Alright. We're gonna start here. Ready? Good evening, and welcome to the Rochester Community Schools Board of Education regular meeting called to order at 6PM. If you would please join me, by rising, for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This Board of Education regular meeting is a meeting of the board in public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not a public community meeting.
However, we value community input and public comment will be heard under agenda item five. If you wish to speak tonight and have not already filled out a yellow card, they're located on the table near the entrance to the auditorium. 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 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're grateful to be able to serve this community, and I and we appreciate your support. For roll call, all board members are present with the exception of trustee Blake and trustee Lecuey, who are absent with notice. Moving on to our agenda, is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? Moved by Trustee Annas with support from Trustee Gupta.
Is there any discussion on this? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. Alright. That's a five o vote. Agenda item four is communications and this is where we reference various communications that have been received. Since secretary Blake was unable to attend, I'll report that we received 38 communications through contact the board that are included in the board packet. The full board also received letters or direct emails from Rebecca Moody, Keith and Sherry Ugurowski,
Patty Shatler, and Patrick and Cindy Stanton in support of Tony Bassaro. We received an email from Josh Kielajewski requesting that a description of public comments be in the minutes, from Scott Johnson suggesting the district utilize two way radios sold by his company. And from Jennifer Sur suggesting the district utilize before and after school care solutions sold by her company. Agenda item 4.2 is the section where members of the board share communications that were shared with them but were not sent to the full board.
Did any board member receive communication from the public? Alright. I received emails from Megan and Chris Phillips, Erin Blaine, Clint Pleasant, Melinda Reed, Stella Phillips, and Melissa Lutzka regarding a coach in our district. And I received an email from Kathy Nitz regarding school start times, course scheduling, and the strategic plan. We're now moving on to agenda item five, which is public comment. Again, this provides an opportunity for board members to hear from community members. If you wish to speak tonight and have not already filled out the yellow card,
please do so at this time. When your name is called, please move to the microphone and address the board. When addressing the board, you'll have three minutes to speak, and we'll try to let you know when you have thirty seconds remaining. Please be mindful of this time limit. When addressing the board, please state your name and your relationship to the district. To protect student privacy, we ask that no one identify a specific student without their permission, even if the student's name is not used. Also, we ask that you address your comments to the entire board and not to individual board members, school district employees, or to members of the audience.
The board will not be in will not be responding to comments or questions during the meeting. However, someone will follow-up if needed. At this time, I have two individuals who have requested, to speak. First up is Fadil, and I may not have said that right. I thought I saw someone walking over. Okay. Maybe not. Then we have David Talman. Hi. I'm David Talman. I have, two at Reuther. It's the first time in almost three decades I don't have an elementary school kid, so it's a celebration of house. The main reason I wanted to come and speak tonight was the impending crisis du
jour of, the state funding not coming till the September for the school lunches. It's probably not an impending crisis the way that most people think it's an impending crisis because, I'm I'm skeptical always about taking 100% government funding for anything because then they also control all the details and all the rules of how to spend it, which, in a district like ours, which is the very best district in the state, that's a leader in many in many ways. We are gonna move towards, improving school meals. And a lot of times when you are only funded by the government,
it's harder to to make changes. You have to follow all their specifications, all that kind of thing. So that's a whole other argument. But, the crisis that's gonna happen is if they do decide not to fund it, we go back to the old funding method where 40% of the kids, are paid for by the federal government, some and then some others are reduced, and the rest have to pay. There's gonna be a whole bunch of kids who haven't gone with the free and reduced meal application that is available on our website because it's been free for a
couple of years that, filling out of that application has gone down and down. And the problem, is the people that need that the most are often the ones who don't listen to the news and aren't gonna read the email that you send that says, in two weeks, you're gonna have to pay for your meal or they're not gonna get one unless you fill this out. So, it's a problem, and I'm not sure how to solve it. But I know that you all, many of you are very aware of that problem, and I just wanted to make sure that, everyone that does listen to this, well, nine of them, know that, it is important to fill that out if you think that you might qualify for
it no matter what. And, the only other thing I wanna say was, how thankful I am for all of you and how hard you worked, back in the fall when, in the spring, when we had our graduation times, the unity that you guys showed at especially the high school graduations, was outstanding. And then right after that, we lost one of our teachers and, who's also a parent of Rochester High Kids and a spouse of another teacher. And the unity that we show as a board during our very best of times,
which is the graduations, and the worst of times when we lose a family member, is is outstanding. I really I really appreciate that, that you can show that you can work together like that. I just ask that we remember those great times that we showed it, and all these other times. Because there are difficult times coming up and difficult decisions to be made. Thank you very much. Thank you. And again, is Fadil here? Alright. Okay. Well, then we are going to move on to agenda item six, which is our consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature by the Board
of Ed 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 an item, that item will be removed. Please note that the items removed will now be discussed separately under the consent agenda and will retain the same number. For instance, if item 6.1 was asked to be removed, we would vote on item 6.2 through 6.12, and then we'd come back to 6.1 for a motion, discussion, and vote. You may still request just one item to I'm sorry, 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 6.13, but still under the consent agenda. Our consent agenda tonight is long. It consists of 6.1, current bills payable for 06/01/2025 through 06/30/2025, in the amount of $17,603,581.48 Item 6.2, current bills payable for 07/01/2025, through 07/31/2025,
in the amount of $15,275,931.54 6.3, the human resource recommendations. 6.4, Board of Education closed meeting minutes from June from 06/03/2025. 6.5, Board of Education regular meeting minutes from 06/09/2025. 6.6, Board of Education closed meeting minutes from 06/23/2025. 6.7, Board of Education truth in taxation and budget hearing minutes from 06/23/2025.
