Good evening, and welcome to the Rochester Community Schools Board of Education regular meeting called to order at 06:02PM. If I could ask for everyone to stand and join with me in the Pledge of Allegiance. 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 six. If you wish to speak tonight and have not already filled out a yellow card, they're located at 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 who I have a card for during public comment. I call on my board colleagues to abide by the norms that we've agreed to. These include keeping comments 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's recognized by the chair before speaking, to be honest, to refrain from attacking others' motives, and to uphold the chain of command, and to truly listen to each other. On behalf of my colleagues on the board,
we are grateful to be able to serve this community and we appreciate your support. For roll call, all board members are present with the exception of Trustee Gupta and Trustee Lozan who are absent with notice and do plan to join us later in the meeting. Moving to our agenda, is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? So moved. Moved by Trustee Alsbaugh. Is there support from Trustee Annas? Is there any discussion before we vote? All of those in favor of approving the agenda as presented, please say aye. Aye.
Opposed, please say no. That's a five-zero vote and the agenda is approved. We're now moving on to spotlight on success. Twice a year, the board recognizes athletic and competitive clubs who have achieved a state title or equivalent. Tonight, we are recognizing two individual athletes. At this time, I'd like to invite coach Jerry Murphy to come forward to talk about the boys' singles state champion. I didn't know I was gonna be on on the agenda, but, yeah, I can I can talk about Chad? This is Chad Anderson right here.
And Chad is a four year varsity athlete, on my tennis team. The past two years, he's been my number one player. Prior to that, his brother, his older brother, was, the number one player. And when he graduated, Chad became the number one player last year. And last year he got to the state final and lost to a boy in the state final, who won his fourth state championship. And that boy was really determined. And I think, from that match, I think Chad learned a lot of not from that match in terms of what it was gonna take to win the championship.
I think the fact that his brother had gotten there three times and didn't get it done was also a motivation this year. And throughout the year, if you were to watch him play, he was like all business. Perfect gentleman on the court, just would beat somebody six-zero, six-one, go up and shake their hand, move on to the next match. That's just the way he was all year. And, in terms of all the players I've had over the years, Chad played the game the way you really would like the player to play. In tennis, if you know much about tennis,
when you watch it on TV, you see everybody hitting from the baseline. There's not much serve and volley in the game anymore. But one of the things that Chad does, not that he's a serve and volley player, he can play an all court game, meaning that he doesn't just sit back and play from the baseline. He takes short balls and comes in and knocks them off for winners. And as a result, this year, he didn't lose a set the entire year, okay, until the final match when he, he played a boy that he had played earlier in the year from Ann Arbor
Pioneer and he had beaten the boy and the boy was a freshman and you can tell this kid was going to be a good player at some point. But it wasn't going to be this year. Okay? But the boy did get to the state finals. He was seated number two. Chad was seated number one. And in a three hour marathon match at the state final, Chad wound up winning the match seven-five, six-seven, seven-five. And it was the last match of the tournament, and we were all the team, the whole team, my wife and grandson, we were all right there on the sideline.
It was pretty exciting stuff. And, Chad, what he did, he became the first male player, tennis player at Rochester High to win a state championship in the history of the school. And you know the school goes back to 1883, right, Neil? And I don't think they were playing tennis back then, but he's the first one to do it. And as by virtue of winning that state championship, this board of directors, which I'm on it, of the coaches association, they vote every year when the season is over as to who's gonna win with
the mister tennis award. And they take a representative from each of the four divisions, one, two, three and four. And and we vote on it. And this year, Chad, not only was he a four time All State player, but this year he culminated his career by being named mister Tennis in the state of Michigan. There you go. Chad, can you please stand up so everyone can see you? And, Chad, there is a second one, and maybe once that's done, we can step aside and take a quick photo. Okay. And next, I'd like to invite coach Sasha Mueller to come forward for the girls dive state
champion. Is she here? Okay. Great. Hi there. Colin McRan, athletic director at Rochester Adams. I have the pleasure of having Morgan here with me. My knowledge of of of diving is not ex not very extensive. But seeing the dedication and the hard work that she's shown all year long has been phenomenal. She she overcame, an injury early on and then kinda set up a personal best later on. I think it was was it counties? She was at yeah. So she's she kinda hit the, the the four pillars for for a diver for competition. She won the counties, the league, the regional meet, and then also won the won the state championship meet for division two,
for diving. She she's been phenomenal to see. She's been a great teammate to all of the other divers too at Adams, and we also practice with Stoney too. So she's been a great teammate, in in the pool. Also in the classroom, she's she's a phenomenal champion there as well, having above a four point zero in in the classroom as well. So, she's she's this is her junior year and and part of diving is one thing that I learned was the competition goes over two days long. So she she dove is it five total dives or how many dives was it? I just ate on Thursday and then three on five.
So eight on eight on Thursday. Had to sleep through it, kinda sweat it out a little bit and then come back the next day and and really and kinda cap off a phenomenal season. So, we're proud of her and and, we we like to wish you a congratulations. Well, congratulations to both Chad and Morgan. Your hard work and dedication have paid off. I also want to congratulate your coaches, family, and friends who have supported you on this journey as well. And, Amy, where would you like us to meet for a quick photo? Okay. I'm sorry, where was that? Right here. Okay. If I can invite both Chad and Morgan to come forward for just a second.
I have to ask, Chad, you're a senior. So what are your plans post high school? Do you have any? Nice. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much. We are now going to move on to, communications. This is where we reference various communications that have been received. And item 5.1 is communications received by the board. Secretary Blake, will you please give us an update? Sure. We received 19 communications, which are in the packet for reference. We also received a communication from Izzy Copiah regarding the Board meeting. Thank you. And next I'm sorry?
Madam President? Yes. Trustee Lecui? I had sent you a question beforehand about a former staff member's name who was redacted from the board packet. Did we ever discover what legal basis there was for redacting that name? I have responded to you at that time. But, Mr. Russo, did you have anything else to add? Just what was in writing, what we prepared for you in writing was that we were airing on the side of caution because this, former employee, even though their former employee still has rights within the process of any grievances that she would be he or she would be filing.
And so, we erring on the side of caution to continue to redact the name so that with Fidelity not knowing what any grievance that she claims she was going to file at the time when we when the board packet went out, we had no idea what that grievance would be. But my follow-up to you, I don't know if you've read my e mail, is that whether or not someone files agreements, that's separate from if someone is writing to the public board packet. And I don't believe there's a legal basis for redacting names that are submitted to the public board packet on that basis.
So I was just wondering, is there a protocol for that? Is that written somewhere that we can see? Is there Well, there is no legal basis for printing the name or not printing the name. So as an employer, we wanted to on the side of caution to not confuse the employment issue with anything that was presented to the board. However, this person is no longer an employee, correct? Correct. All right. Next, we have our student representatives. At least some of them are here. And who would like to start this evening? You can come up here and, just turn the microphone on so that you see a bright green light.
Good evening, everyone. I'm Olivia Vazenko from Rochester Adams High School filling in for Libby Schultz. It is my pleasure to be with you all tonight speaking on the recent events at our school. With the conclusion of our twenty twenty five can drive, we are proud to officially announce that we raised just under $35,000 during our canned food drive this year for the Rochester area neighborhood house to help hundreds of families through the winter season. This has been our largest donation in many years, and we are incredibly grateful for the generous donations from our community. Our student council is visiting Muslin Elementary this week to host an elves workshop where
we will guide elementary students through holiday crafts. This is a fun way for high school students to interact with younger community members. We are also preparing to begin our clothes closet upon our return from break. On December 5, Adams student council attended the charity week luncheon graciously hosted by the Rochester student government to collectively learn about this year's charity, Sam Smile, an organization that focuses on mental health in honor of a former Adams student, Sam Dewey, that unfortunately took his own life. On December 10, there will be a conference style staff professional development day where educators choose learning sessions
based on their interests as students enjoy a relaxing Wednesday off. Additionally, our music department has been preparing for holiday concerts, including performances from our concert band, choir, and orchestra. Similar to last year, we will be having our SAT prep hour every Tuesday for freshmen, sophomores, and juniors to better prepare them for their test in the spring. During these hours, seniors will have presentations for their future that will that will consist of talking about college and speeches. We will have a club for additional help as well as having our teaching staff focus on including examples from tests to their lessons for more repetitive help.
Our winter sports and clubs have also been working hard this week this season. While clubs continue to fundraise and begin to plan their trips for regionals and states, our athletic teams are starting their seasons off strong. Within the last week, we had our first home wrestling meet, basketball game, and men's swim meet, as well as the Rochester United hockey team played against Lake Orion at the Onyx And Dance Competition just yesterday at Lake Orion. We are so excited for what the season will bring for all of our winter sports. As we plan to head into the winter season, we would like to recognize the hard work of our students and staff to make
this year a notable success at Adams so far. We cannot wait to see what comes next. Those are all the updates from Adams. Happy holidays, everyone. Have a safe and relaxing break, and I look forward to seeing you all at our next meeting. Good evening, everyone. My name is Grace Colucci, and I am Rochester High School's board representative. With the holidays upon us, RHS has found many unique ways to spread holiday cheer throughout the school and the community. First, the forty two Strong Foundation is visiting Rochester High School the Rochester High School leadership cohort this Friday to host a cookie decorating event. RHS has also partnered with the Grace Centers of Hope and opened up a holiday
giving tree located in the main office where students can drop off a present under the tree for a child in need. Sugo is also hosting another advisory adventures with our CI program next Wednesday during advisory. We will have a hot chocolate bar, plenty of holiday snacks, and end by watching Polar Express. Student council also hosted their annual can drive from November 17 through the twenty first, exceeding our goal of last year, gathering 5,868 cans. This is one of our most successful can drives yet. RHS also held a deaf Santa event this past Saturday.
This was a special meet and greet event where kids could share their wishes, get photos with Santa, and experience the joy of the season all in ASL. Rochester's first and finest also had the opportunity to perform at Detroit's annual Thanksgiving parade. It was very exciting to see some familiar faces on the big screen. Along with the holiday season, there are plenty of other events and opportunities that took place at RHS. Rochester's unified robotic team, also known as robo roosters, combines our robotics team and the CI department, participated in their first competition at Northville on November 23,
placing second place. And the exceptional features award goes to their robot. Great job, team. RHS also hosted an open house for the honor wall on December 3. After Senator Peters came to the initial dedication, RHS held an open house for other veterans to come see their name on the wall. A few AP Capstone students took a trip to Hawaii November 19 through the twenty fourth. This group visited a wide variety of places on the island of Hawaii, such as the city of Waikiki, Pearl Harbor, Diamond Head, and many more. Along with Capstone, RHS Choir took a trip to Disney November 28 through December 2.
They were they were able to visit all of the parks and had the amazing opportunity to perform at Disney World's Candlelight Processional. Choir will also be hosting the winter concert this Thursday at RHS, along with orchestra on the sixteenth and band on the seventeenth. As winter sports seasons start for our Falcons, there are many accomplishments to recognize. The boys swim and dive team at Rochester or the boys, swim and dive team at Stony will be hosting their annual try high meet this Thursday. This is a great way to kick off the season. In collaboration with Stony and Adams, Rochester is proud to announce our unified basketball team.
This is an amazing opportunity for CI students to play basketball in between JV and varsity games. The Rochester girls basketball team has been hard at work so far this season. Their first game is tonight against David Davidson. Good luck, girls. The boys' varsity also scored their first win of the season last Monday, December 1, beating Utica 73 to 40. Hosted by our varsity dance team, the Jazzy Jingle took place this past Friday. This is an event taught by the dancers where future falcons have the chance to meet the team, learn different dances, and improve their skills.
To conclude, I would like to give a few special shout outs that has helped us contribute to the greater culture and excellence of our school. First, our fall musical, White Christmas, was a huge success. There were limited tickets throughout the whole weekend, and their opening night was completely sold out. The show was also done very well. Great job, Falcons. Congratulations to choir students Sam e and Anushka P on auditioning and being selected for the state honor choir. Great job, Falcons. Great job to all of our fall sports teams donating close to 3,000 for their pink fund. This fund supports cancer patients throughout their treatment.
That's all for Rochester High School's report. Happy holidays, everyone, and thank you for your time and con or and attention. Hello, everyone. My name is Karina Morfin Munoz, and I'm the student representative from Stony Creek High School. I'm excited to share some of the great things that have been happening at Stony this month as we move closer to the end of the semester. Student council recently wrapped up our annual can drive, and this year, our school truly came together. We collected 5,094 pounds of food for the neighborhood house, supporting families right here in our community. Thank you to everyone who donated and helped make a meaningful impact.
Another tradition that brings our community together is our Giving Tree, which is now up in the Senior Bank. Students, families, and staff can donate gift cards for families in need, and an ornament with their name is added to the tree in recognition of their support. Not only does this remind us that break is right around the corner, but it also symbolizes generosity and compassion within our Stony Creek family. This month, we also hosted our Try High Luncheon, where the student councils from Rochester, Adams, and ACE administrators joined us for a shared meal. Each school presented their charity options for this year's Charity Week,
and after discussion and voting, we selected Sam Smile as the organization we will be supporting. It was a great opportunity for collaboration and for uniting our three high schools around a shared cause. In athletics, our hockey team has had a fantastic season so far, and this past weekend, they won the Petoskey tournament. Our girls swim and dive team also wrapped up their season at the state meet, finishing eighteenth overall with four top 16 finishes. Our football team officially closed out their season with their banquet, and a big thank you goes to Wesner Tuxedo for dressing the team for the evening. In the arts, our JV and varsity dance team competed at reaction yesterday.
JV placed first in palm and game day and second in jazz, while Varsity placed first in palm and third in jazz. The Stony Creek Theater Company is also hard at work on their upcoming one act tracks. The cast and crew are putting in a lot of effort, and it is shaping up to be a great performance. Academically, our school counselors met with all students to update their educational development plans. During these meetings, students participated in grade level sessions and completed activities in Xello, our post secondary and career planning platform. These lessons help students explore career interests, set academic goals,
and prepare for life beyond high school. Stony Creek is also partnering with Kaplan this year to help support students through SAT prep. With the holidays approaching, Stony is getting excited. Our students and staff have been decking the halls, getting our school in the holiday spirit. Next week, we will be celebrating our holiday spirit week. Monday is ugly sweater and holiday accessory day. Tuesday is a school wide whiteout along with our snowflake showdown game. Wednesday is Winter Gear Day. Thursday is Green and Red Day, with underclassmen wearing green and upperclassmen wearing red. And Friday is Pajama Day. And as all of this approaches,
students are definitely ready for break and counting down the days. It has been another meaningful and productive month at Stony Creek. As always, our students and staff continue to show what it means to be part of the cougar community. Thank you so much for your time, and I hope you all have a wonderful evening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Nanny Lee, and I'm the student representative for ACE High School. It's been a busy couple of weeks here at ACE, and we went on not one but two amazing school wide field trips that bar our learning outside of the classroom and into our community. Right before Thanksgiving,
we visited the DIA, and we got to look at many different and amazing art pieces. I've never really given much thought to art, but mister Faz helped slow helped us slow down and really study each piece. And I discovered that we really liked the Dutch master's use of light. While on our way to the DIA, we were given a tour of some of the amazing murals around the city of Detroit by our secretary, Ms. Kim, who was born and raised in Detroit. We finished our trip by receiving a great compliment from the bus driver. One week later, we visited Belle Isle with a focus on science. At the Western Hemisphere,
the continually operating aquarium as well as the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory built in nineteen o four. We got to learn and see so much about all the animals there. Some of us even got to hold a Madagascar hissing cockroach. At the conservatory, the students went on a scavenger hunt to find all different types of plants and decorations throughout. On a day that was 15 degrees outside, walking amongst towering trees at a comfortable 77 degrees was a welcoming change.
