your hand?
Elizabeth Clare contacting me regarding her inputs about our last meeting. Trustee Lecui? I want to briefly thank the many community members who have reached out with kind words and encouragement this week after the censure last week. And I just want to let you know that it means more than you know, and I'm so glad to hear from those of you who are watching. So thank you. And I received an e mail from, Dana Cadman regarding the censure. Next, we'll have an update from our PTA Council. Mrs. Rockliffe. Good evening.
On November 8, our STEM team hosted their annual STEM plus Families event at Stoney Creek. This event is full of fun, hands on activities for elementary and middle school students. We'd like to thank all the volunteers who made the day a success, including the Stony Creek Cyber Cats, the Rochester Feds, and the West Robotics teams. As always, our kids love to see the robots in action and get a chance to, participate as well. The National PTA Reflections Program has, celebrations of school winners will be taking place over the next few weeks. Those who place first and second at their school in the various categories will be
moving on to the district level competition. This year's theme is I Belong and district and state winners will be recognized at our ceremony in March. Plans are moving along for our annual Founders Day, which is a celebration of those parents, teachers, staff, and students who have gone above and beyond for their school communities through their work with the PTA. The theme for this year is Impacting Futures Together. Our logo contest is underway right now for students who would like to submit a design. The design will be used for the pin that all honorees receive, at Founders Day and will also be featured in all communications and the event program.
Entries are due, December 4. The Health and Wellness Committee will be hosting a Snack Spirit Week, December, to encourage healthy snacking at school. The focus is on fruits and vegetables in a different color of the rainbow each day. Keep an eye out for information from your PTA. The Council's legislative committee has set a date for its annual public service career night. On March 12, the students in eighth through twelfth grade are invited to attend the live webinar to learn more about different careers in public service. And finally, gift certificates for tickets to authors in April's annual Evening with the Authors are now
on sale. The event will be held on Monday, April 27 to kick off authors in April week. We do have a new venue this year. It will be at Twin Lakes Golf Club, And you can reach out to your school PTA AIA chair for more details. Thanks. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. And now we'll hear from, I'm sorry, hear from, Mrs. Markert about PAC. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Jackie Markert. I'm the chair of the RCS Parent Advisory Committee. Over the past month, PAC has focused on strengthening communication and supporting inclusive practices across the district.
Our November PAC event was conversations with the cabinet where families had the opportunity to speak directly with district leadership about student support services, communication processes, safety and inclusive practices. The feedback that we received from our parents was really positive. So the event was a success, and we're very appreciative that you were all able to attend. PAC continues to position itself as a collaborative partner to the district, working alongside administrators to elevate family experiences and to reduce barriers for our students. This year's PAC theme is inclusion in action. By this,
we mean shifting from reactive fixes to proactive planning. Our vision is simple. Inclusion should not be an add on or an afterthought. It should be built into the way we design our events, our spaces and our school community from the very beginning. Our PAC representatives have been partnering closely with our PTAs and building leaders to share practical tips, resources and examples of small, simple steps that can make a meaningful difference. These inclusive approaches do not support only students with IEPs or 504s. They create calmer, more flexible, and more welcoming experiences
attacked by a fly for all learners. Oh, God. Sorry. Sorry, everyone. I hate bugs. Sorry about that. Jesus. Jesus. Excuse me. To support this momentum, PAC has created a shared inclusion and action workspace where staff and families can upload and view examples of inclusive practices across RCS. This resource helps buildings learn from one another and encourages continued growth throughout the district. We've already seen some great examples of inclusion and action taking shape. At Hugger Elementary, they recently designated sensory friendly time to their bowling event.
North Hill offered a quiet sensory room during their game night, something my own son appreciated as a break from the loud main event. These examples show that inclusion doesn't have to be a grand gesture. Even small proactive adjustments can have a big impact. We encourage more buildings to join the movement, and PAC is here to support PTAs and administrators with resources and ideas. Looking ahead, our next enrichment event, Regulate to Relate, will take place on February 26 at Adams High School. This session will help caregivers understand how their own regulation influences their child's sense of
safety and connection and will share brain based strategies for staying grounded and responding with compassion. Although PAC does not formally meet again until January 13 at Hugger, we remain available throughout the holiday season. Families can stay connected and informed by following our PAC Facebook page and visiting our website for ongoing resources and updates. We welcome all families, whether you have a student receiving services or simply care about building an inclusive school culture, to connect with PAC and join the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate those updates. We're now on agenda item five,
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 now. If If we have more than thirty minutes of comment, the remainder will be heard under agenda item, I think it's nine. When your name is called, please move to the microphone and address the board. When addressing the board, you'll have three minutes to speak. We'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. To protect student privacy,
we ask that no one identify a specific student without their permission. Also, 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. I have looks like we should be able to get through these, initially. So I have Jen Miller, followed by Shelly Brown, followed by Mike Reno. Jen Miller, mother of two high school students at Rochester High School. I just wanted to thank the board for the incredible district we have.
My daughter had to watch a school board meeting for school, and she said, We have the best district. Why is everyone so angry? And I said, because the happy people don't come. They're in their communities. They're happy, so they don't necessarily come to every board meeting. And she said, you should start and change that. So in my three minutes, I wanna tell you the amazing things we've experienced in three years here. 26 AP classes, two Rochester High School OAA championships. I wanna tell you about your website. If the community doesn't know where to go, talk to RCS is the most amazing website.
I had an issue. I didn't know where to start. I write. I get an answer and a call within twenty four hours. Am I addressed is my solution done? No. But it's being addressed. I'm being recognized. I wanna talk about what you do with your mentorship programs, with your curriculum programs that are top notch, having an orchestra program. There are so many good things happening in this district every single day, and I don't want the small minority to divide us. I want us to just embrace the fact that we have incredible schools with incredible
teachers, teachers who reach out and email you just to tell you how great your kid is. Do you know how rare that is? That doesn't happen. A chemistry teacher today just emailed me to say how great my kid was and how I should be proud. And I don't think we necessarily spend enough time celebrating and focusing the amazing things we are doing, from our sports program to our curriculum program to helping our students in need. And so when I watched the school board meeting and we saw all the anger, I thought, you know, I can't just sit back and be part of the problem.
I'm gonna be part of the solution. So I'm gonna hop in now and again and just tell you what amazing things are happening here. We've only been in this district three years. The difference is nearly criminal. My daughter feels guilty for her friends who are not in this district because the level of opportunity she has. In fact, we're writing college essays on what the difference is and how unfair it is that we have so much abundance, opportunity, and success here. It really feels special. I am grateful to be a mom with two children in this district. Thank you for the wonderful work you do. I am so proud to be part of this community.
I'm gonna go to neighbor house neighborhood house because our key club is making Thanksgiving baskets for those in need. And so we had to donate stuffing, cranberry sauce, and all the fixings, and we're now putting together big packages of food for those in the community in need. But thank you for your service. Thank you for what you do. You're doing all the right things for all of the kids all of the time. This is an amazing district. Thank you. Thank you. Shelley Brown, followed by Mike Reno, followed by Nick Legez. Well, we'll let you say that when you come up here.
Hi. I'm Shelley Brown, a taxpayer and resident in this district. I missed last week's board meeting, so I made a point to watch all four hours on replay. Public support was strong for Trustee Lakuy. As usual, Trustee Lakuy demonstrated her intellectual curiosity by asking pointed questions and requesting pertinent information during the discussion of the audit and regarding delays in receiving financial information. It was no surprise when the meeting started with the board,
gang of five, voting down Trustee Lacoue's request to amend the agenda to include discussion of a resolution on health education, and as you just did that again tonight. Later in the meeting, it was also no surprise to see the gang of five register a five to two vote to censure Trustee Lacoue. Every action I just described, a board trustee working hard for those that elected her and the gang of five throwing up roadblocks in her path, is basically a replay of every meeting I've attended in person or watched at a
later date. Several of the Gang of Five voiced grand statements that the censure was necessary to ensure members adhere to bylaws. However, based on tonight's agenda item number 8.5 regarding proposed updates to the Board handbook along with corresponding edits in the Board bylaws, which, like the censure, are brought forward by Trustee Gupta. It appears to me there is a darker agenda here. These updates appear to result in further impediments beyond censure by ensuring trustee Lacoue has
highly restricted, extremely limited access to information needed to perform proper due diligence in her decision making. Apparently, it wasn't enough to remove Trustee Lacoue from committee involvement and liaison duties. The proposed changes appear to me to take the current entitlement to receive copies of existing documents out of the hands of individual board members and place it with the full board. Additionally, requests to receive such documents would now have to be made by the full board,
no longer individual members, and must go to the board president, no longer directly to the superintendent. Based on consistent performance at prior board meetings, it appears reasonable to me to expect that trustee Lecuey will make requests for documents and the Gang of Five will vote against her. This may as well be labeled the Trustee Lacoue Amendment. You may think your intentions are hidden, but I argue you're finally being very transparent, and more members of the community are noticing this.
Thank you. Mike Reno, followed by Nick B. Hi. Mike Reno, longtime resident, former board member. And I'm here again because you're planning more bylaws mischief with this denial of information, resolution. And so I'm trying to understand. Trustees are now gonna need to get someone's permission to get existing documents that any ordinary citizen can get with a FOIA request? I mean, do you realize how absurd that sounds? But the bigger issue is this. You're repeating the exact same mistake that just cost the district 3 quarters of $1,000,000.
Let's talk about the Shaner case for a minute, the disaster you've never really analyzed. Any competent private board would have done a serious post mortem after something like that. But because you never did, you only presume to understand what caused the damage. It's easy and politically convenient to blame a few trustees, but arguably, it's your own bylaws that created your vulnerability. Shaner was able to claim that the board failed to control trustees under its own bylaws. You can't control trustees. That was the flaw that he exploited. Had those bylaws not existed,
he could not have held you accountable for for not enforcing them. You literally handed him the legal theory, the Shaner Gambit. You created the conditions for someone to weaponize your own bylaws against you, and here you are doing it again. Last week, during this freedom of speech fiasco, the Supreme Court's case, Wilson v v h c c, was cited as if it somehow supported what you were doing. You really misinterpreted it. Yes. The court found a verbal censure as permissible free speech, but justice Gorsuch specifically made clear that when you go beyond a verbal censure and
start imposing punishments, you're in different constitutional territory. There's even a legal term for this, prior restraint. Ask your attorneys about it. I hope someone's asking attorneys about it. After that, I started connecting some dots. Trustee Lucuy had written op eds before without any problem, but this was different, we were told, because the superintendent felt embarrassed in front of his peers. And now here comes this custom tailored resolution for Lecue that limits her ability to get information so as to improve the work environment. We know what that means.