6.8, Board of Education regular meeting minutes from 06/23/2025. 6.9, Board of Education special meeting minutes from 06/30/2025. 6.1, Board of Education special meeting minutes from 07/24/2025. 6.11, MASB annual leadership conference from Michelle Butel and Jessica Gupta in the amount of $11,982 and 88¢. And 6.12, approval of MASB 2025 delegates, for Michelle Butel and Jessica Gupta.
Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Moved by trustee Annas with support from trustee Allspa. Does any board member wish to remove an item? Alright. All of those in favor of approving the consent consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say no. That's a five o vote, and the consent agenda is approved. At this time, I'd like to congratulate and welcome to Rochester our many new hires as well as to the appointment of Anne Marie Miller, the director of early childhood,
to Jason Ort, as the director of human resources and employee relations. I believe mister Ort is here right now. To Colin McBran as the athletic director at Adams High School, and I believe you're here as well. Good evening. And to Alex Welsh, as the assistant principal at Adams High School, are there any other, new hires or appointments with us tonight that I did not mention? Well, thank you to those who came. Congratulations to you. We look forward to hearing all about the amazing things that you're going to do in your new roles.
I'd also like to thank and congratulate, Frank Antonis and Lisa Rabat on their retirements. Both of these individuals had served the district for decades and had a positive impact on money. I'm not sure that we've made it through a meeting this quickly, so, it's been the last don't jinx it. We are moving on to reports, and this evening, we only have one, and that's the superintendent update. Mister Russo. Thank you, madam president. A few updates today. First, on our strategic plan. As many of you know, we have, we developed our year two,
brought it to the board for consideration and feedback, taking that feedback and and doing what we could in terms of altering it. We then put it, front facing to our community for feedback for them. Tonight marks the end of that community survey seeking feedback for the for year two of the plan. Community members are encouraged to provide feedback if they haven't already. And after we review that feedback, we'll be presenting our finalized year two strategic plan for board approval on September 8. I have a legislation up legislative update. Couple of them, cell phone bill as it was, as it was intended,
did not pass but will be reintroduced with more strict guidelines than previously proposed. We will see where that goes. I am not sure what kind of version has been finalized yet, but when that when that happens, we will, we will let the board and our community know. And probably most importantly right now is the state has not produced a budget for k 12 public education yet. While a skinny budget was passed in the event of a government shutdown, which would be effective October 1, the skinny or otherwise known as emergency budget does not adequately fund transportation or food service. With each day that passes,
it becomes more difficult to predict what funding will look like. I encourage community members to contact their legislators and to tell them to honor the promise that the school aid fund dollars are meant for children, not for other budget priorities. Lawmakers must pass a k 12 budget immediately that safeguards the school aid fund. Diverting education dollars breaks the promise Michigan voters made to our classroom and to our kids. I would also encourage our community to tell them to have urgency. Delays in state aid cause avoidable instability for students, staff, and families. Our students and staff deserve a stable, fully funded school year this year and for all years.
And with that, those are two of my updates. I will pass it over to mister McDaniel who is going to talk about enrollment. He's gonna talk about staffing in the instead of in the stead of mister Murphy and talk about construction updates across the district. Yes. Thank you, mister Russo. I will start with the the report that mister Murphy provided on staffing. So as you saw in the the HR reports, there's been a flurry of activity here in the district, since we were last together. Mister Murphy reports that for teachers or REA positions, there are 40 hires as of 3PM on Friday with seven vacancies remaining,
with many in progress to be filled. At at the secretary or clerical positions, there are 87 positions with two vacancies, afternoon receptionist and a special education bookkeeper, which I think missus Gauthier reported this morning that they're very close to filling or at least making an offer. In the realm of paraeducators, we have 262 FTE total, with 18 FTE unfilled. The unfilled positions, there's five FTE for our noon recess and bus, part time positions, nine FTE for various special education, full time positions, Alright. So the next update I'm gonna take you,
to is a a quick enrollment update. Received this, just prior to the board meeting. If you're not aware, the the district budgeted a 150 enrollment loss. And so, compared to the predictive enrollment analytics projections, currently, we stand seven above that number. It's not nothing anything to get excited about yet. This is a busy time. Our enrollment, team, I think, processed over a 100 enrollments last week. They're also processing, drops as well. So, it'll be a number of weeks before count day happens, and we'll have a more finalized number to compare,
how our actual enrollment is. I know that, once school started last year, there are about a 150 or I think it was a 140, drops processed. So we'll see. Right? A lot of flurry of activity up until the start of school trying to get kids in kindergarten classrooms especially, but in the district as well. And then, once school resumes, we'll start seeing who doesn't show up, and dealing with those accordingly, which may mean drops or phone calls and and students return. Next, I have a a construction update, which also sort of encompasses McDaniel? Yes. Before you go on, just a quick question on that.
