Our closed meeting agenda, which is public comment, which I have. Good evening and welcome to the Rochester community schools, board of education, regular meeting. Called to order at 6:04 PM. And for those who choose to do so and are physically able please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Good evening. Item one is our call to order in pledge of allegiance. The board of education's regular meeting is a meeting of the board in. Public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business. To preserve its freedom to act. This body follows Robert's rules of order.
Newly revised edition. And this process is not a tool to be used to circumvent fairness. And as a chair, I will work to ensure that this isn't the case. But please know this I'm not a parliamentarian and I will extend grace to you all for not knowing everything about this process. If you are willing to extend that same grace to me. So for the public before this. School board. Who's probably asking. Why is it so important that we follow Robert's rules of order newly revised edition. There are several reasons. Reasons. This is a public meeting of the board of education. But it is not a meeting with the public.
It is not a town hall and it is certainly not a political rally. Expectations of decorum will be enforced on this body. And the public attending this meeting by following the Roberts rules of order new edition. It allows the body to go about their business in an orderly and efficient manner. But more importantly, it also allows every member to have a voice. About the issues before this body. Ensuring fairness for every member at this table. Including an, especially for the members who are in the minority of opinions on matters before this board. When you entered this auditorium, you may have noticed a
large poster. With the school board's norms and information on effectively communicating with school partners. Partners, these norms were agreed upon by the board and reflect our commitment to ensuring. That the business of the school board is done in a fair and expedient manner. You can also find a copy. Of the chain of command information. To help parents and community members effectively communicate. With school partners. This information is also on our district website within our board of education handbook. And for those who miss the big. Poster are norms that the board agreed to are as follows. Follows, keep comments germane to the agenda item.
Avoid surprises ensure one speaker at a time. Respond when called upon. Be honest refrain from attacking others' motives. Motives uphold the chain of command. And truly listen to one another. We value the 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. Which looks like this. They are located at the entrance. At the table near the entrance. Once you have completed the card, please put it in the box on the same table. Please note that cards must be completed prior to speaking. I will call the names of those who I have a card for during public comment.
Item number two is roll call. And for roll call, all board members are present. Item number three on our agenda is spotlight on success. And tonight we're gonna be talking about the unified basketball program, which is a great program. And I believe Ms. Lord green is gonna lead us on that discussion. And I'm turning it over to miss Amanda. Thank you. Hi everybody. My name's Amanda Saka and I am one of our special education supervisors. So for tonight, first of all. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to share an update on our program, which truly has been an example of inclusivity and action this year.
Unified sports is a powerful inclusive program created by special Olympics and collaboration with the M H S a a, the core of the program is simple. It brings together athletes with and without disabilities to play in the same team. Emphasizing teamwork, belonging and shared experiences. Our Rochester high schools were able to start our program. When we received the special Olympics unified champion schools grant. This grant challenged our schools to improve our culture by embracing inclusive sports, inclusive youth leadership opportunities. In whole school engagement. Getting our team up and running, took a village of support. Earlier this fall. One of our student leaders from Adams high school, Lucy Meier played a critical role of getting
our program started. She was instrumental in spreading the word and recruiting peer partners for our team. We recruited athletes from our special education programs and peer partners from all three high schools. We couldn't have, we also couldn't have built our team without the, the support of our coaches. Rebecca Gibson, one of our special education teacher consultants and Ariel blizzard. One of our CI teachers at Ruth middle school. And they helped make this vision a reality. We also recruited a few other staff members to join our teams. Annie Parker is one of our district behavior specialists and Nick Reed. Who's now the interim assistant principal at Stony Creek and they also became key members of our team.
Our high school, all three of our high school administrators and the athletic directors were encouraging and supportive. It truly took a village to get this up and running, especially with the coordination of three high schools. And we're so grateful to staff members who helped make this an experience. For our first season, the roster consisted of 15 peer partners and 10 athletes. We had a great schedule. We got to play eight games across Oakland county, including Birmingham groves, Oxford lake orient, and Avondale. We also got to host games at both Rochester Adams, high school and Rochester high. The triple threat team is a unique model of success
because it unites Rochester Adams Rochester high in Stony Creek. Continuing and expanding this tri high collaboration ensures that the spirit of unified extends beyond one building and becomes a symbol of unity for our entire community. The community support was incredible. Families staff members and students consistently showed up to all of our games. They filled the stands to support our athletes throughout the entire season. Many of our fans came to our home games and we even had our own staff members traveling to support the team at their away games. We had a few high pro high profile moments for our first year. Triple threat, got to play at the cross sound showdown at the arena between the Stony Creek
and the Rochester high boys basketball game. And we also, the, this last March got to play at lake Oran high school's charity week pep assembly with our high school student council. Representatives also. The impact of this program is significant. It cultivates a more inclusive environment for all students and creates new opportunities for friendship. Most importantly, peer partners are true teammates who learn empathy, patience, and inclusive leadership skill skills at then the carry in into their own classrooms. Classrooms, our families have shared how excited our students were to go to school and practice and on game days. It's the win-win for everyone. Looking ahead. Our goals, future goals include continuing our partnership
with special Olympics for our annual grant funds. And then we're excited to grow our roster with more athlete and student involvement from all three high schools to keep in line with our tri high collaboration. And lastly, just please remember, this is not just about one team of athletes. Unified sports is a movement to provide inclusive and authentic experiences for all students. We encourage everyone to be a champion of inclusion and our excited to see how, how our pro program grows in the next school year. Thank you for your time. Thank you for that update. I didn't realize that the students played other students outside of our own district. I think that's awesome. Good luck in proceeding to get those grants. Is it
a year over year? Pursuit. Yeah. Great. Thank you again. Next is item four communications. This is where we reference various communications that have been received in the district and to the board. 4.1, secretary of the board of education, secretary of Butell. Would you like to share how many communications were received? Yes. At this time 32 communications have been received and are in the packet for reference. In addition, the board received an email from Katie DeVos explaining why she had dropped out of the board appointment process. I talk to our talk to RCS communication from Kelsey
biz Wenger, Susan St. Mosley and Megan Giovan regarding their appreciation for the board and concerns about the. Statements John James made during a board meeting. And a letter from Marsha Preston asking the district to investigate the improvements Mississippi had made in education. Thank you, secretary Patel. Going on to item 4.2. Student representatives to the board. I think this is one of the highlights for me at our board meetings that we get to hear from student reps who come to our meeting and share what's happening at our, our high school. So up first we'll have from Adams high school, Liz Elizabeth Schultz.
Good evening everyone. My name is Libby Schultz and it is my pleasure to be back with you all. This month to report on the recent events at Adams high school. Adams has been very productive this past month preparing for the end of the year. Our AP capstone students are preparing to deliver their final presentations this month. The capstone program is a two year course where students each earn a separate diploma. And are able to conduct their own research on a unique topic. That they find interesting. Additionally, we are beginning our testing process for the underclassmen at Adams on April 14th and 15th RCS high schools will have altered school schedules to accommodate mandatory state testing.
Good luck to all of our students. Students moving onto our sports report. Our athletes have been working hard to establish a very strong start to the spring season. Our girls across record is one-on-one with a game tonight. Our guys team is two and two. The girls soccer is five and oh, with many other sports, including tennis. Track baseball and softball continuously working hard. Looking ahead, April 27th marks our annual middle school leadership day. Where students from Vanhoosen and west visit Adams for a day filled with leadership activities. As an introduction to our student council for interested students. The next week, mark, a busy testing period for Adam's
students. AP classes are gearing up, present preparation for assignments beginning in early may. Additionally students in all classes are starting to review for upcoming exams. We wish you all the best of luck. For our seniors, our schedules are getting a little more hectic as we look ahead. We will be holding our honors complication later this month on April 23rd, to celebrate our student success. Additionally students are eagerly awaiting from which is May 12th and are counting down the days until our last day of school on May 19th. On this day, we will enjoy a barbecue color throw celebration. And senior sunset to mark the end of our high
school experience. We are excited to graduate on May 26th at the OU arena and experience our final high school event. The all senior night party at legacy. Those are our updates for Adams. Thank you so much for your time this evening, and I hope you all have a great week. Thank you. Next up from Rochester high school, we have grace Colucci. Good evening everybody. My name is grace Colucci and I'm Rochester high school's board representative. As RHS reflects on this past month, many exciting events and opportunities have taken place for our Falcons. Falcons first, our underclassmen have a very important week of testing coming up.
Juniors will be taking the S a T on Tuesday. Their wind work readiness assessment on Wednesday and the M step on Thursday and Friday. Then our sophomores will be taking the P S a T on Tuesday, and our freshmen will be taking their P S a T on Wednesday. R HS will also be hosting an S a T breakfast Tuesday morning before the S a T for our juniors. Juniors and I'm sure I can speak on behalf of plenty of seniors. When I say this was a great way to reduce stress. Early in the morning before the S a T rather than just going straight to the room. Even before this upcoming week, RH HS had offered a plethora of prep opportunities to ensure all students prepared, feel prepared for their tests. In addition to in-class practice, we hosted a get locked
in S a T review session during multiple advisories and before and after school. We has, we also had plenty of resources that the S a T club offered such as tutoring sessions during advisories and how to solve videos, which were very helpful for our students. Students good luck to all testers this week, as assertive before we had many opportunities available for our students, which R HS makes sure to prioritize many students feel confident and prepared to take on these tests. Now in regards to our senior class, there are plenty of events to look forward to as we approach our last 36 days until graduation.
First CAPA down cap and gown pickup will be on April 24th. Honors convocation will be taking place on April 30th night with the stars will occur on may. First and prom will be on May 13th. The last day of school and senior sunset will both be on May 19th. Our senior walk inside, RH HS on May 20th. And finally. Graduation and the senior all night party on May 27th. Next as spring sports are in full swing for our Falcons, there have been many exciting accomplishments to recognize. Congratulations to the RHS track and field teams on a successful dual meet against Oxford last Wednesday. The boys team won 78 to 50 and the girls
83 to 45. They've had an amazing start to the season so far. The girls lacrosse team is currently hosting a pink out game against Royal Oak to help raise funds for the American cancer association. They are also undefeated so far this season. Great job girls. The boys for FD volleyball team recorded their first win in school history against Stony last Thursday. Great job Falcons. We are super proud of you. The girls tennis team also won their first two matches of the season against lake orient in Oxford. And lastly, the boys lacrosse team is off to a great start this season. Currently varsity is four and oh, and JV is four
and one. We also had a great game this weekend against PR Huran as well. Along with sports. Our music department has been very busy this spring, too. Our rats theater group is currently working very hard on their next spring. Play called clue. Tickets are currently being sold and shows will be taking place April 23rd, the 25th. We can't see it. We can't wait to see all their hard work showcased on stage. The arcs varsity and JV winner guard teams also performed at their state. The state. Finals of the Michigan color guard circuit. We are very proud of their performance. The jazz band also had a concert Friday, April 10th at the strand theater in Pontiac and did a fantastic job.
In the future, the adva advanced jazz group, or known as the blue jazz group will open for the RHS spring band concert. To include. I'd like to give a few special shout outs that has helped contribute to the greater culture and excellence of our school. Rochester high school is introducing a skill development camp taking place on Thursdays until the end of the school year. It will cost $10 per person, and we are super excited to put on this new event. Another new event. RHS is hosting is this in this spring is our annual. Alumni career day, RH HS alumni can sign up to come back to Rochester and share their experience and offer advice to Falcons.
Falcons the Fed's robotics team had a fantastic performance at Troy Athens on March 28th. Earning the team sus a sustainability award at the district event. Final. That concludes this month's report. Thank you all for your time and attention. See you next month. Thank you. Grace next up for Stony Creek high school. We have Karina Morton. Hello, everyone. My name is Bogan. Miraj Enrique, not Karina morphine tonight, but I'm filling in for her as she is currently at tech week for our theater department who is doing Footloose this spring. I'm very excited to share some of the latest OB
updates and accomplishments from Stony Creek. Tomorrow we will be admin administering the S a T to juniors and the PS, a T to freshmen and sophomores. Sophomores seniors will have the day off while underclassmen and juniors will begin testing in the morning. To help students start the day off, right. An Altman bar will be provided before testing. We wish all of our students, the best of luck as they complete these important, important assessments. As we move further into the spring season, many senior events are quickly approaching. Prom will be taking place on May 14th and additional events such as the senior barbecue and honors convocation are also coming up. These events, give seniors some something to look
forward to as they begin to celebrate the end of their husband high school experience, a robotics team recently competed in the Troy district competition. Where, where they were selected to be a part of the seventh place Alliance and also received the judges award. This is an excellent accomplishment and we are proud for the hard work and innovation. Our music programs has also had great success. At the state championship, our varsity winner guard place third and our junior varsity place first. These performances reflect the dedication and effort that our students have put in throughout the season. In the arts, our theater department is currently in tech
week for the spring musical Footloose. The cast and crew have been working hard to prepare for opening night. And tickets are now on sale for performances running April 23rd through April 26th. Our spring sports have also had a strong start. Third of seasons. Seasons the girls cross stream has currently been undefeated and has a game tonight. So good luck. Boys of lacrosse recently earned a win against Troy. Our baseball team has also been performing well this season and boys golf is currently competing at TP C at of Michigan, and is holding fourth place as they make the term. Troy tracking field are boys at one. The preacher
relay invitational meet and currently holds the fastest second. The second fastest time in the state. Overall, it has been another exciting and successful time at Stony and Creek with students and continuing to be involved in achieving great things and representing our school with pride. Thank you for your time and have a wonderful evening. Thank you for filling in. next. We have a student nanny Lee bass. Good evening everyone. My name is Danny Lee, and I'm excited to share with you some of the ACE updates. Updates probably most, the most exciting thing that we did over the month was an event called reality check. We told Mr. Maj ask our econ teacher, what career
we wanted to pursue about 20 members from the public. In various fields came out and we had. To make a budget to live on based on our monthly salary, after taxes. For example, car salesman's. Us, what type of cars we'd like. And what we had to pay monthly. In insurance agent in representative of the secretary of state, was there also. If we don't ensure the car or register a police officer was also there insuring tickets. Which came out of our monthly salary. After paying for groceries, phone bills, pets, haircuts, and everything else. Some of us had to go back to the bank and take out a loan or forego some of
the plans that we had in order to make ends meet. It was an eye-opening experience. And nearly everyone said it was super impactful. Most importantly, the, this is the kind of real life activity that helps us avoid. The mistakes that trip up so many young people. We continued our focus on creating better mental health by holding a 30 minute yoga session. Nearly all students took advantage of the opportunity. Ms. Bedard to set it up, set up a book tasting event where she decorated her room. Like a fine dining restaurant and placed a variety of books on each table. For seven minutes, we read each book and looked through them and read them. Then we wrote what we thought.