Wrapping up our trip to Belle Isle, we stopped at the Nature Center and got to see all different types of living situations. A highlight was watching two deer eat from a bird feeder. We want to thank our teachers, office staff and Mr. Zee and the district for supporting these trips and giving ACE students such a powerful learning opportunity to enhance our lives. Next up, we've seen a big push towards our college and career readiness at ACE. Representatives from the College and Creative Studies, OCC, Wayne State have all visited us to speak with our students.
A new college admissions wall was created in our hallway, and we are awaiting an update on our apprenticeship wall installation. One of our students has already been accepted into our program and will be graduating early in January. ACE staff is also continuing to hold SAT study sessions during our Learning Strategies class every other Monday. We also have a few student athletes to highlight as both RHS and AHS will be having a Full Dog that fight on their wrestling teams this year. Congratulations to Elijah Johnson and Daniel Celeron.
A few other ACE students joined our own Miss Glenn at the annual Paint the Plow event. Make sure to check the amazing artwork next time Mr. Russo calls a snow day. Our student council will be joining our homeschools again to take part in this year's Charity Week activities. We look forward to supporting this great charity and giving back to our community. Next week will also be our holiday Spirit Week. It will be a school wide competition for which homeroom has the most spirit. The winning homeroom will get prizes for the Spirit trophy. ACE and ATPS have been working together more than ever,
and it shows. We've held monthly mental health days that have included joint walks, coloring sessions, and other great events. I really enjoyed our peer to peer mentoring sessions with ATPS. With the help from Mr. Ross and Mr. Faz, our student council gets the privilege to go to ATPS and hang out and play games. It's a great way to interact with our peers in the school. Staffs across the campus have joined a book club and will be reading the Anxious Generation, thanks to the giant grant from the Sam Smiles organization. Last Friday, the team at ATBS helped their Jitters holiday show in the gym,
and there are so many cool things. Thank you to all of them. Finally, we'd like to thank the RCS cabinet team for visiting us at the Schultz campus last week. We appreciate the continued support you give to our program at Schultz, and we're happy you got to see why we love eight so much. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. It's nice to see you all again. My name is Alexia Boda, and I'm here to report on the events at IA. To recap, the seniors went to Stratford, Ontario, to watch a live version of Shakespeare's Macbeth. All the seniors really enjoyed it.
We also hosted our charity ball and had an amazing time. We have also had two information nights for eighth grade students and families interested in the IA. IA. There are two parts to the evening. The first part is where interested families learn about what the M Y P and DP programs are, with students providing personal experiences. During the second part, students take a tour of the school with peer corps members, and it provides students with a chance to ask questions and get a student point of view. During that time frame, parents stay for the presentation and learn more about the IA. There will be one more on January 7 at 7PM.
Since the November, we have been hosting a toy drive. And on Wednesday, all of the toys will be donated to the Detroit boxing gym. Looking ahead, we will have midterms the week before winter break. We have ours before break to ensure that our students won't use their break to study and will instead enjoy their time off. To bring up student spirits, we will have a spirit week during midterms. That's the update on IA, and I look forward to your next to our next meeting. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much to our student liaisons who came out tonight. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday break and a Happy New Year,
too. Thank you. Agenda Item 5.3 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 communications from the public? Trustee Lecui? Foster Carregay contacted me on November 22 to alert me that the old Admin Building was being used for technology storage despite that we thought it was vacant and that the dis and then, he also mentioned that he was issued a FOIA estimate of over $600,000 when he tried to get clarity. John Borglin also contacted me on December 8 to thank me for standing up for
family centered values and encouraged me to keep fighting for transparency and accountability on the board. Did anyone else receive anything? Trustee Blake? Yeah. I received communication from Nick Blaschak, who had spoken at the last meeting regarding, some questions and issues with special education. Madam Chair? Trustee Lacoue? I also received some communications from Nick Blaschick also. Sorry, I forgot to note that. And I also have received an e mail from Foster Kehrge as well as from, Paula Russelo regarding athletic records at Rochester High School.
Now we are going to move on to public comment. This provides an opportunity for Board members to hear from community members. If you wish to speak and haven't already filled out a yellow card, please do so at this time. When addressing the Board, please state your name and your relationship to the district. You'll have three minutes to speak, and I'll try to let you know when you have thirty seconds remaining. We also ask that you address your comments to the entire Board and not to individual Board members, school district employees or to members of the audience. The Board will not be responding to comments or questions during the meeting. However, someone will follow-up if needed.
At this time, I have, one card. If Raghuram Tadamala could come forward, please. Hi. I was here last time also regarding the, amendments to the bylaws, about, basically asserting the rights of a minority trustee. I would sincerely ask the minority to revisit that idea. It's a very bad precedence to start with, and people hopefully will not cry foul when they are back in the minority from the majority. I also had one more comment, regarding the censure, last week or last time in the Board meeting. I was wondering if Trustee Gupta has any ideas of censuring Trustee Blake based on
what he revealed that was expressed during the closed session in the previous meeting of that. So thank you. Thank you. Agenda item seven is the consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature by the Board of Education and will be acted upon by one motion. There's no separate discussion of these items. If any member of the board requests discussion of item, that item will be removed. Please note that the items removed will now be discussed separately under the consent agenda and will retain the same number. For instance, if Item 7.1
was asked to be removed, we would vote on Item 7.2 through 7.9 and then come back to 7.1 for a motion discussion and vote. You may still request just one item in a report to be removed from the consent agenda. If this is the case, we would approve everything else and the item removed from the report would receive a new number. In this case, it would be 7.1, but still under the consent agenda. Our consent agenda consists of Item 7.1, Human Resource Recommendations Item 7.2, Annual Summer Tax Collection Resolution Item 7.3,
Health Insurance Resolution 7.4, Board of Education special meeting minutes from 11/03/2025. 7.5, Board of Education closed session meeting minutes from 11/03/2025. 7.6, Board of Education regular meeting minutes from November '7, Board of Education special meeting minutes from November '8, Board of Education closed session meeting minutes from 11/17/2025 and 07/2009 Board of Education regular
meeting minutes from 11/17/2025. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Moved by Trustee Annas with support from Trustee Gupta. Does any Board Member wish to remove any item? Madam President. Trustee Lacui? Item 7.5. All right. $7,500,000 has been removed, so we'll be voting on Item 7.1 through $7,400,000 and $7,600,000 through $7,900,000 All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed,
please say no. That is a six-zero vote. And Item 7.1 through seven point four and seven point six through 7.9 on the Consent Agenda have been approved. At At this time then, is there a motion to approve Item 7.5, which is the Board of Education closed session meeting minutes from 11/03/2025? So moved. Moved by Trustee Annas. Is there support? Trustee Blake and Trustee Lecuey. I just wanted to say that I can't vote yes on minutes that misrepresent the
superintendent's written evaluation and that include material that was handled under the wrong subsection of eight a of the open meeting fact. I don't know why the board is choosing this approach, but I can't support it. Alright. Did anyone else have any comments prior to voting? All right. All of those in favor of approving Item 7.5, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. No. That is a five-one vote and those minutes are approved. Moving on to Agenda Item eight, which is reports. Tonight, we have two reports,
a superintendent update and then a discussion of the superintendent's goals. Mister Russo, would you like to start with your update? Yes. Thank you, madam president. So, just to report on a few things, we met in steering committee this past week, to discuss continue to discuss options in the future of five zero one West University. We had an SBOC meeting just this past week, where we went over the budget amendment presentation for tonight to answer any questions and and talk about any clarifications in prep in preparation for tonight. And in November, the Board of Education approved the submission for the 31 double a grants,
which would potentially give us 2,200,000.0 $2,100,000 for safety and mental health, that was successfully submitted, without incident. And that would, that would wrap up my report, and we can move into the goals. If you'd like to move on to the superintendent goals. Yes. Thank you, madam president. So, over course of the past few weeks, I did give the board a draft, which is still in obviously draft form of four goals that, I felt were, pivotal to the success of the organization and improvement of the organization. It's important to note that it is you know,
our my goals for the district could be very voluminous, very there there's there's many to pick from in terms of where we want to see, the focus of this district and from the, from the superintendent. And so narrowing it down to things that I believed would help not only student achievement but organizational enhancement. You've had the chance hopefully to review these goals. I'll state what they are and then have an open discussion on in terms of, questions about them or any modifications or anything you'd like to see me do differently. Obviously, this is an open meeting and for the purpose of discussing these and open to
any suggestions. But goal one is a student achievement and data analysis goal, related to SAT and PSAT. Goal two, and I'm just summarizing because you had the chance to look at these. Goal two would be, to emphasize the the importance of, RCS data protocol so that it becomes a culture of looking at student data and, and being responsive in our instruction. Goal three, to complete 85% of our year two deliverables of our strategic plan. And goal four, to increase the pre k enrollment in 2627 school year by 4%,
as of 01/31/2027. So, there's a couple of specifics that I'd like to just talk about right up front, and then we can I can open up for questions or comments? In goal one, it's important to note that, so when when eighth graders to when when when the first experience for students to take PSAT happens, there is a projected growth model that comes out from college board. The purpose of this goal is to ensure that that, to our best of our ability, that we are keeping students on their projected, growth pattern. You can see I I supplied some data for you,
to back that up, earlier in last week, for your review that showed, for the most part, our data shows pretty consistent growth in those areas with tenth grade at all three of our comprehensive high schools, showing at different times at different cohorts of students, showing that math fell below about 10 points. So in different cohorts, it's not necessarily, regulated to one year, but our growth overall for all three high schools, our students are making their projected growth, especially at the end of our, when they take it when they take the SAT.
But, we want to make sure that we are not only trying to increase those growth models, but that students fall within that growth projections, they're not falling behind in a year specifically. I can go through all four kind of some notes first or do you want to stop at each one? I guess, I'm kind of thinking we talk about each one. So did anyone have questions regarding this goal? Trustee Blake. Yeah, I did. And it's possible I'm sorry, it's possible that I'm not understanding this properly, but as I'm reading it, so the first time they take the test, then there's a projected growth model for the rest of the time.
Okay? And the goal is that we're going to keep them on that. Is that correct? So that's not a goal that they're going to do better than the projected. It's just a goal that we're going to keep them from slipping. Am I reading that right? Yes. The goal yes. You are reading that correct. That the goal is to make sure that our, classes that we're offering and the supports we're offering are keeping them on track within their range. So it's, each of the one of the problems we have with PSAT is that we don't get an item analysis. Right? So I we can't really look at, you know, in ninth grade,
there are 40% that are falling on these four items, for example, and I'm using an arbitrary example, in math, for example. But, what it does, it gives a range for every year. And then then the next year they take the the assessment, the net the next practice, then that growth model either adjusts based on how they're doing. So it might their trajectory might go up, do they fall inside of it, etcetera. And so we want to make sure that they're just staying within that growth model, if not doing better. Yes. So the doing better is what I'm looking at. Like is there a way to change this goal to give a little higher lift
here to to try to do better than the model? We can. I have no problem with doing that. Really, this was about trying to help our, teaching and learning department and our curriculum that's servicing students to make sure it's on track. But if the if the board wants this to be, an achievement goal that does better than the range, my suggestion would be to pick, a grade level so that we can measure only one? Because I don't think we'd set ourselves up for not only success to whether I measured the goal or not, right, because there's thousands of kids taking this every year,
in three different high schools. But would it be to choose maybe the ninth grade year or the tenth grade year to and see what if we can, get to the high end or above the range? That's sort of what I'd like to see is something. And I don't want to be I'm not trying to be unrealistic or pick some crazy pie in the sky, but just saying we're going to keep on track and not slip doesn't seem that ambitious. Well, the in in fairness, trustee Blake, the the range does have a trajectory. So when a student takes a an assessment, the trajectory is to do better every year,
and that's part of the trajectory. But it's a it's within a range, right? So to your point, they could fall into the southern part of that range, for lack of better words, or the northern part of that range and still be within. But the point is to get them continuously improving over time. And And that's what the trajectory is saying. Madam President? Trustee Annas? So, Trustee Blake, it sounds like what you would like to see the superintendent implement in addition to what he's presenting through the College Board is a stretch goal, basically. Obviously, I mean, I hear what Trustee Blake is saying.
You don't want to toss out a number that is, you want to toss out a number that is not attainable. But I do agree with the premise that staying within the range is great and understanding that there could be students that are within the range but on the low end or within the range on the high end, how can we apply a stretch goal that's attainable and challenging and that we can learn from moving forward with other cohorts? Yes. I think so the response can go a couple of ways, right? We could do a stretch goal that's associated with SAT and PSAT or we could
pick another whole avenue in terms of doing a stretch goal. It could be literacy at the elementary level, it could be and again, there are many goals that we can choose from. Our test scores last year for SAT were incredible in terms of trajectory this way, right? We did put a lot of things in place at the high school level to help students in the school day or otherwise. They have options. You heard our student reps today talk about the different things we're offering. So I'm open to that. If you want if that's where the Board as a collective wants for me to dive into a stretch goal related to SAT,
I can come back and give you another draft and see what you feel. If it's something in a different topic, I'm also open to that as well. Trustee Alsbaugh? If we do want to talk about, a PSAT and this suite of assessments stretch goal, they take the PSAT eight and nine, which is the eighth grade year and the ninth grade year. I wouldn't suggest that we focus on those years because the freshmen are really very much adjusting to high school. The switch between middle school and freshman year where you have credits and you're earning credits can really take some learning adjustments for the students.
And then remember that your twelfth graders don't test at all. So you'd be looking at PSAT 10 or the SAT, which PSAT focusing on the PSAT ton to get that growth, would set us up for success on the SAT. Trustee Liqui? That goal one includes some clear baselines and measurable student academic outcomes. So I fully support that focus and I thought that was a really good first goal. I hear what some of my colleagues are saying. I wonder if we could the way I understood this was that each cohort,
we wanted them to remain in their growth window so that nobody was slipping. And I think that's a good idea. Maybe we could add an additional goal so that we can stick with what you have here and then also add a stretch goal perhaps for PSA 10, like Trustee Alspa mentioned. Remember, PSA 10 PSAT 10, I believe, slipped last time. And and I thought I wanted to just clarify something because you mentioned there's no item analysis with PSAT. But I thought that we had learned that, there was some issue with geometry in eighth grade and an issue with,
algebra or something and the, which is what caused some of that drop with PSA 10. So I thought there was some level of item analysis. And that's how we just turned that out. I believe that, mister Cuzumana, who's not here tonight, was talking about what the the the majority of the test is testing and what we're offering in ninth eighth grade, ninth grade, and tenth eighth grade, ninth grade, and tenth grade, and what courses they're offering and what the content is to match up with what is being tested. But I don't believe that there's, item analysis that comes out of, like, our first attempt at what students take the eight nine.
Okay. I I guess I just interpreted what you were just talking about as a level of item analysis that was helpful to to help us out. I mean, again, I'm not I don't wanna speak for mister mister Cuzumano, but my my, in conversations with him, I will say that what what is happening is we're assessing what students are taking and how they're doing bounced against our classroom measurements too. Right? So that's why it's really important that one one of the problems and I don't mean this to be negative. Right? But one of the problems without an item analysis is that you were more reliant on our classroom based measurements,
our local assessments, etcetera, because, you know, our our our scores are going this way. We're in a really good trajectory right now, right, for PSAT and SAT. The issue is without an item analysis to really dive into that, we have to have another reliable measurement that we can bounce against to say, where are students doing well? Where are they not? So, that's just a that's just a challenge. It's an opportunity, but it's a challenge in regards to the education. Continue on the on the trajectory because we had fallen 85 points. We we rose up a little bit. So there's still a little ways to go because one data point doesn't make a
trend quite yet, but hopefully, we can continue on that path. And I like what you have set up here. I also like the idea of my board colleagues of setting a a stretch goal for one of the grades. Yeah. I will say that the range, just to be and then again, just to kind of clarify a couple of things, the range in which we're given is not only, right, where they should be, but you can see on the and I I brought I gave you one as an example to bring here. And I know you have all of the high schools that I gave you earlier in the week. That does include, right, how many people will grow incrementally this way,
like, over their typical and then some who would fall under because it's like a median score based on a range of so it does include some stretch, and I'm not trying to say we don't have to do a stretch goal of any sort, but I might stay away from doing all grades if the tenth grade is what something that's kind of what I heard thrown out there All I would say about a range is is if we're assessing whether the goal has been met or not, wouldn't it simply just be that the number the number at the bottom of the range would be the marker? So that as long as we just met the number at the bottom of the range, that's what determines whether it's successful or not.
