Good evening, and welcome to the rest of the day school for the AT and T regular meeting all quarter at 06:02PM. I would ask to try to join me in monthly. This board of education regular meeting is a meeting of the board in public for the purpose of conducting the school district business and is not a public community meeting. However, we value community input and public comment will be heard under agenda item six. If you wish to speak tonight and have not already filled out a yellow card, they are located on a table near the entrance to the this auditorium.
Once you've completed the card, please put it in the box on the same table. Please note that cards must be completed prior to speaking and I'll call the names of those who I have a card for during public comment. I call on my board colleagues to abide by the norms we've agreed to. These include keeping comments germane to the agenda item, that we don't surprise each other at the board table, that we have one speaker at a time that's recognized by the chair before speaking, to be honest, to refrain from attacking others' motives, to uphold the chain of command and to truly listen to each other. On behalf of my board colleagues,
we are grateful to be able to serve this community and appreciate your support. For roll call, all board members are present. We're now moving to our agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? Moved by Trustee Gupta. Is there support? Support from trustee Alspa. Is there any discussion before we vote? Madam President. Trustee Lacoue. I move to add a resolution under new business. The State Board of Education votes on the new health framework this Thursday, and this is our only meeting before that vote, which is why I'm bringing this forward now. Alright. There's a motion to add a resolution.
Tell me what it was called to what did you call your resolution? The resolution about the new health standards. Okay. To include a discussion about the resolution regarding the health standards. Is there support for that? I support. Supported by Trustee Lausanne. Alright. Is there any discussion on this before we vote to amend the agenda? Yep. Remember just shortly, you pretty much said it right there at the beginning. Well, to be clear, I must explain what this is not. This resolution does not adopt curriculum or bypass the sex ed advisory board.
And here's why the timing matters. Trustee Lacoue, I'm gonna ask that it be germane to why it needs to be added to the agenda that has already been set. I will stay completely relevant to what this is so that we know what it is. So far, you are discussing what the resolution is and not why it needs to be added. I will not debate it. I'm just telling you what it is. So families in our district have raised concerns that the state framework does not clearly distinguish Alright. Between Trustee Lacoue, I am going And so I'm not saying that the added across the Trustee Lacui. If you would like to appeal my decision of the chair,
you may do so. Madam president Would you wish do you wish to appeal the decision of the chair? Point of order. Trustee Lacui? This is the time when I Lacui? Madam president, point of order. Trustee Lacui? Madam president, point of order. Trustee Lacui, I have made my ruling that you need to stick to why it needs to be added now and not discussing what the resolution is. All I'm hearing is what that you are discussing what the resolution is. Let me tell you why the timing matters. Thank you. Adding this item tonight allows us to speak about this topic about the gender identity being spread throughout the curriculum while the state public comment period is still open.
Perhaps we could convince them to incorporate some written clarity into their framework. It also helps to reassure families that regardless of what the state decides to do, our district will continue to respect parental rights under Michigan law and maintain neutral, transparent science statements. Into what the resolution is and not why it needs to be added. That was my statement right there. Alright. Does anyone else wish to speak before we vote? Alright. All of those in favor of amending the agenda to include, the discussion on the resolution regarding the health standards,
please say aye. Aye. I think I heard two. Those opposed, please say no. No. I believe that was five. That's a two five and the amendment does not pass. Madam President, a question about this. Will you please include a copy of my resolution in the meeting minutes so that we see what the board just turned down? No. Because what we turned down was to include a discussion of the resolution. Alright. All of those in favor of approving the agenda as presented, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven-zero vote and the,
agenda is adopted. Alright. At this point, we are moving on to our spotlight on success, which is, a spotlight on our high school marching bands. Mr. Cusmano. Welcome, everybody. Very excited to spotlight our high school marching band programs. Obviously, they are not here because they're about 160 to 180 members per high school. So, we would have a hard time fitting them in, even our full size auditorium. So but, before we get into the students, that are here to present and highlight our marching band programs in Rochester,
I'd like to, give a shout out to our k twelve music coordinator, Erin Holden. Is she here tonight? She said maybe. I don't think so, but she does a lot of work behind the scenes. Our band directors who deal with these humongous marching bands and really, give these students a wonderful opportunity. We have, Lawrence Staniszewski from Stoney Creek High School. Is Lauren here? There she is in the back. Thank you. Staniszewski. Sorry. I know I'm loud, but I'm not being that loud. We have not present tonight because they have rehearsals for, something going on with music.
We have mister David Urecht, the band director at Rochester High School, and mister Matt Harris, the director of bands at Rochester Adams. So we thank them for all their hard work. I'm gonna turn it over to some amazing students. These, students are from are they're drum majors, from Adams. I'd like to welcome them to the podium. They have a a presentation and a short video. Senior from Adams, drum major Adam Maxwell, Stoney senior drum major, Caroline Kovton, and, head senior drum major from Rochester High School,
Curtis Klinger. So the mic is yours to highlight our marching band programs. Good evening, RCS school board members and administration. My name is Caroline Kofdin, and I am the senior drum major for the Stony Creek Cougar Marching Band. On behalf of the drum majors and marchers for all three of our RCS high school marching bands, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight about our season and the efforts that go into creating a successful marching season for our groups and community. Although we technically start meeting in the spring for the coming fall, the marching band season actually begins even earlier with the design of the coming year's
halftime show. A team of adults, including directors, color guard staff, percussion staff, and a drill rider, the person who creates the coordinates and shapes for the band to make the show on the field, begin meeting and creating the shows we will learn later in the year. The theme for our shows is selected along with the music. The theme for our show the guard staff works on finding and purchasing equipment specific for the show, and percussion begins working on altering any parts and creating percussion features that may be used in the show. Official registration for the marching band happens in the spring prior to the season starting.
All students are welcome to march. There are prerequisites and tryouts for specific spots and roles, such as leadership positions, but anyone interested in marching is welcome to sign up. Care is taken for every student interested in marching to have a role in the show that they can successfully accomplish. Once our roster is set after spring registration, the drill rider gets to work on creating the coordinates for each person and the shapes the band will create on the field. Special care is taken to make sure step sizes and paths are achievable by everyone on the field without any collisions along the way. Rehearsals and sectionals also begin at the end of the school year for the coming
fall. Sectional dates are set throughout the summer, so everyone is able to begin working on their music while the coordinates and drill are being created. Sometime during the summer, prior to the season officially starting, each band participates in a week of band camp. At band camp, each person marching on the field receives a special set of coordinates from the drill rider. They are individualized for each person in the group, and no two people's coordinates are the same. We have no backup marchers. So having each person on the field for rehearsals and performances is essential, not only for everyone to best know their coordinates, but to help everyone else in their section better know their spots and spacing as
well. Having everyone at band camp together ensures we can safely learn their paths and coordinates with everyone present and no holes in the drill. The band camp experience is also a crucial part of the team building process for each band, with each band having their own traditions and experiences that help bring everyone together to kick off a successful vast majority of for the vast majority of our work in the main season that takes place in the heart of the fall from the first morning of our school year all the way up until the playoffs and our MSBOA Festival. When one thinks of a football game, one can imagine the smells, the colors of motion from both our outstanding cheer and dance teams,
and, of course, the fury of the team itself. But when one thinks of a Rochester Community Schools game, they see that the band ties us all together. These individual spectacles are underlined by the roar of a 171 member marching band consisting of thundering drums, gnarly brass, sharp woodwinds, visual spectacle from our color guard as well as drum majors, and each and every one of us screaming to distract the other side. This present begins much earlier than the final tension filled play, however. Starting on the first day of school, our marching band wakes up the crack of dawn or to be ready to play our music for the students as they enter the school through the drop off loop.