From the outside, it sure looks a lot like a coordinated effort to quiet her to make him comfortable. And that brings us right back to the Shaner case. You are creating the conditions for the same kind of claim that Shaner used. You might think that you're protecting the superintendent or reducing tension. In reality, you're reconstructing the same liability step by step. The Shaner Gambit shouldn't be a blueprint, yet you seem determined to follow it again. Learn from your own history. Stop drafting bylaws that are are guaranteed to show up as exhibits in future litigation.
Restricting freedom of speech or denying information is a recipe for disaster. And all this stuff you guys are doing has nothing to do with students. Nick followed by Shirley Frazier followed by Rick Baldick. After Nick, it's Shirley Frazier followed by Rick Baldick. Hello. My name is Nick Blazek, the first speaker at eighteen extra seconds, so I'm gonna use those. My name is Nick Blazek. I have three students currently in the school district. I am here today to address the issues that my son has faced along with dozens of other families this year.
Over a 100 families have been confirmed last year, and we are projecting as we keep diving into this issue, we will find thousands of families with with similar disturbing issues. My son transferred here and came with an IEP. When arriving at Hugger, he was placed in the wrong classroom. My son was supposed to be in a regular classroom, instead he was placed in an ASD categorical. We thought this was incorrect, but the teacher, principal, and administration kept telling us he was in the proper classroom and there was nothing that we could be done until his new IEP. Fast forward, we had to go through three meetings hours upon hours.
We were made to feel that our son was a lost cause, that he did not belong in the regular classroom with his peers. Truth is, his teacher did not want my son in the classroom, was against having him in the classroom because she was worried he would be a disturbance. And the principal was behind this. Until we started dropping the term FAPE, nothing happened. Fact is, everybody in that IEP knew they were wrong and trying to cover up their mistakes by lying and misleading. I can tell you about dozens of other parents like us from this year alone where students' civil rights are being violated daily. Every single day the law is being broken, and our students,
just because they may have neurological differences, does not mean they are not entitled to the same rights as every other student. Next, let me tell you a quick example from this year with an IEP student at my son's same school, has a certain style chair that he is in his IEP, and yet the teacher is fighting and will not allow that student to have that certain chair. They are citing this as a safety concern. It's in this child's IEP, yet the school and the teacher wanna fight this family every single way possible. Next, it has come to my attention the speech therapist at Hugger has returned from teen
early maternity leave. My son is a gestalt language processor. If you don't know what that is, I suggest you Google it after this meeting. The speech therapist who took over while she was gone has even told me and my wife and other families, he does not know anything about gestalt language processing. That's not his fault. He didn't go to school for that. But the old the speech therapist who was on maternity leave does. The principal said in an email, we decided to put the speech therapist who was on maternity leave with third graders and above. There are over 70 kids who need speech pretty much saying,
sorry, your kids don't matter. What about my son in first grade and all the other families? That's the kind of email we get from the principal. Do you think that's okay? I got a little more than that. Lastly, two weeks ago, Tiffany, who's not here, was she was asked at the pack round table meeting, and my wife asked her about devices and resources for students who need them, she said, about a year ago, and then followed up with her at the pack meeting. And Tiffany, a year ago, told her she followed up. She never did. She danced around my wife's question and told her there were none available. Well, isn't that funny, Tiffany? Because last year,
there was a gentleman guidance support provided to the directors in Oakland County from the Michigan Department of Education and Oakland School on Accessibility and the student of Technology. This is not new. Mister Bradley. I understand. I still have to eat seven minutes. The students have neurological differences are with autism, and they are being judged proper. They are not getting the proper treatment. Instead, they're being shoved aside So the grab at hugger about students being the same diversity is all right. Is up. But lastly, I will see this. I'll be back with parents, and I'll be back with news,
and I'll be back with civil rights attorneys. Email your information to the board so that we have all of it. Shirley Frazier, followed by Rick Baldick, followed by Deanna Harless. Hi. I'm Shirley Frazier. I was here last week as well. Very disappointed by what happened last week and this week. I don't understand Can you move closer to the microphone, please? Yep, I can. I just don't understand why something so important as the new state health education framework cannot be discussed.
Come on. These are kids, grandkids. This is very important. We're all trying to figure out where do things go. This new framework mixes scientific topics with belief based concepts about gender identity. It's scary. We don't know what the kids are in for. It encourages these concepts to show up in multiple subjects throughout the day and makes it very unclear how the families will be notified or able to opt out if something conflicts. And it just doesn't seem like that's gonna work.
Now, these questions were raised directly, but we were not given the opportunity last week or this week to learn about this. And so this new law reaffirms that biological science should be taught as a science and that belief based ideas should not be presented as scientific facts. Different families approach belief based topics differ, and that must be respected. Each gets to believe the way they want.
We don't want just someone above saying this is the way sex ed is going to be taught It also asks for written clarity about how parents can review materials and opt out of their child opt their child out Not verbal assurances don't we worry about this. Written clarity that families and teachers can rely on is what we need. And it asserts local control. Lansing does not get to decide how belief based math material is handed in our classrooms.
Families teach beliefs, schools teach academics Sadly, Michigan's rate at what? 44? That's not good We need to do something about Michigan education. Anyways, nothing in this resolution bans topics, targets students, or limits anyone's identity. It simply says be transparent, be clear, respect parents. What is troubling is that the board majority shut down Trustee Lecuey's attempt to put this on the agenda. And we want to know more about this.
We'd also like to know more about the millage. These things are out there. Why are you hiding this from the people? We don't understand. It's no secret that all of this is out here. But anyways, I want you to know I'm a voter. I'm a citizen. I have the right to vote. And when I vote, I expect my voice to be heard. Thirty seconds. And you have taken my voice away by your resolution against trustee Lecui. You took my vote away as well as many others in this community.
You don't have the right to take our votes away from us. Rick Baldick, followed by Deanna Harless, followed by Catherine Agarwal. Good evening, board. Rick Baldrick, president of the district. I'd like to address the agenda item you have, about revising, you know, handbook and bylaws again. I found it interesting you addressed this issue a year ago, And you pay for all this legal advice, but then you don't take it. They told you at the time this was a silly thing to do. It proved no point. It did nothing. And now here you are a little year later just doing it all over again
for spite. Just for the heck of it, I I looked at I started looking at a few other districts, and I thought I'd look at their bylaws and see what it had to do with information. Most of them said absolutely nothing, okay, regarding information requests. The two or three that I did find were absolutely identical, like they were written by a law firm or something. And they all said the same thing. Any request for information should be sent to the superintendent's admin who will route it to the appropriate department for an immediate response on a priority basis. And here you are doing the exact opposite.
Now if if I look at that and and you follow the letter of the law, okay, that means the president will have to ask permission to ask questions or request information. That's just silly. A board majority, what are you gonna do? Take a vote every time some bad idea, guys. You should try again. Hi. I'm Deanna Harless. I'm the mother of two students at Reuther Middle School. I'm here to discuss what happened at last week's meeting with the censure of trustee Locuih. The censure was both unjust and based on a false premise. The false premise was the claim that she read at least confidential information.
I had filed a FOIA request for the district FOIA log and learned that the information she released had been obtained already through a Freedom of Information Act request prior to her up at even being released. That means by law, it was public information. It was never confidential. If it was, in fact, confidential, why was it released via FOIA? You can't have it both ways. If it was confidential, it shouldn't have been public which case mister McDaniels, who should have been punished, not trustee Lecuey. If it was confidential if it wasn't confidential, why was she censured for it? As everyone who is paying attention knows,
it's because you guys are petty and we have grievances against her personally. So rather than address those like adults, you, want to appease your weak and effective superintendent, and so you censure a trustee. That is not the way the law is written, and that is not what censures are for. Thank you. Hello. My name is Catherine Agarwal, and I have a student here, as you all know. I'm just gonna go ahead and read this letter, and I'll submit it to the board too. I'm here because the proposed bylaw change brought forward by Jessica Gupta, trustee, is not just concerning, it's alarming. A policy that would require a board majority to approve whether another trustee may access
district documents is an attempt to control information and restrict oversight. That is opposite of transparent governance. Let me be clear. No responsible governing body restricts its own members' access to information. Doing so does not create accountability. It destroys it. And the timing of this proposal cannot be ignored. Over the past two years, this board has repeatedly taken actions against trustees who expressed dissenting views or refused to fall in line with the majority. The community has watched trustees face censure,
sanctions, or other punitive measures simply for asking questions or challenging decisions. Whether those actions were intended as an retaliation, the effect is unmistakable. Disagreement is punished here at Rochester Community Schools. This latest proposal takes that pattern even further. It says that a trustee cannot even look at documents unless the majority per permits it. That is not how democrat Democratic boards function. That is how power is consolidated and turns into authoritarianism. And let's talk about legal risk because it is real.
Restricting access to district records is a direct invitation for legal scrutiny. It raises questions about transparency, potential violations of public accountability standards, and misuse of board authority. Even if the language of the policy is crafted to dodge specific statutes, the spirit of openness required of a public body is clearly violated. Rochester Community Schools has already burned through significant time, resources, and public trust due to multiple lawsuits in recent years directly tied to the majority district decisions and board conduct.
This community is tired of seeing its taxpayer dollars spent on legal battles instead of on our classrooms. Adopting a policy that will almost certainly provoke more legal challenges is reckless and irresponsible. This district is supposed to model integrity for students. Instead, we are watching power struggles, punitive actions, and now an attempt to reflect access to information, something that would be unthinkable in any healthy governing system. So tonight, I'm asking the board plainly and urgently to stop this destructive trajectory. Reject any bylaws that limit a trustees' right to information.