About the book, including what we liked and what we didn't. Didn't a huge thank you to the RCS foundation. Thanks for their financial support. We now have a 15 foot long apprenticeship wall. Any student can learn about different careers of interested. We appreciate the RCS foundation for helping us focus on these. AI proof careers that happen to pay well. Finally our student council. Continues to spend most Thursdays partnering with. The students at ATPs, they learn about us and we learn about them. Sometimes we play games and sometimes we help them work on their crafts, which they sell at jitters. Getting to know them has been a truly powerful learning experience. Coming up soon, juniors are taking the S a T
tomorrow. And other high stakes tests after that. Our mental health awareness week and staff appreciation week is fast approaching. And our eighteens will be going to the legacy center in Oxford, which is truly exciting. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Nanny Lee. Next up from the IA. We have Alexa Boda. Good evening, everyone. It's great to see you all again. My name is Alexia Boda, and I'm the student representative for IA. IA last month we had kindness week. Our student leadership did a great job in planning, different act activities, like passing out candy with kindness notes, to students in the hallways and having kindness, candy grams, which were available for
purchase to students to write personalized kindness notes and sent to others students. In addition, we held our senior pig on Thursday. We had. A half day. So seniors stayed after school and ate really good food. Took pictures with their friends and hung out with the whole grade. We also took a class picture, which will be printed and given to each student. April 23rd is the senior's last day of school. They're all very excited for that. They have many fun things planned for the next two weeks, like a secret senior spirit week where they will do many fun things like anything, but a backpack day nostalgia day and beach party, there will also be a white t-shirt side in
color power throw. This is a super fun and exciting event. The. Seniors will also wear a shirt from the college that they're going to, and the whole school will participate in a clap out for them. I seniors get out early because during the entire month of may. They have IB testing. So the end school in April to be able to study more. In may teachers will be hosting review sessions for any students who want some extra help or have any questions they need answered before they take the IB exam. Last month I a DP global politics, students went to the Capitol to speak about why colleges should accept S SL IB credits, which was very successful as they got
the resolution passed. Now, admin is working with someone in the Michigan department of education to give them IB impact data, similar to advanced placement so they can promote. Both programs equitably. They are currently pursuing time funding to colleges through the Michigan school aid budget, which they would, which would give colleges an incentive to accept more credits for more funding. That's the update for IA. Thank you for your time. And I look forward to our next meeting. Thank you Alexia. I did wanna mention to you all. Your last meeting to give us a report will be next in may on May 4th. And the board would like
to extend an invitation for you all to have dinner with us prior to that meeting. So look for an invitation from us. Thank you. Next up is item 4.3 members of the board of education. This is where members of the board of education share communications that were shared directly with them and were not sent to the full board. Did any board member receive communications from the public? Trustee. Alba. so I wanted to address some miscommunication and misunderstanding. That has been made about a comment I made at the March 9th board meeting. My comments were regarding the millage. They were not directed at any taxpayer or any citizen
or any of our constituents. I believe the taxpayers should decide. My statement was, if you do not support public education, you have no business being on the board. Being that I meant by being a trustee. I understand that some of us. Have other agendas and other ideas about what education should be. But as we sit here as a trustee, we are, we are proud. Went to Portman, president of public education. Excuse me, treasurer. OSPA point of order. Yes. My point of order is just because I thought this section is about communications that we have received. I don't, I didn't. I missed who sent this communication to trustee SBA. Thank you, trustee.
Trustee. Lacoy your point of order is recognized. Treasurer SBAT. Did you receive any communication from anyone regarding what you're speaking of Ms. Brown and Ms. Agarwal. Okay, thank you. And while I recognize the fact that that doesn't mean. That does include oversight, advising and governance. But those are designed to create an environment where a public, where our students can thrive in a public. Institution again, my comments were not directed at taxpayers. The millage will be on the ballot and I encourage everyone to vote how they feel like they should vote. Okay. Anyone else receive communication? Yes. Trustee LA kuey.
All right. Bill Bidwell contacted me on March 15th. After reading about the board, censuring me and removing me from committees after sharing public information with the public. He expressed support and asked that I contact him. So I did. I also received a communication from Andrew Weaver. Weaver. He copied me on an April 10th email that he sent to the Rochester post about a recent board appointment article. His concern was that the article. Left out important context, including comments meant. Made by then acting president. Blake indicating that he didn't want to vote for candidate
Lawrence Haluka based on assumptions tied to his race. Sex and sexual orientation point of point of order, Madam. What that is Mr. Characterizing? What I stated. Stated I'm right. I'm telling you what the email, you said your point of order is taken. Continued trustee LA kuey. You don't need to expand on the entire email. But, you know, this is not a recap of everything. Well, well, I heard trustee Alba's statement and I thought. I would be allowed to say what the communication was about. So did you have any other that's what the communication was about? And I agree. I was appalled. Did you have any other communication? To share? No, I just wrapped up. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Appreciate it. Any other board members have communication to share. Oh, yes, trustee. Lozan. I just wanna say. Is it working now? Hello? Hello. I just wanna say that I received the same communication. Carol Beth was just discussing. Thank you. Vice president Blake. So I did not receive a communication that went apparently to the newspaper about me, but that would've been nice. Had he included me. Okay, moving on. I also received, well, not also, but I received an email from a young man named Nova Noah. Farai regarding an app he's developed to help school administrators, monitor smartphone, use usage while on school grounds.
Grounds. I also received an email from Jackie marker, the PAC chair regarding the sparkle awards, which will be coming up soon. And I received an email from. Julie O Sharak expressing dismay over social media post shared by trustee lek. Kuey and that is it for communications. We're moving on to item five. But before we do, I wanna remind the audience to. Please refrain from speaking. In the audience loudly. Thank you. We are now on agenda item five public comment. This gives an opportunity for the board members to hear from community members. If you wish to speak tonight, but have not already
filled out a yellow card. Please do so you can fill one out now and they're located at the table by the entrance. If we have more than 30 minutes of comments, we will take them in the order received. And then we will finish up hearing public comment under agenda item nine. When your name is called, please move to the microphone and address the board. And please accept my apologies in advance. If I mispronounce your name. When addressing the board, you will have three minutes to speak. We will try to let you know when you have 30 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 identifies a specific student. Without their permission, even if the student's name is not used. Any comments that could directly identify an individual student are not appropriate in this forum. And will not be tolerated. We will stop the meeting to protect students' rights and privacy. So please keep your remarks focused on the broader issues. Issues and avoid any personal references that may compromise privacy. We also ask that you address your comments to the entire board. And not an individual member.
School district employee or to a member of the audience. The board will not be responding to comments or questions during the meeting. However, if it is something that needs to be followed up, we certainly will make sure that an administrator. Receives that information and does follow up. The board reserves the right to exclude from our meeting, an individual who engages in contact that constitutes a breach of peace. So our first speaker is Lisa Haluka. Lisa good evening members of the board. My name is Lisa Haluka. I'm a district's parent and a district alumnus. I
am here to talk about the last board meeting wherein then acting president Blake indicated that he did not vote F in favor of Mr. Hall. Luka's appointment to the. Board because of his race, gender, and sexual. Orientation. There's several things I wanna point out with respect to that. First of all, it is the school district policy. That RCS does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, creed. Age or sex in accordance with the Elliot Larson act. The board's own policy from its handbook says that the board is committed to maintaining an environment free from discrimination.
No tolerance for discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin. Sexual orientation or gender identity. The state's Elliot Larson act says it, an educational. Institution shall not discriminate from the full benefit of the institution because of. Race sexual orientation or gender, and finally, the federal statute under title IX. IX says that one shall not be excluded from our. Participation or subject to discrimination on the basis of sex. So it is clear that based upon the above that vice then. Acting president Blake's admitted decision to vote against Mr. Hauschka's appointment. Was based upon discriminatory decisions.
Decisions. So here is the next step complaints about a sitting board member may be found from a violation of that member's violation of school, district policy or procedure. The process for initiating the complaint's policy against a sitting board member. May be by following the link on the RCS website. But as that provision is permissive not mandatory, a call for an investigation during public comment, such as I'm doing now is sufficient president Anna. I am making this complaint to you directly now at this meeting. As a demonstration that the board's power is centralized in
the president, the policy says. The president decides whether the complaint, if the allegations are assumed to be true, could reasonably result in disciplinary action. Results following a finding by a preponderance of the evidence that the member is responsible for violating policy. Those that I just described. Vice president Blake's policy violation was on tape, has been seen by everyone who is present at the last meeting. Was live streamed was posted online. And was seen by multiple people on social media posts. Posts the discipline, which is appropriate. Accenture removal for suspension
from committee activity, revocation of other board assignments or a petition to the governor for removal from the board. As a member of this community, I have grown. Increasingly concerned about the lack of transparency from this board, the centralization of power and the hands of the president, and the attempt to silence, dissenting voices, president Anis, the complaint is made to you. And should you decide to close the complaint with, without further an investigation it's speaks volumes about your desire to perpetuate the. Concerns I've outlined above. Thank you next. We will have Lawrence Salka. No offense having a name like that. It's Haluka but
everybody, everybody does that. My name is Lauren Sal Lushka father of four graduates. And one about to graduate kids. Three futures coached for two decades in the area or in the school district. And I'm a candidate running for the board. The comments that were made following the candidate interviews last board meeting by trustee Blake. We're inappropriate inaccurate. And discriminatory. First, why would he critique the applicants? Applicants and publicly second, his stated reasons for not voting for my appointment were discriminatory. Based on my race, my gender, and my assumed.
Sexual orientation. Discrimination on these attributes are specifically. Prescribed by policy. And state and federal law. As I stated in my interview, I have always respected fair. Application of process and have worked collaboratively within a team. To achieve a just result. Or what trustee Blake seemed to refer to as. Smashing heads together. Trustee Blake's comments and critique were public. And completely inaccurate as though he hadn't listened to a word. I said, they did not align with the board's view. Then on social media in response to public. Outrage over his comments. He doubled down. Restating and adding to his inaccuracies.
He added that I didn't seem to take offense. Of course the violation of one's rights is not dependent on the respectful reaction of the transgressed. I tried to address this violation privately as is my way within a team. A family or a community. We keep it within the family. I've heard us say around here. I reached out to trustee Blake privately to set up a meeting, which he has not done. Without such a meeting. I am left with no other option than to bring it. To the board publicly. And because this was all performed in a dramatic public fashion. Therefore, I want this complaint to be handled.
Handled publicly and openly and placed on the agenda. Next week now again. In order to hold each member of this board accountable for their actions. Each member, we are mired in another abusive court event. Instead of hearing discussions on curriculum. Finances and administrative transparency. President a ARNs. You've been respectfully notified of my complaint. Complaint. Thank you. Stephanie, this is Stephanie Vande is next followed by Nick Blasick. My name is Stephanie van Dale. And I am a taxpayer in this district. I am standing up here in regards to agenda item
6.7. And 6.6. About approving. Barb's Barb's training the last thing. That this board should do. Is approve any more training for Barb? She doesn't listen. She doesn't doesn't take any of the training to heart. And it's been obvious in the past. I don't know, eight years. That she won't use any of this training. So please. I'm asking. For you guys to not approve. $623 in training. It's a waste of money and a
waste of time. And other than the fact that Barb has like over. 200, some odd hours of M a S B training. Does she really need any more? I, you know, it doesn't help. The training for Ms. Perdue. For 125 bucks virtual training. No problem. But spending $623 on Barb. You know, it's a little over the top. She doesn't need any more indulgences. So thank you, please save $623 in training and disapprove
Barb's request. For training of run the room and some spring Institute board president's workshop. Yeah, she's not gonna be a board president for that long. So what does she even need some workshop for? Thank you. Hello board. How are you? First off, I'd like to congratulate Ms. Perdue. I did want to tell you, I really enjoyed that story. You've shared with us about this song with your sons that made me laugh. So. Seemed like I got a great personality. I'm sure you're gonna do great. Listen, I'm not I'm up here just to address Mr. Blake's comments last week as a whole board heard, he addressed me telling me I have an ax to grind. That's simply not the fact Ms. Gothia and I think
Ms. Russo can at testify that I'm just a passionate parent. Where there was some errors made. I've. With my son and I've come to find out from many other parents. Let me be really clear. I have no acts to grind. I respect the teachers. I respect the school district. I do respect even person up here, even though Mr. Blake may not respect me or he is worried because I'm running for boards. So he wants to put it out there. That I have an ax to grind. No bottom line is I do not. I've actually been working email with Ms. Goth here quite a bit, and it's been phenomenal. My son's resource teachers we've worked together. My son's teachers. Teachers and it's night and day. I mean, like we
just talked about a few minutes ago. You can't change everything overnight, but when people listen, those changes do happen kind of, which brings me to my next point with Mr. Blake. I actually had about a 45 minute conversation with Mr. Blake on the phone, which I don't recall hearing after the, in the communication and recent months. And we talked about, and I said, you know what? You're the PAC liaison, Mr. Blake. You should be doing more. You should be stepping up. Here's some ideas. Ideas. And I got off the phone and hand to God. I thought we had an amazing conversation. I called my wife and I said, that was such a great conversation. I think changes were, I think he actually heard
what I said and took it to heart. Come to find out next pack meeting. Nothing Mr. Blake, you go to the PAC meetings, just stand there. The one of the PAC meetings you talked about strategic plan. All you said, ozone, I'm not really prepared for this. That's embarrassing. And that's what you said. A lot of PAC members can verify that at the last PAC meeting. You stared at my wife and made her uncomfortable. She's just there as a support. For the other parents like-minded no, don't multiple people saw it. My wife goes there just for support, like other parents. You don't communicate with the pack very well. I don't know what you do when you just show up for
a social hour. It's a serious thing. So you can tell me, I have an ax to grind all I want or this, or I'm this I'm that that's not the case. I'm just a caring citizen. I care about my son. I care about the other students. I can go out there and start bashing everybody, but I'm not gonna do that. I don't believe in that instead of take my concern. Thank you. Concerns. Concerns to where they matter. Like I emailed. Ms goofier, Mr. Russo. And we had a great conversation. After that last meeting, I came here. One of the things I never hear is I hope Ms. Perdue from this time, my last 10 seconds was Perdue. While you're here. I hope you hear the people
come up here and if you feel. Then, please address them cause nobody's listening to the citizens and that's a big problem. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Last we have Carol baffle kuey and I just wanna remind the audience when you address the board, please address the entire board and not individuals. I'm Carol Beth. Kuey. I'm a trustee on this board. And I wanna talk about how our pro our process for approving. Major decisions has changed since I was elected. And not for the better. At a board meeting on February 27th, 2023. While I was pushing to implement a deadline for receiving board packets. Packets former superintendent Shaer gave this assurance. He said,
we will never ask the board to consider something for a vote. Until it's been seen in a board newsletter. Talked about at a work session and then asked about at a regular meeting. We are never going to ask you to do something that you haven't seen multiple times. Now while Dr. Shaer and I had our disagreements. That standard made sense. It respected the board, it respected the public and it gave people time to think. Now look at what we do instead. The board majority eliminated work sessions. Sessions, we hold back important information from the public until the last minute. Then we expect people to absorb it all over the weekend. With a board vote on Monday. We just saw this happen with the recent millage discussion.
And we're seeing it again with the literacy curriculum vote coming at our next meeting. Now I know what the literacy curriculum recommendation will be. But under the board, majority's current. Climate and rules. I'm not free to discuss that recommendation openly with my constituents ahead of the vote. I'm not a free to ask the community what they think. Without risking, censure and punishment again. That's a lose, lose situation and it fails the public. In this matters. Because those votes are not trivial. This affects our kids. And parents have been begging for literacy changes in our
district for over a decade. We should be including them in the process. Now I'm not necessarily opposed to the curriculum choice, but I'd like to learn more about it. Board members shouldn't have to only. Rely on internal enthusiasm. And convenience when we approve something, this important. The board should have time to examine the evidence. Ask tough questions and hear community feedback before the decision is locked in. We should have time to think and digest what we've heard. Now, I'm not trying to micromanage anybody. I'm not trying to push my own specific curriculum. But the public has a right to know what's coming before. It's too late to weigh in and I'll always
be advocating for that 30 seconds. Transparency. Doesn't undermine our decisions. It's strengthens them. If we want public trust. Then we need to act like it matters. That means earlier disclosure. Open discussion, meaningful public review and the freedom. For trustees to hear from their constituents before major votes. Votes not after it's already been decided. If we keep treating transparency like a threat, we shouldn't be surprised when public trust keeps eroding. Thank you Mrs. LA kuey. LACOE next up is item six, our consent agenda. Agenda item six is the consent agenda and all matters
listed under the consent agenda are considered considered routine in nature by the board of education and will be acted upon in one motion. There is no separate discussion of these items. However, if a board member requests discussion of an item, that item will be removed. Removed, please state which item you'd like pulled from the consent agenda. And as a reminder to members, the maker of the motion will speak first on their motion. However, any further explanation. Beyond the item number has been stated is considered out of order. On our consent agenda today, it consists of item 6.1.
Human resource recommendations. Item 6.2 board of education closed meeting minutes from March 9th, 2026. Item 6.3 board of education, regular meeting minutes. Dated March 9th, 2026. Item 6.4 board of education, special meeting minutes. March 23rd, 20, 26. 6.5 is the pack representative. 6.6 is the M a S B C B a 2 32. Run the room for Barbie Annis and the amount of $125. 6.7 is M a SB 2026 spring Institute.
Board president's workshop one and two for Baris in the amount of $498. And item 6.8. Is the M a S B superintendent. Evaluation training, which will be virtual. For Dr. Sherry win Perdue in the amount of $125. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. So moved by Dr. SSPA. Do I have a second? Seconded by vice president Blake. Okay. Now we'll be able to vote on these items, any discussion you say, oh, that's right. Thank you for the reminder. Do we have any discussion on the items? Or did you wanna pull something?