So in that sense, including a range, you know, it it doesn't matter too much. It's really just the bottom number that matters. Right. You're you're correct. In terms of its measurement at the end. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Trustee Blank. So my recollection of when we set the goals last year was that it happened right after you had started and I remember the meeting and the conversation. We we were frustrated because we had had some falling test scores at the time. And I remember saying, like, can somebody you or somebody in your staff dig into this and figure out what specific, you know, areas are we having issues with?
And I thought that some of your goals the first year really honed in a little bit more on specific areas. And, you know, it's great. These are like total scores, but I don't see anything that's identifying a specific area in a specific place that we can hone in on. And so that's something I would have liked to see. Okay. And I'm just going to say, you know, because really out of your goals, this is the only one that is specifically academic as far as measuring. And, you know, when when I think about,
you know, where do we get the biggest bang for the buck, we often talk about students being able to read by third grade. And, so I'm just I'm wondering why when you were thinking about all the goals, you didn't choose something from third grade. Had you considered it? You know, what was the thought process there? Just because we keep hearing, you know, students can read that really affects them positively in all other subjects as well. Yeah. I think so last year, I had six goals. One of them was about our k two preparation, right,
and getting to that third grade, the read by third grade. One of them was honing in on phonics instruction and phonemic awareness. That going into next year and having their first year be hopefully, right, as long as there's no change at the state level again, having a new curricular resource, adoption and planning, doing the suppression development for teachers and them having kind of, you know, quite possibly whatever resource we go with, it could be half of our staff using a new resource, kind of wanted to take that off the table for what could happen. It could skyrocket our scores.
They could take a small dip, right? But us adopting the resource is the right move. I just figured that last year, I did something at the elementary level and I wanted to do something that was a little more career and college ready at the high school level. But again, if the board is interested in me having an ambitious goal at the for literacy at the elementary level, I have no concerns with it. Can I just follow-up? I mean, is your thought process then that as we implement a new literacy curriculum next year, that you would be putting maybe, you know,
kind of a three year goal out there of where the expectation is for any changes in I Ready scores for our students? I Ready or M STEP, I would like to see I would like to use I Ready, but M STEP is like a piece of triangular data we could use. But yes. Trustee Lecui? While I'm listening about the literacy piece, I know we have certain schools that have been piloting these literacy curriculums. What if if we had were to have a literacy goal, what if we focused on the schools that have already been using those resources and and measure the progress of those schools so that it's not people who are fully
using it for the first time, but people who have some familiarity? We we could do that. We could do that, but that wouldn't be identified in the first iteration of this curriculum resource till spring. So that would be I mean, it would be in theory, I hear what you're saying, practicality that would be difficult unless I mean So I understand, Juan, we focused on, elementary literacy last year that this I would naturally think we'd pick something to focus on secondary. I'm concerned about focusing on elementary literacy in a whole when we have a new curriculum. There's generally statistically something called the implementation dip,
where your scores go down just, you know, a little bit, but in the end, they end up higher because there's so much learning curve going on. With that additional stress on the system, I don't think that would be healthy. The timing of selecting School that is not in the pilot phase would be problematic for the time line. And I also think it's inequitable because there may be a tendency to resource the schools that we're measuring the goal on at a different level than resourcing the schools that are just kind of fumbling around in their pilot.
I'd like everyone to see resource at the same level. Not that I think you'd do something like that, but I think it's just, if we talk about the PSA 10 and we as a body want a growth goal, when correct me if I'm wrong, but when you see this range, the norm for the age or the norm for the grade would be in the middle of that range because this isn't like a standard deviation on each side of the average? Can you ask that question again? I'm sorry. Regarding the range on the PSAT 10, is that range like a standard deviation on each side of the average?
So like average the kids would they expect the normed average for tenth graders to be in the dead middle of that range? Yes. I believe that if you look at the trajectory that was given to you as an example of what for each high school, it takes into account that if that if if nothing happened, they wouldn't meet the lowest end of that range. Right? So in terms of what the standard deviation is, I don't know what that is from the college board. We just wanted to make sure that our students were either meeting or exceeding that that range.
Well, what if we ask, Nick to go back and talk to his team to see if there's something else that could be added here. I mean, I think we all wanna see us see our students meet that the predicted growth. I think we'd love to see them do better than the bottom end of that predicted growth. And especially since historically, almost all of the numbers were within there anyway, so it doesn't seem like it's that much of a stretch to say that they would be there. So maybe you could go back on this one and in January we could come
back and see if we can Sure. So just that's fine by me. Madam President, I just are we kind of in a consensus here that if it was a stretch growth goal from tenth to eleventh grade that feels like the right place for that? Because I don't want to go back and do a ton of work and research and data and then come back for another It would be ninth to landing on tenth. So it would be the difference between the PSAT 8.9 and the PSAT 10. Trustee Gupta? Yes. I was just going to say as long as that's when you talk to your
team and get their input on it, if that makes sense to them. Okay. And then is this just to have one goal? Well, that's that's that was going to be my next piece. Like, I think we want to still be within there but have a stretch piece to it. Madam President, could you just restate just to understand exactly what it is that we're expecting for goal one? I think Summarize. What was here, what he's proposed already along with a, a stretch goal. And the discussion at the table had been,
you know, looking at that ninth to tenth grade one, but that, I think think we were asking him to talk to his team to see if that made sense for them as well. To figure out what number to use. And which which, if ninth to tenth or if for some reason they're saying no, tenth to eleventh makes more sense. Okay. Yeah. This is already saying Class of 2027, so we'll have to change that, right? Well, we could keep this and then add. Alright. And again, I appreciate the feedback. This is why we do this, right? We have this in a public setting so we can all talk about what the goals will be for the district and for their superintendent.
Goal two? Okay. Student achievement data analysis. So, the goal reads 100% of principals will utilize with their staffs the RCS data protocol through the 2526 school year. And so even though that this goal starts January '26, we have, as we noted in year one of the strategic plan and now year two of the strategic plan, wanted to put a focus on, our data literacy as a as a as an organization, right, have some coherence around what do not only can we identify with the with the data we're looking at,
but what do we do with it next? And so this data protocol, which, you also have had access to for the past week, is, is something that we rolled out with our administrators and our administrators using this with different it's really important to to note this because I think there was a couple of questions regarding this. So a data protocol like this can be used in multiple settings. It doesn't have to be just with my third grade team in relation to mathematics. It can be used through the MTSS process. It can be used, by a department at the high school. It could be used across all departments or across all high schools with one department,
for example. The point is to when you when you're when you're looking at how do we improve, the issue is what data do we wanna select. We wanna make sure that it's not just linear data, that we're triangulating some data as best as possible. Right? We're not just using local assessments. We're not just using what we call the autopsy assessments, like MSTAFF, something at the end. But whatever we're doing that we're looking at data, what are we doing with the data, and then coming back to see has it been working. And so this protocol is becoming the you know, the goal is for it to become the fabric, this culture of of data literacy in the district.
So this data this RCS data protocol that was offered to you, is research based. We we kinda it's it's research based in terms of what are the steps, not taking up too much time for the staff so that we spend certain amount of time and minutes, at each of the steps and looking at the data and what are we going to do with it. And so, that was the purpose of this goal. And I have I'll take questions or any comments or anything else. Trustee Lecue? Lecui? For this one, I guess I'm wondering what baseline are we starting from and where we want to see that go so that we know whether we've achieved this goal or not.
When I've written back my feedback, I think that that's what I said And also mentioned that it might be helpful if we connect this data protocol with actual student progress or something because that would also help us see how the data protocol is affecting student achievement. Yes. So we could do that. We could connect to Trustee Lacoue's point. I could connect like this added goal that for the one that we just talked about in goal one and connect it to the use of this RCS data protocol and that'd be fine with me. That makes sense. Jesse Blake?
I guess I just don't understand that. So how do you know that performance is based on the data protocol? Like how do you prove the causation there? Yeah. Well, quite frankly, you wouldn't because there's other factors. You wouldn't think that that's the only thing that's causing a student to do well or not do well. But our our what we can control in our sphere of influence would be, let's look at what data is affecting the student these students, whatever that is, whatever how we connect it to the goal, and what have we done as a response to what we learned based on the data.
Right? What have we done and has that improved? That I mean, that's that's that's where we live in teaching and learning all the time because there are so many things that are out of our sphere of influence. Right? Student sickness, student attendance, how much, you know, reading if it was elementary, how much reading students do on their own, etcetera. There's a there's a host of other factors that that impact student success or not, but what we can control is what we're doing as responsive instruction. Trustee Alspar? I agree because it seems like it's not exactly the problem of it doesn't exactly directly relate to a cause and fact. Going through a data protocol is more an exercise in investigating and looking into your
data. And we do have student achievement addressed in the first goal. So I do feel like we've addressed that somewhere else. My question would be, you've said 100% of your principals will utilize this with their staff. What do you envision evidence of this success looking like? It's a great question. So as part of what we're doing, what we have started when I came here, doctor DeLuca and corresponding teaching and learning, leadership will meet with principals to not only do their goal setting, then amend your check-in,
and then with the final, their final meeting at the end of the year. And so as part of that, they bring evidence and artifacts to what we're asking them to do, and this RCS data protocol is part of what they're doing. So they could bring me evident they could bring us evidence of, them using it through an MTSS process, them using it through grade level team planning, agendas for PDs, etcetera. So there's I'm not I'm not worried about the evidence or artifacts to come back because that's I mean, to come back to this, just quite frankly, we I really want this to be part of the culture. So building it,
that's that that principals are using it with staffs in different ways, not that we're not prescribing it for one specific grade level, etcetera. We wanna become the culture of looking at data. So part of me kind of wants to ask the board to to pause on that thought about this as is, but in addition to tying it to something would be fine as a it would be fine with me. But I wanna be very clear that when you wanna rebuild culture, putting parameters around it immediately sometimes deadens the the growth, and I and I don't want to see that happen.
Did I miss what evidence you would provide at the end? Yes. So we could, principles would give us, cases in which they've used this protocol with, like, examples of and every building would be able to provide that. So, I could give you samples from each grade level or from each level, elementary, middle, and high school, or, I mean, for every building at that point because if that's what we're asking them to do. Just one second. Trustee Gupta, did you have anything wrong? No, thank you. It was already addressed. Okay. Trustee Liqui? Alright. So I just I I believe that a a data protocol culture is more of
a tactic to achieve a goal than a goal in and of itself, is what I would say. If data protocol is not meant to impact student achievement, then I'm not even really sure why we would be doing it. So just to go back to what we were talking about before, I assume we're we're already doing some sort of data protocol already right now. So as it relates to this goal, my question just goes back to what baseline are we starting from then? Because we're already doing this to some extent. How do we know that we're doing more and that it's making a difference? If you don't wanna use student achievement to try to measure that,
then what do we wanna use in this place to just figure out if we've improved on something that we're already doing? Madam president, you don't wanna let him answer? Well, I want to say I think he already gave you the answer. He distinctly said the part of this goal is to apply coherence to how the data is evaluated throughout our school system. So coherence is really the goal. It's making sure that whatever that protocol is, it's coherent from building to building.
And for me, that is enough of a goal. Well, what baseline are we starting from? I think my assumption would be and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Superintendent Russo, that we don't have the coherence needed to make sure that from building to building to building that we're evaluating the data as it relates to student achievement in a consistent manner. I totally appreciate what this goal is trying to do and I understand it. Does that mean the individual buildings are not reporting out to central office to Coherence.
Data. Look up the word coherence. I would say I would say if we're in a if you're in a district is this on? Okay. I would say if you're in a district that's, you know, that has one single building, then you're talking about something different. I think we're I I wanna keep our eyes broad and our lens broad on this because while some schools might be using data protocols, Some schools might be using them to some extent. Some might be using them all the time. They were different across the district. And we have a lot of shared staff, and we have a lot of people who go from one building to another based
on staffing issues and etcetera. And we wanted to do something that was, again, organizational enhancement that wrapped around if you taught at building a or building b at the same level that you would have the same experience in terms of what are we looking at data? Are we using are we looking are we naming the data that we we need? Are we looking at it in an efficient manner? Are we being responsive in our instruction? And then we test that out. Is is did this work or not? Right? And that could take different cycles as well. It's it's, it's it's not as, like, in a box of,
like, six weeks, check it, six weeks, check it all the time. It can be, which is a good progress monitoring tool to check about every six weeks whether it's working, but it depends on what it is. Right? So a teacher might use this, during writing. They might use it because they see six or seven students, that are that aren't doing well in this unit in math in fifth grade. A whole department might use it at, Stony Creek High School, for example. So really, this is about, to go back to something Trustee Anna says, just about coherence across the district of using of identifying the data that we wanna
use and is it the right data to use, then what are we gonna do with it? Alright. Before I call on Trustee Alfa, I just want to let everyone know we've been talking for over thirty minutes and we've gotten through two goals. So just to keep that in mind, not this is important, but, just just as we're trying to identify how long this meeting is going to go. Trustee Alsba? So, I understand Trustee Luculli's interest in finding a baseline. Like give me an example, are 30 of our buildings using this or 50% of our buildings or 90% of
our buildings using this? But I think it's a little bit more of a nuanced question because they may be using a data protocol, but not this one. Some areas of the building may be using different data protocols. Some are using this one, some are using different. But I think so the baseline is very nuanced to get to. But I like the goal that gets us to 100%. So we're going to create this universal culture of looking at data where we'll apply that across all of our grade levels and have that cohesion. So I think that's a really good idea.
And I would like to know like a baseline, but I think it's a nuanced question that's hard to just tack a number on. Yep. Madam President, does this mean that the baseline we're starting from now is that we actually like, when you say data protocol, I guess I'm just imagining that that means, like, a system in which we analyze data. And we're assuming that people analyze data to some extent on their own levels, but don't have anything we don't have any plan that's coming from the top for how people should be going about doing that. And am I correct in in listening that am I correct in listening that what
this would mean is that superintendent Russo intends to propose a plan where where everybody in all the different buildings are gonna go through a system of checking their data, analyzing, reporting out. There will be meetings scheduled at different points throughout the year or something to ensure people are doing it. And that's sort of the plan of if we're carrying out, this data protocol is how we will measure it. Because right now, our baseline perhaps is zero. Like, we aren't doing this. It's not a system wide thing that we're doing as as a district. And that is the baseline is that we don't have it,
but now we're gonna see how we do with whatever plan is created. Is that the idea? So I I I did follow I I believe I followed the front end of your your statements. I I would just say that as a superintendent for the last year and a half of this district, I would ask the board I would put that question back to the board of what has has there been a data protocol ever established or initiated prior to me coming here because I think that would give you your baseline if there was or wasn't. I am not going to say that everyone's using it at a 100% or everyone's not no one's doing data digs.