For some, it's just a tradition. But for those who are nervous about high school or even just having a bad day, our music makes them feel at home before they even enter the school building. One of my favorite moments from this year so far was conducting on a podium in the middle of the road and seeing students smiling with their parents as they drove in. It reminded me why this school and love the school and band so much. The bulk of our time after school is spent at rehearsals. These can take place from 06:20AM, 5PM, 1PM, in the rain, in the snow, in a tornado. You can put the band anywhere, and they would be ready to rehearse and improve themselves.
The typical rehearsal starts with our school's fight song being exuberantly played, helping get our students into the marching band mindset as well as fostering an important sense of community. After this, we break for sectional time. During this, our different instrument groups will break off and work on the parts and the music that they need to. These are led by our amazing student leadership team, an an example of the amazing students and musical leadership found within our district. Sectionals also serve as an important bonding time to help the members feel like a family as we like to have fun as well as being productive, boosting self esteem and friendship within our group. The bulk of our rehearsal,
however, is spent on the field learning our drill. This consists of either running through specific moves to get at the most important little details or doing full run throughs of our songs to build repetition. Within our drill, we create unique motion, interesting shapes, and have a little bit of fun getting to dance. This practice of learning new moves, running them, and then running full songs with urgency and attentiveness fosters focus and tenacity within our students. All these different experiences help shape our kids into extraordinary musicians, leaders, and just people in general. It's a common sentiment shared by those in the band that the strict start times and focus required for our craft transfers over to our schoolwork,
landing us higher grades and stronger discipline to get to work on time. All this work is put to good show through the aforementioned football games that we are present at, being the heart of the energy in the stadium and changing hearts while inspiring our audience at halftime. Each football game and event, we aim to improve, whether it's adding new drill to premiere new songs on the field or refining our craft. All of the improvement, however, shown through the season culminates at the MSBOA Festival, more formally known as the Michigan School Band Orchestra Association Festival. This is the performance of the year, where we are timed, judged, and critiqued on nearly everything we do.
We are proud to share that all three of our district's marching bands receive the highest division rating of one consistently each year. This is yet another testament to the success shown within our one consistently each year. This is yet another testament to the success shown within our music programs here in our district. If you can take one thing away from this portion of our presentation, it's that our main season teaches us important lessons on time management, dedication, and self esteem, all while bolstering a sense of of identity and community within each student. These achievements are what make me proud to lead my band every day. This environment would not be possible without an incredible top notch staff that pours their hearts and many hours of their incredibly busy lives. This team consists of our band director,
David Urigg, assistant director, Michelle Latouf, drum line instructors, Chester Ho and Jake Kelly, and color guard instructors, Katie Durkaz and Nico Gregorio. I extend my dearest thanks to them to helping us all reach our full potential and for being amazing people in general. Thank you to the Board and the community for listening to how we improve. Now, I'll hand it over to Senior Drum Major Adam Maxwell of the Rochester Adams Heiler marching band to round out this presentation by speaking on the community involvement that our bands partake in throughout the year. Thank you to Caroline and Curtis for speaking on behalf of Estonian RHS. Like Curtis said, my name is Adam Maxwell. I'm the senior drum major representing the Adams Marching Band.
Now the other drum majors, they've already discussed the hard work that goes into our show, but the extent of our band goes far beyond just our football game performances. The bands work hard not only during the conventional season, but really the whole year. I'm here to discuss all the extra events we put on. This isn't everything, but I'd like to list a few examples. At the start of the season, all three bands perform at Jimmy John's Stadium. When fans are entering, we're playing in the front of the stadium. We also perform the national anthem. We all perform at Arts and Apples, one band each day in the morning. And for the last six years, we've put on our RCS Festival so everyone in the local community has the opportunity
to hear all of our shows before our official judge performance. We hired clinicians and judges from across the state to help with this performance. On top of that, all three bands, we go on tours. At Adams, we went to Van Hoosen and West Rochester, they visited West and Reuther And Stoney, they visited Hart Middle School to try to recruit some of the eighth grade members to join our band program. On top of that, we have our MSBOA Festival. Curtis mentioned this. All of our bands have done very well in the last few years and it's a great opportunity for us to grow our recognition across the state.
We all perform at pep assemblies within our schools for Homecoming, and many other pep assemblies, as well as we all perform at the Rochester Hometown Christmas Parade. The bands also have an annual school trip. Adams, for example, last year, we visited New York City. This is a great opportunity not just to show our hard work and show our program to different parts of the countries, but also to learn from mentors and talented musicians across the country as well. Now, Adams specifically, we have a few of our own unique performances. We perform at the Van Hoosen Crossing Over Ceremony in June,
so we start rehearsal for that in May. We have performed at various fun runs, Veterans Day events. Right now, I'm organizing an event for Delta Kelly. We're performing for the middle schoolers the elementary schoolers tomorrow. We also perform at, other elementary schools throughout the season in our feeder system. Adams also has the honor of playing at the Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit once every three years. I know that Rochester is also playing in this parade, I believe, this year. We also perform at all playoff games. Now in the last four years, the Adams football team has advanced to over 17 playoff games and the band has
been to each and every one of those. In those 17 playoff games, that's equivalent to over three seasons' worth of home games that we usually perform, and we do that on top of the home games we have per season. Now as for Stoney Creek, they have many of their own events. This is just a few. They perform at Memorial Day Parade. They have Scholastic Marching Band competitions. They perform at the end of the season award ceremony and they perform at harp pep assemblies. As for Rochester, they perform at the OPC Senior Picnic Day, a Veterans Day Parade in Detroit, and the caroling in the city event downtown in early December. Now in summary,
we're performing at more than just four to five football games and a festival each year. We're constantly engaged in our community and trying to give back to our city through performances as much as we can. There's a lot of coordination, communication involved in all these extra performances. Each director needs to organize different performing groups, needs to make sure all field trip forms and other paperwork is done. They need to get parent help from any of these and also monitor up to 170 kids and ensure their safety. It's not an easy job having only one to two directors for most of these events, but the directors do a great job.
This community has great musicians at every school. These students take time out of their busy schedules not just to perform at these football games, but also all of these events I've listed. And a lot of districts, they can't boast about how lucky we have it here, not just because of the resources we're given, but also the opportunities as well as the passion with the students within our bands. Now in closing, we've put together a short video. It's a preview of all three of our schools' shows. Like we mentioned before, our shows represent the hard work we put in through the summer and through the early fall season. Thank you for your time. Thank you to the other schools for being here tonight.
Please enjoy our video. Is that an LED bow tie? Okay. That's incredible. But also before, the board obviously speaks, recognize, all the amazing educators, music k 12. It starts in in the in the elementary, our music program all the way through, twelfth grade. So, along with parents and caregivers who donate their time and efforts to to to feed these students, move the equipment, to write all that thing, all the dress, make sure the uniforms are clean, and provide all those hours to enhance our music program. So thank you. And if anybody lives near one of our high schools,
you probably hear these guys at six a. M. So, thank you so much. Yeah, I'll just, piggyback on that and just say thank you so much for coming, and reminding us of all the time and effort that goes into, these, really, productions that you guys do and the amazing quality that you have and all of those, parents and staff who make that possible along with the students. So, thank you for coming tonight. We're moving on to agenda item five, which is communications. This is where we reference various communications that have been received. Item 5.1 is communications received by the board.