Yeah, actually. Okay. Yes. I'd like to pull item 6.3. Okay. Trustee Lak would like to. Pull item 6.3. We will vote on that separately then from the rest of the items. So we'll vote on item 6.1 6.2. 6.4, 6.5 6.6 6.7 and 6.8. Can I see a show of hands in favor of. Passing the consent agenda of those particular items. That is a seven oh vote. Trustee Luk Kui you have pulled item 6.3.
Would you like to speak to why. Yes. I sent the full board an email. About this. I discussed it with the president. And the secretary earlier, the meeting minutes, I just believe should accurately reflect the processes. And the concerns brought up in the meeting. So I have two motions. Motions that I had sent to you. And it was, I moved that I under item 3.1 fiber maintenance. To replace board discussion included eRate and bids. Bids with board discussion included, eRate bids and bid documentation. Transparency. Which more accurately reflects the concerns. Concerns under that topic. Trustee Blake is that 6.3 you're talking about or 6.4.
The item was 3.1 on those meeting minutes. I think you pulled the one, one, maybe. Did you, did you mean the 6.3? The board of education, regular meeting minutes from March 9th. Is that what you meant? Right. Okay. Is that okay. Are there any other comments? Comments. Oh, you know what? You're right. It's trustee's right. It's the wrong one. It's 6.4. Did it get changed after all the changes were made or something? It's the wrong item? Six point that those happened at so, okay. So 23rd meeting. To re-clarify. The item you wanna address is on. Item 6.4, which.
Wait, which one? March 23rd. Oh, okay. I guess I've missed my chance. well, yeah, I guess we will. The documentation transparency. The other item that I would've changed, would've been our, about our app, our process. I was going to say under item four, finalist interviews to replace. Each candidate will be given an opportunity to answer the questions from the current board members. With each candidate will be given an opportunity to answer the questions drafted by president Blake. And assigned to board members to read aloud. I'm not gonna make you go through any effort to pull the correct meeting minutes, because I don't expect to receive support from the majority of the board, but at
least I can get it on record that that's what I intended to do. Vice president Blake. Did you have a comment? It, it doesn't matter at this point. I don't think that's accurate either though, because the questions weren't all completely drafted by me. Some were drafted by other people and they were drafted by the president with input from the board. That's exactly how it's written and that's, they were selected, but it doesn't, it's not worth our arguing about, okay, moving on. I will take a vote on this for. Approve a motion to approve item 6.3. All those in favor, please say you have to take the motion in a second. Okay, can I have a motion to approve item 6.3
from the consent agenda? Dr. OSPA Anna second from secretary of Butell. Tell all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. That is do are you? That's a 7 0 1. I do. Cuz it's the wrong meeting minutes. Apparently. . Thank you all next. We have reports. And item 7.1 is a new item on our reports actually. This is an agenda item. Opportunity for members of the board to share information about their. Liaison schools or their committee assignments. Information on these liaison and committee assignments is shared in the board packet of this meeting for anyone who's interested.
There is a breakdown of. What particular school, each member. Is serving as a liaison for, and what committee assignments we are all assigned to. Do I have any board members who'd like to comment on this? Trustee Lozan so I wasn't exactly prepared for this because I was confused as I thought, this is us assigning. Dr. Sherry. To her role. So I didn't know that we were speaking on this, but I did just want to make a comment. I'm very excited for the upcoming literacy curriculum that we are coming to vote on the next meeting. I wish we could share that information with you guys, but we can't right now. But I'm very hopeful. So that's all that I'll say
with that. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. Dr. OSPA. It's my understanding that this agenda item is to talk about things that we did in our roles as a liaison on these committees or. Within our schools specifically? That is correct. So I attended the OSB or O C S B a. G R C meeting, which was the Oakland county school. Board's government. Liaison meeting. And it was interesting to hear all of the information about the upcoming. Laws that are going through and the state of the budget. One of the legislative priorities. Both by this organization and many educational organizations.
Is mainly to make sure that we get a budget on time. By June by the end of June so that we can align. What the state is giving us so that we have the information to get the schools budgets in. So that was a very important piece that. All of the groups are stating as a legislative priority for them. Thank you, Dr. OSBA. Anyone else? Yes, trustee Blake. So a couple things, the, one of the committees, as you have heard that I'm assigned to is the PAC committee. I'm not generally gonna make reports from that committee because they get to come and make their own reports and they can say it better than I can. But I did want to throw this out there because we're in the week, this Thursday is the sparkle awards. It's at
6:00 PM. For the younger grades and seven 30 for the older grades, it is one of the best events of the year. It's if you can be there. Be there. It's, it's amazing. The other thing I will just say from the SPTC committee, superintendent policy curriculum. There are a number. I, I just wanted to explain a little bit about the process of how we do things there. So the literacy. Piece that Shelly mentioned. My, we, we did get some information about that, which will come out next week. But my understanding of the reason why that is not public at this point. Is because there are dozens of teachers that participated across the district in different pilots. And we want to push
that information out so that all the teachers know the information. Before the, just the general public knows. So that's the under, that's the understanding for that? Thank you. Vice president Blake. Yes, secretary of betel. I apologize. I didn't quite understand that this is what this was gonna be either, but I'd like to highlight a couple I'm sorry of items. I'm sorry. I had the opportunity to visit some of my schools that I'm a liaison to. So I was at musin and I got to. Sit in on their young authors assembly, where they used a mime who acted out stories. And then the kids during the day were able to write stories that at
the end of the day, he then acted out again. Just great enthusiasm. From the kids on that. And there was also a Lionheart experience, which the fifth graders there saw and it focused on. Moving to the middle school. And talked about the need to be kind and to stand up for what's right. And it was really a lot like a rock concert. And the kids really got into it. And that was really great. And I was also able to attend Brooklyn's family fun night. And they had games in one of the rooms that kids had created. They had other games like board games
that families could play and their science fair. And it was along with a book fair and it was just a great turnout by their community. And that was great. I also wanted to I sit on the Rochester area. Youth assistance board. And they have upcoming on May 12th, there is a free water and Bo boating safety. Class. And I think more information will be coming out. If you haven't seen that already. It's on May 12th from seven to eight at the Rochester Hills public library. And you just need to. Email Raya, which is in that. Email to let them know that you'd like to attend.
And that's being also put on by the Oakland county Sheriff's department too, and funded through the. Ashley Eisman boating safety foundation. Raya also held earlier in March, their youth recognition evening. Which is a number of kids throughout the district who. Have just they, they they've excelled, but it's not always like those perfect straight a students. It's the kids who have gone above and beyond to. Overcome an obstacle. Or who have, you know, been kind or shown support to other students. And so that was a great evening as well.
And then we had the. Scholarship event, this past week as well. And I was just blown away. By the students who were recognized there and everything that they've accomplished and. Just super impressive as well. And I feel like I am missing something. Oh yes. The last thing is. That there will be a health and wellness fair. On May 2nd at Rochester high school from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM. And there, this is open to everyone in the community. There will be a fun children's area. They're also offering. Like a yoga class and other fitness classes that people
can sign up to. Attend, there will be a host of vendors there. There will be a blood drive. Vaccines are being offered. If anyone needs any, there's just a whole host of activities that are going on. Again, that's Rochester high school coming in off of the liver, Illinois exit. And you should hopefully for the, those in the district, that should be emails going out. And hopefully you see things on social media as well. I think that's everything. Thank you, secretary Patel. I just would like to report that I'm the liaison at Hampton elementary. And prior to spring break, I had an opportunity to attend their PTA meeting. It was super
informative. They're very excited about what's going on in their school. And I look forward to K continuing to participate in some of their other events. Events. Also I attended county school board association, government relations committee with treasurer. Dr. SSPA. Spa. And for more context, it's a committee comprised of 28 Oakland county school districts. Districts who discuss legislative issues that impact public education at a local state and federal level. And at this meeting, a legislative update was given. And I did share with the entire board sitting here.
The updated 20, 26 Oakland county school board association, legislative priorities. As well as the PowerPoint that was presented in this meeting. And the education budget, advocacy toolkit, which as Dr. ALS spat mentioned. You know, it's really important that as a governing body, we have to pass a school budget. By June 30th. And we really feel strongly that our state legislature should try and meet that same goal so that we know what we have to work with in terms of. Setting a budget for the following school year. And also given my role as president, I will be
stepping aside from the many years that I've served on this committee. It's been super informative. And I thank treasurer, Dr. ALPA for stepping in. To take over that role. I appreciate it. Next on our agenda, president Anis. Yes. I had a que question actually. Yeah. Trustee Blake mentioned that in the S P C. He said, one of the reasons why we don't know what the literary C curriculum is now and the parents can't talk about it is because teachers don't know what decision has been made yet. And I just wanted to ask a little bit more about that because you know, the way that we used to do things, as I mentioned during public comment is
we would've a work session. And then we would discuss it at the next regular meeting. Why do the teachers not know about it yet? Why couldn't we have. Informed them a little bit sooner so that we could have done something similar where we. Have a work session of sorts to discuss what the curriculum's gonna be. People have a chance to weigh in on it to ask questions. We have a couple weeks and we've got our next meeting. Is there any reason for that? Well, can I speak first of all to I, okay. I was asking trustee Blake, cuz he's in that committee. Well, I'll I'll address first of all, I think, okay. What you're asking is out of order, because this is specifically about. Committee assignments. And I don't think that it was based to be
a discussion item. It was more an informational and sharing item. Just to be honest, because you're, you're asking questions about process. Which really should be answered in partnership with the administration and the superintendent that is sitting next to me. And we do not have that on the agenda right now to discuss trustee Annas. Annas. Yes. Yes. You just added this agenda item. Nobody knew what it, or at least a, a couple of us didn't know what it was. I didn't just left out of it. The agenda was out last week. Trustee, Anna, I have the floor. Sure I've been recognized. Finish your, finish. Your, so you add, I'm trying to understand this, you know, this board.
Has censored me. Yes. And removed me from committee assignments and public liaison roles. Because I shared public information with the public. I thought perhaps I could use my time since you've stripped me. Of those opportunities. To ask questions so that I could find out more about what's happening in these committees because I've been told. That these committees is where all the work gets started. Excuse me, trustee. And that if you want to be able to trust, participate, that's excuse me, trust do it. If you're speaking to the board, you need to speak to the board. I'm speaking to the room. Do everyone address your, your, what you're saying to the board? I IM would appreciate that. Okay. So Mike, my point.
That I wanna make for you. Is that just for clarification? You were centered, you were centered for sharing information that had not yet been re released by the district. It wasn't district information. It was I'm sorry, information, but we'll not be going on and on about that. But what I will say is this is not a discussion item. If you have a question. About why that information hasn't been released. Released then you need to also ask. Our superintendent who's sitting here. There's a process in terms of. How we go about vetting curriculum and that process has been followed. And you have also been informed. Through the board cabinet notes. And also too, I believe
that trustee Lozan has been doing a great job of informing you. I believe as well on what's been happening in the S PCC meeting. How do you know that anyways, trustee Annas. Anis are you saying that I'm not allowed to speak during this agenda item? I'm saying yes. No, you're not. If you have nothing to contribute in terms of sharing information about your school board, liaison assignments. Or your committee assignments, then you should not be weighing in. May I speak about liaison assignments and committee assignments, even though you don't allow me to be on them. Well, you are not allowed for clarification. On those, because that is the result of your behavior and the censure. So you're saying I'm not allowed to
speak on this agenda item at all, because I had something else that pertained to S SP C that involves me. And I thought maybe this would be the appropriate time to bring it up. No, it is not, this is not a discussion I item or a debate topic. I won't debate. I could speak to. My own topic I'm moving on right now, we will move on to the next topic, which is item 7.2. Which is a superintendent update from Mr. Russo. Russo. Thank you, president Annas. We have just a few updates today. First we'll start with our superintendents. Superintendents policy and curriculum committee, Mr. Murphy. Thank Mr. Policy and curriculum committee met on April 8th last week.
The committee reviewed some alternate language for the prior recommendation. Of policy 4,003, which was previously titled anti moonlighting. The group members had some additional suggestions for edits. Edits. So those edits will be drafted and shared with legal counsel. And our partners in the labor unions for additional feedback, and then brought back to the S P C C. In may this suggested 8,009. Policy edition, official communication channels was discussed. After discussion. I heard no desire for legal guidance or further. Action related to this suggestion.
The previously communicated recommendation policy edits related to personal. Electronic devices based on recent. Legislation was also reviewed. The committee, felt the recommended language, met the legislation, but preferred additional language. Around earbuds or other wireless Bluetooth connective devices be included. Included this draft language has been shared with the board and is scheduled to be brought forth for a first reading on April 20. And a second reading on may four. To take effect next year, the beginning of the 2026, 2027 school year. Additionally new policy language involving.
Evidence-based or state approved curriculum. As well as record retention was reviewed. And those new policy, that new policy language is scheduled for a first reading. Next week on April 20th. Thank you. president Anis. Trustee Lak. Lacoy perhaps this would be the appropriate spot for me to talk about the official communications. Channels policy that I submitted to the SPCC. Have you two other members that have agreed to. Bring it forward to me prior to this meeting. That's not, we just got an email, like an hour. Before the meeting was supposed to start. And there was advice that was given that trustees should
be allowed to ask questions during the update when this was brought up. Isn't that correct? Sure. Go ahead. Ask her a question. Thank you. I appreciate it. So. I had submitted this official communications channels policy for consideration back in October of last year. And I had good reason for bringing it up. Now, like I said, I only knew about an hour before this meeting that this was even gonna be brought up today. So I had to really scramble to try to compile some notes. It's not off the top of my head, cuz this was many months ago, but I wrote this because we had seen some issues this year where. Information wasn't being stored correctly.
We saw a sensitive title, one information that was shared on anonymous pages. Pages and foyer responses where key district records weren't found that we knew for a fact existed. So we clearly needed a policy point, excuse me, trustee. Luk secretary of butal. What is your point of order? And I apologize, I guess, I don't know if this is a point of order or point of information. Mm-hmm . I think it's a time to ask questions. I don't think I, I feel like we're trustee Laia is going, is. Not not holding to the agenda item, like she's name, question. She's not staying
germane to the agenda item. This, this might be a point where she could ask a. A question regarding the process. But not to discuss the whole. Policy correct. So what, what is your question, president and Anna's yes. I think it's really important to give some background, so people even know what I'm talking about. And I do have a question. I promise this is just the background of. Why I submitted the policy in the first place. So it's literally just a digital. Communications policy saying that when people are conducting district business, they should use district channels, like their emails, like parent square. Like these district platforms that we have, it's pretty
standard. Lots of companies do this. So I was told. You must submit it to the SPCC the policy and curriculum committee. And they're gonna decide whether it goes forward or not. We then removed approval of the agendas. So I that's a point of order trust that way. That is a mischaracterization. My question of what you just said is a mischaracterization of, of that committee. You were asked, you were told actually that in order for you to break point of order is actually supposed to be used. If I'm breaking some sort of process, you are, you are expressing my opinion and the appropriate thing to do, if you disagree with me is to let me finish my statement. And then you can explain
you're you disagree? You're statement. You're not saying to the topic. So I brought forward this policy. And now my question for the members who are in the SP committee. Who rejected the policy is on what basis you rejected the policy. Vice president Blake. Would you like to speak to that since you were in? I yes. Policy curriculum meeting. No. Go ahead. Yeah. I'm happy to answer that. So the policy that you submitted. Based dictated that all employees have to use only district designated devices to communicate. They would be forbidden from using your own phone or any other devices of your own to call text or do anything else?
In the, in the pro process of doing your duties. And if you did, so you specifically designated that said employee would be subject to discipline. To, for anything like that to work. First of all, there would have to be district provided devices. We don't provide devices to our district, to our employees. That only way policy like that would work is if everybody had a specific device and this is the device you must use. So for that reason alone, you're talking a seven F expenditure just to Institute this. Policy then when you go beyond that, it's just very impractical. We went through a whole bunch of different scenarios.
There could be a coach out on a field. A player is trying to text to say, I'll be there in two minutes. That coach would be disciplined for taking that text message. You could have a coach texting somebody in the locker room. Can you bring out X. They would be disciplined. I was a chaperone for a field trip a couple weeks ago, and all the teachers would've been disciplined because we were on multiple buses and the teachers had a group text where they were coordinating the logistics that would be subject all of them to discipline. So we went through a number of different scenarios and we talked about this and there was no. Interest in proceeding forward.