That that's not what I'm what I'm saying. What I'm trying to come back to, and I'll I'll stop talking after this, is that we are trying to build coherence around a large organization. Right? Let me let me rephrase that. We're trying to build coherence throughout a large organization, not around. And so building the culture of what is, you know, what is responsive instruction look like based on data that we can see. And it can be used at different ways. Right? It's not it's not that I'm only gonna focus on my students who are struggling or I'm only going to focus on, my students in in ninth grade who need an extra challenge,
you know, they're they're flying through algebra. It it's it's something that we can use to say, if this fits over here, it should work over here as well to look at what I first want to identify what it is, is it working, is my instruction creating the intended outcomes or not, etcetera. Okay. All right. Let's move on to goal three. 85% of year two deliverables within the first within year two of the strategic plan will be met. Please know the goal is always 100%. Make the goal of 85 was based on what happened last year. Last year, we had outside impact to our strategic plan in our organization where,
MDE still probably hasn't given us a list. Is that true, Ms. Hempton? Right. So we're still waiting on a list that they said that would happen probably in 2022. Sorry, so I couldn't hear the echo. Could you just repeat that? We're still waiting on a list for early literacy that the state still hasn't given us. I think they decided that in 2022 with MDE. But having said that, the goal is always 100%. I said 85% because it sounds reasonable given that there are outside influences that could impact our ability to complete all 19 plans for this year, but happy to discuss. Trustee Blake?
So when I read this one, my concern is how number one, how are we going to judge this? Like there's 19 of these, but some of them are very small and some of them are very large. And, you know, to me there's like at least three or so that are really vague and transformative. And if you just go down the list and say, well, we did 16 of them, but they were we didn't get the three biggest ones. I don't think that would be a success. And, you know, I did have the thought, like, 100%? Isn't that the goal? I get that things happen. And but I don't know. I would have to know how we're going to evaluate this 85% and it can't just be like checking the list.
There has to some are more weighty than others. And I would almost rather there might be like five that if you get those would be better than all the other 14. So Right. I would say to Trustee Blake, you're not wrong. You you are not wrong. There are pieces of the strategic plan that are more operational and not as transformative, and then there are other plans in that in the year two strategic plan that are very transformative. Right? I would say that if we picked that if if the if the charge back to me is to go for five or six plans that I believe are the most transformative and and do a plan there,
I will say that one of those is going to be the early literacy piece. And so making that a 100% is not something I'm willing to do because I'm not going to let the MDE impact my ability to run this organization. I question whether this even needs to be a goal because, as part of the evaluation tool itself, the expectation is that we have a strategic plan and it's being implemented and you're being evaluated on that in that regard. And I have the same concern that, Trustee Blake mentioned as well. So personally, I don't know that this is even needed here.
And, if we wanted something with the strategic plan, I'd almost rather it be something forward looking. Do you know what I mean? Like what we want in next year's projects and timing of that or, you know, how those are set up with measurables and outcomes. So for me, that would be more important than just this 85% that, doesn't take into consideration the weight of the different, plans that are out there. Trustee Lucui, did you have a I will just say that I I support what you're saying there,
and I would prefer having a goal that is is measurable. And I I don't think that this one is needed since we already have this strategic plan. And actually, those 19 plans, they don't have measurable goals attached to them. I look back over those again. It it's really completion of tactics again. Yep. So I would prefer to see a goal that is a measurable goal. So I'm hearing that unless there's other voices to this, that this goal is not needed. Is that if that's what I'm hearing. I'm also hearing that this is not measurable, which I would argue is 100% measurable.
But I think what you were trying to say that's measurable in terms of student achievement? Well, I mean, to say that you completed 85% of the tactics that we've listed in the strategic plan is a measurable thing to say. But what I'm saying is that the district's goals that that the board approved are not measurable goals in and of themselves. They're completions of tactics. They're check the box kind of items. But, yeah, 85% of year two deliverables. My immediate reaction was, why is it not 100%? But honestly, I don't think that this goal is going to be,
it it's not useful since we already have this the district's strategic plan in place anyways. So consensus around not having it? Well, I think not having it or changing it to something else that's related to the strategic plan, but on a forward looking basis for new plans. So recommendations to the Board for Year three by a certain date, for example? Date with measurable outcomes, you know, something along those lines that would put more, teeth into the strategic plan and
allow the board and the community to understand exactly what's gonna come out of that. K. And goal four, would increase the number of pre k enrollment in '26, '27 by 4%. Some of the questions that came out of this when I when I rendered the draft to the board, was how did you create how did you get to 4%? That was one of the questions was can I see, you know, who how many students have there have there been in years past that data was provided to you, and it's broken down by three year old tuition, four year old tuition, four year old GSRP? Obviously, the for for those in the community that may or may not know,
GSRP became free for all families this year. One of the things we have to that the board needs to understand in this goal is that Oakland Schools renders us different thresholds and timelines for for registration. So if you are, and Kimberly can probably speak to this more fluently than I can, but, the general idea is that when when when spots open up and seats open up, Oakland School says these are the this is the criteria, and that criteria changes throughout the year. So as reason that I chose 4% was it seemed reasonable, based on 12 to 13 more children in pre k,
knowing on 12 to 13 more children in pre k knowing that, we want to bolster enrollment as much as possible, talking about brand, you know, brand recognition and marketing and getting getting getting it out there that there are chances for other folks outside the district at times to come into GSRP, once seats are filled here. Seemed like a a goal that would help, hopefully, increase enrollment. If people are liking what they're what they're experiencing in pre k, they might wanna purchase a home in Rochester. And I also wanted to see the success of our early childhood education center,
be front and center for me and for the board moving forward. And that was the impetus for the school. But again, we're here to discuss. And if and if that's not something that we want to do, I'm open to that as well. Trustee Blake? I'm sorry, I feel like I'm ripping on all your goals tonight. But, I do have a question on this one too though because I read an article in Bridge that was talking about the pre k increase statewide, and it said that there is an explosion, that statewide, this should this should this should this 21% increase in pre k. So it seems like people are learning about the program. They're figuring out that it's a good thing,
that it's free and that it's not just low income or whatnot. And so that naturally across the state, people are coming to this. So 4% is lower than what and and there might be reasons why we can't do 21, but 4% is lower than what I'm reading in other places. And also, what are we are we doing anything specific? Or is it just we expect this is going to happen because of of demographics and the way things are going? Or I you did mention marketing. I heard that in there, but like is there something you're going to do to cause this?
Or because it seems like it's just going to happen. It almost seems like a gimme, but maybe I'm Yeah. I would I would argue the gimme. I really would because there are different communities that are taking advantage of GSRP at a higher rate because it's free for all, and there are others who still we still have families who want to pay for three and four year old tuition preschool with free options. So I would say the gimme is not a game changer here in Rochester. That's not based on anything but anecdotal data and actual data of how many people are paying for three year or four year old preschool here.
Right? So I chose 4% because I felt like around, you know, this this is where they'd be attending. And the options for, students across the district, if they can't get into their home building, they can be offered something here, and some people don't take advantage of that. They say, I don't wanna make the drive. I don't think that that's, even from one of our closest buildings. We've had a few noes, which is okay. That's the parent's choice. But I thought 4% was doable, but still stretched us to get more students in the programs. Are we going to create capacity for all the children who want to do it?
Is that one So that's a that's a very nuanced question because all the children who want to do it, it depends on those open schools thresholds of when they open seats. So that would be that's the optimal goal, Trustee Blake, that we yes, if students want we want to do everything we can to get them in, but there are some obstacles to that process. Trustee Ospa? I had two questions. With your 4% increase, and I agree with the 21% increase and this is an exploding area, but you also have to make sure you're licensed in every room for the right
age and you have the right number of kids in the room and you have the right staff. So it's not there's a little bit more challenges to bringing up the enrollment. So my first question would be that 4%, do you feel like we have the license room, the staff capacity? What would it take like if all of those 4% of those kids showed up? I understand it will vary what grade if it's three year olds or four year olds. Do we have that capacity? We have the physical capacity. We do not have we would not hire staff until we knew that we were going to fill these seats. So to answer that question,
we would we believe we can have the capacity for staffing. We don't have it now because it would be we'd be overstaffed at that point. Okay. And then my follow-up is, I know GSRP, they were piloting a five day a week. So are we doing the four day a week model or are we doing the five day a week? Ms. Hempton, do you want to speak to that a little bit? Are we doing a four day a week or five day a week based on the things you know from open schools, etcetera? Sure. So we are currently running 12, Great Start Readiness Program classrooms. And of those 12 classrooms,
two of them are working at the five day program, and the remaining are at the four day program. There are some nuances there with staff compensation, with creating the space as required for things like home visits, professional planning that's embedded within, the GSRP requirements, as well as some of that, professional learning. I didn't say professional learning. It's professional preparation, but also the PD that surrounds those classrooms that are, not at district discretion, but are statewide requirements of the program.
And so the five day a week approach is appreciated by some families, although we've had some that really have preferred to be housed at the location with the four day option, but definitely something that we anticipate continuing to be expanded, if not a part of the GSRP requirement as they continue to transform what those offerings bring to young people. Yes. I definitely think the trend will be going to five day GSRP. And I understand there's that whole prep where if you're four day, you get more prep. But if you're five day, you have to do visits,
you have to do all the documentation and the amount of time and who can watch the kids during prep. So I was just thank you very much for that information. That's what I was interested in. Trustee Lecui? A couple things. First, the question that I sent ahead of time too was, about the external marketing piece because it says we're gonna develop marketing plan for internal and external residents. And I asked, why are we marketing to external? Because Rochester is not an open enrollment district. And I think you mentioned that, the idea that maybe parents would end up moving to the Rochester area if they like the preschool program.
But our school age population has been increasing quite a bit every single year. We have a lot of students in district. I would think we would wanna focus our resources on marketing to internal residents who are already here. But it it just seems sensible to do that rather than Yeah. I think we're way off topic of my goals. But if you if that's what you the goal is for getting students into GSRP and other tuition based programs that we offer here in Rochester. So knowing that for GSRP,
if you cannot get into to a to a GSRP classroom in your district, you will go you will find they will place you in other opportunities around. So if there's, I'll use an example that won't fit. If someone in Madison Heights, can't get into GSRP, but they have we have open seats here, we want people to know that we have open seats here. So I I I also think that that also brings funding that helps educate a child. So I don't have a problem with this goal, but if the if the board wants to see me in a different direction, I'm a 100% open to it.
I I I just think if we're doing our own our our own marketing, it makes sense to focus on internal. I I get that students can come in from other districts just for the GSRP, but those students won't be able to use the the schools after preschool. So it makes sense to focus internal, but I would suggest. But, the other part is, are we still focusing on having the three different flavors of preschool? Because we've got the three year old, the four year old, and the GSRP, or are we more interested in focusing on GSRP? The 4% goal,
it looks like this is just for across the board. Mhmm. We're just looking for an increase that we don't care which version of pre k they're going into. That's correct. So so the idea is we want to keep the three different flavors, and we're just curious. The the community has spoken on their need for that or their want for that, I should say. So, yeah, we're I don't think there's any plans to change. Okay. So I do notice on the numbers that you provided us, like, for four year olds, I see what happened with the four year old tuition. Like, in 2425, we had a hundred 27 four year olds, and then that number dropped to 31 for this,
for 2526. And then for four year old GSRP, it went from 84 to 204. So it clearly shows what's happening there. You know, people are thinking, why do I wanna pay tuition when I can get this for free? So do we want so that's sort of some of the relevance of me asking the question in the first place is do we want to to keep focusing on four year old tuition rather than just saying GSRP is what we do? I mean, I think the answer is the same as before. There are families who prefer it and have said that out loud. So I I wouldn't wanna
take away offerings. Okay. I'm just going to comment to we had a I still feel that 4% is a fairly small number. We had a 12% increase from 24%, 25% to 25%, 26%, which from a total number standpoint just brought us back to what we had in 22%, twenty three percent. And if we're actually going to do some more marketing this year too, it seems like, you know, hopefully, we'd be able to get our three year old numbers back up as well as grow some of the others. So I guess I'd like you to consider that piece as well,
just that that 4%, Absolutely. I can consider increasing the 4%. I just wanna say that, like, to your point, Madam President, that we went down or we went we came up 12%, I think you said 12% or 1312%. Yes. In the years prior, we've gone down as well. So there's not really a trend there. There is a trend that now that we offer GSRP, hopefully that number continues to go up because of the people taking advantage of it. But there were other things that impacted how many students we had total, like in '24,
'25, '23, '24. We were down to 294 students in 2324. So trying to be at least reasonable and still increase over time, was the goal there. But I can recon I can look at it. All right. Are there Sorry. Trustee Lecui? One more quick thing about the marketing. I was just looking this up. Isn't it true that Open Schools does the marketing for GSRP? Oakland Schools does market for GSRP, but they place students they they they open the gates, for lack of better words,
of when your income threshold can apply for, to register for GSRP. So we would just want to for people in our surrounding communities to know that we have available space from the onset so that people when they when they register, if they don't get accepted, know that we could open more classes. And as the year goes on, right, people don't only have children and register in in August, for example. So they might wanna register in January. And we wanna make sure that there's that people know that we have open seats at that time, if we did. My only point in bringing that up is because we don't control the marketing piece.
Oakland Schools does. So they would be the one marketing, and that's how people would find out about our GSRP seats is through Oakland Schools. For us, we will be marketing for the other pre k programs we have. So it's just another point that I would use to say, let's focus on internal marketing. That would be my suggestion. Okay. Can we move on to new business? All right. We have 10 items on the agenda tonight under new business. First, we have a recommendation to add four new classes to our high school curriculum, including I think two that would count as dual enrollment.
And, Ms. Hempton, I think you're going to be talking about this one. Thank you, President Butel. This evening, yes, we are very excited to talk about a few opportunities upcoming, that we'd like the board's approval for, related to the recommendations in your board packet. We're going to get started first with, a recommendation from our math department. They have been hard at work for the last several months, and we're gonna transition to some seats at the board table while they do so before I introduce them. This course series that we're about to discuss,
connects with our high school course offerings in math and, expands our dual enrollment opportunities, for seniors I'm sorry. Not for seniors. Strike that from the record, for mathematicians, who are are ready to extend their math, course sequence beyond the way we're currently structured. They're gonna speak to the nuances of this, the why, to the courses, some connections that are corollary to the strategic plan. And, we're we're quite excited about this this evening. So I would introduce Jill Gumbs, the RCS math coach Taylor Antoske, our RCSMTSS consultant Sue Rapp from Adams High School Craig Rizzi from Sterling Creek High
School and Stephanie Little from Rochester High School who coordinate our curricula in the area of mathematics across those three high schools. So team, please take it away. Thank you, Kimberly. Thank you, board. Our high school math department is glad to be back. We're excited to share a proposal that we have, specifically supporting our RCS dual enrollment for high achieving math students, with a during the school day college course offering of Calculus three and Differential Equations. For this presentation this evening,
as you can see here, we will share the identified needs to support our high achieving math students with a Calc three and Differential Equation course, so a Calc three course, and an additional differential equations course that will be during the school day. And we will also spend some time sharing the benefits, the multiple benefits that this proposal has for our students. So we want to make sure that this number is set up for just a one little moment. And these are numbers from across the district. You'll notice that we had in 2022, twenty twenty three,
eighteen students between three high schools dual enrolled in Calc three at either OCC or OU. And then 18 students combined took differential equations or linear algebra, which would be a math course post Calculus three. And then you can see the numbers for the the next few years as well. 22 took calculus three, and nineteen took either differential equations or linear algebra, and then nineteen and seventeen the year after that. And then the numbers in fall twenty twenty five are just the numbers of students who are currently enrolled in one of those courses. So you might want be wondering why those numbers are a little bit lower than
the 36 that we're noticing this year. But again, that number is due to the fact that some of these students who could have a potential to dual enroll were not able to because of many different conflicts or situations that arose. And then this is just a refresher on our math pathways here. For students who enroll in honors geometry in eighth grade, you can see the progression there of honors algebra two in ninth grade and then AP precalculus honors in tenth grade. And then a majority of those students would go on to calc one and calc two in their junior year, which again leaves that gap senior year that,
we would like to try to fill by adding these courses as a dual a dual in dual enrollment option during the school day to eliminate some of those barriers. So as Craig just mentioned, there are, several logistical constraints sometimes for students who are trying to dual enroll. One of the primary ones is just the mismatch in when college courses open and when our students can register for dual enrollment. But in addition, many of the classes for dual enrollment occur outside of the school day, which leaves our students really having to choose between some activities that are really sacred to them and some dual enrollment experiences.