Secretary Blake, can you please give us an update? Sure. The the Board has received 20 communications that are in the packet for reference. I yeah. How about now? Okay. The Board has received 20 communications, which are all in the packet. In addition to that, we received a communication from Marvy Neubauer regarding traffic concerns. Thank you. Next, we have student representatives from our high school. Libby, did you wanna start with Adams? Who's here from Adams? And you're welcome. You can speak there, or if you'd like to come up here in the front, you can do that too.
Oh, sorry. To start give me one second. To start, during the last October, our school hosted many fun events. Our student council members visited Delta Kelly Elementary to guide classrooms through various Halloween crafts. This gave our high schoolers an opportunity to connect with younger students in our district and hopefully provide role models for our elementary friends, truly enforcing an RCS community. With our feeder students in mind, on October 26, Adams hosted our annual trunk or treat for all younger members and families in our community.
This was a fun event for us to host as a high school as we had high school volunteers decorate their cars, play music, and pass out candy. On October 31, our ILLINC crew hosted a trunk or treat during lunch specifically for all of our freshman students. This was a fun way to remind our freshman body that LINC crew is always there in support of them. At the end of our fun Halloween week, we had reached the end of our first quarter. We are extremely proud of all of our students and administrators for all their hard work and dedication that we have seen within the first months of this amazing school
year. With application season being a stressful time for our seniors, our counselors were hard at work meeting the early decision common application deadline. Throughout this last month, our incredible counselors held one on one meetings with our seniors to discuss their application process and provided tips for each student to ensure they have the materials to meet their goals for the future. Moving on to November, our Adams Interact Club put together a flag football game that included three to four teams of senior participates from all three Rochester community schools.
This was an intense but fun tournament, and we are proud to say that Adams was able to bring the trophy back home. With our sports in mind, we are officially entering our winter sports season. But we continue to show up and support our football team as they make their way through playoffs this year. Last week, our amazing football team beat Stony Creek in a competitive game for district champs. Aside from our intense game, our gold rush fans were all dressed out in green to support mental health. Although we fought won, the fight is not over, and we are excited to see where our team continues to push in the playoffs.
Tomorrow morning, we will be honoring our veterans within the Adams family by hosting a Veterans Day breakfast and having our students place flags in honor of those who have fought for our country. The breakfast will take place in our cafeteria and has invited the family members of the Adams community to be honored and remembered. Looking ahead, our student council has begun preparing for our annual canned food drive. We'll be donating thousands of canned goods and dollars to our local Rochester area neighborhood house. This will take place from November 17 to November 21 as a council.
We will be speaking to each teacher about how they can incentivize their classes to donate. Throughout this week, we'll be also selling snacks throughout our business connections within the council, and we hope to raise even more money than we did last year, which is an outstanding amount of $30,000 On December 3, we will be hosting a Be Nice program in honor of supporting mental health throughout the school day. Our fall play this year is Peter and the Starcatcher. It'll take place over the next two weeks in the Adams Theater on Friday and Saturday at 7PM. Tickets will be sold throughout the Adams Theater bio in on Instagram,
$12 for students and $16 for adults. Everyone is welcome to attend. Every year, we run drills that help prepare the staff and students for the event of an emergency. And recently, we have finished our fire drill practices for each hour of the day to make sure students know how to safely exit the school in case of a emergency. Those are all the updates from Adams. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to seeing you all next month. Good evening, everyone. My name is Grace Colucci, and I'm Rochester High School's board representative. As our as our HS reflects on quarter one, there will be a lot of exciting events that have taken place.
To kick off Halloween, Suga hosted their annual trunk or treat event on October 23. This event is one of Rochester's biggest community events. Some special highlights this year included food food trucks, a candy walk, face paint, character characters, and lots of unique club cars that attended. The student council also hosted a new event called puppy dance party on October 29 during advisory. RHS students, including CI students, got together and did just dances and a Zumba class in the gym while dressed in Halloween costumes to fit the Halloween theme. This event was truly spectacular. We plan to host events,
including CI students, every month during advisory called Advisory Adventures with Friends. This Wednesday, we are planning on doing Thanksgiving crafts. SUGO is also beginning to prepare for their annual can drive that officially kicks off on November 15. All the donations go to Neighborhood House. We have high hopes this for beating last year's donation goal of 15,493 cans. The senior class also put together a special event called breakfast with your baby on October 17 where students can invite their parents to breakfast in the mall. Holiday bazaar also took place this past Saturday,
November 8, where a 160 vendors were on-site at RHS to provide all holiday shopping needs. RHS also hosted a college and career night on October 21. This is an amazing opportunity for RCS students to meet with representatives from colleges and universities, trade programs, military branches, apprenticeships, and short term training, and direct to work opportunities. There were all there was also a ribbon cutting ceremony for our very own apprenticeship wall. Along with Prep for the Future, counselors are working hard with students through Xello surveys, senior meetings, and college application prep to help guide students to achieve their future goals.
Counselors were also starting to set up the Be Nice program, which is a mental health support day on December 3. PSAT results are in for juniors and we are very excited to begin preparations for the SAT in the spring. Another unique event taking place at RHS is the Veterans Day breakfast on November 11, sponsored by RHS National Social Studies Honor Society. Coffee and a light breakfast are provided before our flag placing ceremony that all students at RHS participate in. Each student is given a flag to place in the ground by the Walden And Livernois Intersection. There will also be an honors wall unveiling and senator Gary Peters,
a Rochester alumni, will be in attendance. Mister Winkel has recently been working with our leadership cohort through the forty two Strong Foundation at Oxford. As fall sports season closed for our Falcons, there have been a lot of accomplishments to recognize. First, girls volleyball qualified for district semifinals. They took on Eisenhower last Wednesday, October 29. Great job, girls. The RHS girls swim and die team had an outstanding league this past weekend, winning OAAU champions. There are many amazing times, and now the team is getting ready for states. Cross country had an outstanding turnout. Girls were girls were declared OAA Red League champs and Oakland County champions.
Both members of the girls and boys teams qualified for states that happened a week ago. Lastly, RHS hosted the dance team union competition this past Sunday. Our very own varsity and JV dance teams performed jazz and pop and placed first in both categories. To conclude, I would like to give a few shout outs to a few things happening at RHS that helped contribute to the greater culture and excellence of our school. The RHS football team had a strong end of their season, making it to the first round of playoffs. The collage concert also took place on October 29 featuring many talented students in the
RHS music programs. Great job, Falcons. The marching band participated in the Veterans Day parade in Detroit this past weekend and will be at Thanksgiving parade in a few weeks. One of our Falcons, Max Grobson, won bronze in the World Karate Championship. Great job. Not only is senior Chad Anderson a tennis state champ a tennis state champion, he was also nominated as a 2025 mister tennis in the state of Michigan. Congratulations to Ella Abraham and Charlotte Jones for attending for ending the cross country season with all state honors at cross country states.
And lastly, preparations for the fall musical White Christmas are in full swing. Tickets are available to purchase for November. That's all for today's report. Thank you for your time and attention. Have a great night. Good evening, everyone. My name is Corina Morfin Munoz, and I'm the student representative from Stony Creek High School. I'm so happy to be back to share what's been happening at our school recently. It's been a busy fall filled with learning, school spirit, and community. We recently wrapped up our parent teacher conferences, which gave families the chance to connect directly with teachers and talk about student progress.