Our students deserve better. Our families deserve better. And the community is watching you. Thank you. We are moving on to Agenda Item six, which is the consent agenda. I'm sorry, what was that? Just one second. Why don't you come forward then? And Hi. My name is. I've been member of this district since 2015 when we moved into this, Rochester area. I usually don't attend these, board meetings because I trust the board to make the right decisions. But for the last two or three years, I've been very frequent visitor, at least in the way I was trying to address some of the major issues
that happened. That included the teachers union contract that was literally pushed down the our throat last year with the freedom of choice for the teachers of how they have to do it. That got me more and more worried and some of the content that has been pushed into high schools, middle schools, some of them in elementary schools is worrisome. That said, I'm here to talk about the censure of last week. I did try to say what I wanted to last week, but I was not clear on some other things, and especially after looking at some of the recordings. If writing an op ed of a publicly domain available information is the benchmark of
this board for censure, What trustee Blake revealed of what happened at a closed session is definitely worth of censure. Now now I will see if trustee Gupta or any other majority members will have you know what to actually censure him and vote for his censure going forward for Emeritus. Second thing I want to talk about is, trustee Gupta's proposal for today. I think I I think is agenda item 8.5, if I remember correctly. I talked about dharma last week. Obviously, a lot of people won't get it because you probably don't have a Indian heritage or link to it.
But going by her last name, I hope trustee Gupta has some links to that privilege or the heritage rather. Dharma is the morals and ethics of your roles and responsibilities in any role you are supposed to be bestowed upon and trusted for. Okay? By doing what you did last week and by trying to do what you're doing this week, you're not following the dharma at all. That's what that's what I'm gonna say. And what I was thinking deeply on the central part of exactly why that happened, and looks like it's because the superintendent wanted to keep some information
unrevealed. Forget about who they are afraid of. I'm thinking of why they are afraid of such information being disclosed into the public domain. Instead of being transparent, it's obvious that the superintendent is trying to control the board and not the other way of where board actually tells superintendent district how to run based on the policies they draft. We elect the board, and the board in turn pretty much runs the district. Superintendent is an executive member. And something I want to say, but that when I was the secretary of the board of trustees for an organization
locally here, I champion the, proposition, and we pushed forward with majority of the awards to basically eliminate If you can make it, Tatamala, that's your time. Your time limit is up to three minutes. Thank you very much. You'll be happy to bring your office manager, which is your closest representative here, and obviously, the board is not in charge. Thank you. All right. Well, now we are moving on to agenda item six, which is the consent agenda. Since we only have one item on the consent agenda, we'll treat it like any other motion. Is there a motion to approve the current bills payable for 10/01/2025 through 10/31/2025 in
the amount of $6,028,590.80? Moved by, trustee Gupta with support from trustee Annas. Is there any discussion on this before voting? Madam president. Trustee Lacui. I did notice we spent about $40,000 in legal spending this past month. It's quite a bit. And I am concerned about the scope and cost of legal involvement in routine tasks like FOIA responses and residency checks and student discipline, as well as multiple attorneys billing on the same issues. So I'd like to state that at least for the record.
I also had a question for you specifically. I saw from the Thrun invoice that we paid for you to phone district legal counsel about a records issue on September 5 And I believe you contact you're supposed to contact legal counsel before presentation to the board on an issue, but I don't recall hearing anything about that. Honestly, I'd have to go back to look. I I don't know when you're just asking me right now. Okay. Alright. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. I abstain. That's a six zero one vote,
and the consent agenda is approved. Next, we have, agenda item seven is reports. And tonight, we just have the superintendent update. Mister Russo? Thank you, madam president. First, I'll turn it over to Mr. Murphy for our SPCC report on what that committee is for those in the audience. SPCC stands for Superintendents Policy and Curriculum Committee. Thank you, Mr. Russo. Good evening, everyone. This SPCC group met last Friday, had a stacked agenda that we did not get completely through.
Ms. Ines, Ms. Gupta, and Ms. Lausanne attended for the board. Quick summary of what was covered. We had some math curriculum additions and new as well as dual enrollment opportunity with Lawrence Tech. Those items were discussed, with some guests from the math curriculum department, and those will be coming to the board for an agenda item in December. Also discussed was our current policy and administrative regulations around personal electronic device usage in
schools. There's been a lot of talk legislatively and throughout the state about updating these policies, so this group continues to, discuss that, what our current policy is and whether to update. The group wants to see a survey done, of staff and the community. So we are working to complete that survey, and the community portion will probably be after the New Year. Also discussed was the review of policy 3,006, a legal guidance between the RCS current language and Miller Johnson boilerplate language.
Additionally, we discussed, the SECSED Advisory Board topic that the board had previously expressed some interest in creating policy and administrative regulations for and that conversation will continue in January at the next meeting as well. On the agenda that we did not get to during the meeting was a continuation of the 5003 purchasing policy as well as some new topics brought forth by Board of Ed, trustees, including robotics and official communication channels,
some recommended language from Miller Johnson on anti moonlighting policy, as well as an update to our administrative regulations on 4002, which is background checks and 6,002, which is our BTAM, threat assessment language There should be some of those updates coming to the Board through the notes over the coming weeks or months. Our next meeting is in January ahead of any change in membership. We have a meeting scheduled before that potential switchover takes place to try to wrap
up some of these issues. Any questions? I'd be happy to answer. Thank you. Trustee Liqui? You mentioned that you discussed possible changes to the sex ed advisory board, and I was wondering what the nature of those changes were. Yes. Thank you. And anyone on the committee is welcome to add as well. But there's not, current language specifically addressing sex education, health education. It's not mandated to have policy, but it is mandated by law. So the discussion essentially is whether to take, legal language and also kind of roll that into policy.
So that's the ongoing, I guess, debate or consideration. And because of that, the request from some of the members on the committee was to take a look at what that language could look like, if we were to do so. So we've created that, and it's under review, and I think consideration on whether that needs to be a policy or not, considering that it's mandated by law either way. It has to do with just, like, how the advisory board how we are complying to the Michigan law. It has nothing to do with the curriculum. Thank you, madam president. Alright. We're moving on to new business,
and we have five items tonight. The first, during our closed session, the board discussed superintendent Russo's performance using the MASB superintendent evaluation tool that we have all been trained on. While the document is public, the discussion about the superintendent's performance is not public. The board will not be making specific comments in public about the superintendent's performance evaluation. At this time, is there a motion to adopt the completed year end evaluation for superintendent Russo? So moved. Moved by trustee Annas. Is there support? Trustee, Alspa. Alright. Is there any discussion keeping in mind that your comments may not,
discuss his performance specifically? Madam president. Trustee Lacui? I just want to explain why I'm voting no, which has it's not going to be about performance. It's just about the process. So I'm voting no because my responsibility is to the community and I can't affirm a rating on a flawed process. Without breaching anything in closed session, I can say that circumstances limited the ability for an inclusive process that provided for all trustees to share written documentation that they believed was relevant and necessary. A professional evaluation requires that every trustee can fully engage without fear of consequences.
That was not my experience. I also did my best to request information needed for the evaluation and only two of those requests were answered. I found the evaluation to be incomplete without that data. I'm afraid our board is going down a road we've been before with a former superintendent and overlooking basic issues that ought to be addressed but instead are being dismissed. Therefore, I cannot support the rating being proposed. Trustee Blake? So without talking about anything that was discussed in the process, every trustee was fully able to participate and fully able to provide anything that they wanted to provide.
Madam President? Trustee Annas? I just would like to let the, community know that, on masb.org, there is information, regarding the superintendent evaluation tool that we utilized with Fidelity. And that also includes posting requirements of the information, regarding the superintendent's evaluation. I encourage, all community members to go to that website and, become educated. Trustee Lozano? Sorry about that. I just kinda wanna back up what Carol Buck was kinda saying. I do see that our superintendent does have his strengths, but he is making progress.
The MASB tool is vague. The point of order, madam president. An individual What is your point of order? An individual trustee cannot evaluate the superintendent. It's an opinion. I can't share. Thank you. And I do uphold that. So you can make comments about Okay. Can I talk about the MAFB tool then? The wording is very vague across most of the categories. It can be confusing. So it kind of doesn't give a clear picture of what a first year superintendent's work is and what has been completed. So my no vote is not towards him as a person or a leader. It's simply an honest reflection that I feel that there is still growth happening,
and I don't Trustee Lausanne, you're talking about his performance again. So again, I wanna Okay. Well, I would just be voting no as well. Trustee Alspa. Regarding the process, the law requires us to evaluate the superintendent by an approved tool just like it requires us to evaluate teachers by an approved tool. The board had the choice of which tool we wanted to approve, and we chose this tool. So, with input from all of the trustees, there was another tool that is approved but,
is authored by a law firm that most many of us did not feel comfortable using. So this is in compliance with the law and by the board's informed choice where everyone had input. So I understand we may have some critiques of the tools. I think those are valid. But that feedback should be given to MASV or the state so that they allow us to use another tool. It's really outside of our control. Trustee Lecui? I will say that I also agree that the tool we were using was very
flawed. A lot of the categories are written practically the same way, so that does make it confusing. Although I will clarify that my my critique does have to do with the process, and ultimately, it's directed at the majority of the board. I do understand that others will feel that the process we went through was completely sufficient. I understand that others will disagree and dismiss me. But, again, I'm speaking to my experience, and I'm speaking the truth. Alright. At this time then, all of those in favor of adopting the completed year end evaluation, say aye. Aye. Opposed,
say no. No. That was a and I apologize. Trustee Lozano, I didn't catch what you That's a five to vote. The motion passes. Mister Russo's evaluation is approved, and he was evaluated as effective. We're now moving on to item 8.2, which is a discussion on 31 AA funding. At our last meeting, we had a discussion that included our legal counsel. As a recap, State School Aid Act section 31 double a allocates $321,000,000
to support school safety and mental health initiatives. This year, in order to receive funds, school districts are required to consent to a comprehensive investigation and agree to waive any privilege that may otherwise protect information from disclosure after a mass casualty event. Because accepting this funding requires the waiver of privilege, the Board of Education must make the decision to accept or not accept the funding. The deadline to accept the conditions associated with section 31 AA funding is November 30. But a lawsuit has been filed relative to these sec to these section 31 AA
requirements, and they have requested that the deadline for identifying whether a district wants to receive funding is delayed until after the courts have ruled on the lawsuit. There is a proposed resolution included in the packet that we'll be discussing tonight. Mr. McDaniel, did you have anything to add on this? Not a whole lot. I think you covered most of it, right, that, Mr. Blaylock, presented a resolution based on feedback from the board. I just want to note again that I think this is about $2,100,000 assuming that dollars 2,100,000.0 assuming that all districts or similar number of districts compared to last year opt into
this, which seems unlikely. There are some changes to, how the money can be spent. For example, security guards don't appear to be allowed, based on the language. School resource officials would be, but there's also rules with this grant that you need to supplement your current offerings and not supplant them. So for example, we could not move our existing SROs or police liaisons to this grant to support the General Fund because they've already been paid for by the General Fund historically. Doctor. Dooluca, did you want to add anything on how we currently allocate our 31 AA,
money? And I also want to note that we're we've done this a year behind. So for the 'twenty five-'twenty six school year, we're spending 'twenty four-'twenty five money. We've done this because there's several staff that Doctor. Dulich will share and we've tried to allocate as much time, should we need to make, harder decisions on staff to give us some leeway, and time to make those decisions. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Our current budget, that we're working with this year is $1,600,000 Currently, within the $1,600,000 we have $1,300,000 of staffing embedded in the safety and security grant.