Right? A lot of our students are high achieving scholars, are athletes, they're a part of clubs, they have leadership roles, and many of them either have to choose between those experiences or dual enrolling or they're traveling as far as campuses like Farmington Hills, and taking really late evening classes and then reporting to their high schools early in the morning because those are the only courses that are available to them. So our proposal for the twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven school year is to offer the following courses within RCS as dual enrollment courses taught by an RCS teacher and accredited by Lawrence Technology University.
Semester one, we would offer Calculus three, and semester two, we would offer Differential Equations. These courses will be open to all eligible RCS students and tentatively, housed at Soony Creek High School due to the projected enrollment and certification of the current high school Soony Creek High School math teacher for the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven school year. This proposal supports RCS high achieving math students because it is a dual enrollment course that is taught by an RCS math department teacher during the school day at an
RCS building. This proposal aligns with the strategic plan. It provides an academic pathway for high achieving, high ability students. Lawrence Technological University Partnership provides multiple benefits, that Taylor will talk to, talk to us about in a moment. It is advantageous for students in earning college credits, through Calc III and differential equations in a tuition free dual enrollment partnership. This is within the school day on RCS campus, so that provides equitable access.
And this is similar to partnerships that other like districts, similar to Troy and Birmingham, currently offer in partnership with Lawrence Tech University. Alright. So when we were meeting with, the representatives from Lawrence Technological University, we were really blown away at just the robust offering that this partnership would provide. So first of all, Lawrence Tech provides all of the accredited curriculum. So the same material, textbook, online platform that a student would take if they were accessing this course at Lawrence Tech would be replicated for our students. And it includes all of the materials,
the resources, students would not need to purchase or the district would not need to purchase additional textbook or resources. That would all be included. There are also some really robust offerings for the teacher. Lawrence Tech would appoint a math liaison that would partner with our math instructor. And that person acts as a coach and a guide and meets with with the teacher regularly just to align the experience, both for just the instructional, pedagogical approaches and also for alignment, because it is an accredited class. Lawrence Tech also has an abundance of, like, outreach opportunities for students and families. So they have various Tech has a Promise scholarship. So for any student who takes a dual enrollment experience through Lawrence Tech when they're
in high school, if they choose to apply and then take their undergrad at Lawrence Tech, there's a Promise scholarship. So that student would have a $19,000 annual scholarship for, the rest of their undergrad experience that they continue at Lawrence Tech. So when we think of also our partnership with our CTE experiences and looking at the longevity, this experience is more than just the high school experience for these students, but but it really provides a pathway should they choose to continue at, at Lawrence Tech for their undergrad. So the college credit that is offered by Lawrence Tech for these courses would be
for MCS 2,414, which is calculus three, MCS 2,423, which is differential equations. And these are transferable to most universities, including the University of Michigan and to Michigan State University. So in addition in addition to the many benefits for students, there are also cost benefits. So for those who are watching or just as a reminder, when we have a partnership with any entity in which students do enroll, Rochester pays a portion of the students who are pays a portion of the students' tuition and that is based on a formula that's set by the state budgeting process
and it's also based on our foundation allowance. So there's some costs on the screen, that you can see here. So when a student is kind of shopping around and determining where they are going to dual enroll, there are several factors that come into play. Where what are the courses? What times are they available? Is there availability? Is the course open? And then also the cost. So traditionally, and in the past in our dual enrollment history, many students have gone to OCC, because that amount that Rochester can pay typically covers the full tuition amount. And then over the past few years, as the dual enrollment, experience has been more desired and more students are seeking the opportunity,
some students have sought Oakland University. But then when we have that that cap, that threshold, where you can see here the last semester it was $801 the tuition for a for credit course at Oakland University is actually much higher. It's it's over $2,200 So families have an out of pocket expectation if they are going to, do enroll at Oakland University. Now there are some scholarship funds available. We're thankful to the Rochester Community Foundation that has established that. But again, that doesn't support the wide range of students who this opportunity could serve more equitably.
So this proposed model would have no out of pocket cost tuition for students and families because we would negotiate a rate with Lawrence Tech. And our current, negotiated rate that we're working with, which is similar to what our like districts are also paying, is $300 per semester course. So in not only bringing this opportunity within our school, we would actually be paying less than we are currently paying other partner entities, with whom our students are dual enrolling and then there would be no out of pocket responsibility for our families.
So a win win for all. As Jill mentioned earlier, this opportunity does align with our strategic plan, specifically Learning Plan three, which is to explore academic opportunities for high achieving students, and also Teaching Plan 11, which is to implement and assess responsive instructional practices. In addition, there are additional benefits as well. It will strengthen the connections to our STEAM opportunities, which is plan 10, by developing the partnership and access to collegiate and industry mathematics and engineering and tech studies and also prepare students for high contexts. So in summary, the benefits to students include the potential to earn college credit for two additional high
level math courses. The scheduling of these courses during the school day makes dual enrollment accessible to all students regardless of their after school commitments. And the partnership with Lawrence Tech University opens up opportunities for the RCS students through scholarships, field trips, and other resources. So thank you for considering this opportunity for our students this evening. What questions or clarifications might we have for you? Trustee Ospa? First of all, I think this is wonderful. As a former robotics coach, I know we had a lot of students that'd be like, I won't be here on Tuesday night.
And that's when we had our team meetings. So there were a lot of leadership opportunities that were limited for these students because they were going to OCC or OU. I really like the idea of pulling this into the school day. I had two questions. The one I'm thinking of, the student was actually taking classes at, CSS. So I'm wondering, are you planning on expanding this to other partners? And also, I know that you said due to enrollment, you'd be housing this at Stony Creek. If enrollment supported it, would you be is is the goal to get this in all of the high
schools? So to address your first question, this partnership is exclusively offered through Lawrence Tech. We've we tried to partner with Oakland University and OCC, and they really did not offer anything that was anywhere close to this. Lawrence Tech is really excited about partnering with districts because they want to continue to build those connections throughout the community and obviously encourage students to pursue a degree at their university too. So that's I think that's kind of the skin in the game for them. But they they are bending over backwards to work with us. And when in talking with other districts who currently partner with them, they have nothing but great things to say about the whole partnership experience.
So we're really excited about that. And then to address your other question, which was Is it going to be eventually with enrollment at all of the high schools? Yeah. Ideally, that would be the goal. Again, it depends on enrollment and it will go through the whole process in terms of scheduling and all that to see which students are interested in, which buildings they're coming from and all of that. But it would be great to be able to offer this at all three high schools at some point in the future. Even for students who are at a different high school, some of these students may have bussed as eighth graders over to a high school class, so they understand that there is bussing transportation already running in our district to make
sure that all students can have access to this course during their school day. And then this is not to say that a student can't still partner with one of those other universities. Right? This is to bring an option for students into our home base. But, of course, it's up to students and families to talk with their counselor and their academic advisors to shop to see, you know, because an experience in another school may be a better fit for them. So this doesn't discount, having those partnerships as well. Trustee Liqui? Well, you answered my question about the busing with other high schools, but I just wanna say, like, well, way to go to Lawrence Tech for reaching out to districts like this,
and way to go to all of you for Connection. I only ever made it through Calc AB, so I was just benefited from this. I had lots of friends who would have, and my husband would have. I remember, you know, he went to o u, I think, for one of those night classes. And, you know, even the level of teaching that you get get at the college level is so different than from a high school teacher because they're really more focused on research, whereas high school teachers are focused on the actual teaching of it. So I can see how students would really benefit from something like this. Tuition free, college credit, it seems like a really positive thing.
So thank you very much. Trustee Annas? Yeah. I want to reiterate what my colleagues have said. And I know that you all came to the SPC, the Superintendent Policy and Curriculum Committee, and presented. And I was so impressed then, and I'm so excited to vote in favor of this. And, that partnership with Lawrence Tech is so key to this, bringing it internally into our district. But and I know I said this in the meeting but, you know, I think that really should put Oakland University, who is right in our own backyard, on notice. So, O U,
out there, you should be listening and be as competitive as Lawrence Tech, because it's in their best interest to do that as well. And I'm just so glad to see a university like that partnering with us. Thanks for all your work on this. Alright. I don't see any other questions right now. Are you also covering the business and, what was the other, cybersecurity? No. There'll be another clear Another group. We just want to have a motion. Alright. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate you all the information. Thank you. I'm doing it all at once. Next, we'll be transitioning, to look at, proposal for an AP cybersecurity course and an AP business and personal finance course.
And bringing us that information this evening is Karen Malsbury, who is our director for Career, Technical and Focused Education. Good evening, everybody. Thank you for this opportunity tonight, to talk to you about an amazing two courses, AP Cybersecurity and AP Business and Personal Finance. So I'm first going to start with the AP Cybersecurity pathway. On this first slide, you can see a graphic outlining our current computer science pathway. And AP cybersecurity would function as an adjacent pathway,
not replacing any existing course but expanding student opportunities after AP Computer Science A. This creates a more flexible and responsive computer science sequence that better reflects the realities of the modern tech force. So, you might be asking the question why AP cybersecurity. And it really addresses a critical workforce need. There is a national shortage of cybersecurity professionals. And this course would help prepare those students for high demand,
high wage career field alignment to both state and national priorities. It also creates an RCS provided option instead of relying on dual enrollment. Currently, our strongest next steps are AP Computer Science A is dual enrollment and we have many students that take advantage of dual enrollment opportunities at OCC and Oakland University. And I feel like, Lawrence Tech is somebody I need to speak to, too, about that opportunity for our students. But having AP cybersecurity in house will keep our students on campus with our teachers
aligning to our instructional goals. It also fully aligns with STEM and CTE expansion efforts. We plan to apply for a cybersecurity CTE program of study, which will align the college board curriculum with state CTE competencies, which are on the next slide. It concludes real industry preparation, which would mean that the students would, leave the course with an industry standard certification, hands on cybersecurity tools and labs, and embedded work based learning opportunities. This combination supports both college readiness and direct credit career readiness.
The other thing is we we do have to apply to the state of Michigan for an approved program, for AP cybersecurity. And regardless of what school this may start at or maybe all three schools will depending on, enrollment, we would apply for each school to have this state approved program. And then we can move on to AP business with, personal finance. This course actually will sit within the Business Administration, Management and Operations CTE program of study, which we already have in our districts at all three high schools.
It would provide another path way within the BAMO, Business Administration, Management and Operations Pathway. And the benefits this would give for our students is a college level rigor with potential for college credit. Like all AP classes, AP Business helps students demonstrate academic challenge and can earn them college credit depending on exam performance. Stronger college and career prep will come from this course, especially in the world of entrepreneurship, business decision making, personal and business finance,
budgeting and risk analysis and case study applications drawn from real industry context. This is a robust career exploration class where students gain confidence navigating financial decisions, skills that are relevant whether they pursue business, careers or not. And again, with any CTU course that we offer at Rochester Community Schools, we always have the opportunity for our students to earn certifications and that critical work based learning piece where they're working alongside industry partners. So in closing,
these additions, AP cybersecurity and AP business with personal finance, are aligned to college and career readiness, CTE and STEM expansion, workforce needs, student interest and opportunity and RCS strategic vision for advanced coursework. We believe these courses will meaningfully expand opportunities for our students and strengthen our district's academic and career pathways. I appreciate your time, and I'm here to answer any of your questions. All right. Board colleagues, questions? Trustee Ospa? Again, I think this is great that we're offering to the students.
And, one of the things you said that really is important is doing the industry certs so that they get something that is not just a Rochester thing. One of my own children got an industry cert in CATIA, which is a CAD program. And that ended up him getting a very highly paying job to help pay for some of his college. So just if you could briefly, do you know the industry certs they'd be earning? With the, cybersecurity, I think it was on the fifth slide, if I remember rightly. There has been some conversation about and it's gonna be off the top of my
head. Is it there? Maybe not. I apologize. It's not gonna come right now, but I will get back to you. But there is a solid certification that has been embedded into the course and will be given. With the business side of the house, they're looking at an Oxy certification with personal finance. That's something they're considering. But we already offer Microsoft Office Communications and Entrepreneurship in our BAMO courses already. I had a couple of questions. On the AP business with the Personal Finance, isn't Personal Finance already embedded into the econ class that's required?
That is correct. And thank you for asking. All our students now from ninth grade onwards are taking personal finance, which is embedded in the econ class, which they take in their eleventh in eleventh grade. So this would not be taking away or duplicating, that credit. They would already be receiving that credit. This would be extending the personal finance information that they'll get in this course. Okay. So this is not a duplication of that. It's something completely different. Okay. And then, how many teachers will be trained in these classes?
And do you have any idea of the costs associated with adding them? And how many students are we expecting in these classes? Yes. So we're hoping to train at least one teacher because when we apply for a state approved program, we must make sure the assurance of us teachers will be trained in College Board and any certification practices that we need to give. So we're planning on training one teacher in AP Business and Personal Finance and in AP Cyber Security. And we have some very eager teachers and they would be with us tonight, but I told them to stay home because I can take care of this for
them. But they are super, super keen about this, which is really great. And College Board offers a summer institute during the summer, which is about four to five days long, and it's all online right now. And it was about a $900 enrollment fee for that summer institute. So we plan on sending our students sorry, sending our teachers to that. And then you asked about enrollment. Well, it's the game of scheduling which will start in January and February. And now our teachers are very keen about marketing. There's been some buzz on the street already.
Some of the students are figuring out that this is coming. My own daughter was a little bit annoyed that this came a year too late because she graduated last year with AP Business and Personal Finance as she's now studying business in college. But yes, there's a lot of buzz on the street. The kids are really, really excited about both offerings and opportunities. So it's all really going to come out in the numbers. And once the numbers come out after the scheduling, season, then we will figure out where these classes will take place and if we need to bus our students to those opportunities or not.
Okay. Thank you. Welcome. I am not seeing any other questions at this time. So thank you for bringing both of these classes forward as well. I think they sound like great opportunities for our students. It's quite exciting. So thank you again. All right. Well, at this time then, I'm going to ask, is there a motion to add Calculus III Differential Equations, AP Business and AP Cybersecurity to the course listing for the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven school year? So moved. Moved by Trustee Annas with support from Trustee Gupta. Is there any other additional discussion on these courses?
Alright. Seeing none, all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. All right. That's a six-zero vote. The motion passes, and these four courses will be added to the course listing for next year. So thank you to all of the staff who is here tonight, to tell us about these exciting new classes that are coming. Thank you, President Bussaud. May I just close by thanking the team, for their research and advocacy for our students? These diverse learning opportunities are absolutely going to continue to serve the students of RCS well and prepare them for incredible things ahead.
So thank you very much to all of our teams and their efforts and time with this work. Next, we have a request from Mr. Russo to join the school research nexus. Mr. Russo, did you have anything to add to, what was in the packet? No, madam president. If there's any questions, I'll take them. But the memo in the packet outlined, what the purpose would be and what the ask is. Thank you. Alright. Is there a motion to approve the superintendent's membership in the school research nexus? So moved. Moved by Trustee Annis. Is there support? Support from Trustee Gupta. Is there any discussion on this?