It's always great to see how these conversations help strengthen the partnership between families and our school. College and career fair was another major highlight. Students had the opportunity to explore different post secondary options from universities to technical programs and military careers, all helping us think about the next steps beyond high school. To celebrate the season, Stoney hosted several Halloween spirit events. On October 24, we hosted feeder schools for our trunk or treat and haunted house. Both events had an amazing attendance, and it was an amazing way to connect with the families of the younger students in our district. On October 22 and the twenty fourth,
we had our new Halloween bank decorating. It was such a fun time getting Stoney ready for the season. November 5 was our annual 3v3 basketball tournament. As always, it was so much fun to watch, and congratulations to our winners, Anthony, Jack, and Cole. All of these events were a great way to bring our school and community together for some fun before the quarter ended. Speaking of which, we just completed our first quarter, and our teachers and counselors have been working hard to support students as we reflect on where we are and set goals for the rest of the semester. Our fall athletics wrapped up with impressive performances across the board.
Our football team just competed in the district finals last Friday. We are so proud of how they played and of the amazing season they had. Our volleyball team had an amazing season advancing to the district semifinals. Our swim team competed in leagues on October on November 7, placing fifth overall in the Red Division, and our divers will be continuing on to regionals. Our girls' cross country team placed fourth in the region and our boys placed eighth. Congratulations to Leah Corby for earning the All State honors. We are incredibly proud of our teams for representing Stoney with pride and dedication. In the arts, the Stoney Creek Theatre Company just completed their closing show of the fall play,
Pride and Prejudice. The cast and crew worked tirelessly to make the show spectacular. It was truly so much fun to watch. The spring musical was also announced at the end of theaters tech week and everyone is very excited to put on an amazing show of Footloose. Our JV and varsity dance teams competed in two competitions this weekend. They did an amazing job, both teams placing first in game day. Looking ahead, NHS is preparing for our Veterans Day activities tomorrow where students will have the chance to honor and thank those who served our country. It's always one of the most meaningful events of the year.
Stoney's Can Drive kicked off today, focusing on a message of kindness and generosity with each can donated. Student council is also starting a new event called Taste and Tell where we will be providing lunches for six randomly selected students and asking for feedback on our events. In addition, our staff continues to focus on school safety through drills, planning, and crisis meetings, ensuring that everyone feels secure and supported at school. Our student leaders have been active in the principals' advisory committee and other leadership conferences, making sure student voices are heard and represented. It's been such a strong and positive start to the year at Stoney Creek,
full of energy growth and connection. We're proud of how our students and staff continue to support each other and build a community rooted in Cougar pride. Thank you so much for your time, and I hope you all have a wonderful evening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Nannie Lee, and I'm excited to give you this month's updates on ACE. This month, we focused on connecting with each other and our futures. We held our annual parent teacher conferences on October 3. Our teachers set and reached the goal of connecting with 100% of our parents. We welcomed representatives from OCC and Wayne State.
Students are actively applying for college or trade schools. Students who may be interested in a future of learning and a lot of money and working with their hands attended a field trip at the Carpenters Union where they hammered and drilled with tools of the trade and learned about various potential careers. Student Council planned and ran our second annual MSU versus U of M tailgate. In addition to our Coney dogs, hop and chips, we also had Coke slushies and brownies. We have added various groups of activities so every student could participate in a game
or contest. We had 100% participation. And the winners got crocheted spooky animals made by one of our students. All of our students had a great time during our tailgate, and it was a nice way for all of us to get together and have a good time. For the last week of October, we created a fun and creative environment with a spirit week. The winning class won a gift basket filled with fun items, such as fall seams, socks, pickled color silly string, spirit days. Our spirit days included class color day, Monsters Inc. Day,
Wizards versus Witches day, costume day, and everyone's favorite, pajama day. As a commitment to focusing on mental health, the Resilience Center of Rochester visited us and taught us windmill breathing as a coping strategy when times get tough. One day a month, ACE and ATPS participate in some activity to support our mental health. Our counselor, Ms. Marr, held a meeting with every senior in preparation for their graduation requirements and what they need to be prepared for graduation ceremonies. At ACE, we are an innovation based program where students can earn certain rewards if they keep
all their grades up in the passing range for the week. On Halloween, those students who earn movie day were able to spend half their day watching movies. And those who are on free Starbucks or lunch will be receiving the reward. Our goal continues to be that attending ACE is a privilege and recognize great things that happen. With the changeover of fall sports, we thank Eli Johnson for helping our Rochester Falcons football team play a great season. We look forward to our own Daniel Celeron help helping the Rochester Adams team have
a winning season. Today, we celebrated our Veterans Day by planting flags along the front of our school. Ace wishes all the veterans knew how much they were respected and valued. Upcoming this month, the entire school will be taking a field trip to the DIA to learn about and appreciate the jewel of Michigan. Thank you for supporting our students as they continue to learn and reach for a better future. Go Bulldogs. Good evening, everyone. It's nice to see you all again. My name is Alexia Boda, and I am the International Academy representative here to update you on the event at IA.
I also thought I'd use this meeting to explain what the IB is and what we do at the IA since I know a lot of people have had some questions the last few times I've been here. To recap, we hosted our powder puff between the juniors and seniors, and the seniors were sadly defeated by the juniors. The Thursday before Halloween, students were served with hot cocoa during passing time between their first and second hour. And there was a costume contest where the teachers gave one student each hour a ticket that the student got to redeem for a prize. We also had our trunk or treat that day, which was hosted by various club boards,
student council, and volunteer students. In addition, we have conferences right before Halloween. Looking ahead, the seniors are going to Stratford, Ontario on Thursday to watch a live version of Shakespeare's Macbeth. In addition, our charity ball is this Saturday and will be hosted at IA. The theme this year is Hollywood. And everyone is very excited. Our student leadership is going to be working very hard this week to finalize all these details. So, to go into the IB, the IB is the international baccalaureate, which is a world recognized program known from kindergarten through high school. At the high school, instead of honors and AP courses,
they have DP courses, which stands for diploma program. DP, AP is a one year course of study, while DP or while DP is a two year course of study. AP focuses on content, while DP focuses on disciplinary skills. And AP students may take the test without being in the class, while DP students must be in the DP course to test and have to complete, all of their prior things. Now, to explain the IA and the IB diploma program. So, basically, the IA is a school where everyone studies content and skills for four years that prepare them to be successful on the IB exam at the end of their senior
year. The school is solely focused on helping students fulfill the requirements for the IB diploma and is broken up into two programs. The middle year's program occurs in the ninth and tenth grade. This is where students take honors courses and learn the skills like research and critical thinking and knowledge in order to be successful in the diploma program. The personal project, which is a culminating semester long project during the sophomore year where students have to create a project where they learn a new skill or enrich their knowledge in a global context. My personal project focused on video editing skills.