That includes our behavior interventionists, five counselors, our security consultant and our four SCC SHIELD officers at a middle school level. Mr. Russel? Doctor. Deluca, could you say who was first right before you said the five counselors? Sure. Three behavior interventionists. For the for the community, just to clarify a couple of things, there are two separate lawsuits that are out there right now. One is, through the state of Michigan. The other is a federal lawsuit that, is is asking both are asking for injunctions to to because of the language, the way it was written. There is a lot of vague language.
There are things that, could potentially cause, you know, issues because of how it's written, and there's no end in there there's no, end time to when this would, expire in terms of when how the language is written. So, I don't envy the board tonight about this because there is, there the fact that there we've asked for an injunction, or I should say the lawsuits have asked for an injunction. Assuming that that doesn't come in, we still have to make a decision by November 30 and this is our last meeting before that date. Should there be an injunction that happens? I believe that the resolution that's been prepared for you tonight,
covers what would happen if the injunction happens or does not. If it does not happen, then we are if you vote yes to take the money, then we we will be subject to the language it's written. If we vote no to take the money, then that all of this is non void. And if the injunction is written and the deadline is pushed back, then there's implications to when we would receive money. Right now, the the Mr. McDaniel, please tell me if I'm wrong. December 1 is the date that, the state is required to disperse the funds for thirty one double a as written.
And so, there's not a lot of time in terms of actually, it's mid December, I believe. There's not a lot of time for for this to be figured out, based on the lawsuits that have been filed. So, the board's decision tonight, is not an easy one. I let the community know that it takes a lot of fortitude to go either way on this, and I appreciate the board's, commitment either way, and discussion tonight. And before we go on, I just wanted to re confirm. We are talking, we think, about $2,100,000 And, the game plan would be to cover the same existing salaries that we just discussed,
the $3,100,000 That's the question. Yes. So, 2.1 is the estimate. But again, that depends on how many school districts opt in. To the extent that the grant language allows, we'd want to cover the same salaries. But as I mentioned before, we may have a challenge when it comes to middle school, SHIELD officers. All right. So questions or discussion? Trustee Locuey. So just to make sure I understand and that everybody who's watching now might understand too, the resolution that we're passing, this is in case the injunctions go through. Right? Or because it okay.
The thing that I'm confused about with the resolution is I I agree with almost everything in it, but there's a certain part that says, like, the way it says the waiver of privilege shall be in effect only until the funds subject to section 31 a a are exhausted or such later date as may be required. And I'm just wondering how can we how can we actually narrow or override what's written in the statute? May I answer that? So, that's a great question, Trustee LeCoultre, because the statute right now is is not clear, and that's one of the reasons for the injunction.
One of the problems with this legislation, or this grant I should say, is that there's really no definitive timeline. This waiver of privilege, the question becomes for school districts, is that in perpetuity? Is that till the end of these funds used to be used? So is our the legal advice that if you choose to accept these funds, that this resolution covers us to say it is our intent to to to waive privilege only during the time frame in which these funds would be used. So we're actually trying to help the MDE understand what this grant how this grant
was written. I guess I'm just not sure how we can how we can say that. I mean, imagine we use up our funds and the next day there's a mass casualty event or something. Well, then we would have the argument. You know, these are if comes, right? We would have the argument that we we didn't engage those funds the next day, so why would we be held to any standard that's written for why we got the funds? That's the purpose of what how the law is written. Right. Perhaps the statute was written that way so that school districts wouldn't be able to to do I mean, the the point of the point of the stipulation,
the way that 31 AA was written, as I remember talking about last time, is that we want the community wants full investigations to be able to occur in the event, God forbid, of a mass casualty event. And they don't want what happened in Oxford to be able to happen again where people were hiding behind attorney client privilege and the investigation was essentially rendered useless because nobody would testify or talk because of attorney client privilege. So I just I know that the statute is what will determine what actually happens.
I just don't wanna be making false promises or giving anybody any kind of false hope. If we pass a resolution like this, I believe the statute would take precedence over a resolution that we would pass. Well, in fairness to that argument because, you know, I I I 100% hear you and respect what you're saying. Right? And if I'm a board member, I'd be asking the similar questions. But I think the fact that there are lawyers and school districts and folks around the entire state that also can't make sense of the language tells me that the
statute isn't written appropriately. I believe there's also many questions about what a mass casualty event is. I mean, I believe that the intent was such that it would cover something like an Oxford. But in reality, it could cover a suicide if one person dies. It could cover a, a fight at a football game where three people get injured. It could cover a bus accident. I I think there's a wide range of things that it could cover. I mean, I I'm concerned about,
the willingness of, our staff to be open with our legal counsel because it's no longer protected. And that could create issues as well. Madam President? Trustee Anas? Yeah. I'm disturbed by the implications that signing this or not signing this waiver, would send. And really, it's a damned if you do or damned if you don't scenario, quite frankly. There's currently the legal injunction, which, Superintendent Russo mentioned, questioning the constitutionality of the statute and tying it to these funds. And I guess my question is,
why are school districts the only ones being asked to sign this waiver before the outcome of this litigation is determined. I mean, I know it's targeted at school districts, but I also understand why the waiver was put in place. We certainly don't want another situation, like, God forbid, that happened with Oxford schools. But to me, this law operates from the false premise that any future school districts, within Michigan won't do the right thing when it comes to students we serve and not comply with any comprehensive investigation.
And, the other point I want to make is Rochester Community Schools is a public entity. And as such, the educators and administrations within them are public servants. So my question is regarding this law, why are there no laws that are targeted at other public servants that also deal with mass casualty events? Say, for instance, a policeman or a fireman. So to me, this is an overreach into this space. And lastly, you know, if we have a hard time recruiting educators now,
a law like this certainly does not encourage people to go into this field if they know that, God forbid, something would happen within the school in which they are an educator, that their district that they are working with and working for has waived their ability to, keep their attorney client privilege, which is why I believe that this is such a sticky constitutional issue. And for these reasons, I will be abstaining from this vote. I am not I don't feel that there's enough information for us to move forward. And I really feel like,
that the legislature has put school districts in Michigan, in a very precarious position. Trustee Elspa? So I have heard that there's, lawsuits being processed right now. And, you know, we talked about what will happen if there is an injunction and if there is not an injunction. My question is, there's a lot of other things that could happen. And if we agree to, accept this funding with all the rules that come with it, where do we end up? We have to reconvene and revote on it in the current context or the current
legal interpretation? Or if a legal interpretation comes around I mean so can you speak to that? I can. So if and I guess this is really about timing. So if we if nothing changes from now until November 30, then whatever you've decided tonight more than likely will stick. Now that's having a crystal ball of some sort, right? Because there could be something that comes after November 30 that is retro in terms of their, interpretation of what this what this language is in the grant. But assuming that that's that's what happens,
that until November 30 there's no change, then whatever we decide tonight will be, decided in terms of yes or no for taking the money. If there is an injunction that's granted, everything would be pushed back, I would assume. And there are many implications to that as well. Right? As they look at this language and decide should there be an injunction or not, there's also a few variations of what may or may not happen. So there's a lot of unknowns to Trustee Anderson's point. Could they could there be pieces of it that they drop? Could there be pieces of it that they say, you know and I don't I'm not a I'm not going to pretend that I'm
a judge here in this, but there are pieces that could be, dropped off of the off of the grant and then others that are kept. So right now, we are we are looking at a resolution that I think protects us for right now. If the answer is yes, we'll take the money. Then if there's any changes, that we can then reconvene after November 30 to your point, Trustee Alsbaugh. Trustee Gupta? So if we were to, vote yes on on, accepting the funds at this time, and then over the course of the next couple weeks through the legal process,
there's some sort of legal development that tells us, oh, that's a bad idea, actually. We shouldn't shouldn't do that. Do we have an opportunity to then pull out of that agreement? If there is a change, like, if there's a material change to the language, then yes. So the I'm speaking like a lawyer now. Right? But if if let let to to come back to, something I said earlier, if there's no change, but there's more talk about something, if the board wanted to reconvene to do to say, hey. Now now we we we understand something else based on this.