Alright. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a six-zero vote and, membership in the School of Research Nexus has been approved. At this time, it is 08/2004. Would my board colleagues like a short break before we go into the budget amendment? All right. We will take a short break then. Please try to get back here in five or six minutes. Mr. McDaniel. All right. Thank you, Madam President. Is this on? There we go. All right. So yes, this is the General Fund budget amendments. I want to first take you to our budget planning objectives.
These are the same year over year, right? We want to balance an equitable spending plan that's sustainable, promotes growth, minimizes impact on student programs, is team based and and that there's ongoing communication. We'd like to remind the Board and the community that the teachers' contract that we adopted, was it over a year ago now, was intended to spend down some of our fund balance. So looking at our budget calendar, this is kind of where we've been. In June 2025, we had our Truth in Budget hearing. At that time, we didn't know what the school aid budget was going to be.
We didn't get that budget until October 7 when Governor Whitmer signed the school aid budget. And we're here on December 8 bringing you a recommendation, that does not include many actual allocations that we might have had, should the governor and the state had approved a budget earlier. So for example, we are awaiting AIR 31AA, Mental Health, Safety and Security, allocation. We can still opt out of that, grant should we decide to do so, per the last meeting. In addition, we don't have a career and technical education grant fund yet, an actual allocation.
We anticipate that's going to be about $300,000 and we've considerably budgeted about $255,000 because we still have the same time period that we need to spend that money. And then Section 41, bilingual funding, that allocation came out last Friday, and that's currently estimated at $470,000 which is a lot more than we budgeted. It's almost $300,000 more than what was budgeted in this amendment. So we'll wait to get the actual award letters that Mr. Russo receives from the state to make those allocations, but I would anticipate a future budget amendment probably in February or March 2026 that
should hopefully accommodate these three specifically and maybe some additional funding. So looking at what happened with General Fund revenue, there's a few things that are that happened and one of which is going to really show up in all the expenditures. So if I can take you to the state revenue, kind of that middle line there, Uaal retirement, that's money that's a pass through for us. So the state gave us about $5,000,000 more, to give back to them. So the way that we have to give that back to them is we allocate a portion of everybody's salaries.
So when you look at the expenditure side, you're going to see a benefit's typically an increase throughout the budget wherever there's a district staff member. What also makes this a little bit confusing is local revenue appears to increase as well, and it does. That's additional property tax dollars based on increased home values, but isn't really tied to anything other than our state aid payment, right? There's a calculation where a portion comes from the local property owners and then the rest comes from the state as that allocation changes. And actually, that number will probably go down as people ask for abatements and those are granted.
But right now, there's a shift in local revenue from the state revenue bucket. We also have updated allocations for the grants that we have, which is 31A at risk and 22L district transportation costs. We've updated our current allocations for federal revenue With our final expenditure reports being due at the November, we will expect to budget additional money for those grants when those open up probably in January or February. And then in transfers and in other financing sources,
that is really our special education county millage. So PA18, we were able to get fortunately, with how this the Oakland Schools allocates their money, they had an overage. So they have distributed additional money to the school district and really to all the county based on having some additional funds there. So and then I'll just draw your attention to the pie chart. Most of our revenue comes from the state. I'll just briefly touch on the next slide. This is all of our expenditures. We're going to go into detail on each of these.
So moving on, this is basic programs. So based on some feedback from SBOC, next time, I think, we'll add what short description of what this actually is, but this is general education instruction. This is summer school, this is pre K. And you're going to see, we've updated our staffing projections, which means in June, really in May when we started the budget amendment, there's been some turnover. For example, for me personally, we had a Director of Financial Services in the business office. That person has moved on to another role. So she was completely budgeted in our overall budget, and we'll get to that slide later.
But we're going to have a replacement, a new salary, maybe new benefits, things like that. So you'll see overall in this category that salaries went down, but benefits went up. And that's because this is the bulk of our employees, right? There's 50 almost $58,000,000 budgeted here. And that's where that Uaal is first going to show up and show up the largest because that's the largest pot of money. We've also had some increases in our health insurance costs, some estimated increases. So that is going to show up here as well because this, again,
is the bulk of our staff. These are all of our general education teachers. And then the other portion that I want to mention is the supplies of materials. That went up about $1,500,000 And that was due to some timing things of, we had hoped to spend down some 35 funding in the 'twenty four-'twenty five school year, didn't get all those purchases made and accounted for. So those purchases were made still allowable by the grant period but came into the 'twenty five-'twenty six fiscal year. The next slide is what we call added needs. And so added needs are students with additional supports needed.
Special education, our Title I programs, our 31a at risk programs are here. We also have our CT programs, per the State Accounting Manual out here. So not a lot to talk about here. Again, you'll see an increase in benefits, retirement, health insurance. And that's going to be a common theme as I go through each of these slides. So I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time. If anybody has any questions, please feel free to ask them. Outgoing and other transactions here, this is a reduction in the special education center based programs that are tuition based
that are withheld from our 31A excuse me, our PA-eighteen payments. So that's just an adjustment based on what those payments are showing. Our next area is adult and continuing education. This is an area where all of it is almost grant funded. This is 90% or more funded with federal funds and state funds for adult education. And these are aligned to what is budgeted for both of those grants with a very small portion coming from the general fund. Moving on is next is pupil support. So this is social workers,
psychologists, speech and language pathologists, OTs, PTs, guidance counselors, teacher consultants, things like that. Some increases here based on current staffing. Again, you see that benefits increase. You do see a reduction in purchase services. So this is a good thing because that means we've been able to reduce the contracted staff members. So we've been able to hire some of these positions. So you'll see a reduction of about $420,000 there. Next is Instructional Staff Support. So this is where Mrs. Hampton and Mrs. Gauthier are budgeted for in their teams. The teams that spoke on the new high school courses,
they're budgeted here. There's a lot of Title II funding grants here as well. We've updated some staffing projections and allocations of 31A at risk funding. This is an area where that 31A, we've allocated money so that our expenditures match our revenue, but we are still yet to try to determine exactly how that money is going to be spent. And so there's somewhat of a placeholder in salaries, as well as supplies and materials while we determine how to spend that money. Moving on to General Administration, that's really the Board of Education, our superintendent and our deputy superintendent.
So there's a few adjustments here based on, again, that benefit showing through and some adjustments of purchase services really kind of being swapped between buckets and going to other expenditures. School administration, these are our school building offices. So our principals, our assistant principals, the secretarial staff that supports them. Really updated staffing projections here and increase in the retirement health insurance. Next is business support. That's our business office team. Some savings here, right? I mentioned earlier that we're without a director, so there's some adjustments there.
At the amendment, I hopefully we will have a director hired at that time and we'll do the same thing that we do for all of these different employee categories. We'll update it to current staffing levels, right? So in this example, we'll have a new salary compared to what our previous structure made. Maybe it's the same but probably different. And the same thing with their health benefits, their retirement benefits, things like that. Next, this one's self explanatory on the description: Operations, maintenance and security. So there's some adjustments throughout this budget. We had put in some placeholders for our operations and our maintenance staff.
We pulled some of that money back because we haven't been able to fill those positions through December. So we don't need to allocate a full year's worth of salary. So that's why you see some decreases there. We've also moved some of that 31 AA money around between purchase services and supplies and other areas of the budget. So some adjustments overall to operations, maintenance and security. And more to come should we get that 31 AA money, we'll need to allocate that throughout the budget. Pupil transportation is our next slide. This one is really the kind of the easiest one to budget because this is
a contract with Durham School Services for the most part. The increase here is related to athletic transportation. Durham has been short on our bus drivers. So last year, we did a really nice job of being able to support a lot of those athletic trips that occur while our elementary kids are going home from school. And because we focus on getting those kids home from school, that means we've had to contract with outside services that are more expensive than our Durham team to cover those athletic trips. And we've allocated additional money, to get through that.
Durham is working on getting staffed up. We're pretty close to having every route covered without having to borrow drivers, but we still need that spare factor so that we can help reduce these. So that's an area that we're going to keep an eye on and may need to increase again when we do the next amendment based on how the winter goes. Central Support. So this is like Mr. Murphy, Human Resources, Mr. Frankovic in Technology, Ms. Scheidler in Pupil Accounting. That's where some of these positions are budgeted or what this is for. There's also some grant money here with $3.18
and some of the Syntegix software and license fees, things like that. We've also reduced some salary here due to, I think, a position or two in technology that was changed and adjusted. And the capital outlay is really related to the 3,188 grant. Support services. This is for almost 90% or 95% athletics. So these are updates to our ADs, right? When we adopted this budget in June, we had two openings for ADs. We have filled those openings. One was here at the meeting tonight. So updating salaries,
updating benefits. We've also are adding boys' volleyball as a sport. So we've allocated salary and benefits for those coaches and then some supplies and materials, some other expenditures for meet fees and things like that. Our next slide is community services. So this could be our police liaisons. This is our school aged care program. Not a whole lot of adjustments here, just some minor things to update on staffing. Looking at the next slide, Building Improvement Services is what had changed. I just noticed that there's some math that's a little off there. Dollars 331,000
was a reduction of Building Improvement Services. This was adjusted due to the 31A grants. I'll have to look into why that says 352,908 So all in all, what does this do? When we get to the next slide, you'll see that there's about $234,500,000 in revenue estimated right now. We know that amount is going to increase with future allocations that I mentioned. That results in about $238,400,000 in expenditures, which still is a use of fund balance of about $4,000,000 but less than the $6,600,000 that was budgeted in the initial budget before we really had state aid.
So that brings us to about $18,600,000 or excuse me, dollars 18.6% fund balance of total expenditures. And then finally, I pulled this slide from May 2025. So these are some of the things that we were thinking about and concerned about, right? When will we get a school aid budget signed into law? That happened October 7, but we're still living with some of those repercussions because we don't have some of these allocations that we would have had by now. What impact will changes in Washington mean for changes in Michigan? I left some question marks there because we still don't necessarily know.
You know, there's potentially another government shutdown that happens in January. One thing that they did do for us was they were going to fund school meals, so they've allocated that. But we're not sure and still trying to find out if they haven't allocated money for that staff. So because there's a pot of money there, it's good for us to know that that money is coming at some point. We just may not get it while there's a government shutdown because we don't believe right now that there's anybody being paid by the federal government to actually send that money out. We've submitted our count. So that's been submitted to Oakland Schools. That's better than what we budgeted for.
So that's good news. But there's still Section 25E adjustments that will take place through February. So that count number will change a little bit. Historically for us, it's been less than 10, sometimes an increase, sometimes a decrease. So there's fortunately not a huge change there. But historically, we also have typically a little bit higher enrollment in the spring than we did in the fall for whatever reason. Retirement rates, they increased. Inflation, supply chain issues, and then however we create some operational efficiencies,
which may mean we look at how we do things a little bit differently. For example, our behavior support model changed this year than it did last year. And I think we'll continue as a cabinet team and the leadership group to monitor what's going on with the district and make adjustments where we feel like we need to make adjustments. I did a lot of talking. How many or what questions do we have on those updates? And maybe I'll go ahead and just take, is there a motion to adopt the resolution to amend the General Fund budget as presented? From Trustee Allspa. And is there support on that? From Trustee Blake.
And then any questions that, trustees have. Trustee Alspa? I think you put together a good presentation. But like as you noted and you got feedback from SBOC, it would be nice to have a sentence description of each of these areas. I don't want to know like what people are in it but maybe what position. And it sounds like you're going to incorporate that feedback. So I think that would help us understand a little bit more what area we're talking about. All right. Oh, Trustee Lecui? I noticed on Slide four, it said that there is increase in state per people funding in current enrollment.
What do you mean by increase in current Yes. So, what we had budgeted for both in number and total dollar amount is higher now that we've submitted things than it was when we did that initial budget. So we budgeted $10,000 per pupil, it's $10,050 We budget to be down about $150 FTE and now it's about $110,000 So we're up $40 FTE approximately from when we budgeted. Dollars approximately? We're down $110 Feet from what we budgeted in June, yes. I'm talking about just last year. Like if you're looking at what the enrollment is doing Right.
Didn't we budget for 100 and originally, we budgeted for 150 less students than we had in 2024, 2025. Yes. And we ended up instead of being down 150, we're only down 110. So we have 40 more students that we are getting funds for than what we budgeted. Okay. Because I know the other item that we asked for was what is the actual student enrollment count. And he told us it was 14,296. And that is 179 fewer than last year and 50 short of our projection.
When we were keeping track of this during the summer, it was projected at 14,346. It's actually $14,296 Yes. So I think I understand which document you're looking for from or looking at. So in comparison, like one example that I can give is Mr. Cuzumano is not here, but our virtual campus at the high school, really secondary level, shifted to VLACC. So last year, those students that were in the v or that were in the Rochester virtual campus would have shown up on that number. This year, those students are still enrolled by Rochester,
but attending virtual, Learning Academy consortium don't show up on that number because they're not in our buildings and in our count, but not in our programs for planning purposes. Are there any other questions? All right. A couple other just things like I got some answers to some of my questions, ahead of time, which was really nice. You mentioned answers to my question about the fund balance. And then there was also I had asked about this category called transfers in and other financing sources and because it was about $18,000,000 And some people in the community might not know what that means either because I
asked what is transfers and and other financing sources. And you said it's almost completely the PA 18 special education millage received throughout the county. I just thought people might be interested to know that we have something like that. So that's that was one of my questions. I also asked placeholder amount. We haven't identified placeholder amount. We haven't identified what we're spending that money on yet? No. I think we had this we've had to spend that money to comply with the grant time lines. So I'm not exactly sure what those, 35 J purchases were, but I believe they are all
based on the what is it, Ms. Simpson III, UFLY, Orton Gillingham, letters? I'm forgetting the others. Sure. Those dollars don't represent one vendor or one purchase, but wrap up funds from what was anticipated for year two budget with the 35 J Fund, which needed to be spent down by September 30, I believe, of 2025. So it included expansion of UFLI material and included expansion of Orton Gillingham morphology professional learning and resources for classrooms. It also included stipends back to teachers for some of the professional learning that they've
been engaging in over the summer and through the early fall and needed to be expended by that time. The 35 grant did not allow, the timing to match up with the state's anticipated literacy resource list, and no carryover was allowed at that time, to my understanding. Okay. And then the other question I had asked, I asked, about the reduction in the contracted positions. And, you mentioned some of these staff changes that we've had, and I understand that now. But I was wondering, the reduction in contracted positions, were those just simply reductions?
We just got rid of those positions or were those employees converted into full time employees? I think in general, when it comes to those positions, they were speech and language, psychs, social workers that our intent is to employ those as district staff members. We can't always, do that. So when there's an opening and a need, we meet that through contracts. And I think, we actually just signed one or in the process But overall, we've been able to hire additional staff as district employees and we're able to reduce the amount for contracted through third parties.
Okay. And then the last one, that I was just thinking about was when you said the increase in athletic transportation, I was just curious what that's referring to, transportation for whom? Yeah. That's transportation for athletes at our high schools. Oh, for high school athletes? Okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you. All right. So at this time, we have a motion to adopt the resolution to amend the general fund budget as presented. All of those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. That's a six-zero, vote and the, budget amendment resolution is approved.
Next, we have a recommendation to approve drainage easements and assessment agreement at Delta Kelly. Mr. McDaniel, I know we had a lot of information, but do you have anything to add to this? Thank you, Madam President. I would just add that this is trying to fulfill the intent when this drain was completed in 2001, to make it part of the Oakland County system, which is their desire for all drains in the county. So there's three easement agreements that would need to be signed to do so.