Other people have built a beehive, created books to read to elementary students, taught younger kids how to play tennis, and much more. The diploma program occurs in the eleventh and twelfth grade. And this is where the international program with content begins. Students in the eleventh and twelfth grades are learning the same topics as eleventh and twelfth grade students in Europe or Asia. The IB isn't just made up of exams that seniors take at the end of the year. It contains internal exams which are graded by teachers and then moderated by graders around the world. This is a more holistic approach that allows students to demonstrate their understanding in a
manner other than by taking exams in the senior year. The extended essay is another part of earning the IB diploma. And this is a 4,000 word research paper on a topic a student finds interesting. It is written during the second semester of junior year into the first semester of senior year. We also take a course called theory of knowledge where we learn how we know what we know. Finally, we engage in creativity, activity, and service experiences that also help us become more well rounded individuals. This is the IB and IA summarized and the recent events at IA.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to our next meeting. Thank you to all of, our student reps for coming today and updating us with what's going on in their schools. We're going to move on to agenda item 5.3. And this is, the section where members of the Board of Education share any communications that were shared directly with them and were not sent to the full board. Did any board member receive communication from the public? Trustee Annas? I received, an email from Annie Hedges from, Meadowbrook PTA regarding their food share market to support the need that exists within their
school. Trustee Lecui? I had received an email from Tara Donnelly, and I noticed she wrote to the packet too. And I'd just like some clarity on the FOIA issue. There was a document that was previously denied as nonexistent, but it showed up in arbitration. And I was wondering if that document has now been provided to miss Donnelly. This is communication that was received. So this is not a question and answer section. I also received an email from Katie, Stravropoulos with a concern regarding a board member's social media post and an email from Tracy Burkel regarding potential workshops for parents.
We're now on agenda item six, which is public comment. This provides an opportunity for board members to hear from community members. If you wish to speak tonight but have not already filled out the yellow card, please do so now. If we have more than thirty minutes of comments, the remainder will be heard under agenda item 10. When your name is called, please move to the microphone and address the board. When addressing the board, you'll have three minutes to speak And I will try to let you know when you have thirty seconds remaining. Please be mindful of this time limit. When addressing the board, please state your name and your relationship to the district.
To protect student privacy, we ask that no one identify a specific student without their permission, even if the student's name is not used. Also, we ask that you address your comments to the entire board and not to individual board members, school district employees, or to members of the audience. The board will not be responding to comments or questions during the meeting. However Someone will follow-up if needed. And at this time, we have, more than 10 people who have requested to speak. I will ask that we can get through as many as we can during the thirty minutes. I'll call, three at a time so that you know you are when you are up.
And I would ask that you be ready to speak after the person in front of you has finished. At this time, we have, David Tallman, followed by Mike Reno, followed by Shirley Frazier. How you doing? I'm Dave Tallman. My two Reuther boys and I have a little business going. We take wood that's kinda gray and messed up, and we rub some stuff on it, and it makes it look brown or red or white. And then, if people like the way it looks, they give us money. Coincidentally, my wife does exactly the same thing. She takes hair that's kind of gray and broken, and she rubs some stuff on it.
If it looks brown or red or white, and then people like the way it looks, they give her money. So we have this little collective, where all of us together, we put our money in the same kitty, and then we pay all of our expenses with this money. Now, this is the weekend where the boys and I's job is to get stuff over to one side of our two and a half car garage, so she can get her grocery getter in there. That's the deal we have. It hasn't been in there since March. I supposed to be doing that right now, instead of standing here. On the way home from work today, I went to Home Depot just to buy a switch for my garage heater.
And on the rack of clearance items was 10 pieces of cedar for 75% off. $60 I'm gonna make that into $600 worth of, planter boxes in the spring. With the boys, everyone's happy. Except I just promised my wife that I wasn't gonna buy any more wood. I was gonna sell wood. I've gotta get rid of my house. My garage looks like Aisle 19 at Home Depot right now. I gotta get a whole bunch of it out of there. But instead of doing what I promised her I was gonna do,
I bought some more wood, and I brought it home. Now, I don't need to explain to anyone up here what a collective is. Five of you are Democrats, and the rest of you are really super duper smart, so you guys know better than me, probably, what a collective is. But, also, we're a collective right here. All of us in this room put a little bit of money into a kitty, and we've elected you to take care of that money. None of that money is yours. It belongs to the collective. The $60 I spent at Home Depot today, I would really appreciate it if nobody would tell her. I would like if that would remain confidential.
Wouldn't that be nice? Of course, my neighbor's over here, and his wife's watching this on TV, and she's probably on her way all over there now. Now, if I get caught doing something I said I wasn't gonna do with the collective's money, it's gotta be his wife's fault. Right? Because she said she told. That's what's going on over here. It's Carol Beth's responsibility if she knows that some part of the collective's money is going to be gathered or used in any way. I'm not stealing the money from my wife. I I got the $60. I spent the $60,
and I guarantee I'm gonna make more than 60 I got $600 from that money. That's not the point. I told her I wasn't gonna do it, and I kept it a secret from her. I should've called her from Home Depot and said I was gonna buy the wood. Right? Should I should I just tell everyone I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want in my collective, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell her? Because I feel like that's what's going on up here. Thank you. Mike Reno, followed by Shirley Frasier, followed by Doctor. Henry Carrolls. Hi. I'm Mike Reno, a long time Rochester Hills resident, two kids through the system and a former board member. And I also wanted to come and talk about this,
censure thing, which I think is really kind of silly and meaningless. Although in thinking about it, it might actually be a reward instead of a punishment because I see the way that she gets treated up here, in public, and I've got to believe it's even worse in private. And that's one of the punishments is to not be in private meetings. I see the way that she gets bullied and berated and interrupted and gabbled and questions called so she can't talk anymore. And so for her, maybe missing some of these old private meetings, some of these old mean girl meetings might actually relief for her.
Now I can predict the defense to this and that you're going to say the censure isn't about free speech. But really, let's be honest, if she had written an op ed that was advocating for this millage, none of you would be complaining right now. Instead the problem is you're trying to humiliate her and intimidate her because she's got a different opinion than you and you're trying to stop her from speaking out about it. Everybody can see it. The underlying confidentially excuse is entirely bogus. The law limits confidentiality to identifiable student information and personnel issues and legal matters.
Saying the superintendent asked us to keep it secret doesn't qualify. The public has a right to know about new taxes and hiding it is quite frankly reprehensible. Instead of engaging, he kinda snuck around, he got caught, and so this Sentra Motion is really kind of a damage control effort. Other boards public boards that respect the public, had already announced this and were seeking public comment weeks before Trustee Licuy's opinion piece ran. So how can this be considered confidential if it was already out in the public? Furthermore, engaging with the public, as you said earlier,
Trustee Lapuya is doing her job. She shared an item of public interest and offered her opinion. And rather than counter her, you're now trying to muzzle her and intimidate her because she's got a difference of opinion. So do you find your position so weak that you can't publicly defend it and instead need to stifle her? Really, you should all be doing exactly what she did, which is going out and advocating for your opinions. If you disagree with her, advocate for your opinion. And it should be happen outside of these SnoreFest meetings, quite frankly. You know, we're all very proud and grateful for Carol Beth for her professionalism.
And the rest of the people Thirty seconds. The rest of the people kinda treat this like a social club that's intent on shutting her up. I mean, it's okay to disagree. You should concentrate on advocating for your positions rather than trying to trample on the free speech of those that we elected. Finally, I think that we all owe Trustee Lacoue a great debt for the many causes she's championed, including student achievement, literacy and financial accountability. You own those issues, and we appreciate you. Meanwhile, what are the rest of you advocating for aside from an effort to shut her down? Same time, Shirley Fraser,
followed by Doctor. Carroll, followed by Samantha Hillary. Hello. I'm a little short here. I couldn't agree with them any more than what they've Can you hear me now? Yeah. Okay. I definitely agree with what the gentlemen have just said. I beg Carol Beth Liquig for what she has done. It's public knowledge. We all need to know what we're expected to pay for, and we need to be able to vote on this and see where this money's going. I'm not sure it's gonna come back to our schools at all by the looks
of it. And, you know, I'm not concerned as much for myself as I am for my daughters and having to pay more money that they're just not going to be able to pay. So it's very concerning. And I just think that we should all know the details of this, what it's up for so we can have plenty of time to think about it and what we are personally going to do. We never like more taxes, especially when we don't know that it's coming back to our own location. And the other thing was we're very interested in what's going to be happening Thursday.