That is up to the purview of the board to come back and vote again. If there's a material change, then whatever you pass tonight would be, for lack of better words, null and void. Right? If there's a material change to the language before November 30, then what we pass or don't pass tonight, we would have to come back to. Or if we don't pass and there's a material change and you say you want it, etcetera. I'll just add, like, for instance, if they removed the waiver of privilege, then the board wouldn't have to be involved in this at all anyway. And so our resolution would pretty much die and the district would make the decision
on it, if that helps. Trustee Blake? Yeah, just a couple of things that people mentioned. You know, Trustee Annis mentioned about waiving privilege and waiving privileges for individual employees and how that may, you know, impact employees. There's This is one of the things I've read that there's a real question of whether we even can waive someone individual's privilege. We can waive our own as a district, but maybe not an individual. The I think Trustee Lucuy's point about the time that this is in effect or how long are we waiving it for,
that was another issue that people raise is if we sign this this year, we take this money this year, and ten years from now there's a mass casualty event, are they gonna say, Well, you you waived your privilege for forever because you signed it at this point? So these are all things that'll get resolved or hopefully nothing will ever happen and we'll never have to figure out what this means. But I spoke at length last week about this, so I'm not gonna go on further. But I did mention, you know, as an attorney, this is incredibly concerning. As an individual,
a parent, and community member, I still think, we would cooperate with whatever investigation. And so to me, it would be worth taking these funds. I would hope that we would hold this back until, like, the very deadline, so we see what happens with any of the litigation. That's that's a piece I'm sorry. That's a piece that I I did not say that we would not submit until November 30 so that we can see exactly what's happening with any of the re requested injunctions, etcetera. Trustee Lausanne? So did you say that if they didn't change they don't change any of the wording, but we learned something new about it,
we could back out of it? Like, we we obviously, we'd have to get to call a special meeting. I was gonna say we we just need to call a special meeting beforehand Right. To check this. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Trustee Annas? I just also wanted to say, you know, this is quite a bit of money that we're, contemplating, regarding this resolution. The impact that we'll have, obviously, as, Mr. McDaniel and, Doctor. DeLuca mentioned, we have quite a bit of staff that are could potentially be impacted by us not receiving the money. But I also want to say that,
as a district, we should be investing in the things that we value. So if this is something that we feel is an overreach in terms of the ask, we certainly have the fund balance to cover these costs. And I would ask, my colleagues to consider what, you know, what do you deem appropriate for utilizing those funds? For me personally, it would be a scenario like this where as a district, we're being put between a rock and a hard place and, we have the ability to cover this amount, without considering taking the grant funding.
And I think that, personally, I would be open to that. Everybody else has to make that choice, but, it's always an option for our district. Thankfully, we have the fund balance that can cover this kind of, lack of funding from a grant source. But again, I'm gonna point back to the fact that, school districts in the state of Michigan are, beholden to the state legislature with this form of funding in a grant form because that, type of legislative overreach can can really impact local school districts. Trustee Lecuen? I just want to say that I'm fully in support of taking this money for
safety and security. I know I'm I'm hearing a little bit of concern about strings attached to this grant, and I just wanna comment that that is kind of the nature of categorical funding. And, I kinda wanna remind everyone that, back during that state budget debate, the house was actually advocating for more money going to the districts in terms of foundation allowance, and the senate was in favor of these kinds of grants with strings attached. And this might be the first time that I recall the board having an issue with the strings attached to a grant, but in this case, there actually was a legitimate reason and example for the strings.
But in any case, I do believe that it's it's good and necessary to take the money for safety and security. I don't think this is a good reason to dip into the fund balance. Trustee Ospa? I think this falls under what I call the golden rule, the one with the gold that makes the rules. I agree that I'm very concerned about the legislative overreach on this. I'm concerned about the definition of a mass casualty event. If we talk about three people getting hurt at a football game, oh, my gosh, when those kids are on the night my son broke his collarbone, there was another bone sticking out of somebody's arm.
I'm sure there was some sprained ankle somewhere. And this is just the kids on the hill behind the football field. So I have a lot of concerns with this. But I think supporting counselors and supporting behavior and events and giving our kids that emotional support is really important. I think the resolution protects us as much as we can. And one of my questions would be, we listed some staff members that, their salaries would be paid for by this grant. Are those people currently on staff and would we be laying them off or would
we be opening new positions? Yeah, I think that's up for discussion, right? I mean, we looked at the behavior interventionist, model, at the elementaries and made adjustments to our behavior support model, when the funding was reduced. And I think we would take a similar approach, here. Alright. Does anyone else have any other comments or questions before we vote on this? Alright. I guess I did not do this piece. Is there a motion to approve the resolution to accept section 31 double a funding as presented? Moved by trustee Blake. Is there support? Trustee Alspa? We've already had our discussion because I did it out of order.
All those in favor of approving the resolution to accept section 31 double a funding as presented, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Opposed, please say no. And then were there any were there any abstention? Abstain. Okay. So I believe that was a six zero one abstention there. So, at this point then, we will, we have approved the resolution. And if we hear anything else, we'll be looking to schedule another meeting, if we think we need to make any changes. Alright. Next, we have a recommendation to approve new heat pumps at West Middle School.
Mister McDaniel. Yes. Thank you, madam president. I won't read, the memo, but this is a West heat pump project, 78 heat pumps at West Middle School. Source of the funding for this project is the sinking fund. We recommend that the Board of Education award the following contracts: Category A, HVAC to Goyette Mechanical, dollars 448,512 Category B, electrical to EL electrical contracting, dollars 90,800. In order, consultant held contract testing and balancing to Enviro Air Incorporated, dollars 104,000.
Another owner consultant held contract commissioning to JMK Engineering Incorporated for forty five thousand dollars There's a total contract sum of $688,312 In addition, we recommend that the Board of Education approve allowances and construction management fees in the total amount of $211,911 for a total recommendation for this project tonight of $900,223 Thank you. All right. Is there a motion to approve the replacement of heat pumps at West Middle School as presented in the amount of $900,233
coming from the sinking fund? So moved. Okay. Moved by trustee Alsbaugh with support from trustee Gupta. Is there any discussion on this? Alright. Seeing none, all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven o vote. And, the heat pumps at West have been approved. Moving on to item 8.4, we have a recommendation to approve the purchase of swimming pool starting blocks. Also you, Mr. McDaniel. Yes. Thank you, Madam President. So, yes, these are new starting blocks at all three of our high schools.
This is going to be funded through the general fund but as part of our contract with Utica Shelby Swim Club. Based on this information, we recommend that the Board of Education or the Swimming Pool Starting Blocks project to aquatic source in the amount of 171,340 Thank you. Is there a motion to award the swimming pool starting blocks project to Aquatic Source in the amount of $171,340 Moved by, trustee Lausanne with support from trustee Gupta. Is there any discussion on this?
Seeing none, all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven-zero vote, and the starting blocks project has been approved. Next, we have a proposed change to our handbook and to our bylaws. The changes are similar in both documents. Because this is a first reading of the bylaw change, I would suggest that we vote at our next meeting on both items. But at this time, I'll turn it over to trustee Gupta. Thank you, madam president. So this is a motion of a first reading to amend handbook section 1.5
and bylaw 1,001 as noted and included in the packet. Did you have any comments at this time to start? So my rationale here, as as previously shared with my colleagues, is that, unfortunately, we have seen, existing language which allows for individual board members to request documents to be an abused privilege, which is wasting valuable staff time, district resources, and informing a work environment that does not maximize retention of valuable human resources.
Requiring a vote of the full board to request documents and reports would allow the board to make an informed collective decision, provide for ample public debate, and consensus decisions. At the same time, we would be better able to protect our finite district resources and ensure that they are directed in alignment with district goals. Did anyone else wish to comment? Trustee Lozano? So I did a little bit of digging, and I found that this was proposed back in April 2024.
And at that time, legal counsel was president. And Michelle, actually, you asked, and they confirmed that there is no practical difference between the board and board members in this context. The fact that counsel stated that he believed that this policy isn't necessary at all as it kind of appeared to be an overlegislate of the natural communication and relationships Jason also pointed out that board members do have the right to access district documents and that we should be careful about changing our policies simply because we are concerned of one individual's behavior. So I'm I'm concerned about that. I'm concerned about that. I'm concerned of one individual's behavior. So I'm I'm concerned about this as that we are preventing one trustee
from obtaining documents and it's even said that you can go ahead and FOIA it. I don't know if this is the effective way to do this. Are all board members going to see all the requests that we're all asking that we all have to vote on every single time? I kinda feel like it delays the process, especially if it's existing documents, things that already exist. I just don't understand why we're giving the board president power over everyone to deem what is important and what is not important. I can voice my concern about this in SPCC previously because we did discuss this briefly, and I'll say it again. It appears it's very retaliatory against one trustee.
I feel like it's an attempt to silence opposition and by limiting what questions and documents that we can that a trustee can ask board governance governance We should open and encourage transparent communication and not try to restrict and control it even more than it already is Trustee Alsbaugh? I do have a question about how this would work, because it does say via the board president. So Michelle, if I wanted some documents, would I email you? And then because we can't vote, would would it be put on the next agenda for a vote? Or would we get consensus?
I don't know how this would work. Trustee Gupta? Well, I guess it's to the board's discussion, but my what I was envisioning is that it would work the same way any other item would make it to the agenda that a trustee is interested in, which is that follow that same process, which is that you'd have find, you know, two other trustees who are interested in that to get it on the agenda. Thank you for that clarification. That makes a lot of sense. Trustee Annis? So I guess, you know, what I want to say is a few things, actually. The moment we're currently in is a great lesson that when reviewing and crafting bylaws
for this board with a new perspective, one can learn some things about the way they were done and why they were done that way, especially as it relates to board governance. And in this instance, it was a poor choice back when our board decided to make the change to this particular bylaw to appease some members under the guise of transparency. Yes, school board service is comprised of seven individuals. However, the board acts as one body and it's important to know what lane this body should be operating in, especially in relationship to our superintendent and his team of administrators and the job they
do for the district on a daily basis. And I will say that since 2022, our former superintendent and our current one and, their staff, has been inundated with information requests from, members of this body. Additionally, there's always the argument that, you know, Well, I've asked why, you know, I've stayed in my position and nobody answers. Well, there's a pattern of interaction, in which, someone claims that they want this kind of, you know, consensus building. But really, when an idea is presented,
from one individual and there is no response from the majority, I think that pretty much is an answer about why the majority or the majority doesn't feel that it's relevant. So we have to ask these key questions when asking for information. To what end is this information warranted? How will this impact the job that we do as a board? How will this impact the job that we do as a board because we make decisions as a board, not as individuals? And how will this information inform a vote of this governing body? If a member of this board can't answer those questions and convince the other six
elected officials at this table that that information is warranted and necessary to do our jobs, then one has to question if what is the purpose of the request? So, I personally I'm in favor of it. You know, we talk we're told a lot that, you know, there's a lot of divisiveness on this board. And quite honestly, if someone wants information, they have to make a good argument for why they want it and why it's necessary for the board to do the work that we do. And I don't hear that argument often.