From any of anybody at the community because of these, this discussion. President Anis. Trustee Luk I would definitely like to respond. And because it seems that you are misunderstanding what the policy stated. Stated, I never said that people needed to use district devices. I said that it was supposed to use district platforms. Platforms, and that can include using your own personal devices, just a district platform. And the language is important there. And the other thing was, it said up to and including discipline. So it doesn't mean that people get disciplined for. Minor minor things here or there of a text message on a football field. It's up to the destress of the administration who would
be enforcing this. So I'm what we could also do when and what I would wonder. Is if given that we have had some problems in this area before. If board members would be interested in perhaps discussing this. And if you feel that the language should be changed in one way or another, we could come to an agreement and a compromise on something like that. Unfortunately, I was never given the opportunity to present this myself. And that's why, you know, there were huge mischaracterizations of what the policy even was and I'm afraid people made the decision based on erroneous interpretations. Does anyone else have any comments? Well, okay. Trusty Luanne.
Loza. I just wanted to say that I brought this forward for Carol Beth and getting asked questions on the spot, trying to answer. As her is impossible. So that's why I said, you know, if you could, you know, reach out to Karaba, that'd be a great question for Karaba, but I don't believe anybody reached out to Carol Beth to get clarification. I got clarification as best as I could, but answering questions on the fly is very difficult. Thank you for their point of clarification. Trustee me and yes, I was secretary of, I would say that. You know, any, any item can be put on the agenda if there is support. So trustee LA kuey just needs to. Talk to the other board members. And if there is
sufficient support, then this is something that can be brought forward and we can spend time on it. Yes. I would just like to also highlight that per our board handbook item 2.21. Any three board members may make a request in writing or verbally to the board president an item they desire to have placed on the agenda. So I will recommend to you trustee Luie in the future. If you find that you have something that you would like presented to the board for a table discussion. You know the process in which we have to use. And I suggest that you work hard to get two other individuals to support you and bring forward a discussion
item for our agenda. So next I will move on to president Ennis. Excuse me. I move that. We go ahead and bring this forward. In the future on an agenda item. So in front of you, it was a piece of paper. There's a half piece of paper. If you have a motion that you would like to present. For a future, write it out. But that way everybody knows what I just said. Please write it out. Give it to the secretary. She can read your motion. And we will call for a second. And if you have a second, we will take a vote. Madam president. Yes, trustee. ALSK I'm unclear. It seems that. Trustee hooey is president Annas motion. I made a motion.
And now we need to ask for a second before we have any more discussion. Is this a point of clarification or a point of order trust? Doctor's clarification's on what the motion is. Well, let us get the second on the motion amendment. Hi, thank you. I'll start there. So trustee lek moves that the board bring forward a discussion on policy 8 0 0 9 digital communications at a future board meeting. So trustee Luk has brought forward a motion. Is there asecond? A second trustee Lozan seconds. The motion. Trustee LA kuey. Do you wanna speak to your motion? I spoke to my motion earlier, and I am curious to see if there are any other board members that
would be willing to just simply talk about it. Does anyone else have any discussion? Dr. OSPA so we have a process for this, and I'm unclear other than possibly. Politically grandstanding, why we are breaking the process. So I will. I'm not opposed to discussing it, but I believe we have processes for a reason. And I'm going to vote no on this because it doesn't follow the process. And it's not a reflection on the idea. It's just that we're not following the process and we're trying to. Well, I won't speculate on motive. Thank you. Anyone else have comments? Comments. Yeah. Vice president Blake. So. To my, I believe that we've talked about it, but
all district business. Must be conducted using official Rochester community schools, communication systems, including district issued, email accounts and other district managed tools. The use of personal email accounts or personal text messaging for district business is prohibited. And then it goes on and then down at the bottom, any violation of this policy may result in a appropriate disciplinary action against. The violator. Those are the things that I mentioned before. I don't think this is worth. Discussion at this point, I don't see an interest in it. Anyone else have comments? Yes. Trustee lives on. I just wanted to say, I understand that you may not agree with some of the wording
that's for, but that's what discussion is for. We could. Hammer out anything that we wanted to change for it, but we can't do that without discussing it. Does anyone else have any comments? Comments, any questions? Questions. All right, I'm gonna move forward with a vote. Can I see a raise of hands, those who will support the motion. To bring this issue. Can you repeat the motion, please? Thank you. Trust trustee secretary to bring forward a discussion on policy 8 0 0 9. Digital communications at a future board meeting. So can I see a, a show of hands in those who say I. So we have Dr. Sherry Winn Perdue. We have trustee
Lozan and we have trustee. those who are their nays. Nays. So we have Dr. ALS spa. We have secretary Butell. We also have. Vice president Blake and myself. So that would be four. So the motion fails, but then she's got three for another. So it'll be on the next, on a future agenda, right? Yes, or on the next agenda, because you said if there's three, it will be on the next agenda. Excellent. All right. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Sure. Moving on. Superintendent Russo. Did, did you have any other administrations with updates? I do. Thank you. Thank you president Annis. We have steering update.
The things that we discussed in steering. The members were myself. Trustee ALS spa trustee Annis and trustee Blake. Was an energy bond and you'll be hearing more about what that energy bond is in may and energy bond. Offers the opportunity for us to potentially save money. On energy efficiencies. By taking investing some money into some changes so that we have a better return on our investment in terms of energy. And this is not something that has to go. Before a, the community, because there is no, there's no cost to the text, to the text payer.
But there'll be more to come on that in may with the actual company that we did an RFP for. Out back in January, I believe it was. Maybe before that. They will be here to present so that the community can understand what it is and what it is not. We talked about our strategic plan process for year three. Talked about where we are and trying to. Bring in Mon many of our. Deliverables that were identified in year and two and a half years ago when the community was surveyed and our staff was surveyed and tried to make them more transformational goals instead of a list of tasks. That was the tab. That was the task that at hand for me,
after our board reach retreat and January 31st. And so I wanted to give steering an update on where we are and where we're going. That'll be on May 15th. I will be here explaining that entire process. And to present potentially year three. That doesn't mean that year three will be stamped while I'll get board feedback. And then we'll come back to adopting something before. August, and then talked about a new product that we. That we have purchased that the board was made aware of months ago, it's called Qualtrics. And if you are in the corporate world, you know what Qualtrics is more
than likely. It is a very popular survey mechanism. It is also a data warehouse. It is also, it provides a data dashboard. It also does. There's an employee side to it as well. And we have officially now our abandoning, our former data. Platform that we used and we are moving. Into to this into, into next year. Many of our cabinet members went to a training on this. And will continue to be trained, to continue to create. What our data dashboards will look like not only internally, but. Front facing the community. And there's more to come on that from not only next year, but years to come. I also talked about 5 0 1 west university and how it
was pertinent that we. Get something on our agenda for may, because that's what we had promised the community. And then discussed that I would be holding two. Enhancement millage. Community discussions. In both. We have actually have solidified dates today. And so there will be one in. May and one in July and that is coming up on August 4th. That vote is coming up on August 4th. So I'm gonna have two forums that'll be held at. Our board office that is in, in our Harrison room, just like the first one that we had a couple weeks ago. And that would be a conclusion of my steering and the same one has to add anything. Thank you.
Secretary Batel I'm sorry, I didn't catch. Did you give the dates in may and June? I did not give the dates, but that'll be emailed in the next couple days. I think it's May 21st and July 17th. If I'm remembering exactly. Thank you. Okay, moving on to item 7.3. This is the president Annas. Anis point to of personal privilege. We can't hear in this room very well. Can you repeat the dates? Dates. Superintendent Russo stated May 21st and July 17th, but he will confirm. In the next day or two via email. Moving on to item 7.3 is the strategic planning update
from. Mr. Russo. Thank you, president. Annis. So we have. A couple presentations tonight for you and I am going to in the interest of time, turn it directly over to Ms. Hempton. For, I believe would go first as strategic plan three. Thank you, Mr. Russo. Russo Mike picking up. Okay. All right. Thank you. We are eager to bring the board along into some of the research and evaluation that has been conducted this year. Our plan three has been focused on exploring academic options for high achieving high ability students, district wide. District-wide this multidisciplinary team is included. Classroom teachers. Teachers early elementary classroom teachers, secondary classroom. Excuse me, Mrs.
Hempton. Sure. Could you bring the mic a little closer? Thank you. Sure. How's this. Much better looking up better. Okay. Thank you. This multidisciplinary team has included. Teachers classroom teachers from early elementary grades through high school. Counselors curriculum consultants. Principals. Across all, not touching all 23 buildings, but representing all employee groups in, in this. Work and the introduction I'd like to make is to Taylor an Toski who's our district MTSS. MTSS coach and Taylor has been the lead of this plan. She and I are going to. Share this presentation a bit and then feel free to compose your questions as we move, we know that this
is. A plan that is eagerly received and, and likely has a number of questions with it. And we're. Looking forward to going through those at the conclusion of the presentation tonight. This is FKI. Then can everyone, can everyone hear me? Thank you, Mrs. Hampton again, thank you for the introduction again, my name's Taylor . I have the honor to serve as our district's MTSS coach. I have been a teacher and an administrator in our district. I am a resident of our district. I'm married to a graduate of our district and my children will soon be. Starting their educational journey in our district. So my commitment and rooting for our district's success runs deep, and it
has been truly a privilege to support our strategic plan work. And thank you for taking the time to listen to our update tonight. So to launch this strategic plan, our first step was to identify some of the. Interconnected lanes of work that would create sustainable practices and systems that would support high achieving students. Students. So our process involved analyzing stakeholder input that was available from previous surveys, from conducting protocols. Protocols to surface anecdotal data throughout our district. And also conducting an audit of our current structures. So from this process, we identified six areas of focus.
Which has concentrated our work, and that will also lead our update for this evening. So we also wanted to ensure that our approach to this work was aligned in research and best practice. So we developed an anchoring statement, which acknowledges that every student. Deserves opportunities that are deeply engaging. That connect to their individual interests and that maximize their potential for growth. And we have also aligned our approach with my Kips five tenons of the whole child and also the national association for gifted children's whole child position. And this is because we wanna acknowledge that to have
a successful program. We. Have to design programs and experiences that teach to the whole heart mind. And heart of our children. And finally, as you will see, as a centering theme throughout this presentation, our recommendations center on a partnership approach between our school staff and the parents and caregivers of our high achieving students, our gifted learns because we feel it's really pertinent that we bring all of the adults. Together that not only are rooting for the success of that child and deeply care for them. But each of those adults get to see a little bit of a different version of that child, both inside
and outside of the school. So as all these recommendations, I hope you will see that partnership approach as a theme. So moving on to our first area of focus, which was defined, and that was centered on establishing common research-based definitions. For terms that are relevant to this plan. And these are listed in a glossary of terms, which was developed. So from even starting this work and in reading survey responses and even dial dialoguing amongst one another, we quickly realized that there is a lot of cross referencing of terms that are relevant to this plan. And even within the plan itself, there are multiple different
terms that are used that appear to be synonymous of one another, but really do refer to distinct profiles of students. Students. It's also very clear that there are a lot of deeply held beliefs that. Center around high achieving students or educating gifted students. Students. So we really think that both coming into this update with grounded and, and aligned. Terms, but then more importantly, curing this workout in our district will be really important, just so we're dialoguing and we're planning from a place of shared understanding. So a few of the terms that we would like to just lift tonight that can come from that glossary. And again, these have been compiled or adapted from V
variety of organizations or publications within educational research. But as you will see on this screen, we have a couple terms that connect to the profiles of students within. This plan that do have some overlap, but they, they actually are, are distinct. So as you will see first, the term high achieving students typically refer to students who Excel with an a system. So these students often demonstrate high proficiency and, or of standards or benchmarks at a high level. And oftentimes this is measured and things like grades or assessments, scores. Scores, but unlike high achieved, unlike high achievement, giftedness really
is more about cognitive aptitudes and broader cognitive aptitudes. And it's less about measuring students on what they have learned, but more about looking at just the wide variety of skill that they have in their innate ability to learn and process. And finally we have to address a common misconception and one of the most pervasive misconceptions in educating gifted students. And that is that being gifted and having a disability, our students that are in two separate boxes because they're is profound research that recognizes that there is a, a large amount of students. Students that we refer to or research refers to as
twice exceptional. And that's a student who is both gifted and also has a disability. And I think that's really important as we approach approach this work. It's often said that, you know, for a choice exceptional student, the disability can mask the gift or the gift can mask the disability. And the impact is that as often, twice exceptional children either go unidentified or they're not holistically supported in both the area of their disability and in their giftedness. So as we're thinking about programming, we have to. Think about programs that would service again, the whole child, especially unique children, like our choice, exceptional learners.
Learners. And then finally the word extension is used. Quite frequently throughout this presentation. And that really is the umbrella term. That refers to a variety of different instructional strategies that either deepen the complexity or the scope of curriculum for students. But there are many terms that are listed on the screen that can be different strategies that can be leveraged because we know a once size fits, all of approach is not typically something that's most successful for students. Right. We might employ a. Variety of strategies like accelerating. Or curriculum compacting and, or possibly enrichment opportunities for a
student. So as a result of our plan work, we have updated our MTSS model to integrate both intervention and extension. In our approach and just as like a quick over overview of this graphic. So tier one represents. Our universal core instruction that has high quality differentiation for all students. Students. And then the tier, the tiers two, both on the intervention side and the extension side of the diamond. Refer to either gap closure or deepening extension, and often time that's in a specific, a specific area. And then our tiers three offer our most intensive individualized pathways for students. So a student may be receiving specialized
services for intervention, or maybe receiving some global holistic supports and the, then in men pro programs on the other side of the diamond, those tier three extension pathways are like. Highly curated individualized plans. Plans for students who need supports that have already moved through tiers one and two, and there's, there's still a need to provide more service to them. And just as a note for best practice. Cause I think this is important. So in the best MTSS system, these are places that students should visit and that's where students should live. So as students move through their educational journey, whether it's in a school year or in a
series of their school year, right? These are, these are programs or services that they're. Experiencing, but the, the system has a process to work with the child to work with the parents or caregivers of the child and work with the school team to determine is that experience meeting the need or do they need to move in or out of a tier? And what is the day data that's supports that. Okay. Our next area of focus that I'll discuss is evaluate. So we also wanted to learn more about the different types of specialty programs that exist in our local area. And also across this state, that's serves the demographics
of students that are referenced in the plan. And we also. Wanted to learn a little bit more about how they're structured. So we have created two detailed documents of these findings. Findings one list of variety, of types of specialty programs that exist. And as well as a little bit about the program and then what their admission criteria is and how it's structured. And the second document is also a review of Avondale's gate program. And I just wanna acknowledge that these were gathered from publicly available resources and they are not meant to be evaluatory or representative of those programs themselves. But we felt that it was really important to research
what is serving students of this demographic in our area and what are similar and different about them. And what areas of opportunity might exist for us? So just as a brief comment, what was notable from this research is just the sheer variety of models and structures that are supporting either gifted. Or high achieving students across our state and a lot of uniqueness in how those models are delivered. But what I would summarize is that what's pretty consistent is in many of these programs, they have a pretty drilled down full focus area of students, whether it's ages or whether it's a specific area of.
Focus and most of the time, those fit within the larger system of the school. And, and you can see that, how those are kind of detailed. So. Again, that is more to come on that later. So our third area of focus that we'll talk about, and this is really a celebr celebratory slide, but we also recognize that. Oftentimes for our students that are high achieving or our students that are gifted, that want experiences. A lot of that is in a partnership approach through organizations that are within our community. So two points of celebration that have happened throughout this plan for our secondary students is we have joined in a committee with Oakland community.
College. And it's a K-12 partnership committee focused on dual, dual enrollment outreach strategies and reaching more students and making dual enrollment more successful. And then something we've also shared an update about in prior meetings, but just to, to re lift this for the community is our new partnership with Lawrence tech, where we will be bringing in dual enrollment classes. I had no cost to students, both courses and calculus three and differential equation into our school day at a Rochester community schools, high school for students. So this is a really exciting opportunity. And just one example of the things that can happen when we focus our efforts in creating these pathways for
students. Students. Okay. Our next area that we'll talk a little bit about is enrichment. And we define enrichment as authentic experiences that occur for students, both inside and outside of the classroom, that help them develop skills that deepen their scope of the curriculum. And that also foster community connections. And these can, oftentimes this looks like project-based learning or field trips or internships or interest-based clubs. So our investigation confirmed that there are more opportunities for students to engage with enrichment at the secondary level than there are at the elementary level.