It's very important to us, our children, our grandchildren, how they're going to be taught, what they're going to be taught. I don't know why we couldn't have discussed it. And they're very right. The rudeness to her is really obnoxious to sit here and listen to that. Very, very obnoxious. So we in the school system here and our kids and grandkids, we want transparency. As taxpayers, we want to know what we're gonna pay. And as grandparents, for me,
we want to know what and how they're going to be taught. And to shut her up doesn't change the fact that we still wanna know. So this is ridiculous and things and we really respect the ones that we have voted for that sit up here. And it's not right of you to censor them for something that is not really confidential. So I'm asking you not to censure her or anyone else that comes up with ideas like this. This is not right to be treated this way,
and it's not Henry Carrolls followed by Samantha Hillary, followed by Joshua Raymond. Henry Carrolls, May. I've been here most of my entire life. The happy news first. The bands are fantastic. I would ask that there be serious consideration that the bands get 10% of the gate at the football games. There's a couple of simple reasons. My kids were in band for twelve years, and I can tell you as you see the numbers, there's 78 people on the football team, and there's 150 in the band.
There's 150 parents of the band paying tick for tickets. So just a consideration, but when you play in the band, you have to replace the drums when you play outside the skins and you have to replace the pads. So now on the other matter, I heard a rumor that there's another countywide millage we're gonna try and jam down everybody's throat through lies. I say that because we voted against mass transit smart bus three times here, overwhelmingly. Three times. But politic found a way to sneak it through,
so we're now paying $785 for a bus that doesn't set foot in Oakland Township. Now this smells like that. Now no matter what you do in a free democratic society, the truth always comes out. You can have your closed doors, you can have your politicking, you can have your lies, but the truth will always come out, one way or the other. Hi. I'm Samantha Hillary. I'm a Rochester Hills resident, and I have two daughters in the public schools. You know, listening to what everyone has to say, I don't disagree that there needs to be transparency,
but I also served on multiple boards. And I do think that there's a process in which things need to be shared. It's very obvious to me that you don't like each other, and that's fine, but you should learn to respect each other. And that's just the truth. Constant public division, it reaches confidence in your community. It creates constant discord within our schools and our students and the parents. You guys were elected to stay student focused and the constant back and forth. I do agree with the censure because I do think the the the channels,
it wasn't properly handled. Do I think that I still wanted the information? Yeah. I did. I just don't think it was handled properly. Censure is not about silencing disagreement, in my opinion. It's about accountability and restoring balance. Step toward rebuilding trust in this community that I feel like we've lost. I wanna thank you guys for your service, but I do think that we need you all to do better. Our community deserves better, and I expect more of elected officials. Joshua Raymond followed by Shannon Fasho, followed by, Dan Bowe, I believe. First, I wish members of the Rochester Adams Marching Band could be here tonight.
However, Adams is still in the playoffs, so they have practice tonight. On an unpleasant note, we have an agenda item tonight, which never should have happened. The US Supreme Court has said it is a violation of the first amendment if a public body took adverse action in response to speech that would have not been taken, absent the retaliatory motive. I believe both of these to be quite easy to prove, which is why I have presented charges to be filed with the governor for removal
of any trustee who votes for this censure. There's a copy for each of you. I used to be a fixture at BOE meetings, but watching people who are good or decent in the past descend into spiteful, vindictive, irrational trustees who would jettison good governance for hate, retribution, and partisan divide, destroying our school community, refusing to hold superintendents to ethical or competency standards, and sacrificing our children's education and future over pettiness has made me glad that I
only have a year and a half left in this miserable, floundering district. We moved here during RCS's good days. Started our school kids in school during its decent days, and now are watching it as it jumps off a cliff. Even the best schools can't survive when top district leadership is vacant. I've seen great VEOs where there is significant political and ideological divides among trustees, but they work together on behalf of the students.
This is not one of those BOEs. I've seen majority trustees who make sure every voice is heard because every voice represents people in the community. These majority trustees are not sitting here. But, it is not too late to be that board. Tonight, you get to decide if you want to or not. Is it me? Yeah. Okay. Good evening. My name is Shannon Fascio. I have, two graduates and one daughter still in high school. I'm here tonight in support and to speak out,
for Carol Beth Lukoue, someone who's been doing exactly what we expect from our electorate trustee, listening to the community and being honest with the community. The whole reason we elect school board members is so that we can they can represent us, not just go along with what's decided behind closed doors. She wrote an op ed to let people know about a proposed countywide tax, something that could affect every taxpayer in Oakland County. That's not controversial. That's responsible. The First Amendment isn't just words on paper. When we start punishing people for exercising their right,
we're crossing very dangerous lines. But instead of appreciating her honesty, the board is talking about censuring her. Basically punishing her by taking away her committee roles, trying to silence her. That's not right. We've seen this pattern before, decisions being made in private with public kept out of the loop until it's too late. Carol Beth didn't leak confidential information or attack anyone. She simply asked the question that every taxpayer has the right to ask. Why are we hiding this from the public?
Other school boards like Oxford talked about this issue openly. They trusted their community to weigh in. Rochester should be doing the same. Centuring Carol Beth for speaking her mind isn't just unfair. It's dangerous. It sends a message to every future trustee that if you ask hard questions or try to be transparent, you'll be punished. So I'm asking the board tonight to do the right thing. Drop the censure. Respect her right to free speech and her duty to represent the people that elected
her. Because at the end of the day, this isn't just about one person. It's about trust. If we can't trust our board or our district to be open with us, how can we trust the decisions that you are making for our kids in our schools? Also, I'd like to go on record stating that I strongly oppose Michigan Department of Education's partnership with CCUS to incorporate gender and sex discussions into the health curriculum. While parents can opt their children out of sex ed, they could not opt out of health class.
This makes this especially concerning to parents. This approach undermines parental rights and introduces highly sensitive topics that have no place in the classroom. Our school should prioritize academic excellence, transparency, leaving the moral beliefs and developmental guidance to parents, parents and families. Good evening. Gan Beau, Oakland Township, retired law enforcement, Vietnam Veteran. It's a disappointment to be here tonight to talk to adults about childish type of decisions that Carol Beth is looking at face front.
You have an opportunity to step back from this tonight, discuss it amongst each other to see if you really want to go forward with this censure. You're really revealing yourselves if you do that. We have a couple of Board members on this Board right now that were on the board during the Duverno debacle, where Elena Duverno sued successfully the Rochester Community School District for a sealed settlement that could have been tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars. I do know as a taxpayer, we paid over $200,000 to attorneys because of your outrageousness,
your incompetence and your bias toward Duverno and her and her family. None of you were censured for that. You should have been removed. You and I know that. Simple. If you are on the Titanic like you are right now, don't worry about the iceberg. That's what this is. You can't sink half the ship and survive as a team. You have an opportunity tonight to really just step back from all this, all this emotion, all this divide, political divide, whatever's going on with with each one of you. And, I would suggest that you look at student enrollment, which is the lifeblood of this district.