Trustee Blake? So I'm not crazy about this change. I'm not crazy about the fact that we're in a position where we feel like we need to make the change. The last time that this was discussed, back when I was new on the board, I voted against doing something like this. I think is that what you're saying, Shelley? No, I did, because at that time I didn't think it was necessary. Since then, there have been issues that, you know, may cause us to reconsider. It's certainly appropriate for the board to make requests. And we should do that. We should have access to information, but it's the volume and the detail and the,
you know, incessant amount of requests that has caused, a problem for our staff, for our administration. And it takes they're taking their staff time to fulfill an excessive amount of requests. And some of them, to me, seem pretty far afield from the main issues that we're dealing with. We set forth goals from the board that we give to the administration that we want them to work on, and they are distracted from those goals to to follow, you know, one person's ideas of what they wanna look at. So,
you know, we saw this last week in this, board. There was a question that came up about how many employees we have, and has that number gone up or down? And I said, I wanna know the answer to that question. And I said, but I can't just ask you myself. Are there other people? She said yes. She said yes. And I got four people right there, and that question was asked. That's really all you have to do, is have a question that other people at least, you know, at least four people care about, and then they'll be able to to follow through. So it's about the volume of the request.
And I I shouldn't say this, but I thought you know, when Doctor. Silveri was the interim superintendent, I talked to him about the volume of requests even back then. And he said he had a full time staff person that was almost full time fulfilling requests for two people. So, you know, I don't know. I don't think we're I think we're we don't have the same two people at this point, but, you know, I wish there was some other way to do this, because it seems pretty cumbersome to have to get four people, and is it going to go on the agenda? These are good questions. This is first reading, so if somebody comes up with a better idea,
we can do it. But, this is responding to situations that we're dealing with. It's not we don't like this one person, just we don't like her and that's that. Trustee Lecui? Well, first of all, Trustee Blake, yes, I will always support you if you are seeking information that already exists. I don't see that as being any problem at all. We all need to remember that we are serving on behalf of a public school district, a public institution, and information should be, for the most part, free flowing and not private unless it's truly confidential. It seems like the the what I'm hearing from you about the reason for this
is you're trying to prevent minority trustees from conducting independent oversight. You're suggesting You're suggesting that a minority trustee would need majority approval just to access information, not to take action, just to see what's going on. And how can I make good decisions on behalf of my constituents when you're putting up roadblocks that I think are necessary? Now I'll I'll speak to this. You say there's been voluminous requests. And, yes, in September, our board president asked us,
please tell me whatever documents you wanna see for the superintendent's evaluation. And at that time, we had no idea what documents he would be providing himself. So, yes, I requested 34 items at that time because it's a real evaluation. It requires real data, and there's, you know, 30 indicators or so, you know, that we have to look at. We we've gotta do that based on objective data, not feelings. So the better question I would have is why weren't the rest of you guys doing this? Like, why wouldn't you maybe be requesting some data yourself? It's not it's not too voluminous.
And I'll tell you this. Out of the 34 items I requested, two of them were provided. So that's not too many questions. That's just a failure to supply trustees with the documents that we feel Point of order, madam president. That statement evaluates the the superintendent at this table in a public setting. I didn't provide an evaluation. I stated what was requested and what was not given. Yeah. I evaluation. I stated what was requested and what was not given. Yeah. I And I'm allowed to state action. Just one second. You're you're I I do not uphold your point of order. Trustee Liqui, you can continue. Okay. So I I I do have a question also because I was thinking about what
trustee Lozan brought up about how this was brought up back in April 2024. And trustee Blake had said, well, I don't think we should change policy just on behalf of one person. And he wasn't even talking about me at the time. He was talking about a different minority trustee. And then trustee Gupta even acknowledged at the end, she goes, well, you know, since our lawyer just said that this doesn't actually make any difference whether we change it from board members are to the board, then I'll support this language. Because, yes, indeed, our lawyer, Kevin Sutton, basically said whenever you try to overlegislate relationships,
you're getting into dicey territory. And he didn't see a practical difference between the board and board members are. So my question for you is from where do you think you're getting the authority to deny a trustee information when they're making that request? The law doesn't provide for that. Trustee Gupta, may I answer that? Well, I'll just say I don't it's not a matter of thinking that I have the authority to do anything. I believe that based on recent legal counsel, when feedback was requested on this particular proposal that we were given the green light
to go ahead, that it is the board's purview, which is where I brought it, for a for consideration and discussion and a vote. So it's the board that would authorize this, not me personally. I would also like to contextualize protect the interests of this district that are different from where we sat in 2024. And that is that we have now, due to the conduct of two board members, including your own, been found by an independent arbitrator to have been liable losing almost a million taxable
dollars. President, that is her that is not a fact. Trustee Trustee Gupta? Just one second. Trustee Liqui, what is your point of order? My point of order, she's stating an opinion about something that is not a fact. That is Trustee Lecui, I'm allowed to do that. Trustee Lecui, I'm sorry. I will not I do not uphold your point of order. Trustee Lecui, I do not uphold your point of order. Trustee Lacui, it is, I do don't uphold your point of order. She is just quoting what was in the arbitration documents. So we have I am not quoted. Do I have a point of order? I'm sorry. I have to point of order that one because that was not quoted.
No. Trustee Gupta. Thank you. So as I was saying, we have a fiscal responsibility as a board to mitigate risk, further risk to the district by continued patterns that present risk that are similar to what got us into that arbitration situation to begin with. And this is one of the limited tools that we have is we have authority to decide what our bylaws say and don't say. And we can do that in a way that ensures we're directing district resources,
that in ways that are aligned with our goals, our our budget, and that do not, create a hostile work environment, which is what was found to have occurred previously. Madam president? No. I'm gonna make a comment first. While I agree that I wish we did not need to make any changes, these language changes are intended to strengthen effective governance and ensure that district resources are used responsibly and efficiently. As a Board, we set the vision, goal and direction of the District collectively, not as seven individuals operating independently. When individual Trustees make frequent or wide ranging document requests without board direction,
it diverts administration away from their day to day responsibilities, creates a reactive whack a mole environment, and can significantly strain staff time. This change clarifies that requests for documents should come from the board as a whole so that information flow is coordinated, purposeful, and tied to our shared priorities. I will say that it's important that this change does not prevent any trustee from seeking information. If the full board does not support a particular document request, an individual trustee still retains the ability, just like any other citizen,
to obtain records through the Freedom of Information Act. FOIA provides a structured, legally defined process that allows the district to manage requests in an organized and timely way. This revision helps the board function as a unified governing body, supports efficient administration, and reflects best practices in school board governance. It reinforces that oversight is a board responsibility, not an individual one, and ensures that information flow remains purposeful, coordinated, and aligned with our strategic work on behalf of our students.
Madam President? Trustee LaSanne? So am I hearing this correctly that we have to get a consensus to get it on the agenda to vote in public for somebody to get a piece of information? Because it doesn't say in this amendment that because we can't violate OMOP. We can't make a decision to vote via email because it has to be done in public. Right. So we we literally have to get a consensus at the board table. Just like any agenda item, you would just get to But I mean, this this question could come up two weeks prior to a meeting.
It could come up during the summer when we have less amount of meetings. So it you we're delaying the process of gathering information that could be needed now for a long time, and we have to vote on I think that's just it's just it's insane. It's absolutely insane. Trustee Blake? So could I'll wait. Could could we do something different where if I want a document, I ask you, would you like it? Yes. Okay. Got two. Now I ask you. Yes. Now I ask you. It's a couple of text messages, and I email you. We have four these four trustees would like this this information.
And then there you go. Madam President? Trustee Lacui? Alright. So I'd I'd like to ask, what changed, you know, between April 2024 and now? Why does the board have the authority? The board as a whole have the authority to deny a trustee existing information. And have you ever thought about the idea you know, citizens were talking to us earlier at the beginning of this meeting. Have you ever thought about the idea that it's actually the bylaws that our board passes that gets us into this kind of trouble with risk? It's the unenforceable bylaws.
But seriously, what changed? Why do you think that the full board can deny individual trustees? Because, you know, Trustee Blake, what he says, oh, that doesn't sound like a big deal for him. He can always find people. Well, we've got people on our board who are very stubborn. Their heads are down in the sand, and they're not going to listen to other people on this board. And there might I can make I could say the sky is blue, and you will vote against that. So the point is Point of order. Not to be a wave of That is assuming people's motives motives. Okay.
Your point of order is upheld. I would remind all trustees to please not talk about others' motives. Okay. I will just say that it has been my experience that no one will vote to include things. I it's been many, many months since I've ever been able to get something reasonable onto this board. We saw it earlier today, you know, when I tried to pass the health framework resolution just to discuss it. I mean, this it gets voted down all the time. Madam President So what changed Madam President. Does the board have the ability to deny a trustee?