And part of that is because of our system design, but it also has to do just naturally with the easier logistics of older students, right. Transportation and level of independence. And currently our amazing PTAs. PTAs coordinate and deliver a lot of our enrichment programming after school for students. But our committee does think that there is opportunity for us to take a look at what are some enrichment opportunities that we could bring into the school day to make them more regular and systemic and accessible for students who may not be able to access, access some of the. Offerings after school. So we don't have a clear plan
at the point of this update of how that would happen, but it certainly could be an opportunity as we move into year three of the strategic plan to be an area of focus. And now I would like to turn it over to Ms. Kimberly Hempton for a few moments to talk about the next couple slides. Thank you, Taylor. This, this next area related to data practices has really extended beyond plan three. As you know, we've been. Thinking closely about that data culture in Rochester community schools and how we are really. Positioning ourselves to continue to respond to the children in front of us and using assessments.
For learning rather than only assessments of learning. And so you'll see in the, in the small print there on the upper left, that there's been a strong connection between plan three, which is the one we're hearing about currently. Plan five, which is around data protocols and common. Mechanisms for early warning dashboards and for responsive approaches and plan 11 is thinking specifically about in responsive instructional practices. Practices scaffolds that are in place for children. The ways that we intervene. To what degree in what subject matter? And the intersection of three, these three plans specifically has
really. Been fun to watch, but also has had us reaching perhaps even beyond what the scope of how the original plans are currently written. As we begin to imagine strategic plan year three, for example. As we fueled some professional learning opportunities. And beyond the point that I would make on this slide with this plan update, though, for you as the board relates to. The fact that we know we are looking at a number of achievement measures. Measures. And one of the things that continues to, to percolate when we think about our children who are proficient with things like Irey or MSTEP. Is that those are related to. Very typically the things they've been taught.
Right. And so that's, those are the data sets right now that we have been working with data teams to be very responsive with. The board may remember last February, there was a great deal of energy on the part of our building leadership teams. When we were engaging at that mid-year data point in a quadrant activity that had us looking and plotting each individual student across that K H space were there were high proficiency. And high growth or in some cases, high proficiency. Low growth. And what are the direct moves that need to be.
Enacted or, or collaborated around so that children who are high performing, even at that start of the year, and as they move through the year, continue to be. Experiencing that high level of growth in both reading and mathematics. There was a lot of energy around that work. And then the follow up to the professional learning in February certainly provided us with some energy. We're gonna want to continue with a similar approach with next year. Also the, the fact that it was just in time and related to that mid-year data catch. But then following with February PD is something that we're, we're hoping to
continue to build a replicate. Sorry. I'd like to both look at you and be heard in the microphone in the, this, this is a challenge. It this evening. As Taylor mentioned, we know it's also important for us to continue to expand on that multiple data points. When we look at iReady, that's one data point in our, in our portfolio. And the idea that we would want multiple evidence-based sources that guide that action planning for our educators to increase opportunities for high achieving children. We would never wanna make programming decisions based on one data point, but this is a, a data set that we're lifting up for the point of conversation this evening. We've also done a bit of research with other aptitude
tools that are helping us better understand what is in the field that help us get a window in to how a student thinks learns or evaluates information. When they have not been explicitly taught that content. The CogAT test is one of those. Rather than testing for specific academic knowledge, it's gonna be thinking about the reasoning a student. Does the problem solving a student? Does. In verbal, quantitative and non-verbal domains. And our conversations with this. Particular testing vendor. Has has given us some insights into this as one example that might be used in our area and across the state. It's most typically used alongside achievement indicators for
placement into a specialized program. And so we've got some information about CogAT as illustrated on that other slide that we'll continue to bring forward both a little bit this evening, but also in the future. The students you see right in front of you here. These are our current second through fifth graders. Graders. And these are the actual number of students. Students in each of these grade bands that are scoring either at current grade level, late to current grade level, or you might see three grade levels. Above where their current grade level is. This is January data, the winter 2026 benchmark assessment. And this is significant.
Because we certainly have been supporting our staff in how to meet the needs of this range of learners, which you can see that we're, we're really stretching in some cases. To students, not yet at a grade benchmark, which isn't represented here, actually all the way through what may be three grade levels beyond. And so we've been thinking about what are ways very individually we're able to meet these students' needs, whether that's through course acceleration or through. Some collaboration with a, a grade level beyond. The, the teacher depends on the grade level of the student in upper elementary. We really start to see that
stretch. And what we hope this goal is. Creating is a systemic approach. We have been meeting needs of children. In individualized ways and we'd like that. This plan guide a future. Structure that is not variable based on the campus placement within our district. Right. Do you happen to be right next door and walking distance? Let's say to a middle school or to a high school. Does the, the middle school team, let's say if I have a fifth grade child happen to have some availability in their schedule to, to collaborate in ways that would create. You know, an on-demand kind of instructional opportunity for a
child. We want to think about the ways that this structured approach can meet the needs of mathematicians across the organization. Without that variability. And so that really has been the focus within the structure that we have. And Taylor will talk more in detail about how some of this might unfold. Later in the recommendations that you see at the end of the slide deck. Sure. Thank you so much. So that brings us into the. The sixth phase, which was our work, which involves making some recommendations. And the area of focus for these recommendations are ones that we feel can be implemented in the very near future. And ones that can impact many system, many students within
our system, but also take into account the constraints of the current system design that we have. So I just wanna share that these updates and the recommendations are not meant to be just the closing and final chapter of this plan, but it's really a. The time of this update here are recommendations. And then there will be some opportunity for further discussion, as we think. Ahead. So our first recommendation is connected to elementary math, and as we just looked at some data. Of, and we have been looking at data and thinking about ways that we can service students that are scoring above grade level in math. And we also just reflect
on the feedback and just a, a continual asset has came forward of how can we provide some supplemental resources, experiences, and some supplemental instructions for students. Students in math, it has led us to make these three recommendations that we feel that could be implemented and have a large impact on student success. So currently we're trying out some supplemental resources with students. And our goal is to find some things that are adaptable, that can be used in a variety of ways within that extension umbrella that are engaging for students that are easy for the them to use. And that a also expose them to a high level of math.
And this is because not that this is happening, but the contrary to that would be, we don't want students just doing like what I call random acts of math. Right. We don't want them to just be given something and do it. We want them to, to have access to math extension that is, that has a clear pathway that's gonna connected to their goals. It's connected to where they're at and then we're reviewing and supporting those students throughout that process. Right. That is what is gonna to push our students forward. In their, their abilities in that area. So we also, we know that a lot of the students that
are represented on that previous slide are hungry for some opportunities to learn. And we just want us to be able to support our educators with some research-based tools that they can turn to. We also are. Proposing to launch a professional learning cohort. Which would bring together some elementary educators and would focus on really refining and going to the next level of skills on designing. Tiered extensions within the classroom. Our educators are amazing in they're they're differentiation, but as we talked about, even in some of the terms, right, how you maybe plan instructionally for a twice exceptional child
may be different than your high achieving learner. And we think they're opportunity to start to build a community of practice of a educators that are learning about this and staying up. To date on what the research is saying and trying things in their classroom and sharing resources with one another across, across the district. And to start to build this momentum of educators that are really passionate and skilled in this area. And then finally, it's our recommendation that we allocate FTE and we add specialized personnel to the elementary staff in the next school year. And personnel that would be delivering what servicing students directly
to, to provide both intervention and extension experiences. And I'll talk a little bit. More of what that would look like. So to think of what this would look like in real time again, where we definitely acknowledge the need to have a personnel or to have personnel that can service students directly and to provide individualized instruction for students at are identified, and that need either intervention, support, or enrichment support. So when we're thinking of that diamond model, right, as students are progressing through the tiers, this could be an area of opportunity to connect. The students with a staff member. So, so these folks
would be looking at district level data. Alongside of our instructional leaders. And our building leaders and helping identify students. And then it's also kind of using the some magic to think about, okay, where are these students? Just geographically located across our elementary schools. What grade are they in at what time of the day do they get their core instruction? What most makes sense for us to work with this child? What, what would the trade-off be? Right? Because anytime that we take a student to work with a specialized personnel, there's a trade off, right. Working with the family of that student. What is the regularity of that look like? What is the exp experience look like? What will
the follow up be? What type of data are we working on with that child? And then that will help us action plan for the future right after a child. Has that experience what's next? Right? What, what, what does that mean for them? So we recognize that. So what this means is, you know, our elementary teachers do a fantastic job of differentiating, but just the reality is, is sometimes the needs of the class as a whole, or sometimes the needs of a, an individual student really can be supported by bringing up a alongside another professional. That doesn't replace that classroom teacher, right? The classroom teacher
is that primary point of, of contact for the student, but provides another adult. That's helping, you know, provide these tailored experiences and working with the student. Okay. Our second recommendation. Is connected to developing a district team and team is capitalized because it's, we have a building team and now it's kind of mirroring the district team, which I'll talk about. But that's focused on developing a district team that meets regularly to develop these extension experiences for students. So in the glossary of terms that we shared earlier, we shared a little bit about our student support teams or what's most commonly referred to as our building.
Team process. So this is a team that exists in each of our buildings, and it is comprised of folks of multiple different backgrounds. It's often administrators and learning consultants, counselors, interventionists, special education staff, and off they meet regularly. They're reviewing the data of the children and that building. And then they're. Designing intervention supports for students who need supports. Right. And they, they work collaboratively to do that. So we know that this is a model that has existed in our district for a long time and as does in many educational.
Or K-12 districts, but we thought we could bring that process to a district level. And bring together a variety of people from these different areas and across building approach to think of designing extension opportunities for students on the other side of the diamond. And oftentimes it's because those logistics, when, when you get to the point of identifying a student to actually providing services, services takes multiple collaborations across different buildings, right? I think miss Hempton mentioned, you might have a student who's transitioning from elementary to middle school or middle school to high school. And you, you need to bring a apart those
teams, not just to decide what is gonna be the experience for that child and that year. But especially when you get into the secondary level where students being placed in courses, have a ripple effect for the rest of their high school years and when students or families up to one, and then it thinks, okay, what does this mean for the rest of my high school pathway? It's just really important. And I think we think it would be really powerful to bring together a team that's meeting regularly, a working with families, reviewing data. Documenting what these plans are. Participating in a continuous improvement process. And then the third and final recommendation is related to.
New pre-AP projects. So we have learned. From college board that the college board is creating new materials that will come out in 2027 and it is related to pre AP materials. So it is materials that connect to different subject areas that are meant to be into integrated in core courses that students take before they take an AP class. And it's meant to be exposing students to either. Skills or topics or or dispositions that they can start to get a flavor of and start to practice with before they go into an actual AP experience.
And shared here, there was a really robust study that showed that students. In the, the target sites that participated in this, the students that had these experiences yielded better results on their AP exam and had a higher rate of earning college credit through the college board process. So this is something we don't know exactly what it looked like yet, because it's this new, big thing that's coming out through college board, but we are committing. To have a district team look at these different areas of the resources and to make a recommendation of how that would fit for our courses that happen in sequence before a child takes an AP course.
And now I would like to invite Mr. Russo to lead us through the next slide in the next stage of this presentation. Thank you, Taylor. So if we look at this, this last side, this last slide and we, we consider the three recommendations. I wanna just go back just a few slides to, to address. The specialized personnel. When we talk about specialized personnel, I think the piece that, that we wanna kinda remember is that. We are committing. To to saying that, yes, we might need. Some FTE at our middle school, that's gonna work with our students. Students and or teachers at our elementary schools, for example, but that partnership that we talked about at the front
end of this. Slideshow. It really is that partnership with the families is gonna matter. As, as Ms. Naski said, there might be a, there might be a trade off somewhere, right? If I'm, if I'm excelling in math and I need some. Specialized instruction because I'm at a fifth, I'm at a seventh grade I'm I'm I'm testing out of algebra one and I'm in fifth grade. I might have to miss something else during that day to accomplish this. And so it doesn't mean that every child, for example, in one of the slides that you. You saw our current data of what this looks like. Mid-year. It does not necessarily mean that every single child that. Has the ability or has the.
Is at that level will actually access that because it is a partnership with families. And it's really important to, to, to note that, right. We're not just going to say. Mr. Blake, you have to take this class and you're going to miss social studies and you're going to miss Jim three days a week. Or whatever that, that scenario is. But it's also important that we, we recognize that in these recommendations, yes, the partnership is critical. But it's not as, as Taylor, as Ms. San Toski said, it's not necessarily the end. These are the recommendations thus far based on what we know and what we think we can do. With still in inside of our current structures. Structures that allow us to still address the whole child and not create a separate situation. If we came back.
To this board to say, we want to. You know, we, we wanna do a K five. Magnet school or a steam school or something like that. That would mean a very big change in structure, not only to the students inside of our elementary schools, but. If we were just doing that inside of one of our schools. We would actually be the cost of that would be doubling the cost because we would have to open our borders. Borders in order to do that, we have to refurbish a building. Or close a building, et cetera. Those were kind of outside of the, for lack of a better words, parameters of what we were trying to do were trying to keep this whole child approach and our current structures in place. So that we can meet the needs of students.
Students and not disrupt the established communities that we currently have. Across the district, if that makes sense. Any questions, sir. Taylor, anything to add? Sorry. No. Thank you. We're just here for if there's any questions Ms. Hampton, do you have anything to add? Thank you very much Ms. FKI for bringing us through and, and giving us a window into the work. I think that. In a nutshell plan three's goal was really to consider from a K-12 lens, how we can more systemically. Consider the approaches we're taking to meet the needs of students with gifts and talents. While also recognizing that there are. Multiple indicators, as you've mentioned for us to continue reaching
the needs of high achieving children. And then how might we not yet. Be identifying students with gifts and talents that may. Need an alternate type of programming as is mentioned by some of the area models that we've also researched and to Mr. Russo's point, I think that work began to shift us into a direction that would alter. The current structure of how we're delivering K-12 programming within Rochester community schools that started to begin to eek into. The sizes of our buildings, location, placement, transportation implications, and,
and really stretch maybe beyond the bounds of what we felt we were gonna be accomplishing in the middle of a school year. So Mr. Russo, if there's anything else you want to add? One of the things that we, we do know that we would be taking with us in, into both. The three recommendations made here today, but also any Fu future work you see sort of. Sketch down there on the bottom, whether that might be identifying a particular focus for. A magnet or a specialized program, looking at the data within that, considering the feasibility and the, the will of the community and that work as well as the board of education. And we would be guided.
By that natural national association of gifted children. Which has has been a cornerstone of some of the research that we've done here. But not necessarily widely held understanding across our organization as, as Taylor indicated in, in the beginning of the presentations. Thank you, Mr. Russo. Russo. Thank you questions. Questions secretary of Butte. Well, I'll, I'll start with a couple because I know I have lots and I know there's other people who have a lot of questions too. and I, I have had obviously a lot of experience in this district over many years. And for the past 20 years, I have heard that we are addressing. These issues through differentiation.
But I continued to hear that that's, you know, my personal experience was not. The case. And I've continued to hear, even now that it doesn't seem like we're meeting that through differentiation. And I appreciate all the work that has gone into this. But I'd like to know how are we going to be. Measuring how many kids are being impacted by this? And, and how the different differentiation that we're doing is impacting them. Because I think we need to find something that we can measure to identify if we're really having an impact or not. So that's one question. And then I I'll just ask
while we're here. When you talked about the specialized. Personnel. How many people are we talking about as well as when it talks about. Piloting supplemental enrichment. And acceleration resources. When I think supplemental, I think. In addition to, so like a kid has to do whatever. The homework or lesson is, and then they're gonna have to do this like extra stuff. So I wanna hear a little bit more about that. So I'll start with those and then let. Hear the answers and someone else can ask a question before I go on. Perfect. Can I take the second question first? Cuz it's freshest in my mind of how you just phrased it.
So yes to that is. The, the, the goal in selecting something that's flexible and its use is to provide teachers with an opportunity for something that's not just an extra or here's, here's something else that you can do where some of these could be. For example, maybe student a. Works with specialized personnel and is working on a high level topic of math and then wants to use something asynchronously in between when they meet, but perhaps another student, because some of these resources allow students to access a high level of math, maybe student B.