So you said we had currently had seven above. So does that mean based on a budget, we would only have a loss of 143 if it stayed that way? Is that what that meant? Yes. Okay. Alright. And there's, some nuances there. Right? That's just the gen ed population, right, not any special population. So special education historically, in the last, I don't know, three or four years, we've saw an increase in special education FTE. So in the grand scheme of things, a 143 just on this population of of students, but that doesn't mean overall the district may see that. Right? I think it was between fifteen and twenty FTE at the special education level,
depending on what happens with VLAC or maybe an IA or There may be some adjustments there as well. On the construction side, I wanna start off with transportation. There are two areas, that we had some concerns about before the start of school, and those, I think, are good news. So, Orion Road was a concern for those that that live in that area. That was supposed to open, today. So, hopefully, we'll that'll open, by the time school starts on the twenty fifth. We were also told that Brewster is a potential problem, but that's also, we're being told, is going to open in time for the start of school.
So we'll see what happens. Right? There's weather. There's other factors that impact that, but that's the reports that we're getting on the transportation side that both of those, construction projects should be, open for buses for the start of school. On the, construction projects for our buildings, there's a number of buildings that received work, over the summer. All of our our buildings were deep cleaned, but specific construction projects, Baldwin, there was a stormwater project. There's been flooding in some classrooms there throughout the years. That project's complete. There is a temporary fence that's installed right now to try to allow grass to
grow. Hugger, the water infiltration or the leaks there, that project is also complete. The board approved a filter first, phase one to install filtered, bottle filling and drinking fountains, at Hart, Ruether, Van Hoosen and West. That work is starting tomorrow at Hart. Work is anticipated to conclude, at the four middle schools by August 25. Though some installations, depending on complexity, may, go into that first week of school. The big project that's, is, I guess, maybe the most, has the most doubt as to whether that'll be fully complete is a project at
Adams High School. That is the storm water improvements, project. So there, over the last few years, there has been flooding, on the Lower Level Adams that goes in the cafeteria and into the gym. So, Adams has been torn up with construction, all summer long, particularly the parent loop at the main entrance. That will open for the start of school. However, it may not be fully paved. Some of that may be gravel. When I was there last week, right, that there's still a bit cold there. So they are working this week, to wrap that project up. As they went through this project, there's other issues that were identified that we will probably bring back to the a
future board of education meeting, for approval that may take place, next summer to try to fully address the stormwater there. Also at Adams, there's a pool infiltrate pool filtration sorry. Pool filtration, replacement. That project has been completed, and the Oakland County Health Department inspected and approved that on August 7. At Adams Filter First, all those bio filling stations are complete. The building that we're sitting in right now, Rochester High School, there's a number of projects here. Filter First is another one that will be complete before the start of school.
There's been some flooring, replacements in the a wing and the choir area, which is complete. Water intrusion or infiltration here as well, that project is complete. The pool, filtration system is almost complete. I know there's been some boiler issues here getting that water heated back up, but the the filter system is complete. And then, work continues on the stormwater, issues here at Rochester High School. There's new flooring that's being installed in the renovated areas. The book room is being set up, which is one of the areas where the the major flooding happens,
and, construction was supposed to wrap here, very soon. In addition, a few more projects here at Rochester High School. We are adding a ground storage building so that we don't have to store the equipment out outdoors. The concrete pad has been installed for that, with the building to be delivered, during the first week of school. That won't have any impact on operations, of the school. Tennis courts were resurfaced. Repairs are complete. However, the matching of the paint, did not go very well. So we are continuing to try to make that, less noticeable that there's brand new paint, in certain areas where it was cracked,
filled, and replaced. And then, the foods room here, the countertops were replaced. That project is complete. Just a couple more construction projects. Stoney Creek High School, pool filters there. That project is finished. Filter first, that project is supposed to wrap up today. One area here, the serving area renovation, there's some equipment that won't be delivered in time for the start of school. So we are gonna continue to use the equipment that that was there temporarily and then install once, once that equipment arrives. And then finally, the data center, for the district is located at the Administration Building.