2020 in 2020, we had 17,635 students. We have 14,950 now. That's a 15% drop. I haven't seen our taxes in Oakland Township go down 15%. You have 2,150 employees, eight zero four wonderful teachers, dedicated teachers. And I know the other 1,300 staff or so are very dedicated too. But you need, as a superintendent, step up and reduce your staffing by 15%, which would be 200 people. That would take leadership. That would show the community that commensurate to your losses of student enrollment,
you are now going to make us whole as a community. But as a if you were a business right now, you'd be out of business totally. So I wanna leave you with the idea that you do have, even though it's a broken team, you have an opportunity to huddle up, get back together, step back from this, table this tonight, somebody make a motion to table it, second that motion, forget about your political anger with one another. Aye? Be real human beings, which you are. Okay? Thank you. You didn't come here to be you like this. Tim Peterson followed by,
Sharon Howdy Shell and Robert Bloomingdale, if we get to the time. Tim Peterson followed by Sharon Howdieshell followed by Robert Bloomingdale if we have time. Hello. My name is Tim Peterson. I got three kids in the district. So I'll keep this short and sweet because I think the line to support Carol Beth is gonna be around the block. Not only do I wanna support her, I wanna thank her for having my kids' best interests in her heart. So my dad always said that if you have the if you're speaking the truth, you have nothing to worry about. But, apparently, with this board, that's not the case. So every one of you that's up here trying to silence her should be ashamed
of yourself. And I also find it very disrespectful to the student representatives for this quarter of the table to be writing in their notebooks while they were talking. Thank you. Sharon Howdieshell followed by Robert Bloomingdale. My leg went to sleep. I almost fell. Anyways, my name is Sharon Howdieshell. My children are grown, but I have grandchildren in the public schools, and I'm very concerned about what the schools are pushing. I was encouraged when you started the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, but it's gone downhill from there except for these wonderful people out here speaking the
truth. We had we still have. We have three daughters. They were all swimmers. And believe me, if there would have been a boy in their locker room, my husband, god bless his soul, would have had his you know what out of that locker room before you could blink an eye. So all I can say is by you, like I said, the pledge, very encouraging. After that, you say you're all about the children? Well, by not adding Carol Bess's most important matter to the discussion,
that's pure evidence that you could care less about the children. Robert Bloomingdale followed by Rick Baldick. Good evening, folks. My name is Robert Bloomingdale. My address is 6360 Rochester Road. I've been a resident in the Rochester School District area for forty years. My children, my wife, my grandchildren. Grandchildren still attend Rochester schools. I'm working with a group of individuals from the community to come up with a plan, which were is well underway to repurpose,
redevelop, repurpose the old admin building into a community center, a community center that would serve the three communities that RCS does, Oakland Township, Rochester, Rochester Hills. We're still in the very early stages of planning, but we are making progress. We've engaged several professionals who have experience in these types of projects. They're on our team. If you wanted to look at some examples of what we're proposing, you could look at Durfee Innovation Society in Detroit. It was a project performed by Life Remodeled a number of years ago.
It's very successful. The building is a community center fully occupied with a waiting list. A second example you could look at that's been done, much more recently is the Webster Community in Pontiac, which is a former elementary school now being renovated into a community center. From what I understand, they have a all of their tenant spaces spoken for, and they have a waiting list. The individuals that were essential to both of those projects are on our team. So I am here this evening to make a request of the board that you
provide a place for us on your agenda for February 23, your regular meeting, that our team can make a presentation, a full and comprehensive presentation, of our plan for repurposing that building. And in addition to that, we'd like to ask that you refrain from any action on the building in the meantime. We're spending a lot of time, energy and effort to pull this together, so we wouldn't want to see the building go away before we got a chance. And then in addition to that,
if you do agree to, allow us this place on the agenda to make our presentation, we would ask for liberal access to the building. It's going to take a lot of visits to really fully develop our plan. With that, I'm done. Thank you. Good evening. Rick Baldick, resident of the District. There are several items on the agenda tonight that deserve comment, but I've only got time to address two. First one is the budget. A couple of meetings ago, you spent about half that meeting making proposals and taking votes for a budget crisis
that just didn't exist. Now that the auditors are done, we can see that your so called final expense numbers were inflated by $10,000,000 God, that's a lot of money. I don't even know how you could make a projection like that when you already had ten months of actuals to go on. All you had to project was two months. That's crazy. You know, a first year accounting student could have nailed that one. But the point is, when the administration gives you bad information, you're going to make bad decisions. That's just the way it works. It's that simple.
You need to fix that. The second item is this attempted censure of a trustee for breach of confidentiality where the allegations are completely false. You're claiming she wrote an op ed on a possible millage proposal that she received on a confidential basis. All while other districts were discussing this at the Board table in open session. I know people mentioned Oxford, I saw it in Farmington. God knows how many more places. They were doing it the right way, okay? Meanwhile, while they're doing this, they let their constituents weigh in. They talked about it. There's pros and cons because there's some districts are going to there's going to be
winners and losers in this thing. And it deserved a fair hearing on both parts to hear the pros and cons of it. It really did. And it deserves it here as well, and you need to do that. The other part of this is the way you did this, it's not so much what you do all the time, it's how you do it. While other districts were doing this, you guys are running around whispering behind closed doors two at a time for the specific purpose of usurping the Open Meetings Act. That's not the way you do things, okay? Don't do that.
It takes a special kind of arrogance and and just blind hatred to make allegations like this. It's wrong. The truth is you simply don't like her opinion. And if you censure her for this, you'll violate her first amendment rights, and that's not gonna end well for you. It won't. This is nothing but continued harassment of minority board members, and it's gotta stop. You need to spend more time on learning how to read a balance sheet and less time trying to conceal everything to the public. This is kind of like history repeating itself. When you bought the new board office,
you transferred the money to purchase the building before you ever took the vote to purchase it. That's because you did it all behind closed doors. Learn from your mistakes. That is our thirty minutes. The remainder of public comment will be heard under agenda item 10. Madam President. Madam president? Trustee LaSanne? I'd like to ask if we could have everybody else finish public comment. How many cards do we have? There's at least thirty more minutes of it. Can we extend thirty minutes? You'd need to make a motion to amend the agenda at this time. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda to expand it.
I think most of the topics are we're going to be voting on later today, so I'd like to hear from the rest of the audience, please. Okay. So I have a motion to amend the agenda to hear the remainder of public comment. Second. I have a second from, trustee Lecui. Is there any discussion on this? Trustee Lozano already kind of indicated why. Alright. All of those in favor of continuing or to amend the agenda to hear the remainder of public comment, please say aye. Aye. How many? Can I see the hands on that? Alright. That is a four, I think three.
Who, Trustee Annis and You're a yes? Okay. Five two. So we will continue with public comment at this time. So we have, Lauren Gracie Parker, followed by Christy Fleming, followed by, Reg Horam Tatamala. And if I could still ask that people please be ready to come forward. Hi. Hello. My name is Lauren Greasy Parker. I'm a resident in the District. I have, of course. Okay. I'm a parent of a RCS graduate, 2025, and I have currently a self child still enrolled. A wise man once said,
when you have the facts upon the facts, when you have the law upon the law, and when you have neither upon the table. To the trustees who seek to create meaningful change and progress in the district by following bylaws, building trust and meaningful working relationships, I thank you. For those who seek to pound the table, please take a step back and look how your actions penalize those who choose to send their children to the district they believe in. This is not about agendas and ambitions and culture wars and self aggrandizement, but about the hard work, the homework, the relationship building and the celebration of the milestones necessary to build a better Rochester
community skills. Advancing the district starts with holding our leaders accountable, even if it's a rule they do not feel that should apply to them. Is this what we're teaching our students? Only following the rules when it's convenient? You're the victim when subjected to the same rules as everyone else. That's not excellence or integrity. That's entitlement. That's pounding the table. Thank you for holding collective accountability to strong governance. A board is only as strong as its ability to be cohesive. Following bylaws has to be an important part for every member. So, thank you very much for those who are really putting students first and trying to
advance the district. Thank you. Have a great day. Hi. My name is Christie Fleming. I have two children currently in the district. I have one graduate, and I'm actually a graduate of Rochester myself. Go Falcons. Put my kids go to Stoney. So it's all good. We're all a big family. I'm here tonight to speak about, the health framework and, actually, appreciate that you guys voted for us to have extra time to speak, because it is something that's concerning. It's concerning to me and and because I don't necessarily agree with it. Should the state approve the health framework? And I just wanna remind you guys, Rochester Community Schools does not have to adopt it.