Where maybe is the student that's three grade levels above in math. Maybe that classroom teacher is working with one of our instructional coaches. In using that as replacement of something that's happening in the classroom or where maybe students see a parent might say, I, my kid is loving their experience and their grade level classroom, but man, I would love for them to have some productive screen time that isn't YouTube. Right? So maybe they want something in the summer and maybe they wanna leverage that as an. Enrichment experience. So the goal certainly would be to select something that's adaptable and it's easy for students to navigate, but yes, that is definitely something that we are we're
keeping in mind. And then the other question, maybe in the front side of that question was how many FTE, correct? Like you said, in the special. Specialized personnel, just making sure they had the right question. So it's really gonna be depending on our. Depending on our data. It's it's. It's we would look at, I think I'm gonna point back to a couple things. This is gonna be a long answer, but. Ms. Hempton mentioned that. We have been servicing students inside the classroom. By differentiating to the best of the ability, given the wide varying wide range of, of students in each classroom. But there are certain cases where a teacher or a
Stu, a student's family and the teacher identify. You know, Dr. Alba here is just she's excelling. I think that she could use something extra and based on geography or the availability. To get that student something extra that, that the parents really want, or that the teacher also seems necessary. Sometimes it's based on the campus. We don't have a systematic way to do, to do it right now. The goal would be to group students in Ms. Hempton jump in, in whatever you'd like to add here. The goal would be to group students. Students by grade level viability. To say maybe some of it is virtual. Maybe there's three times a week. Check-in.
But we'd have to identify how much FTE we need. We have to look at the data like that. Slide that showed how many students would qualify. Like two years ahead, et cetera. We would wanna take the end of the year data to plan for the next year. And it's, it's not gonna be right every time. Right. We're we're gonna have to tweak a 0.6, a 0.4, et cetera, here and there. But to identify what we think we need moving forward, because students move in, move out. And then assess them and continue to provide that space. That's why the flexibility is important because we're not going to take. An eighth grade and we're not gonna take an algebra one teacher and hire them as a 1.0 and say,
now you're servicing these 20. Students when we may not have 20, we may have six. We might have 40. So it's gonna be depe it it's, there's gotta be a flexibility there for what the student is engaged in. It might not be five days a week. It might be three days a week. It could be virtual if, if the student and if there's no way to. You know, Taylor mentioned earlier. The second. That's why I said it's gonna be a long answer. Taylor mention mentioned earlier the secondary. The idea of transportation, the independence it's it's much different scheduling. At the secondary in our current structures. Structures. We, we have the ability to meet students' needs at the secondary, not only in RCS, but across the
nation in a very different manner, because we can put them in different courses. At the elementary, it's much more nuanced. Right? We can't allow, I can't allow. We can't rely on Ms. An Toski to bring her children to two different buildings, three days a week. So how this looks would be a teacher going to the building or doing it virtually where we find a space. Inside of a inside of a building where the student can receive instruction. Does that make sense? Mr. So I think what I would add to that complexity that you're describing is also that when we look at each of our students, that we're, we're illustrated with
the iReady data, for example, there may be a domain Orch, two. Algebraic principles or geometry, for example, where a student is really stretching in that three grade levels and beyond. And then there may be other domains within their mathematics that are right on grade level. And so that puzzle piece for our teachers to think about what are the things that are right on target and right on track and needs are being met right here with peers and with the, the direct instruction that we're providing, as long as a longside. The workplaces, which are that E inquiry-driven sort of practice space that children have. There are times of the day in, particularly in the mathematics instruction, when that is right on target. And then
there are other things. Other areas or domains where a student may need additional stretch. And so in that case, we would not take that approach to rigor that says. Okay first do all this. Now we're gonna pile on all of this, right? That's an approach. That that does frustrate out children. If they feel that they need to earn access to that more rigorous or more complex thinking, we really want to use this building team process translated into the district team process. Forgive me coupled with this additional intervention per personnel to. Find sort of the right turns on the Rubik's cube for the right number of children. And we know that
we have. You know, learning to do about that. We know that we have built some, some data systems and some. Colleagues that are right, right. Ready with us to do that. We also know that we're gonna work and fly the plane as we go. So we're excited about the opportunities for children and, and to miss Santo's point. I think that it. It also goes without saying that we've got a lot of folks working very diligently for the children in their rooms with them right now to really reach those corners. Corners. We recognize though that through our current identification structures that are all achievement based. There may be students that were missing in that model
either because. Of the parent and child satisfaction as was described or. The fact that we're, we're not. Putting the right lenses on right now to look at all of our children. Trustee Luanne, I I'm sorry. Was he going, were you gonna answer how we're going to the main, first question, which was about. How we're going to, I. Track these students and make sure that this program's successful and that type of thing. Yeah. So if we if this is the model and we're talking about and Kimberly feel Ms. Ms. Hempton or Ms. Atoki feel free to jump in.
If we're talking about like the elementary students who are now taking. A higher level. Coursework. They would be measured. Just like if, if I'm, if I'm in a fifth grade class, a fourth grade classroom and I'm taking algebra one, I'd be taking those assessments. So those measurement sticks would be just like in, in its, in its. It's if we can, if we can layer in. What it looks like at the secondary level that if I'm taking a course, if I'm taking AP bio, I'm taking. AP the AP exam at the end and the formative assessments along the way. I know that I'm go ahead. I don't think we're talking about the same thing. Like, I guess I'm, I wanna know. Are we tracking? So I want like, let's say next
November. That you can tell us there's X number of kids who. We have are providing these. Extra programs to and how that's being divided up. And to, to better understand like how many kids are being impacted by what we're doing. And then I get what you're saying. I mean, maybe we can say in algebra, you know, yes. They've been successful in algebra. But just to understand, like, that we're tracking these individual kids. Not that we need to know who they are. But, you know, are they like, what kind of growth are they seeing in this program? Do you know what I mean? Like, how are they progressing?
Just trying to understand how we're gonna do it so that we don't. Don't get to next November and then next may and not have. Information on how successful what we're doing is. With those kids. Yeah, I think go ahead. Right. So, so we would formally like identify and document that entire process. So think of, again, it's not the same parallel, but think of, for example, if a student is identified for, for special education services, right. The, the plan of approach would be documented the, the responsibilities of either the personnel and the classroom teacher. There's goals that are identified. We know if we're servicing
that student, we're also gonna be. Looking in, like if we identify them in the fall, we're gonna wanna have a focus group of those students in the winter benchmark to see how they're progressing. Are they meeting their stretch growth or, or where they're at. And then we have to document. That in their formal plan, right. We wanna be able to provide that to the student and parents. So this would. Not, I, I just wanna paint the picture that it wouldn't be like someone kind of showing up to a building and thinking like, all right here, where's my group that day, right. It would be a, a, a deployment of here is the group of students, a process to, to dock document all of the, that data. And I think really importantly, as a process that we
are, we're getting the qualit quantitative feedback from the student and from the, the parent, right? What is this experience been like for you? What's working for you, the, the, the delivery model, what be really important. So certainly I think whatever parameter about. Making note of which students are serviced at which buildings at which grade level, what was the data measure? What is the feedback that they provide? And then what was their iReady score in the fall versus in the spring could easily be documented in an additional, whatever it, additional data points we would want continue to, to create. And if Ms. Russo or Ms. Hampton, anything to add
to that? I'm sorry, I didn't hear, hear the end. Was it a question? No. Anything else to add to that? No, I, I think. I think the parallel that was made about an I E P. Right. That it's very clear documentation and that it's not, it's not gonna be one size fits all. But we are going to try as best as possible to group students together to get efficiencies, right? If it's at fourth grade and they're at two grade levels ahead for an, an arbitrary example, to try to group them as best as possible trustee Luanne. Sorry. First of all. Thank you for this. This is a huge undertaking. My, I have a couple questions. So. Students change every year. In and out throughout the school year too. So how
are we going to ensure that we have. Adequate staff at specific locations or are we, are we actually looking to keep the student in their homeschool? Are we looking to move them around? I know what the younger elementary, that would be extremely difficult, but older, upper elementary, that would be more plus the numbers are higher, upper elementary. Is that something to have an idea of like, picking a central location for that. What is the plan for students that. Come in during the middle of the year, how do you evaluate them? And what happens if a student. Say they were progressing significantly. And then they stopped progressing. Like, would they then.
Fall out of the program or whatever you want to call it, or how are you, what would happen? What's that look like? How do you make sure that you're not understaffed overstaffed at specific schools? Mrs. Hampton, would you like to okay. Answer that first? Our, our goal will be in this coming year, all students to remain in their home designated elementary schools. We know that math is one element of the day and that's the chunk we're taking up with this plan right now. We would want to maintain. Just as we do for all learners. Learners across that continuum, strong connection with that classroom teacher, to which they're assigned as well as the, the wraparound
support to that classroom. So this, this math interventionist would be one element of. Of support to the child during the school day. Were monitoring the progress our kids make all, all year long. So certainly as new children join our roster, we would be looking at those same measures that we do. Currently and looking to match up the best and most appropriate instruction for that zone of development at that time. I think that one of the things that is. Coming to mind as you, as you describe. The growth that children make. We know that. The younger, the child, the, the more ebb and flow and, and traction.
That that children get right. When we think about that early reader, for example, the jump from the middle of kindergarten to the end of kindergarten or the, even the three first months of first grade are just exponential. And so that early math development is, is also taking up much of the same, the, the mathematics. Practices that are in our classrooms right now are really based on that belief of a community of learners that learning is social. And that kids are making meaning and, and bumping into new strategies and sort of the, the defensive strategies and the revision of strategies in their mind as a part of their instructional practice. We think that our, our professional
learning is supporting this. And so we am imagine that this intervention team will not only. Be thinking about where the children. That I'm supporting to sort of take to a place right. In like, not intervention as geography, but how do I partner with the grade level team? Let's say. For all of those fourth graders, so that we're. Not creating a, a sense of. Some children are in and some children aren't right. I think that's, that would really be our goal is how can this group work with. Within the envelope of our intervention approach. So that. Whether that's maybe a small group in the back of
a classroom, let's say so that. Again, I guess it's that access for children? That's really important. In my mind, when I think about how this lays out. I'm I might've missed part of your question, Ms. Lozan. I'm sorry if there's okay. Vice president of Blake. Yeah. So first I'm really happy that you're dealing and I'm trying to address this problem. Every, you know, everybody knows this has been one of my issues I've pushed since coming on the board that I think this is. A big area that we have for improvement within the district, especially at the lower grades. And I know in, you said tonight, Mr. Russo. And then when I talked to you about this previously, that
this is, this is like a three year. Plan this isn't it. This is an evolving plan. This is not. The plan. This is not be all and end all. And I would just urge you to stick with that. I do have, I'm looking at the three recommendations. So like the third one. Is pre-AP projects. It doesn't say on here, the, you probably said it, but I didn't hear the age range, but I'm thinking that's probably like what middle school-ish. Or is that younger? It the I'm sorry, go ahead today. Just briefly, but that wasn't really the question I wanted to ask. I'm sorry, but so let me hold that one. The the second one. You know the district team, but then you got the first one. That's the math mid-year and we've got the
iReady data of who's 1, 2, 3 grades ahead, et cetera. And I guess I'll just start with this simple question, like, okay. What about the kid who is 2 1, 2, 3 years ahead under their iReady in reading? Is there anything planned for them or is the thought that that's the type of thing that a teacher can just. Do by differentiation, which you know, Michelle said it and I've had the experience too, where, yeah, it sounds good. But there are 30 kids in a class that are all over the place in terms of their needs and their requirements. And the best teacher in the world is gonna have a hard time differentiating for 30 kids. So it there's something for
those kids in mind or. Or what so I'd like to just. As much as I don't want to do this to board members, I would save that question for April 20. Because that has something to do with the literacy. I, I just think we, you know, it, it. What's difficult. What's really difficult in education is things like what trustee lek brought up earlier that she feels like she can't talk about something before our staff knows about it and she wants the community to know about it. We don't go by a car that's not developed yet. Right now we're in a lot of little nuances and a lot of things happening that we're trying to service students. Students and one of, and, and, and.
This plan as Ms. Hempton has mentioned before. Today. And at other times there's a lot of connectedness to other plans. There's a lot of connectedness to other movement that we're doing in the, in the district. And it to, to ask the question about literacy is an absolute fair question, right? But we're on the cusp of adopting a new program. Or not based on board action on April 20. And I think it just fits better in that arena, just because I can't speak to. Certain things yet, because I want our staff to be informed. First, and I think that's fair in terms of the process that we've laid out over a two year period. Well, and I hadn't thought of that. I think that's
fair to wait a week, but I do have the question. I'll remember it. Trustee, may I, or I'm sorry, trustee. Lacoy. okay. Well, first of all, this is a subject that's really near and dear to my heart. And thank you for doing all of this research. I thought you spoke really well to the different definitions. Of high achieving versus gifted the twice exceptional. I thought you did a really nice job explaining that. I have a lot of different thoughts. One of the first things I'm wondering is do we have staff with gifted education certification and experience who might be leading some of this development or are we considering hiring a consultant
who has gifted at education experience as we. Start considering some of these plans and how they'll be implemented. For anybody. Can I, we can do this invite, Mr. Russ, that can, I dunno if I could speak to the certification piece, but I'm yeah, here we go. Mr. Russo. Yeah. I, I think it was a multitude of things, right? We, no one, yes. We'd wanna bring a in that consultant. I do not believe that. We have done the research for who has gifted. EDU who has that gifted and talented. Professional learning experience thus far. Because number one that would be taking, I would have to replace that teacher with a substitute teacher. And I
don't think that's the right way to go about this. Or if there was two or three, we would be disrupting other classrooms. We'd be trading one thing for another. So it'd bringing an outside source would be the best option option. I think that seems really wise. She's a consultant. The. The other really awesome thing about being part of our community. Is, I know personally with the Avondale gate magnet school, we've got a couple of the founding families, our RCS district parents. I see one of them in the audience right now. And so we've got great resources that can help you with a successful school. I believe the magnet school, the Avondale program started with 50 or 60 kids. And now
they're at like, well, sorry, now they're at like 400 or something. They are bursting at the seams. And I know from Michigan school data, I think a couple hundred of those kids might actually be RCS. RCS families. And so one of the things I was wondering when I'm looking at the. Chart with the iReady, is the numbers seem really low in terms of the identification of the one grade level ahead, two grades, three grade levels ahead. And I'm wondering why that might be, I don't know if it could be because kids have left the district for other programs. I don't know if it could be that iReady's cut off.
You know, places them in some strange way. I'm wondering what we might expect if we were to implement our own. Programs here. How might those numbers. Change. And would we be identifying more? Cuz if 5% of kids are gifted, then I would expect to see larger numbers than what we're seeing right now. I'm not, I don't understand the question. Oh, how we might expect to see the numbers change. Once we implement our program. Meaning, how would the, the data read and assessments are you asking? The date, the, it was slide. 12. So on slide 12. Yeah. You saw one grade
level head two and three. I'm just wondering, do we expect to see those numbers change? Once we implement our program? Once we're identifying, cuz I know this was before your time, but I remember asking an administrator. What we're doing to identify gifted and talented students. And I don't believe we had a process. For identifying gifted and talented in the first place. And so, so are you, so these, these numbers and, and I could be just not understanding the question. So if Kimberly or anyone else feels like they're understanding. Are you asking like this does go ahead. Cracking the world. I think she's asking, what do you
think those numbers will do? Do you think those children that would test in that age are, are attending elsewhere? Therefore those numbers would go up. Yeah, I don't. Why are the numbers so low you? Yeah, I don't, I don't have an answer for that. Like, I don't have a predictor on. How they'll do an iReady, right. Because I think that's, that's what I was trying to get to. So I appreciate trustee ALS spa's explanation. This is like taking a CogAT is different than taking an iReady formative assessment. Right. And so one is measuring. Their abilities. Another is measuring their app, like some measuring
aptitude. Is that right? So it. I don't know that it's comparing apples to apples, but I, I would, as I would suspect. That some of these numbers might go up. Right. I know, like for instance, with Avondale, they have the students take the NWA test and if you score 90% or above. That is like the first. Layer that you go through with the testing process, and then you also take the CogAT test so that you're testing in multiple different dimensions. The other thing I was thinking about is we're talking about. What kinds of supplementation we would be doing or how we're grouping. You mentioned grouping students as much as we
can by ability. And I think that makes a lot of sense. The other thing they do is they'll test kids. For what math class is appropriate for their level. And kids are, you've got multiple grades within math classes. Over at gate. I'm wondering if that sort of an idea, is that something we've considered is that feasible? Because I honestly feel like. You could arrange your schedule so that within the elementary school kids are taking. Math around the same time. And you could have kids in different math classes at a standard elementary school, too. It wouldn't have to be. Only for a gifted man mango school. And in that way, kids are grouped according to their ability. And I know at gate nobody.