That project is about 90% complete. Equipment has been installed. Right now, they're working to make sure that all the final plumbing and electrical connections are made, and so that that equipment can be started up and commissioned. So that project's going to be complete in the September as the anticipated date, but should have, again, no impact on the start of school or any operations in the district. The other area of operations that I just want to mention is our food service. Mister Russo alluded to it. Community member also alluded to it. We are funded for free meals for all through September 30.
So if that is a concern for you or your family, there are free and reduced applications available on the district website, or you can contact our food service department. That information is held strictly confidential. It would only be our food service team that has that information if a family were to opt that. If you wanna share that information or allow us to share that information, there are, multiple other benefits, like reduced club fees and other fees, that the district can offer if you're willing to make that information, shareable within the district. But there are additional benefits, by completing those free and reduced applications.
It also helps the district out, with our funding, especially our our title funds. Some of that calculation is based on the number of free and reduced applications that we have. And that wraps, my report. Thank you. Madam President, board members, any questions for mister McDaniel or myself? Thank you, madam president. Alright. We are moving on to new business. Item 8.1 is the approval of the RPEA tentative agreement, with mister Murphy not here who will be doing that. I will pass it back over to mister McDaniel. Yeah. Thank you, madam president. So this is a recommendation to approve,
the tentative agreement with the Rochester Paraeducator Association. I won't read through the whole, memo, but that information is available to the board, the full language as well as some key information. So I'd like to highlight that this is a two year contract that would be effective, from the board's approval today, 08/18/2025 through 06/30/2027. Some of the economic components, that are changes. There used to be a signing bonus of $250, that was removed. You'll see the wage scale, for 2526 and 2627 is,
attached as part of the memo. For non instructional care educators, there's a 1.5% increase. Excuse me. For instructional and categorical, there's a 2.5%. Next year, all would receive a 3% increase. We've also removed step, zero. There's some different call outs there for attendance at camps. Overnight is not mandatory. There is a a payment if a paraeducator accompanied students overnight. Staff or paraeducators who obtained the registered behavior technician certification would receive an additional 25¢ per hour.
For those paraeducators who are on the top step of the salary schedule, $500 off schedule payment that will increase to 600 for the twenty six, twenty seven year, changes to the number of vacation days, that begins in the 2627 school year. New provisions have been added in line with our other contracts for the Freedom of Information Act. Like many of the contracts as well, the collection of union dues, by the district to begin in the 2627 school year. Updates to hiring language, Like the, Rochester Education Association, there's an addition of a contract maintenance committee to meet regularly,
with the paraeducator group. Some clarification to lunch breaks, Added, professional development language where there is a minimum of one, for new or noninstructional, requirements. We have to comply with ESTA. So that ESTA language, the year and sick time act, was added to align to the law. Some clarification on workers' compensation. Similar to vacation, approved leave increased from two days to three days. Some new language. Paraeducators may utilize approved leave time as noted for religious holiday or observance. Beyond this time, all absences due to religious holidays or observances shall be
unpaid. Some updates to medical and vision insurance coverage. For some paraeducators who work, kind of a twelve month calendar, specifically our SXI paras, they will receive a fourth of July holiday and then some technology provided to designated executive board members of the association. Alright. So is there a motion to approve the, RPEA agreement as presented? Okay. Moved by trustee Alspa with support from trustee Gupta. And then is there any discussion on this before we vote?
Trustee Alspa? I just have one question. I know typically these agreements are three years, so could you speak to us about why this is only two years? Yeah. I think as as, being part of that negotiation, we use an interest based bargaining, process. Right? So that means, there's a number of different ideas. We did talk about a three year contract. We also talked about a a one year contract. So it was the will of the group that we wanted to do a two year contract. I think some of that, maybe speaking on the group was just some of the instability with with budgets and, you know,
maybe other financial opportunities that the district or the state or federal government had that might play an impact on future contracts with the group. Anyone else? Well, I'll just say I know that, you know, it took time on both sides for people to participate in this, so I appreciate that everyone was able to find that time to get together and to come to a consensus. So thank you on that. If there's no other questions then, all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. That's a five o vote, and the RPA RPEA agreement is approved.
Next, we have an amendment to the annual organizational items. Mister McDaniel, this is also you. Thank you, madam president. Before I jump into that, I I would like to acknowledge that in the red back there, we have members of the negotiating team and wanna extend my congratulations, to them. Also, thank them for their hard work. I have the honor of presenting this, but by no means was this an easy negotiation. There are a number of topics that we we talked about, we disagreed about, but we're happy that we could bring this to fruition and get some increases for our paraeducators.
And congratulations. Thank you, guys. On the organizational items amendment, we have, funds that are currently invested by METER Public Funds. These funds are held in an account with Huntington National Bank's corporate trust and institutional custody group. That group has been sold by Huntington National Bank to Argent Institutional Trust Company. This is one of the items that we request every year in June for approval. And because they are expected to close the sale at the August, we are asking the board to amend the annual organizational items to reflect this change.