I just want to go back to that. Trustee Annas? So no. That was a question. And I'm asking you, President Butel, why does the full board have the authority to deny an individual trustee information? You are not being denied information. You have the rights of anyone else to request it through FOIA if you wish. So I should be I should also be paying FOIA fees and, if it's and for redactions and stuff as if I was a citizen? If it's if it's voluminous and it's time consuming, which is the issue that I think that's when you ask what has changed, it's that we have now had eighteen months since that discussion to identify that there
are some issues and that we work as a board and not as individuals. Can you provide any examples of what I've requested that you consider too voluminous? What has actually been been causing you problems? I'd have to go back to look at all of your emails. There are many. But, at this point, Trustee Anas? I just you know, I think there's a real, lack of understanding, by some in terms of, you know, what it is our role is here as a Board. We are seven individuals. Yes, that is true. We all have different opinions about issues. At the end of the day,
we were voted by our community to sit at this table and work cooperatively and to work towards consensus, even though people think that's an ugly word, the c word. It's something that a high functioning board aspires to do. And how you do that is through collaboration and communication. So I guess my challenge would be to the individual members who feel that this is an overreach by the body, then you have to make a better argument for why you want the information, and you have to prove it to the rest of us that it's important for
the work that this body does. And when you don't get the response that you want, and quite frankly, sometimes no response because there's a back and forth via email that becomes exhaustive, I think that's pretty much the answer, that you haven't proven your case. So I would just encourage you and all of us at this table, if we're gonna say that it's important that we work collaboratively, then it's also important that we understand that sometimes our personal requests isn't enough to
convince the other six people who have been duly elected as well by people in our community who don't Up and, talk and speak loudly during the meeting, but we're speaking for their voices as well. So I I would just charge folks at this table, if you want the information, explain why it's important for the work we do, why it's important for a vote coming up, and to what end is it necessary. And quite frankly, when you're not getting any response, I think that's your answer. Because what you've shown isn't enough for the rest of the the six of us,
or sometimes five of us, to want to act on what your request is. So it's up to you to consider that information. I'm not going to sit here and debate it with you. This is my feeling on the issue. And I put it out here publicly because some folks feel like we don't have enough public discussion, so it's out there now. Trustee Liqui, everyone gets up there. But, I don't think she asked a question. Did you ask a question of Trustee Liqui? No. I did not. But I would ask for a point of order. I would ask for a point of order, Madam President. Please remind the audience that this is not audience participation.
So right now, I have a question. Madam President, Trustee Lacoue, what is your question? My question is, would anyone else have liked to seen some of the documents that I requested for the superintendent evaluation? And I, like, I requested, for instance, would you would you have wanted to see district wide staffing, discipline or classroom size trends, quarterly budget reports, school building spending trends given what happened with our budget this year, trends on the number of students receiving tier two or tier three interventions. Okay. Trustee Lacouille JAR processes. Trustee Lacouille, so I'll just say you are not the only one who requested documents.
You seem to imply that you are the only one who did, but you are not. Many people requested items as well. It is a board discussion to identify. That is why we have in our handbook a quarterly or an annual schedule of documents to receive. I agree with some of the items. I I requested some of those same items. I think they will be coming. I did not need some of those items for this evaluation. So at this time, at this time, Trustee Lacoue, at this time, there is only one person who is left who may speak on this item. Trustee Alsbaugh, Did you have anything else you wish to say at this time?
Otherwise, I think it's time to move on. No, I do not. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Alright. So we are moving on to additional comments. Item 10.1 is members of the Board of Education. This is additional comments by individual board members who may use this time to share information about school visits, updates from committees or organizations they're assigned to, or to express their personal opinion. Each trustee has three minutes and there is a timer on the board in front of you. If you run over that time, I'm happy to ask the board if they are willing to extend the time.
At this time, trustee Lausanne, do you have any comments? Trustee Lecui? Okay. So a lot has unfolded since the censure last Monday, and I'll just speak plainly about what's happening. The censure wasn't about accuracy. No one has identified a single factual error in what I wrote. And it wasn't about confidentiality because all the information I referenced was public, subject to FOIA, and already being discussed openly in other districts. Instead, what we saw was the enforcement of a bylaw that attempts to redefine confidentiality to
mean any information the majority doesn't want shared. And that's not what confidentiality is supposed to mean under Michigan law, under board policy, under the First Amendment. When a government body tries to classify public information as confidential simply because it's inconvenient or politically uncomfortable, that becomes a constitutional problem. And then just days later, the board president used Parent Square, a district communication tool funded by taxpayers, to send out a political message attacking me personally. That letter was inappropriate,
misleading, and an abuse of the platform. Trustees do not get access to ParentSquare for our own messaging and using it to campaign against a colleague in this targeted way to thousands of district families is completely unacceptable. And I know everyone will disagree with me, so prepare for that, but that's true. And now, a week later, we've got this proposal from Trustee Gupta And we're going to make another change to our bylaws in a way that, gosh, really ties our hands. To restrict an individual trustee from accessing district documents unless the board majority pre approves
the request. I want families to understand what this means. A trustee elected by you would need political permission to review public records, or I'd have to send a FOIA request and possibly pay fees. And we know the kind of issues our district has had with these exorbitant FOIA fees or or redactions that I shouldn't need as a trustee, but I would have to get as a private citizen. And let me tell you, this is not transparency. This is targeted, and everyone can see exactly who this is aimed at. I asked, you know,
what is it? What what have I been asking for that's been so voluminous? I didn't hear examples provided. They never can provide these examples. So when Trustee Annis asks me, you know, like, well, you've got to make a good case. Why are you asking for stuff? And I list the things I'm asking because it's tied directly to our evaluation tool. There you go. There's my reason. And it's a public institution. We should be allowed to see stuff. So anyways, it's harder for me now. I'm not in committees. I don't have access to that information. It's going to be hard to get requests for information. But in spite of this,
I will continue to follow the law, uphold my oath, and communicate openly with the community I serve, even as district leadership makes everything much more difficult. Thank you, Madam President. Just to follow-up on that soliloquy. Just wait one second. Just want to make some clarification points. The Centro trustee didn't seek to discuss any issues with the majority members of the board, which I spoke of earlier, before publishing her op ed other than falsely claiming in an email that the district had already assumed the millage would be on the ballot,
presenting her opinion as fact. So, you know, while trustees hold individual opinions, again, the board acts as one governing body with no formal action can be taken until all members weigh in and vote on any issue. So community members that come to this body concerned that they're not going to get their voice heard regarding a millage is just patently false. Also, the argument that, the information was out in the public sphere and talked about at other, school districts is also irrelevant because the last time I checked, she serves on this board in this community,
And she didn't agree with the timing of, our district discussion on the issue, and she chose to individually violate the board by law by releasing the information on her own. So there are consequences for actions. Lastly, I just want to say that I, had the opportunity to attend the Rochester High School PTSA meeting recently and, they're doing some great stuff for the students, in that particular building. So it was fun to hear what was going on. And I'm also looking forward to attending the Rochester High School play this weekend, White Christmas.
Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Blake? So amidst all of this, the work goes on. The teachers in our classrooms were there today and they're gonna be there tomorrow, and our counselors are gonna continue to see our students, and the paras are gonna show up, and the kids are gonna get educated. And all of these things are continuing to happen. And that's what the district is really about. All of this noise and and, you know, controversy swirling up here is really not, what it's about. But most of us just want to do what's best for the kids in the district, for the parents,
for the families, for the teachers, for the employees, for all the educators. That that's what all of us wanted. And all the people who are sitting up here who work for the district, not the board people, you know, they're coming here late at night, they gotta get up early tomorrow. Sometimes they do multiple nights in a row of different events. And so it's really unfortunate that all these people that are affiliated with this district are getting tarred and continue to get tarred with news stories about them and, and, you know, op eds and, newspaper articles. And I know some people will say,
Well, that's you guys' fault. You're the ones who are causing this. We're not the ones writing the articles. We're not the ones sitting in our home having interviews. We're not the ones contacting all of these right wing news sources and raising this ruckus. So I wish that we could stop doing that. I wish we could do our work up here. I wish we could each say our piece and let each other say our piece, and not have to go out and say it everywhere else, and not have to talk bad about and and bring negativity upon all of the
hundreds, over a thousand people who work in the district, and all the kids who work here, on the community who lives here, that that's what I wish that we could do going forward. And that doesn't mean we would agree on everything, but, if we could take all this excess stuff and get rid of it, and and stop seeking to become media figures and and concentrate on doing what we're doing here, that would be great. By the way, just to be clear, trustee Lecui is not gagged, she is not silenced. She is able to say whatever she wants to say, and if she doesn't say it here,
she has an open invitation on the pages of the Detroit News anytime she wants. She has an open, multiple media outlets that will have her at a phone call. So she's not gagged. She also gets to talk right here. We've not limited her time at all. She is exactly what everyone else has. It also, concerns me, the people who keep coming to these meetings, and I feel bad for them, I'm not angry at them, that are just spouting complete misinformation about the new health standards. They are not implemented yet. We're not putting them on our agenda because our own,
our own, committee hasn't come up with the, recommendations. When they come, they'll be in black and white. You can come and fill this room and we can talk about each one of them. That's how it will work. But we won't put it on when we don't have anything written to look at. We're waiting for something to look at. So thank you. We're going to continue to do the work, though. Alright. Trustee Alsbaugh? So getting our focus back to our students, since our last board meeting, Trustee Butel and I attended Pride and Prejudice, which was a wonderful play. And I thought the students displayed a lot of talent and a lot of creativity in bringing in some new life to what I remember as kind of a dry
book, but they did a wonderful job. I also attended the Holiday Bazaar at, Rochester High School, where, of course, you bump into Principal Rinkel, who is there, I think, 20. And we saw a lot of our students. There was a student there doing henna. There were other students there that had wood projects. And there were our jitters program was present. So we saw our students, you know, creating their crafts and beginning their small businesses, which was wonderful. And I also attended the RCS community foundation fundraiser last night.
It was great to connect with members of the community. I got to talk to a lot of people and heard a lot of different opinions. And I think the the foundation does such wonderful work to support our teachers. So I just wanted to bring to light the excellent work our students are doing, and the excellent supports we have for our teachers and the wonderful work they're doing. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Gupta? So I also was able to attend, the SIP, Saver, and Shop event put on by the RCS Foundation. And I just, want to thank the Foundation and its,
board and volunteers for the amazing job you all did bringing our community together for a really fun night, to raise funds for our kids. My commitment to our community is to continue to do my best to protect these valuable resources that we have here at our disposal, with a focus on our students and what's best for them right alongside each of you. I was also able to attend, with a couple of other board colleagues the Veterans Day, unveiling of, honor wall at Rochester High School,
which was amazing. There was a student who earned her gold award, by creating and installing an honor wall that will celebrate, any Rochester High School alum who is involved in military service. So I was grateful to be a part of that as well. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna just focus on the great events here. Some have already been listed, but over the past couple weeks, I had the opportunity to attend several wonderful events across the district. I was able to see, Stony Creek High School's production of Pride and Prejudice,
and it's always a joy to watch our talented students shine both on stage and behind the scenes. And I'm grateful to the staff and volunteers who dedicated whose dedication makes these experiences possible for our students. I also attended the Rochester High School Veterans Day event, which included the dedication of the new honor wall, an impressive and meaningful project completed by, I believe it's Audrey Henkel for her Girl Scout Gold Award. It's a beautiful tribute to all RHS, student alumni who have served in the military.