Is upset about that in any way, shape or form. Everybody's very used to the system and then they get appropriate instruction. Have we thought about. That idea or what kinds of models are we leaning towards right now? Taylor, I can't speak to that. I don't know if this group has looked at that or not. So to what one to, if I may to go back to the question about the, the distribution of the numbers. Okay. I also think that if we were to take this exact same snapshot at the spring benchmark, right, the data will change because the is a midpoint year data, and sometimes we'll see the data, right. Kids are entering a school year, maybe at a certain
place. And then the winter benchmark, once they're engaging with more grade level. Content. I, I personally, even just for my own investigation, I think it'd be powerful to see the comparison of this same snapshot with our spring. Assessment, but certainly I think with the flexibility of being able to, to send personnel to somewhere, I, I certainly don't think that it would mean that we would only be able to put his child in a group with a fourth grader with an another fourth grader, I think to your point, a lot of them model look at either what is the domain. That we're gonna be trying to strengthen with the student and, and you know, what is the data say that
they have a strength in, and then based on the complex logistics of where they're at, how can we group the students? But I don't, I think. To, to only group them possibly by their grade level. Could. Could limit a, a student. So I, I definitely think there's opportunity to, to be creative. However, I do think. A staff member, for example, that is servicing maybe some of these students that are fifth graders that are en engaging with three grade levels above content and math. The, the content knowledge that you have to have as a, as a service personnel. And just the, the knowledge of that age group is much different than working with
early elementary children. So I think you have to balance, right? How can we maximize our groupings, but all make sure that if a first grader is also working alongside of peers that are in third, grade, like, how are we attending to that? Just developmental difference of students, which I know that many of these programs do. And to your question about, or have we specific has, have we speci I'm sorry if I'm rephrasing this, so please correct me, but have we specified which of those specialty program models? Would be our favorite or recommendation or we think would be the most feasible. I think up to this, I
mean, we are certainly. More than willing to research a, a program model. I think what struck me in just looking at some of the data and feedback, I think. What, how this plan came about. Were families that were wanting. More for their children, but what is not clear to us in the plan is what model, right? I, I can't say that I can look back to previous strategic plan surveys. And I can point to say that this amount of people that have answered want a mag versus this amount of people want just someone to work with their kid on a regular basis, but they want stay. Within their elementary. So it felt. Leading and possibly misrepresenting of the community to come and
say, this is what we should open. And this is what we should do. But with that idea that this is a continuation, we would certainly be willing to look into. To look into that, but I, I want to hold and not give my personal opinion cuz that's not my, my task is the lead, but yes, I hope that answers the question. Dr Alma. So I appreciate all the work you and your team have done. This is very complete and I think it. One of the things I really like you're talking about is talking about the whole child. And dealing with our high achievers within the context. Of a general population. I love the way we talked
about MTSS. MTSS. And I think what we're bumping and we also kind of mentioned a little bit of special ed. I know other districts actually have an exceptional student education. They don't have a special ed department. They have an ESC department, and that deals with all of our exceptions, whether we have two, twice, six exceptional, whether we have either end of the diamond of the MTSS. MTSS, forgive me. Will I give you two examples? Rochester has long been able to differentiate and deal with. Our high achievers in the secondary level. My brother in the 1990s was going over to OU for math because he had maxed out math. So we've
done that. Since last century, but in elementary school, when they were trying to differentiate math for him, they basically gave him a book and let him read in the corner. So I, I'm more concerned about for, for that what's happening at the elementary level. Cause Ithink. We still deal with some struggles, my own children. Again, loved AP push, loved getting into the AP classes in high school. But yet in middle school and we were looking at the advanced. Advanced, we were told one that you had to apply in fifth grade. And two that you weren't able to get into it after if you missed that sixth grade class. It was all prerequisites after that. And you were out of the track. So if we're using that MTSS model and we're looking
at exceptional student education, I hope, and I, I, I know we're still developing our ideas, but I really wanna push it out there that. MTSS is like you said, they live there. They're not permanently locked in. You're not globally assigned, you know, you may be. High achieving in math, but not reading. There's totally different skills. So, what I'm hearing is that you're going to. With a, you living there and using the MTSS model that will be regularly evaluated. And I'd really like to see us continue that commitment to it. Yep. Anyone else has anyone else not spoken that wants to
speak? No. Okay. Secretary of Vito. And we we've talked about here that you're looking at. Really more high achieving versus gifted, but is there a game plan? For trying to identify gifted students at some point. Is there, is there a plan to identify gifted students? At some point it seems like we're really looking iReady, which is high achieving. There could be overlap, obviously, but. Do we have plans? Cause I didn't see it in here. I didn't really hear us talk about it to. Identify gifted students somehow. Kimberly if there's I'll answer, but if there's something else
that everyone wants to add, Taylor or Kimberly. So when Taylor did her work through this. Trustee Patel. She came to me to kind of go over some things with, with Ms. Hempton. And if we are going to test. For gifted students, we should be testing for a reason. To say, this student is gifted and what is going to their program. So, as we mentioned earlier in this slide or in this deck that we want. To still preserve the whole child as best as possible. We don't have a clear direction of like, yeah. If we do a gifted, if we test for gifted, we will end up opening a program. Right. We don't have a program offering for gifted students
right now. Our highest achieving students, whether gifted or not. If with passing. Our criteria, we'll be serviced through the model that we're talking about. I'm sorry, could you say that one more time? Yeah. So our highest achieving students that, that. Need something or identified by parents. I really like my son or daughter. To do whatever. And then we, we would say, do they fit this criteria? Are they really excelling in geometry? Are they really excelling in. Whatever that domain is right. Numbers and operations. We would be servicing them. I don't think that we currently have a plan. Could that evolve? To identify user use a CogAT, for example.
And pull those students out based on that. Fair Taylor. Yes. And I will recognize that, that there are some families in our district who their children experience CogAT because their families have them take that. And there are times that those families will approach like a building team and say, I have this in additional data point, right. Where we're working with one of those families right now. I think we need to do some learning. On what that data, like, I think we have pretty clear. Instructional moves when we can look at iReady. And what does the data translate into an instructional move? I think it's just a task of this team and of our
district to learn. What, what do we do with those data points? Right. To, I think there there's. There's opportunity for learning there. And I will keep it at that. Okay. So just to just to say backs to make sure I understood. Really. If someone feels a family member feels like their child is gifted. They would need to get the testing to bring it forward to say we need additional. Items the, the district's really just looking at high, achieving versus gifted. Gift gift, gift, gift gift. I think to answer your question, trustee Butell. This, these, this first three series of recommendations prepares us to use the data sets that we currently have, right?
Some additional intervention personnel to, to stretch across both ends of those diamonds. And then a start at one, it looked like to be begin some clustering, some grouping in the area of mathematics, specifically. So to answer your question, will we test. For giftedness or purchase the CogAT to identify children as a part of this math experience? Absolutely not. We're gonna use the tools that we have at this moment. Along with the building teamwork that has been outlined and how that translates into the district team. Should there be an interest in continuing to expand a
specialized or magnet programming approach. We would ask for the board's direction in that work, because we recognize that it would entail. Potentially moving children from the school that they'd been assigned or working with parents to. Navigate the, the options, because as MIS trustee, Blake asks around. Reading and writing development. We know that. There are a number of children for whom science concepts or social studies, concepts, or technology work really spark. Their flame. And what we are not looking to do is, is dissect and, and delineate in the general education classroom setting. All the various ways that we would be tagging into those needs across the core for elementary that are seven
to nine subjects deep. So that would really bring us into a place. If we wanted to begin that level of work, we were thinking about some specialized gifted programming, and that's not what this committee embarked on doing. Beyond the research for it in this school year. So should that be the will of the board? We would certainly take that direction under Mr. Rizzo's guidance and, and proceed next to level up on the three recommendations that have been shared here tonight. So I'd like to comment. I appreciate all the work that you brought forward. But I think what, what I feel is, and I understand that sometimes you have to go slow to go fast.
And I know that there, there is an appetite, I believe. Within our district to accelerate this work so that we can accommodate more children. Who show those needs and, and the families. That are quite honestly that are leaving the district. It really I feel really challenged. Like we should be. A district that is providing the services that these parents are going outside of the district to get. And so like for instance, when I see recom recommendation number three, which is explore new AP projects and. Vice president of Butell had asked, you know, at what
level is that? And I believe it was, it said it was secondary. You know, I, I know that there are kids. In, in elementary that, you know, they really want to have. You know, project-based focus of, of their interest. So I just really, I guess I wanna challenge. You superintendent Russo and your team. To push beyond what you can get from, you know, I know it's difficult to come up with a curriculum or a program. That can accommodate a new. A new challenge for accommodating kids. And I understand why you would look to
something like the college board to, to help kind of. Map that out a little bit, but I would challenge our, our district to. Look beyond what this could offer to expand it to other grade levels that. You know, could have that desire and let's face it. I, I think project-based learning. Is is really key to helping any child grow in the learning that they do. It's not. The rote skill and drills that our kids are gonna be needing as they develop. And as they Excel and. Graduate from this district. We know that. AI is here. And so there's a lot that I think we need to do in developing this.
This particular part of the strategic plan. That challenges, our district more. And I'm, I'm feeling a little frustrated cuz I. I understand the need to be. Methodical and process oriented about how you do it. But a part of me is like, all right already. Let's just, let's get it going. So I, I appreciate what I see, but you know, like when you talk about. Mr. Russo, you had mentioned that there were, you know, within buildings, you would, especially at an elementary school level, you would try and keep. Students that are similar grades. You know, together as a cohort. And for me, I think that that could be a
disservice to some kids that, you know, if, if one excels in this level of math and another who's two grade levels below them excels in the same level, then I think we should be exploring multiple age approaches to subject areas. Areas. So it's that kind of stuff that I really want to encourage. The district to really start. Down that track of pushing that envelope of. Of what's out there and how can we absorb it? And just accelerate on it. I'm a little an, you know, I'm like our writer. This is all good. Let's go. Mm-hmm .
Anyone else have, yeah. Trustee LA kuey. The other thing I wanted to say about that. I, I was disappointed and really surprised to learn that we are not gonna be testing for giftedness. Because I really did think that that was the. Intent of the board in creating this particular plan. And another thing to keep in mind. Is that universal testing is the best way. To not miss low income or minority students for giftedness. Because as you know, as was explained really eloquently before, you know, high achieving and giftedness is different. And those groups in particular. Tend to score lower. On achievement tests compared to what their IQ.
IQ actually is an achievement test. Miss them. And if we care about reaching all students and making sure they get what they need, I, I really feel that that's important. Secretary betel just one, one comment. And then one last question. My comment was that, you know, as we implement these recommendations, I would hope that at the end of next year, we specifically put in surveys for these families to get feedback on. How they felt it worked for their student. And to understand from that perspective. And then my last question is, do we. You know, how will this impact our budget? Besides adding any people.
Like, do we see transportation costs? Do we see. The need for additional supplemental. Materials. Materials. Do we have a, a number of idea? I'm sorry. An idea of what that might look like. As mentioned before. I don't believe in transportation costs will be an issue because we're gonna try to make that as. Systematic without having that, that burden. In terms of piloting programs. Taylor has talked. If you wanna speak to it right now, you can, but she's doing, they're doing some things right now and I'll let you speak to it in a second. And what those costs are. And in terms of FTE. Mr Mr. Murphy and, and Ms. Hempton and I have talked.
About where we can fit, like. Also in the next coming weeks, you'll have some different recommendations for. That are kind of coming down the pipe. But very specific to this. There'll be FTE added. At the elementary level, but we're hoping that we can fit into grant funding. Mm-hmm so not hitting the general fund, not the general, not hitting the general general fund budget. Now, if that would happen, it would be minimal. So couple FTE at the second at the elementary, secondary level that are certified staff. That would be general fund impact. It might be nice, even though it doesn't hit our general fund, that as we're doing our budgeting.
Even though it doesn't hit our general fund, as we, as we're doing our budgeting to. These new additions to have maybe a separate sheet that identifies. Identifies, you know, strategic plan three for. You know, high achieving students X amount. Just so we're kind of keeping track of. How we are focusing funding. To meet our strategic plan. Yeah. If we had, can I give an example? So let's say we have a, this is an arbitrary, let's say we have a. Seventh grade math teacher. That 0.6 of their. FTE is attributed to time working with elementary students. We would be tracking that through our staffing sheet. So that
would be not a, that would not a difficult draw to get that information. Dr. Win Perdue. Any questions? Any points? Okay. Anyone else? Trustee Loza. Nope. I'm lit kuey again, trusty LA. Kuey my apologies. I just have, I just have one more question. I don't, I wanna just preface it by saying I don't. Don't mean any offense by this at all? Whatsoever. But the question that I have in my mind is. Why is it that a district like Avondale was able to get such a successful program like this? Off the ground and do it in a fairly. Short period of time, and it's just difficult for a
district like RCS. RCS to put something like that together. You know, I have very high expectations for RCS. And so I'm just. I'm wondering why it's taking us so long because they've been so. Successful in the risk that they took. And I, and I get, I feel like part of the answer's gonna be, oh, well, they allow other students to come into their district, but. I mean, that is part of the answer. Part of the answer is that they're Romble was declining in a much faster rate than ours is, and that was historical over years and years. And they had to find a reason to keep a building open. And it was a good way to do that. Now we could take that same approach. We could go to 2028, ask the voters for a
bond. Get a plan for 5 0 1. There's a lot of things we could do, but that's the think 5 0 1 is the best 5 0 1 west university is the building we own. That it's right now, I have recommended to sell because we don't need. And I have talked about this at nauseum, that there's a difference between needs and wants. If that's a want of the board, then that should be a clear consensus amongst board members. Well, we have direction on it, obviously besides five. Oh, I mean, we even have this building right here. But, yeah, I, I understand. And I'm not, I don't wanna be argumentative when I say that, but we have a. Months ago you had an, there was an argument from
you, trustee Le kuey that this building was. Not conducive to the needs of the people in the community, because it sits on the most north end. And that's why we couldn't fill it with pre-K kids. Now you're saying that this would be a building to use for. Interdisciplinary families, which would be fine. So I just, I haven't a suggestions like that. I, I started with just the one question. Are there. Are there any other comments regarding this presentation? None. So I guess my, my last question. Superintendent Russo would be, you know, when is the next time that the board will see, you know, more information about this particular part of the strategic plan. What's your timeline for moving forward?
Taylor, Kimberly, would you like to add into any of that? The timeline for moving forward, the three recommendations that were made here this evening. This spring will be looking at the closing. Data year-end data and mathematics and. Compiling that district team. Looking at the ways that services would begin to support K five children in mathematics, this coming fall. Is so perhaps an, an update after. Like, I don't know. October, November. Yes, probably. With before December of next year. Okay. All right. Thank you. If there are no other questions we're gonna move on. We're gonna move on to item number eight, which is
new business. And I believe this is the first reading of policy. Give me something please. Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me, president. Unless we have another strategic plan update. Thank you so much, Mrs. ZSI for your time this evening for your work with this plan. Thank you very much. I'd like to thank Jenny mini very much for joining us this evening. I'm so sorry. I was ready to just like move on. Jenny is our career readiness and stem consultant and has been taking the lead on strategic plan 10, which is expanding K five access to steam and engineering principle. This plan is focused on. Again, taking a systemic approach at the elementary level, we've
got a number of rich points of pride with our CoLab, which Ms. Mink speak about. As the presentation gets going. As well as a number of teachers interested and in digging into stem education in their classrooms, we see a great number of possibilities. For coupling this work with our science curricula, our social studies curriculum, of course, mathematics. Very obviously. But the energy around this particular pilot has been really inspiring to see. And as a direct result of Ms. Mini's leadership. So please Jenny, take us away. Perfect. Thank you so much. So we'll just start with what I believe was the
need and how this ended up as part of the strategic plan. And. As Kimberly mentioned, the RCS collab is a large part of my job as the career readiness and stem consultant. It is an in-house in-district library of innovative items. That we have curated over the last three years. With Karen Malsbury and Rachel Manero and myself. And so we have a structure where teachers can check out these items it's been quite successful. I was just looking at the data. I think we were up 10% this year, from last year. And that's just through the end of March. So we've had a lot of success with that, but with that, it was very adult dependent.