Both will be held, on the organizational items because, one, we don't know for sure that that will close August 31. But once it does, we will transfer that money or Huntington will automatically kind of transfer that money, to Argent. There's no really change on our end other than we're gonna get statements from a new company rather than Huntington National Bank. So we'd recommend that you approve the the amendment. Alright. So is there a motion to approve the addition of Argent Institutional Trust Company under the establishment of depository accounts and check signatories on the list of organizational items as
presented. Moved by trustee Annas. Is there support? Correct. Support from trustee Gupta. Is there any discussion on this? All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. Alright. That's a five o vote, and, that motion is approved. Our last piece of new business is a construction bid award to approve, cooling tower refurbishment project. Mister McDaniel. Thank you, madam president. So the scope of this project is to refurbish the existing cool cooling towers, excuse me, at the seven buildings. There's, I think, 10 buildings in the district.
Three of those were able to be refurbished with bond dollars. So this is seven that weren't able to be, touched with bond dollars. The existing cooling towers and the components are past their useful life and they're beginning to fail. So for most of those units or several of those units, replacement parts are no longer available. However, it doesn't require that the whole unit is replaced. We're able to replace the components. So these refurbished units, with the new components, they'll be they're gonna be more reliable as well as energy efficient, than the current units. We took this project out,
to bid, and we received three responses for one category of construction trade on August 7. This was advertised in the Rochester Post as well as the district's website, Sigma and BidNet Direct. Our, typical team, with Frank Freewald and Son as well as our director of capital projects, reviewed the bids. Interviews and evaluations were conducted according to the attached documentation. The source of this project or source of funding for this project is the sinking fund, and we are recommending tonight that category a mechanical, be awarded to SysTemp Corp in the amount of $369,071,
as well as allowances and construction management fees in the amount of $141,333 for a total recommendation, $510,404. If there's any questions tonight, I'll attempt to answer them, but mister Muscio is not in attendance at tonight's meeting. Alright. Well, let me get a motion first here. Is there a motion to approve the cooling tower refurbishment project for $510,404 coming from our sinking fund? Moved by trustee Annas. Is there support? Was that emotional. Oh, I'm sorry. I wrote that. Did I say Anna?
Okay. But you're supporting it? Alright. Sorry about that. Are there any questions on this project? I did have one question, mister Dennis. I'm just curious for public knowledge, what are the seven buildings that will be getting these replacement parts for the cooling towers? And then the second question would be, do these replacement parts come with any sort of warranty or guarantee over the life of the the product? I anticipated the first part of that question. So I am looking for the email that tells me what seven buildings those are.
If I can't find it, I will open up the bid because I believe it's mentioned there as well. And I can't find the email. I'm not sure on the warranty for the, replacement parts. I can follow-up, with an answer to that question in a future, cabinet notes. It'll take me just a second to open up the bid. And while you're doing that, you don't I know in the letter or in the memo, it specifically identified that, this was significantly less expensive than replacing them, and that was why it was being recommended.
But you don't know what that difference in price would be, do you? I do not know that often. And I'll ask another one while you're looking too, maybe. Yeah. Sure. Timing on this, and will there be any interruptions to the buildings? No. I don't believe there'll be any interruptions to the buildings. I think this is gonna take place, next summer, but we're gonna order the components now. Alright. The meeting took place at Stoney Creek, the previous meeting, so I would assume Stoney Creek is one of the buildings. Alright. There's 37 pages to go through here. Okay. Trusting in. My question just escaped my head. I'll I'll think about it in a second.
You know what? I may have to follow-up on the buildings. There's a number of different, drawings attached, which I could certainly open up if we wanna take a few minutes, but we are also going at record speed right now. So Well, I I guess I would say too, if this is not until, next summer too, that gives plenty of time to notify, schools that might be involved. Trusty, Anas, you had another question? Yeah. It escaped me, and now it came back. Given, our current tariff situation, and you said we'll place an order now and but installation will happen until next summer. Mhmm. If we place the order now,
does that lock in pricing for now dollars versus, you know, if there's a delay in the delivery of the product that we won't be slapped with any additional tariffs or anything, you know, additional costs? Yes. I believe that that's true. As soon as we place the order, we'd be locked in. Okay. Thank you. The buildings are Delta Kelly, Longmeadow, MacGregor, Meadowbrook, North Hill, Reuther, Stoney. And who's in is that more than seven now? So I'll follow-up with mister Musio to determine what seven buildings will receive these cooling towers. I think these are the plans for all the buildings that have a cooling tower.
Okay. Let me check my phone too because I know the studio watches the meeting something. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and, unless anyone else has questions, all of those in favor of approving the cooling tower refurbishment project for May coming from our sinking fund, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. That's a five o vote and the, refurbishment project is approved. Thank you. I'll follow-up with a update in the cabinet notes. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. Who said that? Madam President?