And they would be responsible for the actual bidding of the projects, but there would be a portion of us allocated by the county to cover the costs of those, with these easement agreements. Excuse me, I can't talk right now. Would be shared with the Trout Creek subdivision as well. So, there's three easement agreements, listed there that would need approval and then some additional documentation, for the board. All right. Now I'm just going to ask you because when I went through it, I have it listed as one drain agreement and two easement agreements.
Yes. It would be the Delta Kelly drain detention and ingress and egress easement, the North Shore drain easement and the drainage easement for the Delta Kelly assessment agreement, I believe. So this is a mouthful on this, motion. Is there a motion to approve the Delta Kelly school drain agreement, the drainage and detention easement for the Delta Kelly school drain and the drainage easement for the North Shore drain, as well as authorize Nicholas Russo to sign the agreements.
So moved. Moved by Trustee Annis. Is there support? From Trustee Blake. My only question on this, Mr. McDaniel, I think and I think you had already answered it, is that we don't need to approve any funds at this time because once we sign these, that will all go through, the Oakland County Drain Commission. The Oakland County Water Resources. Water Resources. Okay. Thank you. Were there any other questions on this? Trustee Licui? I had a general question because, obviously, we need to fix this drain. There's a shared expense.
There were a lot of documents to kind of sift through. And there seem to be a lot of open issues regarding this drain. So I was just wondering, what's the worst case scenario and what's our maximum exposure? Yes. I mean, as far as dollar amounts go, it's hard to say, right, because they need to, get that drain up to standards. I will say they have been, one to work with the school district, right? For example, they got estimated pricing, they went out to bid a few years ago. There was a vast difference between the dollar amounts that came in with the bids. The district asked that they go with the lower one,
which was I think maybe $150,000 or $200,000 lower than the competing bid, and they were amenable to that. So I can't necessarily speak to the cost of upkeep on that drain, but that's something that the Water Resource Council will manage kind of on the district's behalf as we've now added this drain to their system or upon approval would add it to their system. All right. Any other questions? All right. Then all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed,
please say no. That's a six-zero vote. And the agreement and easements and the authorization of Mr. Russo has been approved. Let me find my page here. All right. We are moving on to a recommendation to approve Phase II of the Filter First program. It looks like there will be a total of three phases. This phase provides 38 additional bottle filling stations and 125 in line filters. The cost of the project is $753,822 and will come from both the general fund and the sinking fund.
Mr. McDaniel, did you have any additional information to add? Yes. I think it was Sheridan Cabinet no, Again, can't talk today, I'm sorry. Sheridan cabinet notes. We had originally intended to do this in two phases. But due to the cost, we were adding a third phase to complete it. So the original intent was to try to geographically place additional bottle filling and drinking fountain stations, so that the distance between any of them were more in line with each other. Unfortunately, that led to a lot more costs than we expected.
So at this point, we've removed some of those that are more costly than others. We're moving forward with this as Phase II and we'll look to a Phase III to get the remaining buildings and stations needed, to meet the law. All right. So is there a motion to approve the filter project phase two as presented at a cost of $753,822 So moved. Moved by Trustee Gupta with support from Trustee Annis. Is there any other discussion on this? Trustee Licuy? I did notice that the lowest electrical bidder wasn't selected,
the RH Electrical Services. And I was curious why. I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head. The other question that I would have just in general because I noticed this with the last several work recommendations is I just wonder how the allowances are determined because they seem there seems to be a consistent pattern where allowances, and the Centimeters fees make up a large share of the total cost. And sometimes, it's even more than the construction work itself. And I was just wondering if we could get a brief explanation about how those
allowances are estimated and what process we might use to make sure that the fees are appropriate to the scope of the project. Yes. I can make a note of that and include an update in the future addition of cabinet notes. I've asked stuff like that before with other projects also. I remember talking with Mr. Musio. All right. Any other questions? All right. All of those in favor of approving the Filter Project Phase two, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. I'll abstain. All right. So that is a five zero one.
All right. Next, we have a recommendation to approve the energy performance contracting with TRRAIN. Mr. McDaniel? Yes. Thank you, Madam President. So this is a very early part of the process should we decide to go for an energy bond in the future. But essentially, this is contracting with Train, which is a nonbinding contract to do some research basically, work with our teams, come up with some projects and some estimated savings. And then there would be future awards, contracts, bonds, things like that. A lot of work to do down the road,
but this would kind of be the first step to see what that amount could be and what projects could be funded before we really did anything beyond that. There'd be additional board approvals to do the rest of that project. But this is the kickoff. All right. Is there a motion to approve the energy and sustainability client agreement with Trane? Moved by Trustee Gupta. Is there support? From Trustee Alspa, is there any discussion on this? Trustee Nakuy? No? That's alright. All of those in favor of approving the agreement with Trane,
please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. That's a six-zero vote and, the agreement is approved. 9.7 is a recommendation for approval of Reuther and Van Hoosen Tempering Coils. Mr. McDaniel? Thank you, Madam President. I don't think I'll talk much about this one, but the recommendation is there and we request to make this award to improve the heating at Reuther and Van Hoosen. All right. Is there a motion to approve the Reuther and Van Hoosen tempering coils as presented for $268,425
coming from the sinking fund? So moved. Moved by Trustee Annis. Is there support? Trustee Blake. Any discussion on, this project? Seeing none, all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. That's a six-zero vote and, the project is approved. 9.8 is a request to approve exhaust ventilation to the three chemical storage rooms that serve the chemistry classroom at the three high schools and includes creating a dedicated chemical storage room at Adams. Mr. McDaniel, did you have anything to add?
I would just, refer you to the memo, requesting approval. All right. Is there a motion to approve the science room project as presented at a cost of $158,618 coming from the sinking fund? Moved by Trustee Gupta. Is there support? Support by Trustee Blake. Is there any discussion on this? Seeing none, all of those in favor of name? Item Did I miss my name? No. Agenda item 9.9 is a board handbook and bylaw update. This is a second reading. We had significant discussion at our last meeting.
Trustee Gupta, did you have anything to add? Well, I would just add that, because it was brought up, in the previous discussion, a question about what the process would be. It's actually already laid out in our current language in the following section in 1.51. There's already a process for this. So, I would just refer my colleagues to that. Of course, it would be at the board's discretion if we were to change that at some point, but it is already there. All right. So is there a motion to amend Section 1.5 of the handbook and bylaw 1,001
as presented? So moved. Moved by Trustee Annis and support from Trustee Gupta. Is there any other discussion on this? Trustee Lecui? Very well. As we discussed before, this bylaw change moves us in the wrong direction. It takes us from each trustee can request existing documents to only the board through the president can make those requests. And that means that individual trustees, especially anyone in the minority, could be blocked from seeing basic district information unless they make a FOIA request.
And even then, should a Trustee be expected to pay exorbitant FOIA fees for materials we're legally responsible for overseeing in a volunteer role? I make $0 doing this just to remind everyone. Should I really be paying lawyers to redact information that shouldn't require redaction nor be withheld from a trustee in the first place? I keep hearing accusations from board colleagues that I'm submitting that I'm submitting voluminous requests and that I'm wasting staff time and resources. And you might have heard me ask before when they make these kinds of accusations,
what do you mean by voluminous? How many? Can you provide examples? And they'll usually say something like, oh, I'd have to go back and look. But it's been it's just been so many. I know it's been a lot. They don't answer that question. So I thought it's time we start looking at real evidence. I analyzed all the questions and information requests made over the past ten weeks since the October. And here's what the record shows. I asked about 20 questions, okay, for ten weeks. Some were multipart to the same issue. President Butel asked about 15 questions. Trustee Lausanne asked about 17 questions.
Trustee Alsbaugh asked one question. No one else asked any questions at all. And how many One second. Trustee Alsbaugh, what is your point of order? She's attributing to a number to me that she has no idea because she is not privy to all my communications in all forms. And while I agree with that, when she's finished speaking, then you can address that as well. Not gonna be able to. All right. And how many information requests were there? There were five total. And now in response to what Trustee Alsba said, I thought the best way to go about this,
something that is easily verifiable for everyone in the community, is let's look at the superintendent cabinet notes. That shows our questions. It shows what we ask. It's foible. Anyone can double check me on these numbers. So how many information requests? Five in the last ten weeks. President Butel made two information requests. I made three. One was I asked for a working link to the online video archive because I noticed that several board meeting videos were missing. Another was I asked for a legal opinion and research that was referenced on an invoice. And another one was I asked for any written expectations or procedures we use when
estimating FOIA requests. I haven't gotten that one. Five weeks or five requests in ten weeks is not voluminous. It's not even unusual. In fact, it's minimal for a district of this size. We can't responsibly oversee a two thirty million dollars district if we're only allowed to see what the majority pre approves. Real oversight should require timely access to documents. I believe doing this is a mistake. It's not going to make anyone's work easier. It'll create more delays, more confusion, and certainly more time wasted. The majority of the Board is going to do what they will do,
but I would urge us not to tie the hands of any trustee now or in the future. Trustee Blake? Sure. I we've talked about this a lot last week, so I will not repeat myself, but there are a couple of misconceptions that I want to make sure that I dispel. Number one is that all going forward, all trustees will get the same information. This is not a situation where we're gonna get things but she's not gonna get things, or this person isn't. We're all gonna get the same information. But if you want to talk and it sounds like she does want to talk
about the specific types of requests I noticed she started her thing in October because she didn't want to include September when she made the 34 voluminous requests. And these are the types of requests that she makes. All this is supposedly needed in order to evaluate our superintendent. All employee discipline data going back three to five years, every person, every staff member that was investigated, every staff member that was suspended, what building were they in? What actions did they take to lead to this?
What was the outcome? All enrollment data going back three to five years by each broken down by grade, broken down by building. What staffing did we have across our entire building the last three to five our entire district the last three to five years? Broken down by every building, every grade within the district, every single position, every single salary for every single person in every single position. What class sizes last three to five years, broken down by grade, broken down by building. A long term facilities management plan for every expected facility update in our capital project
for the next five years. A public relations and communication plan to show how the district measures strengths and families. Those are like six out of 34. Each one of those would take an incredible amount of time, and I could go on, but we don't have all night. These are not things, to my understanding, that we have sitting in a PDF that we can just send an email. Every one of these would require multiple different places to get the information, to put it together, and to produce it in the method in which it has been requested.
So some of this is interesting stuff. Some of this I might want to see. And if so, make a request and we'll talk about which of these things do we think are important in order to practice oversight over this district. But you can't tell me that a person who's been here for a year and a half, that you need to know five years ago what employees were disciplined in order to evaluate that person. It doesn't make any sense. So these are the types of things that make that lead us to where we are today, because this is just
data from all over the place. It cannot be easily synthesized, and this is the type of thing that leads us here. So if there are some of this that you think is necessary for our role, make the case. Some of it, maybe we'll ask for, but this is just make work. It would take weeks and weeks and weeks for our superintendent and our staff to do this in the manner in which it was requested, and this is not a first. So that's my response on that. I'm sorry, Trustee Alsbaugh, did I see your hand earlier? Okay. Trustee Lacoue. Well, I better respond to that one.
So first of all, I didn't ask what employees were disciplined five years ago. That's absurd. You completely misunderstood the the list. So the first thing that you should do is, if you'd like to see what I actually asked, send a FOIA request for the email thread that is specific documentation requests for Nick's evaluation. And if you do that, you'll see that the board president essentially sent the full board a message. And she said in September, she said, send any and all information requests to me now that you wanna see for the superintendent's evaluation.
So when I get a message like this, I think to myself, okay. Now the onus is switching a little bit. You know, typically, you'd think that the superintendent would you know, he brings the artifacts to show why he did well on all the 35 to 40 different indicators we have on his superintendent evaluation. But But it's been switched a little bit to board trustees better request documentation that relates to those different indicators. So I was brainstorming. Okay. What are all the different possible documents that could relate to lots of these different indicators? I don't know which ones are being tracked and which ones are not being tracked.
But I was thinking about different school districts talking with other board colleagues and other districts. What are some good things to ask for that align with the MASB superintendent evaluation tool? And if you if you FOIA request that email, you'll see that I correspond everything to indicators that are on that evaluation. Did I expect that the 34 pieces of information and these are this is information that should already exist, already compiled throughout the entire year anyway, not new reports. Right? So those 34 different documents did I expect that every single one was going to
exist and was gonna show up? No. That wasn't my expectation. I was making a brainstorming list for the superintendent who said you better send this to me by September 30, knowing full well that if I didn't, if I showed up to a superintendent evaluation and later said, well, why wasn't this included? My board colleagues would jump down my throat and they would say, well, you never asked for that. So how dare you bring that up now? Point of order. She's attributing motive to other people. That okay. Thank you, trustee Elsmar. Okay. I'll I'll refrain from doing that. But the point is that's my motivation.
My motivation was I better cover the bases. I'm gonna make this brainstorming list, and we'll see what comes out. I knew that not everything was going to be provided, and I didn't expect it. But it was all things that I thought these are items that would be tracked, that would provide sufficient evidence to show that indicators were met. And that was the idea behind those requests. So the reason I started in October is because I wanna show you what an average day to day type of a situation looks like because I did that because of a specific request made by the board president for 30 for,
for every item I could think of for the superintendent evaluation. It was not like a day to day type of thing, but my understanding is that the accusations made against me are that I'm making crazy kinds of requests all the time. So I'm just showing you that making three reasonable requests over the course of ten weeks is I mean, actually, I should probably be doing a little bit more than that. But I I ask for things as it comes up. I don't try to be unreasonable. I try to be very reasonable and focus on my duty as a trustee.
Madam President. Trustee Ennis. So I just wanna, clarify, that our colleague just, reiterated that she has a duty as an individual trustee, which is true. We all do. But when we come to sit at this table, we are one body, and we speak with one voice. So for an individual trustee to position themselves in a way in which they feel they are due information, and the majority of their colleagues do not agree with the request, that's a problem. Because as an individual, you don't dictate what is supplied by the district.
That is the board's request. The board operates as one body. I just want to reiterate that so that the public understands that. Not one individual can dictate to the superintendent or the district what is to be done. The superintendent is the one and only employee of the board, and they are directed by the board. So I just want to clarify that, because we seem to have a really, I guess, a lack of understanding on that issue. And lastly, I want to make the point that
trust is hugely important in this role as trustees. I know. It's funny. I know. Somebody's snickering about it. And trust leads to transparency. And but when you have someone who is constantly asking for information in which the majority of the board, the six other individuals that were also duly elected by the taxpayers, don't agree with, then that's a problem. And it's not necessarily the body's problem to fix. So some introspection on this would be really, really helpful.
I call the question Madam President. Madam president, it's not appropriate to call the question. You would have to be recognized. I call the question. And quite honestly, Trustee Annas, Trustee Liqui has already spoken twice. I would like to give anyone else who wishes to speak the opportunity to speak. And if not, just take the vote. Trustee Alsbaugh. I just want to correct the record and dispel the, if anyone got the perception from the remarks that Superintendent Russo did supply us with a Google Drive of documents And this request from President Butel is if we wanted
additional. It was not presented in the way, you better tell us what you want by September 30. President Boutel asked us if there was anything additionally, but Superintendent Russo did supply a lot of documentation towards his goals and towards domains and items in his valuation. I just don't want us to cast aspersions or motivations on anyone. Trustee Blake? The other thing I wanted to say is to talk about this idea of who's asking questions and who's not asking questions.