Dependent meaning a teacher would reach out to me or they would come to my session at a PD conference style, something like that. And we would end up in their classroom and kind of co-teach some stem equipment or. We would have a teacher reach out and say, I saw this in the hallway. I would love to try this in my classroom. Or the ILS was checking out the equipment. So very adult dependent. Dependent, but also it aligns very closely with the state and county. Gold set forth for the career readiness. Department. So the Michigan career development model has been passed down from the state through the I S D. ISD. And that is through Oakland school's career readiness goals,
which is tied to our career readiness funding, which is a large part of my job is to make sure that those goals are met. And then also there was a lot of community alignment. So when I was digging into those surveys back in the fall of what the community and staff members thought of the strategic plan initiatives, initiatives. I noticed one quote that stuck out to me and that science helps kids understand the world and technology. Helps them change it. And that's what I really view as steam and stem opportunities in our classrooms. Classrooms are, is it can enhance what our students are already learning in the classroom and teach them skills that are interdisciplinary and, and really life changing for them as
they grow into their career. So a lot of those skills that we see through our steam and stem interactions are. Creativity collaboration, critical thinking a lot of problem solving skills. I was a stem teacher before I'm moving into this role. And a lot of students would come up to me and say, what are you looking for? And I was like, the goal of this is for you. To come up with what you think will solve the problem. And I think that that's a really powerful way for students to learn and to think. So just more about the actual plan plan 10. We started back in September where we created a cohort. Across multiple buildings. And it was really important that we
had representation from K through five. So our cohort was nine teachers. Teachers. And like I just said all K through five grades were represented. And we met in October. About the RCS CoLab and the Oakland school stem co, both of those are options for free. Resources that all Oakland schools or sorry, Rochester community schools, teachers have access to. So we talked a lot about that and how we can implement that in our classroom and how they can create lessons that can be duplicated. Throughout the coming years, using those free materials. Materials. So all of the teachers collaborated together to create
two standard aligned lessons. That kind of fit where they were coming up to teach. It could fit in any of the. Curriculum or subjects that they saw fit. And they created two lessons that were steam focused, but hitting those. Content standards. Standards. So the goal was then for them to pilot these class, these lessons in their classrooms. So we had all nine teachers teaching two. Steam lessons between the end of October. And just here in March for us to come together. Last week and revise and think about what went well and what didn't go well. So that the lessons were tested in a classroom instead of me in an office making a lesson that I
hope would work well for a teacher it's been tested in that grade level. With a group of students. So then we published these lessons to a drive, which is currently where we stand. We have a drive of two lessons. Per grade level, all equipped with free materials that they can check out through myself or through Oakland schools. And then the success criteria for this plan was that a hundred percent of pilot classrooms. Classrooms we'll participate with a minimum of two steam lessons through each grade. K through five. And that aligns with our career readiness grant criteria. And I think that it's wonderful that that success criteria was made. But the impact I saw throughout this process
has been far, far greater. So that's what I would, I would like to focus a little bit on. The first real large impact I saw was the excitement around the learning. I had a teacher actually send me a thank you note. And I was like, you're the one doing all the work. You're the one creating these lessons. It's your classroom. I just show up with the equipment, but you're sending me a thank you note. I, and it really touched me that they. Were so excited and enthusiastic about this work. But she specifically said that this excitement for this learning is contagious. And I had my team teacher come in and see what we were doing and asked to borrow
the equipment. So I used it a little longer than I said, I would. So I thought that the impact was going. Kind of catching fire before it was really even the intention to catch fire. So we had more teachers than the nine in the cohort. Teaching these lessons, which I thought was amazing and a really cool way to see that it was not the expectation at all, for them to be passing the equipment along and, and getting more teachers on board. But that was happening that happening naturally. In addition to that, building the confidence of our teachers in steam and stem learning. Is a big part of a barrier that we saw with the RCS CoLab. Sometimes robots and coding can seem very scary.
Because maybe you have no background in that, or you don't think that you're attacking climb. But when you see it once and you're like, oh, this isn't that hard. Or if I can come with the equipment and kind of give you a little tutorial and kind of co-teach with you. It really gives teachers the empowerment and the confidence to continue to do this in their classrooms. Classrooms. And we saw that with the RCS co-lab equipment. I would see that the teachers who were part of the co-lab were continually checking out different pieces of equipment. So I thought that that was really incredible as well. So they weren't just working with their two lessons and then be done. They were going on our webpage and seeing what else
we have to offer and bringing those experiences to their students. Students. So with that, we engaged hundreds of students authentically. Part of the formal cohort was about 228 students in seat with those two lessons. But beyond that, like I mentioned earlier, the teachers who were kind of team teachers or who were like, Ooh, that's really cool. I'd love to try that in my classroom. We're we're students that weren't even in that 228. And then I just wanted to showcase a lot of the work. I know that. We had just heard about a lot of project-based encouragement. And I was seeing this firsthand and it's incredible. It's
incredible work to see the educators be so empowered and the students to be so happy. It's it's really empowering for me. So here I wanted to highlight the skills that students were learning. A lot of the content is content that they would be learning regardless, like mapping. Push and pull astronomy. Astronomy different. There was a book they read and they were creating their own float to go with that measurement. Things like that. The more like. Steam based skills. They were learning would be like coding. As well as like that collaboration, the critical thinking a
lot of students with. Integrating their left and rights. It was like a whole new lesson, a mini lesson really in there, which is a very huge life skill. And then on this one, I wanted to highlight the teacher created resources. Resources. So along with the lesson plan that teachers have created anything, the teacher needs to implement these lessons in their classroom. Have been created also. So things like worksheets or the map you see there in the bottom left. This equipment is great and it's amazing, but it's only equipment. If it's not paired with a powerful lesson and paired with a powerful resource. To go with it to foster that critical thinking, it,
it doesn't have the same impact. So I just really wanted to highlight that all of the needed resources like virtual resources or worksheets to kind of provoke the thinking will also be embedded in that drive. For teachers to use. And then the last kind of photo op I have is to show the variety of the equipment that was used by the students. Students. So some people think the RCS CoLab is just robots and kind of high tech. Equipment, but that's not always the case. We have a lot of equipment, like. In the top left there, you can see they they're called make, do their cardboard. Cutting. They're all very safe,
like screwdrivers and screws for cardboard. We had students use. As well as a variety of different robots, circuitry, things like that. So there was a large variety of equipment that the students and the teachers were had access to. And then the future is, is still a place that we are working towards how we are going to utilize these lessons. So we have a great bank of tested lessons that have free materials that have access to all of our teachers and students. But where do we go from here? How do we push them out to the general public of our teachers?
Teachers. And how do we ensure that we can reach more students? 228 is great, but it's not the scale that we would love to see our students gaining steam and stem experiences. One opportunity that I wanted to highlight is we are piloting a stem camp this year in June. So we are kind of starting to get that ball rolling for third through fifth graders. So that's one option already kind of started. In the works, but we wanted to see maybe there were ways to. Broaden the steam lessons again, only two lessons. Of that a lot of the students get to feel the joy and inspiration of learning as well as those
career ready skills. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Appreciate your overview of the plan. The there's great amount of gratitude to the educators that jumped into this work for meeting the challenge and for continuing to multiply that energy that's coming alongside of this. I think as, as Ms. Mini mentioned, our, our work now is to think about the inner intersections that Ken be made. With science, social studies and math curriculum trajectory across the course of the year. And strengthening some intersections we have with our. Instructional literacy. As a a session of learning that our kids have each week.
How can we tap into that? Looking for points of cohesion across the district and with the grade level. Knowing that those touch tone experiences. Ideally are common across the district, across those 13 schools at various grade level intervals. Intervals. We know that one of the. The opportunities is in the excitement. And then the challenge is in the, the just short 33 hours of professional learning that we have with our educators across the course of a school year, really require us to just choose priorities and various specific specifically a, and we need to prioritize how this energy couples with some of those. Other learning hours to dovetail into these shared unit experiences.
What questions might the board have? Secretary Viel. Yeah, I, I love the stone. I love that we're creating these. Different. Activities for the students to be exposed to. But I'm wondering you know, do we have plans for PD? For staff to have more exposure to this. Do we have. Does all the staff know how to access the stem library. And how to get these items. Do we have goals associated with our future ideas? Like, you know, how much do we wanna expand next year? And what are we gonna do to get there? And my last question is. Do we need to set resources aside in order to
be able to. Expand this library and the ability for more students to have exposure to it. Oh, I'll start with the future goals. So we automatically will have Oakland school's career readiness goals, which is what I spend most of my time achieving for our district to receive the funding. So it's nice. It kind of comes along with some funding and attached to it as far as what the district would like to see or all of the stakeholders and the board would like tosee. For steam and stem and engineering principles in the elementary school will be dependent on how many resources or what resources we need. But as far as the PD plan we've touched. Base on how that's going to look with limited PD
time, but kind of. Thinking outside of the box. I had a lot of the teachers from our cohort be like, I would love to be an advocate. For the RCS co-lab and for the steam work. Teamwork kind of unprompted. We were just kind of chatting about what their goals were with steam in stem in the elementary. And I thought, well, that's a really interesting way to do it too, is to have these teachers who. Basically just volunteered. They weren't asked to do it. They just said, I love this work and I'd love to see more of it. So how we could couple that with maybe their building PD and we do kind of like a little commercial of what we have to offer. Teachers are aware. We've had a lot of engagement. I
wanna say this year we've had over 13,000 interactions. I don't wanna say that's each student. But cuz some students get multiple interactions with our RCS co-lab and it's found in the teacher's bookmarks. So I. Tell every group of teachers I'm with about it. And we've provided some PD on that RCS CoLab, coupling it with the lessons will be something new that we'll have to kind of foster and, and build the confidence for the teachers through PD next year. Absolutely. Have you considered, or maybe you already have. Recorded some of the staff. Doing their lesson because sometimes it's.
It's for those people who maybe aren't experienced with it. Like they can read it, but they don't really get it versus seeing it to be able to kind of copy that. It's a great idea. We, that came out of our meeting last week, we had our kind of finalized meeting and that was one of their suggestions is on our website. The equipment is already organized by difficulty levels. So we have green, yellow, and red, and we could hyperlink where those lessons sit, but also some resources like videos or a one pager. One-pager just for a quick commercial of how the equipment works. It makes 'em feel more comfortable. So that's an amazing suggestion. Anyone else with questions? Questions. Okay. Seeing none. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Super informative. I love the a in, in steam, too. Steam. Yeah. Very don't forget our . Thank you very much, Ms. Mini. Smithy. Okay. Now I believe we're ready to go onto item eight, which is new business. 8.1 is the first reading of policy. 2 0 0 3. This is an action item and I'll punt it over to Dave Murphy. Thank you, president anes tonight is the first reading of a new policy. Addition to the 2003 educational records. Current policy regarding student surveys. Surveys the description is attached and reads fiscal year, 2006,
2026. State school aid act included. Included new law, providing additional requirements for school districts and intermediate school districts regarding student surveys. Surveys it's recommended to adopt these revisions in order to adhere to that law. And I'd like to, it's not in the document, but I would like to clarify that the reading. This reading tonight, the second reading next meeting and the motion to approve would be to take effect for the 26th, 27th school year. So while doing it in the spring, it would take effect next school year. And again, most of what you see there is the same exact
language. With the addition of consistent with a applicable law at the beginning. And then the meat of the addition is at the bottom. And reads in compliance with M MCL 3 88 0.176 4k. The school district will ensure. That questions and results of district-wide surveys, state, or federally mandated surveys and surveys distributed to all students in a grade level will be made available to the public by being posted on the district's website. And parents will be notified of these survey questions and results. However, the district will. Comply with the family educational rights and privacy act FERPA.
Before releasing any survey results. Thank you. Okay. I believe we were. The next item is the remainder of public comment and everyone was covered at the beginning of their agenda. Item number 10 is additional comments and 10.1 members of the administration. Mr. Russo. Russo Ms. There we go. Thank you so much. So I'd like to let the community know that in an informational webpage has been developed and is available on the RCS website for the regional enhancement millage. It provides an O overview of the proposal.
And help will impact public schools. In Oakland county. Also included as a link to a tax calculator. Along with a short video on how public schools are funded. So we invite the community to visit the webpage. You can access it by going it's right under the about us section. On the website. Thank you. Me Daniel. Thank you, Mr. Russo, I have two pieces of news to share. First Oakland county recognized two of our bus drivers. So. They issued two excellence in transportation awards. So I want to send our congratulations to Debbie Bock.
In Yari felt on receiving this honor. There are two very reliable. Loved bus drivers. They were nominated by their peers. The second piece of information that I wanna share is the discovery kitchen cook office of the second annual event occurred. Earlier this month, we had 30 applicants. Applicants teams of two to four people. Two teams were selected from each middle school. So we had eight teams compete. I got the honor of judging that the food was fantastic. I want to give Mike congratulations to all eight of those teams. But I will share the top three. Each team shows their name. So first place was the
Italian hands. Second place was the Indian Gordon, Ramsey brothers, and third place was the taste twisters. Congratulations to all those teams. This is an event that I look forward to every year. And wanna share my appreciation to our Chartwells team led by Marsha. Marsha Marcy Tam, Jeff and Jason. They did a fantastic job. It's a great event that we get to have some fun with parents. A little nerves on each side, both watching. To me what our little kids with big kitchen utensils and pots and pans and knives and parents, you know, stressed out, watching their, their kids cook for us. So
that was a fantastic event. My husband does. Thank you, Mr. Me, Daniel. McDaniel Ms. Got here. Good evening. I would like to an extend an invitation to our community. To join us for special education PACS, annual sparkle award. This Thursday. April 16th at Adams high school in the auditorium. The early childhood in elementary ceremony will begin at 6:00 PM. Followed by our secondary and post-secondary ceremony at 7:30 PM. This year, we are honored to celebrate over 500 nominations.
The sparkle awards are Rochester, community school's way of recognizing and celebrating individuals who make a meaningful, positive impact in the life of a student with a disability. It is always an inspiring event and we would love for you to join us as we celebrate all of the incredible people who have been nominated. Trust me. You're not gonna wanna miss this. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gothia. Mr. Guzman. Good evening, few things. One, as you heard from the student reps, it is game day, this week, S a T P S a T tomorrow. As my son reminds me, but he's excited cuz he's
gonna get an omelet tomorrow before the S a T from his administrator. So I just wanna give a shout out to the administrators and the building teachers and the administrators for remembering that these kids are ready, but they're preparing them mentally. Emotionally all year, they prep 'em for what the test is gonna be and all that practice. But the focus this week, there's an assembly that we got invited to for a celebration AFT on Thursday. So they really have taken that to the next level. And I want to appreciate them for doing that. So good luck to all our students, including my son, if you're listening, which I doubt he is. .
On May 5th, there is a student. Rochester community school, student job fair. At six o'clock to eight o'clock at Adams high school in the gymnasium. Students can connect with employers, offering paid internships summer and part-time jobs. And potential direct hires alongside career exploration and skill building. So check that out. If you're interested. And then one really cool addition this year that everyone's really excited about all three high schools. Are doing an alumni career day. On May 29th from eight 30 to 1:30 PM for students. Students basically all three high schools. Have invited alumnis.
Alumnis to get a chance to talk to students and connect. About their choosing career path. Sharing their story. And with our current students to help educate and influence their future career and educational decisions. So something the counseling department is very excited about doing this year. So that is May 29th. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kimo. Last, the only thing I'll say is I'm gonna go back to the spotlight the beginning of, of tonight. The unified sports was something that when I first got here, I was very much. A personal goal, not an official goal at this board table. Was to ex expand that as much as possible. And
we continue to grow that. And I firmly believe that that program. Involving just the inclusion of all is some of the best money and some of that's best time that we spend as a district. And I wanna say thank you to Tiffany for pushing it forward. Thank you president and moving on to item 11 announcements. Next Monday on April 20th, we'll have a closed. Board session at 5:00 PM and then a regular meeting at 6:00 PM. Here in this room, the RCS early childhood education center. And moving on to adjournment. If there's no objection, this meeting will be adjourned
and. I'm seeing none. And it's nine 15. Thank you all for attending. Have a great night.