Trustee Ospa? You'll have to forgive me. I'm not quite sure how to do this, but I think I want to suspend the rules because I know our public comment doesn't go back until unless we ran out of the thirty minutes. I believe the student that wanted to speak with us is here now. Am I correct? So I'd like to you know, we're moving at record speed. I'm wondering if there's any way we could hear him now. So you are making a motion to allow public comment at this time? For the one person that had already turned in a card.
Okay. So first, we have a motion to, suspend our our rules by trustee Alspa. Is there support for that? I support. From trustee Annas. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. That's a five o vote. And then a motion to, allow, public comment. For somebody who had already turned in that card. From the student who had already okay. Motion to allow public comment from the student who had already turned in their their card. That was from trustee Alspa. Is there support for that?
Right. Support from trustee Gupta. Is there any discussion? All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That's a five o vote. So at this time, is Fadil here? Yeah. I'm right here. Oh, you're right there. Yeah. Hello. My name is Fadeel Ahmed Mohammed, and I'm a sophomore at Rochester High School. Thank you for for allowing me to speak with you today. I think part of what I appreciate the most about being a member of the RCS district is the is the diversity and how the district has made genuine attempts
to address students' needs and beliefs. Having been a Muslim student myself, I can attest that the district has been very accommodating. For example, when I needed a place to pray during school hours, the school went outs out of its way to make that happen so that I could continue practicing my religion without affecting my studies. That kind of support has made me feel welcome and respected as a student, and I am extremely grateful for it. At the same time, I think there is one area that the district can improve.
The previous year, Eid, one of the most important holidays for Muslim families, just so happened to be on the same day as SAT. Even though the district was very considerate and gave a makeup date for the test, it was still keeping too many students in a jam like having to celebrate the special holiday at home with their families or else missing school. Since there are more Muslim students in our district now, I believe it would be a bigger difference maker if Eid were made an official
school holiday on the district calendar. This would help prevent conflicts with major tests or missed classroom time, while also showing recognition for the diversity we're so proud of here at RCS. It would make Muslim students like me feel even more supported and included, and it would help all of us thrive both in school and in our personal lives. Currently, the responsibility often falls on families and administration to coordinate scheduling around Eid year after
year. But because Eid moves on the calendar annually, this approach creates uncertainty and inconsistency. By making Eid an official holiday, the District would establish a clear, structured solution, one that ensures recognition of this day every year without students or staff having to revisit the schedule. Thank you again for taking the time, for listening, and for all that you do to help students from diverse walks of life. Thank you very much. Thank you. Alright. Item 10 is additional comments.
I'm sorry. Item 10.1 is additional comments by members of the Board of Education. Individual board members may use this time to share information about school visits, updates from committees or organizations they're assigned to, or express their personal opinion. Each trustee has three minutes, and there's a timer on the smart board for your reference. If you run over that time, I'm happy to ask the board if they are willing to extend the time. Trustee Lozan? Sure. I'll keep it quick just like the meeting tonight. Just wanted to wish everybody a happy, safe, and healthy school year. I'm excited, personally. I have all three in the same school this year.
First time in forever. Mhmm. So congratulations to all the new hires, and good luck to all the teachers. I believe everybody's mainly starting tomorrow. Some have already began. Good luck to everybody and see everybody soon. Thank you. Trustee Annas? I'd like to, echo what, trustee Lausanne said. Wishing everyone a a great start to the school year. Hope everyone stays healthy and, and remembers, you know, that there will be walkers as well as bus riders and and, bikers out in our communities. So, we just ask that, trivers be aware. And then I'd also like to,
thank trustee Russo for his continuing, advocacy on what's happening at the state level regarding the budget. I know he's been very diligent in keeping the board updated. And I just wanna reiterate, for the public that might not be aware, we, as a district, are required by law, and we did pass our budget on July or I'm sorry, June 30. In the past, state legislature has passed the budget by July 1. In this case, that has not happened. So we are forty eight days without a budget for our school district. We're not the only district in the state.
Every public school district in our state is impacted by this lack of action. And I wanna remind folks that this is one of the duties of our state legislature. It is their fiscal responsibility to provide a an adequate state budget for public education, so that we can educate the kids that we are in charge of educating. So I wanna impress on on everyone, every parent, teacher, staff member, concerned citizen, taxpayer, reach out to your local your elected official at the state level and remind them of their responsibility.
And, to not solve one problem, on the backs of the children that we represent here in our state. Thanks so much. Trustee Ospa? I also wanna welcome back all of our staff. I hope you found rest over the summer and are geared up for the new school year. I also wanna welcome back our students and our parents. Parents, remember that joining your PTA is a wonderful way to be involved and support your school. So I encourage you to do that and I hope you've been attending the world of welcomes that we have that allow you to have that first day experience and get in there and get all those pictures taken.