And the implication is that she's asking all these questions, but the rest of us, we don't care. We don't ask any questions, we don't, we just kind of stamp everything. And she's talking about one way of asking questions, which is submitting questions, to Mr. Russo that gets answered in the superintendent cabinet notes. I almost never do that. When I have a question, I either ask it to him when I'm at a meet at a meeting where he's at, I ask it to him at the board table, Occasionally, I talk to him on the phone. And I ask questions. And all everybody here asks questions. If you want to know who asks more questions than anybody I've ever seen,
President Butel. Get in a meeting with her and it goes, I mean, respectfully, it goes on and on. She asks a ton of questions, but she does it in a respectful way. She does it in a spirit of, you know, inquisitiveness. She's not trying to gotcha. She's not trying to come up with material for her next op ed. She's not coming up with material to send to the Mackinac Center. She's trying to actually get an answer in a way as a collaborative piece of the team here to move the district forward. And I have never had a problem getting any information.
I try to be reasonable in the information that I ask. I try to make it pertinent to something that we're dealing with. And so everybody up here asks questions. It's just about how you ask questions, how reasonable they are, and how are they connected to something that ties back to our students. Alright. So, the motion is to amend section 1.5 of the handbook and the bylaw and bylaw 1,001 as presented. All of those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed,
say no. No. That's a five-one vote and the, those items will be updated. Moving on to 9.9, we have a recommendation from Oakland County School Board Association to approve two proposed new resolutions. One is in support of nonpartisan school board elections and the second is supporting the full funding of EarlyON Michigan, an early intervention program for infants and toddlers with disabilities, developmental delays or at risk for delays due to certain health conditions. Is there a motion to approve the proposed resolution as presented?
So moved. Moved by Trustee Annis. Is there support? Support from Trustee Gupta. Is there any discussion on this before we vote? Alright. Oh, Trustee Licui? All I would say about this one, they're just resolutions. But, the first resolution did you explain what these are about for the public so they know? Yeah. So the the first resolution the reason that they don't want local school board elections to become partisan is because then communities are gonna see that school boards are, like, 80 to 90% dominated by one political party.
And I just find it funny because if you think of any other branch of government working like that, it would make plenty of people upset. The truth is local board elections have unfortunately become very partisan and it's difficult to win unless you're actually already part of this part of the machine, part of the status quo. And meanwhile, the State Board of Education is partisan and I wonder why that is. That said, I'm not sure making local boards partisan is the answer. I don't one of the things that I found compelling that I don't hear people talk about much, and maybe it's because it really doesn't affect many people perhaps,
is anyone serving in the military, for instance, who might be very effective school board members would be blocked from running if school boards were partisan. And I don't like the idea of that. I know of some I I know of I've heard of people in that position, so that's one reason I maybe wouldn't wanna do that. But, ultimately, I would wanna abstain from that first resolution. The second resolution is very pro student and pro special education and, I would be in favor of that one. Are we voting on both of these as a block? We are because that's the way they've been presented to us,
so it's a all or nothing. Well, I'll just explain that if I had a choice to vote on them separately, I would abstain from the first one. I would vote yes on the second one. That said, this is a resolution and resolutions don't really have power in them anyways. So I'll just go ahead and vote yes on this because it doesn't matter that much to me. I did just wanna, indicate on the nonpartisan school board elections as, Trustee Lacoue indicated. It's not just those who are serving in the military. It also impacts, many federal employees who,
many are on, boards across the state, who would no longer be able to hold those positions if it became a partisan, election. So, at this point, all of those in favor of approving the proposed resolution, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. And are you abstaining or No. I said I would vote. Yes. Because it doesn't matter that much to me. So that is a six-zero vote and, the resolution is approved. All right. We're moving on to additional comments. Item 11.1 is additional comments by members of the Board of Education.
Each trustee has three minutes, and there is a timer on the Smart Board for your reference. If you run over that time, I'm happy to ask the board if they're willing to extend it. Trustee Licui, did you have any comments tonight? Sure. So the board went ahead and they did exactly what I thought they were gonna do. They wanna try to restrict individual trustees' access to information. I'll go ahead and respond to three of my board colleagues because I didn't get a chance to do that earlier. So, Trustee Annis, I would what I would say to you is you you mentioned the Board speaks with one voice and you're right in the sense that the Board speaks with one
voice through its votes. That's the way in which the Board speaks with one voice. Otherwise, we do have our own opinions. We are supposed to advocate for those opinions and the diversity of abuse is what makes the board strong. Also, any of us should be allowed to see existing district information. I'm being accused of dictating something, but I'm not dictating anything. I'm not dictating that anything new be created. And if we're talking about trust, the way to build trust is through transparency. Let people see what's going on. Anyone can share their opinions. I hear,
you know, people mentioning op eds and stuff. Yeah. I've published op eds. That's fine. I'm advocating for my opinion. I would encourage all the rest of you. Go ahead. You can per you can publish op eds too. Go ahead and promote your view. How about all of us can see the same information, and all of us can share our opinions about it? Usually, a diversity of views will work like this where they'll sharpen each other and the best ideas can rise to the top if you allow the conversation to happen. Trustee Alspa mentioned that, oh, well, Mr. Russo provided a lot of documents at his evaluation,
so it was unreasonable for Trustee Lacoue to ask that. In September, we had no idea what was going to be provided. I asked that question. If you FOIA that thread that I mentioned, specific documentation for Nick's evaluation, you'll see I asked President Butel, do we know what he's providing yet? No, we didn't know. So that's again, I'm making a brainstorming list. That's why I did it the way I did it. And Trustee Blake is talking about how, you know, it's not that you're asking. It's how you ask it. You know, if you're if you're nice or if you're more polite, then you'll then you would get things like I do over the phone or in
meetings. Well, I'm not permitted at these behind the scenes meetings anymore. I don't get phone calls. I ask questions in a way that are public so people can see that I'm asking those questions. So and I and I thought that was probably the best way to, talk with you about this because that's what people can actually look at. It's not about how we ask questions. The point is anyone should be allowed to see the information, existing public information. And most people who are paying attention and who are watching board meetings will see
that it's not that I'm asking in a really nasty way. It's not that I'm asking for things that are terribly unreasonable. I get that maybe the rest of you don't want to see the things that I want to see, and you don't wanna have the conversations I don't wanna have that I wanna have. But, you know, that's just it's just a disagreement with my opinion. And it's really sad that things have come to this. Alright. Trustee Annas? Thank you, madam president. Wow. I would just like to share, I had the, privilege to attend the Rochester High School Honor Wall dedication a few weeks ago at
Rochester High School. And, if any, community member has, active or former active military that attended Rochester High School, they should contact the high school to ensure that, their loved one's name is included in that dedication wall. It was quite powerful. I also attended the Rochester High School White Christmas play, performance, which the Rochester High School student liaison briefly spoke about. And it was a great performance. They were all sold out, which is just a testament to how strong our performing arts programs are here within
our district. And we're really fortunate, to have a strong arts program within our public education system here. And, I truly value it. And that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Trustee Blake? Sure. One comment real quick I'll make to Trustee Lacoue is if you could make if you could use your influence with the Detroit News to let us write op eds because they've rejected. They have not allowed us to write op eds. Next time you write one, I'll write one with you. How about that? Next time. As far as, we sit here today, it's the last meeting of the year.
We're in the holidays. It's a great time of year for most people. And it's been the older I get, it's like the years kind of get faster and faster and faster and it seems like we were just here. But I want to just take this opportunity to thank everybody who did who worked in our schools this past year, the teachers, the counselors, parapros, everybody, who made this year possible. And I hope that everybody, we thank you. We sincerely thank you. I know we get into some stuff here and it looks like you know, it doesn't look pleasant, but it's not about the students and it's not about the staff and we cherish
all of them. And I also want to wish everybody a happy holiday season, Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, be Kwanzaa, whatever you celebrate. I hope that you're able to have a great time over this season with your family and loved ones. Thank you. Trustee Alsba? So rather than, speculating on other people's motives, airing grievances and furthering distorted narratives, I wanted to focus on the really important students and thank the staff at Hugger. The principal and I were judges at, the LEGO, for first to third graders.
And it was wonderful to see these kids so engaged. And it's I think it's disappointing when we use our public comments in ways that don't celebrate our students and our staff. To that end, I honestly wonder if we even need to have these public comments anymore. To our staff and our students, only nine more wake ups. And I really hope you enjoy your break. And I wish everyone wonderful holidays for whatever you celebrate. Trustee Gupta? So, I I wanna say and just reiterate some some of the things that my colleagues
have already said that, you know, it it it may not seem to some that it's about how you ask questions, but the reality is that when you communicate with people in ways that assume the worst and are laden with all sorts of accusations of wrongdoing, which are reinforced elsewhere, whether that's social media or in op eds, you you just don't get to pretend that the how doesn't matter. For most of us, despite our very differing opinions on lots of things, reaching a threshold of finding two other people willing to go in with us to
put something on an agenda is not so intimidating. However, that's because we've taken the time and the energy to build some trust with each other with, mutually respectful professional relationships. So we're able to do that instead of building ourselves up by tearing others down. So I think what, trustee Allspa was referring to were our board comments not maybe being helpful versus public comment. Absolutely. Public comment is very helpful. I was referring to ours. And I I would honestly,
I I would support that moving forward. I find that while it's nice to have a place on the agenda for board member comments to talk about productive things going on in our district that we've been able to be a part of in our roles. And it's sad to have to take that away. Often what it devolves into is this. Somebody says something that's accusatory. Somebody we wanna defend ourselves. We wanna set the record straight, there's misrepresentations. I don't know who that's benefiting at the end of the day. I would say get rid of the board member comments at the end of the meetings in the future.
That said, on a more positive note, grateful to, have been part of an amazing team at Rochester High School a couple Saturdays ago, where we hosted I believe it was our seventh or eighth annual middle school robotics competition. We had about 150 volunteers, 40 teams, each with about 15 students on them, many from our district. A few of our teams advanced to state championship from within our district. All of this is put on and run by our, high school robotics team, mostly students.
And, we were grateful to have superintendent Russo there to give the welcome remarks. And it was a loud, highly stimulating, but extremely fun day. So thanks to all who volunteered. Thank you. Over the past several weeks, I've had an opportunity to attend a number of wonderful events across the district that truly highlight the strength of Rochester Community Schools. I enjoyed the Stoney Creek High School production of Pride and Prejudice and Adams, Peter and the Starcatcher. It's always a joy to watch our incredibly talented students shine, both on stage and behind the scenes.
And thank you to the staff and volunteers whose dedication bring these performances to life. I also attended Rochester High School's Veterans Day event, which included the dedication of the new Honor Wall, an impressive and meaningful project created by Audrey Henkel for her Girl Scout Gold Award. It's a beautiful tribute to all Rochester High School students who have served in the military. Next was the RCS Foundation Sip, Saver and Shop event. It was well organized, enjoyable and successful in raising funds that directly support programs for our students.
I also had a chance to attend the RockBots United First Tech Challenge qualifier at Rochester High, where many of our middle school robotics teams competed. And thank you to the Feds and all the volunteers who worked so hard to make this incredible event possible. I'm the liaison to the Rochester Area Youth Assistance Board, and they held their meeting in November, where we were thrilled to learn that Rya received a grant from the Oakland Youth Assistance Coordinating Council. And this funding will help support new yoga programs in some of our schools and
the wider community, and more information will be shared soon. Big thank you to our students, staff, and staff, families, and community members who make these events such a vibrant and meaningful part of our district. It's a privilege to witness the work and to celebrate these moments together. And I hope I wish everyone a very happy holiday. I know it's what was it? Nine wake ups away, something like that. But, and I hope that everyone has a happy new year as well. So with that, we will move on to additional comments by members of the administration.
And, just a reminder that these are, comments and not discussion items. Mr. Russo? Thank you, Madam President. Mr. Murphy, anything to add tonight? Yes, thank you. I just wanted to acknowledge and recognize and congratulate Lori Schneck, the Executive Assistant in the Human Resource Office, my right and left hand on most days, on her retirement. Her last day is next Friday. She's had over seventeen years of service in this district as an executive assistant, as a paraeducator, I believe as a PTO president in a past lifetime,
too. She's her historical knowledge of the district is second to none. I'm a little nervous to not have that, accessible on a daily basis, but she truly deserves the retirement that she's been waiting for, and I'm thrilled for her next steps in travel and beyond. So congratulations, Lori, and personally, thank you for all of the trust, the support, the friendship, the professionalism and the doing behind the scenes in this district and so many things that no one understands that get done, because of her knowledge and her hard work.
So congratulations to Lori. And then I would just wanna wish all staff a wonderful break and echo some of those former or some of those other comments. While it is a exciting season, it is not the calmest season in our schools, and it's not the easiest time necessarily to be an educator, a secretary, a custodian, a bus driver, a para. So a well deserved break is on the horizon. Everyone is doing a wonderful job this year. It's been a great school year, and I hope all, employees in this district enjoy their break.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Mr. McDaniel? All sent. And Ms. Gauthier? Good evening. I would like to say thank you to our community and also to our Board of Education for your continued support of, special education. Special education is important, because every child deserves to have a high quality education that meets their unique and individualized needs. I wish everybody a happy and a joyous holiday. Thank you, miss Gauthier. Doctor. DeLuca, Simpton. Thank you, Mr. Russo. Before we head to break this Wednesday, December 10, all of our educators will be engaging in professional learning together,
digging into some topics that help us, respond better for the children in front of us. And I want to say thank you to all the planning teams that are creating meaningful experiences, both for our district professional learning in the morning. And then in the afternoon, our buildings will focus on, the areas of, learning, collaboration and development most in tune to their particular next steps of work. So thank you to our staff for bringing forward some, important learning on Wednesday. And we know that Thursday morning, following a brief recess midweek, will certainly,
bring lots of energy back into those classrooms the following day 'tis the season. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Hampton. Just a few items to close out with. I would have the opportunity to go to Adams High School for, part of my advisory panel for students. It is it it looks different. The shape is different this year, but the content is rich. And, it's the second high school that I've attended. I will be sending, Rochester High in the next couple weeks and then going back and doing another cycle of all three high schools, and getting student feedback and how we can improve, etcetera, from the student lens.
And it's it's some of the best time that I've spent. So I wanna thank Adams High School Student Council. They were, very forthcoming with information. We had a great time. They they laughed at me. I thought they were agreeing with me. I guess I made a bad joke. I used six and seven in the same sentence, and it got a little rowdy for ten seconds. I would like to also let the community know that we will be starting, pretty soon coming, is our podcast called Be Inspired. It is a video podcast. Our first two episodes will have to do with, artificial intelligence.
We'll be talking with students and their experience. We'll be talking with teachers. We'll be talking with industry professionals, and look very much forward to to kicking that off. Hopefully, after the first two, we kinda get rolling and and people will, subscribe like mister Murphy does to all my pod all the podcasts. So, we're very excited about it being that it's video and that students get to participate. Winter break, it's already been said, but I hope staff, students, everyone, this will be our last time before, that happens. You know, in education, we have we have an awkward opportunity that we get to say Happy New Year twice a year, but at the beginning of the school year and when we come back in January.
And it is always, it's always great to see kids when you walk when at the beginning of the year we say Happy New Year and they look at you like this. And, when they come back in January, it's hopefully they're rejuvenated and refreshed because everyone is looking forward to that break, I'm sure. And I will say, I'm excited for the new year, bringing in a new cadence for a few things, our budget updates, strategic plan updates. I look forward to kind of entering 2026 with a fresh lens and and jumping right in. So and lastly, I will say that to students and families who may be watching and they're not
gonna watch the recording, if you're only watching live, this will mean something yes, I am watching the weather for tomorrow night. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. A couple of announcements. Well, I guess they're really in luck because on Wednesday, December 10, there's no school due to district PD. So, it doesn't really matter if there's a snow day. At least, well, our teachers, it matters. December 22 through January 4 is winter recess and there is no school. January 5, classes resume. And then January 12 is the board's regular meeting, which and it will be at six p. M. At the RCS Early Childhood Education Center.
And with that, if there is no objection, we will adjourn at 09:24. Thank you to everyone who attended, and I hope you all have a good night.