In addition, I joined the RCS Foundation Sip Saver and Shop event. It was a well organized, enjoyable evening that successfully raised funds to support programs benefiting our students. Thank you to our staff and the volunteers who put so much time and energy into making this event special. And lastly, thank you to everyone, students, staff, families, and community members, who make these events such a vibrant part of our district because there are so many people who attend them and support them. I really appreciate, all of the support that we have.
At this time, we are now moving on to additional comments by members of the administration. These are also limited to three minutes, but additional time may be requested. These comments allow members of the administration to share information that they believe is valuable to the board and or community. These are comments and not discussion items. Mr. Russo? Mr. McDaniel? Thank you, Mr. Russo. I'd like to give a quick update on something that we'll put in the cabinet notes for the board as well, this week. But, we had a discussion, I think it was in October, about submitting our accounts, to the state. So that has occurred.
We successfully completed the review and validation of all student enrollment, attendance, and qualification data. This rigorous process allowed us to certify our official count information with the state on November 5. Typically, there's an allowance for November 12 you can reopen and resubmit. We did not have to do that this year. So now that the fall count portion is complete, enrollment FTE focus shifts to those midyear transfers and preparing for a successful spring count day. So Section 25 is, the law that allows us to gain a prorated portion of FTE for students that
transfer into Rochester Community Schools as long as they attended another Michigan school district as of count day. So for example, if you're coming from out of the state, we don't get any funding, but we do have to accept you, assuming that you live in Rochester Schools boundaries. So the count window or the window for transfers via Section 25 is November 13 through Tuesday, 02/10/2026. There's a lot of research and validation necessary to identify and report these transfer students, and that'll continue ongoing.
Right? You have to match it with the district that they're coming from. Otherwise, there's somebody that has to rule on who's right and who's wrong. So all that being said, our unaudited fall count day, and again, that will change with Section 25E and potentially the audit, is 14,680.16. This is the most critical figure for our budget because as you guys know, we're paid by a per pupil foundation allowance of $10,050 on this number, and that is a blend. So the fall count is 90% and the previous spring count is 10%.
So our unaudited blend is 14,691.55 FT feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet E, which is about 40 FT feet feet feet E higher than what we budgeted for the twenty five-twenty six So that's good news. We'll continue to provide some updates to the board as Section 25E occurs. Normally, there's not a huge change between Section 25. It's a lot of work for our team, but we're usually up a few or down a few. It's not typically a material number. So, that being said, I'm, almost out of time.
So thank you. There'll be more information in the cabinet notes, later this week. Thank you, Mr. McDaniel. Mr. Murphy? Thank you. A few weeks ago at this table, the Board requested some information regarding staffing. What was referenced was a 400 I think what was referenced was a roughly 400 staff headcount increase from 2018 to 2024. I've got a lot of information in front of me. I really hope I don't confuse you further with this, but I wanted to have been digging into this over the last two weeks. I wanted to share some of what I've initially found.
So what was pulled was the my school data, which I believe was the site that the, increase was referenced from. The data from the twenty eighteen-nineteen school year and the twenty twenty four-twenty five school year to do a comparison. I think this is the right data because the staffing headcount overall had an increase of three ninety three, which is close to 400. Going through the sub areas of that, as it's listed on my school data, there's eight less administrators reported last year compared to 18.
There are 58 additional teachers, and I've been able to drill down to get at that number a bit more specifically. It's definitely due overall to an increase in, Special Ed student count and then staff count associated with those additional students, Additional ELD staff as well. Additional grant funded staff. There are way more grants in 2024 than there were in 2018 and staff associated with that. And additionally, the increase in elective courses in our district,
the elective course offerings continue to grow. And I want to remind you, this is a head count, not an FTE count. So as teachers teach, a variety of courses and teach more elective courses, that is also increasing the headcount overall. And to be clear, there's also been additional teachers hired to teach some of those. But even the proliferation of the different courses that individuals teach lead to multiple headcounts in multiple areas. The largest chunk of increase was actually substitute teachers.
02/22 additionally reported substitute teachers from 18 to 24. We have more subs than we used to. We have building subs. I think we have between thirty five and forty building subs that are hired and report to work every single day. So, again, that's over half of this total increase. Our people we have to report, they're subs, but I'm not sure that you can look at them, most of them, as sort of a daily employee. We're just more successful at sort of, either getting the subs or at least reporting them.
And again, I wasn't there in 'eighteen to have a a firsthand account of this reporting. I could go on, or I'd be happy to stop. Yeah. I'm assuming the Board is willing to extend his time? Could we receive the information in Cabinet notes written? What information? I'm not done yet. Let me let me finish. The information that you're giving us with all the information that you're looking at to tell us, if you just include it in cabinet notes, it'll be easy to digest that way. Well, I did a lot to prepare for this evening, so if it's okay if I could just finish with what I have in front
of me. Yeah, I'm just wondering if we can also I appreciate that. 22 increase in paraeducators also between eighteen and twenty four. Also, there's a difference in the way paraeducators are reported, or accounted for in my school data. In 'eighteen, all paraeducators were reported under the paraeducation bucket. Now, if they don't have a certain education level or if they're not doing a certain job, they're reported under the non instructional bucket. So you'll see when we get later to the non instructional,
that part of that increase is also related to paras. And we have more part time PERAs now than we did in 'eighteen. So, again, when you're talking headcount versus FTE, FTE has gone up, but not to the rate the headcount has gone up. If you have more people working three hours a day, four hours a day, two hours a day, overall, you're gonna have a higher head count, at a higher ratio than the FTE. I'm not saying the FTE hasn't increased, but it hasn't to that ratio. Actually, we have 64 less para substitutes,
which is, borne out. There are less people interested in substituting those PERA jobs than there were, in 'eighteen. I was talking to Jennifer Arsenal in our office who's been there throughout that time, and she spoke to that as a fact. And then, again, that last bucket was an increase of 163 in the non instructional category. Some of that I referenced in the para, the way we code them. Additionally, this would include coaches. This would include, custodial. This would include contractors, vendors, behavior support,
behavior consultants, SEC shield, those employees as well. Again, there are more of them and there are also more in a lot of those areas that are part time as well, especially in the custodial. I look back in, 'fourteen and we had a certain number. I think it was 121 head count, 121 FTE. I guess everybody was full time. That's not the case at all anymore, at this point and probably due to many different reasons. I can't speak to this with a 100% certainty, but I know our department is very focused on reporting every person possible to the
extent that we know and to the extent we want or that we know that the rep report is calling for their reporting. I don't know. Maybe that was the case in 'eighteen as well. I don't know. I can't speak to it. I just know that we are diligent about reporting every staff member. There's also been changes to rep reporting itself, between 2018 and 2024. There are certain categories I found in the whole listing of categories that don't exist anymore. Everything used to there used to be this other bucket where we had 100 people.
I I'm not sure exactly who they were at the time. I didn't drill down to that degree. Those are now in more specific buckets. How my school data uses that to cater to to populate these categories, I'm not entirely sure. I started digging into that a bit. But these numbers aren't even the same numbers we submitted necessarily. So there's differences there between what I'm seeing online and what was submitted. Also, overall, thematically, I just want to kind of summarize with again, most of the increase I see is in special ed staffing. I don't think I spoke to this,
but again, as you, let's say, add a categorical room, like we had three this year, I think we had two or three last year, two or three the year before, that's not just a teacher. That's a point two social worker. That's a point one speech therapist. That's a and when I look through the data of the special ed, just for instance, speech therapists, 45 in 2018, 61 in, twenty four-twenty five. Social workers, 32 to 43. So that little microcosm kinda gives you a picture of how that could get up to a plus 58 overall.
I could go on and on. I learned quite a bit, and there's still way more to learn. So if the Board as a whole wants more specific information printed or reported, as, Trustee Liqui referenced, just let Mr. Russo know, and I'll be happy to continue digging for you. Happy to answer any questions. Sorry I took so long. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. I have just a couple things in the spirit of Thanksgiving, and we won't have a meeting till after, Thanksgiving. I wanna say thank you to a few folks, to our PTAs. Our PTAs at the building and then our PTA counsel do
the the lion's share of work that a lot of people don't see and, what they provide for our communities and our students, their children, is second to none. I wanna say thank you to PAC. I think the the PAC meeting we attended, I don't know, two weeks ago? A week and a half ago? Those were La la la la la nights. Yes, last week. Thank you. That was that was an incredible event. The way it was coordinated, it allowed us, as as administrators to talk informally with everyone who showed up, and and and everyone got face to face action and questions and,
answers. And and we had a our topics were very, very much in line with inclusion and action. And I appreciate, Jackie for RPAC president for setting that up in coordination, to the ninth degree. It was it was fantastic. I drove home thinking, like, this is this is why we do what we do, and it was a great event. And I will say, lastly, since we have Pride and Prejudice, White Christmas, everything that was mentioned so far, no one has said this. Go, Adams. Thank you. Alright. A couple announcements. There will be no school on November 25, twenty sixth, or twenty seventh.
And I hope everyone is able to spend time with family and friends and has an opportunity to consider what, everyone is grateful for. I know that I am grateful for, all of our staff and the cabinet and the board here. On December 8 at 6PM, we will have a regular board of education meeting, here at the Rochester Community Schools Early Childhood Education Center. And at this time, if there is no objection, we will adjourn at 08:19PM. Seeing none, we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone, and have a good night.