I also want to thank the board for suspending the rules so our student could talk to us. I really am impressed with our students' advocacy, and I think it would be important to support the diversity in our community if we could make some adjustments to our calendar. I've had conversations with Troy board members that they have found a way to put Ed and Diwali into the school year, and they use professional development for teachers. So it does not extend the instructional year. You know, I know it's not something we can do overnight with the contracts and all of
that, but I really would like us to explore the issue. But I appreciate the board suspending the rules. Thank you. Trustee Gupta. Similar to my, board colleagues, I would like to express gratitude for our amazing staff coming back here for another wonderful school year and also our leadership team, who has been working tirelessly throughout the summer to make sure that we're setting everybody up for success throughout the school year, does not go unnoticed, but maybe not always explicitly appreciated. So, also want to say thank you to the student who spoke.
Takes a lot of courage to do that, and, I'd be curious to learn more about that. I I'm not sure if the SAT testing date is set by us or the state, and that would be good information to get out there if it's not us so that we can help folks understand why we might be making a decision that, feel might feel like, you know, we're not honoring that, piece. So, with that, I'm excited for the school year to start and looking forward to another wonderful one. As everyone has said, a new school year is about to begin, and I hope our students, our families,
and staff have had a wonderful summer filled with time to relax, recharge, and enjoy the people and activities that matter most. While summer is a break from the classroom, it's certainly not a break for everyone. Our district administration has been hard at work preparing for the year ahead, hiring staff, updating curriculum, completing facility projects, and making sure our students, I mean, I'm sorry, our schools are ready to welcome students on day one. I also want to thank our custodial, maintenance, and technology teams, our support staff, and our administrators who work throughout the summer to make sure every classroom is ready.
And a special thank you to our teachers who often spend their summer preparing lessons, organizing classrooms, and making sure they can give their students the very best on the first day of school. I think we're ready for an incredible year ahead, and I know that together, we can make this one of the best years yet for our students. So welcome back to everyone. And with that, I will turn it over to our administrators. Again, they each have three minutes to speak to share information that they believe is valuable to the board and our community. Thank you, madam president. Doctor.
DeLuca. Thank you, Mr. Russo. I have two updates for the board and our colleagues today. Visitor management, part of the strategic plan number nine, we talked about last year with the visitor management being installed in all of our school buildings. Our technology team and our vendor worked diligently throughout the summer to, have our visitor management kiosks installed. So when our community members do visit a building, this school year, they'll be greeted with the visitor management kiosk that we're asking our visitors to check-in using a state approved ID. Wednesday, we're shooting a video, for our board to understand,
that we'll be, putting out to the community before school starts next week, to kinda walk parents and visitors into that are be entering our buildings, through the cadence of entering a building, scanning your ID, and then how the badge system works with checking out. So we're excited to, put that out later this week. And I wanna say thanks to our tech department, and all the work they've done over the summer to get that system up and running. From a safety and security lens, we'd like to welcome back, Sergeant Dan Prasher, who was our SRO at Adams High School. He's gonna be filling in this year as the sergeant that's overseeing the command for the SRO program.
Currently, our SROs in the district, we have five SROs. Our placements, there's a little tweak with Sergeant Pratchett being the SRO here for Rochester High School and West Middle School, but our elementary team is staying in place with the same SROs that will be there, as well as the curriculum will be in place. I know there's some questions back in the spring about the curriculum for SROs and that is going unchanged. Thank you, Mr. Russo. Thank you, Doctor. Deluca. Mr. McDaniel? Yes. Just quickly, want to make a plug for our fall enrichment brochure. That is available. Registration opened August 1. So if you haven't,
take a look at that. Our board president, thanked our facilities team, our custodial teams, our enrollment office. I'd like to do the same. While giving those reports, I did not extend a thank you, to all the teams and all the work that goes into prepping our schools, to accept students. And also on behalf of mister Murphy, I'd like to thank the HR team. They have been very busy, and he's been very busy, now hopefully get some relief now that Jason Ort has been hired and, can do some of the hiring in the future. So, thank you to those groups. We appreciate you and, look forward to welcoming our teachers back,
tomorrow. Thank you, mister Britaniel. Mister Cuzumano. Good evening. Very excited to share, our teaching and learning department. We get excited about getting our staff ready for students. So planning professional development is a big task, in the in the, spring and then into the summer. So, this week, building administrators will welcome staff tomorrow to for building PD. And then on August, we have a full day of district PD. In the morning, we have leveraging instructional technology sessions. We have three sessions, facilitated by staff. Those three sessions will be, going over one hour of generative AI guidelines and tools that are available to students
and staff to start getting our, that rollout going for our staff to be ready for students when we talk about AI guidelines. Another hour session will be updates to Google, workspace for education plus, so tools in the Google platform that we're expanding and making sure teachers are ready for that to use in their classroom. And then the other session will be, presenters from SMART, the new IFPs. They are coming in and, sharing how to make sure that our staff knows how to utilize those new tools since it's a different technology. So, they'll be going through rotations.
It's kinda neat. The AI, guidelines and tools are being led by presented by our AI task force members that we're working all last year to kinda work behind the scenes. And then, we have educators from our curriculum team, our teaching and learning staff, teachers, consultants, all, volunteer to run those Google workspace for Education Plus sessions. And then after those three hours in the afternoon after a lunch, they'll come back and meet in their departments to talk about best instructional practices to kick off the year, together in their departments. So we're excited about that, to get them ready for students the next week.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Guzmano. Ms. Hampton? Thank you, Mr. Russo. I will expand upon, Mr. Guzmano's description of professional learning. We're quite energized about the new school year ahead of us. We know that a robust week has been planned both by our building administrators and our instructional leadership teams, that work with teaching and learning and, that K-twelve aspect of embracing some new technology tools, as well as thinking about the intersection of the student and those tools, I know, will be a great way to start the day on Wednesday. And then continuing on into that disciplinary specific need,
both across the six twelve space, holds true in the K-five arena as well. Our K-two staff will be thinking about some of the foundational reading resources. We're expanding the use of UFLY, as you know, and so there'll be some direct learning related to that resource for some staff. And then other colleagues, will be considering how their foundational skill material, support that instructional sequence and are also a part of their database decision making. So, we have the things now. How do those things and tools match with the students that we have in front of us, and how can we, get into some great vertical conversation where that's concerned?
And then our three five staff will be thinking about our mathematics assessments and how those tools can guide, again, responsive instructional decision making. So we think that we, have some learning experiences, dialed up that we'll be very in tune with meeting students that following week. And hopefully, our folks are also, energized as they leave their professional learning. We know that teaching is a tall order and, all that we can do to equip our staff to be ready for the students of today and tomorrow is our assignment this week here.
As also as mentioned, the world of welcome is this Thursday, so if that's not on your calendar, please do, all that you can to make sure that you're able to say hello to your child's elementary school teacher. It's a big day of excitement in the elementary space. World of Welcome Thursday, August 21. And thanks to the staff that take all of those steps to get those spaces both welcoming and ready for, our community to join our schools on Thursday. Thank you, miss Simpson. Miss Scott here. Good evening. So in partnership with my two colleagues, all special education staff members will be collaborating alongside their general education colleagues with those
same learning opportunities. So our elementary resource teachers are really looking forward to digging into literacy, whereas the rest of the department will be, engaging in instructional technology practices, along with some department collaboration time. And overall, we are just so excited about the, the learning and the partnership that's gonna be happening for all RCS staff. Additionally, missus Hampton, mister Cusmano, and I are just really excited to reintroduce the curriculum department as the RCS teaching and learning department, and this name really is to reflect our shared commitment to supporting educators and really
empowering all community school students. It's gonna be a wonderful year. Hey, miss Scott here. I just have a couple things. You know, one bonus of going last is that everyone gives their thanks and steals all my material. So, I just have a couple, that was that was not mentioned, so I'll make it quick. I first wanna thank mister Tallman, for his comments today because I think something you said is really important for the community here that, the inundation of email and communication that comes out and things can get passed over really easy. And so any work that we can do for that for for just what I
used to call the cul de sac talk or social media talk about the the free and reduced opportunities because what we don't want is any student or any family to be in need and us not know about it. So anything you can do to spread that message, we really appreciate that. It's our first board meeting since the summer music theater, and I just wanna say it was tremendous. It was always great it's always great to see the talent and inclusivity of all of our secondary students. It it I I said this probably three or four times now that it it was incredible to to see it was incredible to see our exiting seniors who I've now spent,
you know, few a few few, experiences with on stage. And, it was sad to see them go. Lots of tears, but it was an incredible, incredible, production. So I wanna thank everyone who worked on that. I also wanna thank, everyone in HR and facilities and teaching and learning. Every everything that that that goes into this, but specific getting students in. But I wanna specifically thank the HR team, mister McDaniel, and the para negotiating team, and I wanna thank our board for approving that contract. Our PARADEgators are the core and backbone of the service to students, staff, and families, and,
that that is a really important piece of every school district, but your approval of the contract today ensures that that we're gonna have a seamless, transition as we as we bring students back. So thank you. And lastly, officially, I'm excited to welcome our staff back tomorrow, students back next week. The energy that we feel right now is is only it is only captured for a little bit. It's palpable, absolutely, and it's captured for a little bit. And then we get into routines and expectations of students and staff, which is wonderful, but that that rise and that crescendo of excitement is is right now, and we're feeling it.
And so, students and staff, we're we're ready for you to come back tomorrow. Thank you. Well, thank you. I, just have a couple of announcements. The first, we talked about dedication. Lawrence Latouf is back here supporting us, and it's his birthday today. So happy birthday, Lawrence. August 25 is our first day of school. It will be a half day. August 29 through September 1 will be Labor Day recess, and September 8 will be our next Board of Education meeting at 6PM right here again at Rochester High School in the auditorium.
And that's what I have for announcements at this time. So if there is no objection, we will adjourn at 07:02PM. Alright. Seeing none, we are adjourned. Thank you all for attending, and have a good night.