And if you do adopt it, I would like you to listen and consider what Carol Beth was trying to discuss tonight and take on her recommendations and truly listen to what she has to say because, honestly, Carol Beth represents half the community. She represents me. I really do want, if this comes through, transparency. I want it to be clear and easy to understand what is going to be implemented. I want opt outs presented that I can find, that I can understand. I am concerned about it being rolled into a class that's gonna be a requirement. So I really do want you to listen to Carol Beth again because not every
parent agrees with what's going on. We aren't necessarily as excited about maybe half the community would be. So by not letting her speak tonight, it's very disrespectful to her as a fellow trustee by not putting the motion in place where she could discuss what she's proposing. And, honestly, it's also disrespectful to me because what she's talking to you about, that's what I feel, and that's what I want to be heard on and half the community as well. And, honestly, it's exhausting. I I think a few people have touched on this.
It really is exhausting to watch the behavior that sometimes happens at this table. I can only imagine how exhausting and defeating it can be to be a Carol Beth who is saying things that maybe you guys don't all agree with. But I really want her to be heard because if she's heard, that means I'm being heard. So I would like to say you guys might not necessarily agree with her, but I want to thank you, Carol Beth. I know it's been really rough for you lately. Thank you for taking the arrows. Thank you for your grace, your professionalism. Thank you for being focused on what really matters.
And thank you. I hope you guys do listen to her going forward. Thank you. Regoram Tadamala followed by Kristin Battaglia followed by Michelle Manhire. Hi. My name is Raghuram Tharimirla and I hail from India. It's quite unfortunate that what's happening today especially and what I've been seeing in this Board behavior by the majority in the last four or five probably have been in the last two years is very so called undemocratic, right? A couple of things. I come from India, like I said. And if I have to tell the people here,
born here, whose native language is English as to what is the meaning of confidentiality, that's going to be a shame on the quality of education offered in this district. Very sorry to say that. So when we moved to this district in 2015, quite a few things were our kind of concern of what we looked in before we actually bought a house. Primarily, the one has been education. The quality of education, the transparency and the efficiency of how the district is run is what we have been expecting to. District is run is what we have been expecting to. And unfortunately, for last year or four years, I see that gravely missing. Another thing we start,
I think, every meeting is with the pleasure of allegiance. To those allegiance is what we say liberty and justice for all. It's kind of unfortunate that one trustee is not given the liberty of speaking what is truth, what is already public in a co op manner. And majority is trying to actually do injustice for her through this censure. Very, very unfortunate. And something else I want to talk about but for lack of time because I can go far on forever error,
Ms. Leducohi, I'm sorry if I butcher your last name. There's a saying in India which kind of translates into truth only prevails, truth only triumphs. It's called Sathya Meh Vijayate. So don't be afraid. Don't be discouraged. Keep fighting for us. There are a lot of us who have talked to you on your behalf today, and there are a lot more in the district who actually want to but cannot make time for whatever other reasons is. Thank you All right. Kristin Battaglia, followed by Michelle Manhire, followed by Doctor. Joseph Kotarski. Okay. Hello. My name is Kristen Battaglia,
and I'm from Macomb Township. I'm here representing my family that lives in our CES district. I'm also representing many parents from Chippewa Valley Schools that could not be here tonight to show support for Carol Bet. I'd like to speak on a very important vote taking place in Lansing on Thursday that will greatly impact RCS students and parents. John Grossenbacher did a great job putting together the following message, and I believe this is what Carol Beth was wanting to discuss. There are only a few days left to make your voices heard, to reject the proposed health education standards, and to protect Michigan parents by urging the Michigan State Board of Education to reject
the proposed health education standards and keep classrooms focused on academics, not ideology. The proposed health education standards would add lessons on gender identity, sexual orientation, and inclusivity into required instruction, bypassing Michigan law that protects parental rights to review and opt out of sex education. The proposed health education standards framework introduces controversial content under the label of health. Among other things, the draft requires instruction that defines gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation as distinct parts of every student's identity,
teaches that attractions can change over time, and encourages students to foster inclusivity and respect around issues related to gender and sexuality. This is not traditional health education. It is social and ideological instruction that belongs in the home, guided by parents' faith, values, and beliefs, not in classrooms with young children. Michigan law, MCL 380.1507, clearly states that sex education must be voluntary, with full parental notice, access to review materials, and the right to opt out by
whoops, sorry. Gender and sexuality instruction into health curriculum. Embedding it in. Okay. These standards would remove parents from the decision process. At the same time, Michigan schools are struggling. We rank forty fourth in fourth grade reading and thirty eighth in eighth grade math. Only 39% of third graders read proficiently. Every minute spent on ideology is time taken from reading, writing, math. Please, let's email and remind the BOE members to focus schools on academic firsts, including reading, math, science, and civics respect parental authority and transparency as guaranteed by law reject any curriculum that
teaches gender identity or sexual orientation without explicit parental consent. We respectfully urge the Michigan State Board of Education to withdraw or vote down the proposed health education standards and upheld parental rights, academic excellence, and lawful transparency. Let it also be known that Doctor. Cardell, state interim superintendent, did confirm that the ideology can be taught in all subjects throughout the schools, not just in health class. One more thing. Do I have time? Nope, I don't. I'll be available after the meeting if you want more, information on this and how to contact, your BOE members.
Thank you. So, there's a petition and Michelle Manhire, followed by Doctor. Joseph Kotarski, followed by Elizabeth Clare. Good evening, board. Michelle Manhire. Three kids, two still in the district. And I am going to get closer to this microphone because I've been sitting back there. You can't hear anything. So when you guys speak, you got to get, like, right up in there. The acoustics are really bad. I had this wonderful thing put down on paper that I was gonna talk about. And you know what? Everybody else has already said it quite eloquently, and it just doesn't need more blah,
blah, blah. You all know what you're doing. You know what you're doing regarding this censure for Trustee Lacoue. You guys know this. We see you. We know you. We know what you're trying to pull. Okay? It's not going to fly. Number of people have already very astutely noted, at least half of the district has been represented by some of the minority people on this board. Meanwhile, the board majority has chosen to be some of the most vile human beings to
other fellow trustees that I have ever seen. This is not my first time at the microphone. This is not my first time at the microphone asking you people who I had known for many years served on some committees with some of you. And your behavior is atrocious and juvenile and darn doggone it, mean girl. Like, stop it. I hate to be, like, so petty, but, like, just stop it. It's a joke. You know, people sit here and they say, well, you know what? Just let them do what they're gonna do because, well,
you know, the truth will out. And, you know, they'll just continue to make fools of themselves by showing their true intentions by your actions. You all act very hypocritical. You all act very petty and juvenile. Knock it off. We're all tired of there's a fly on there. We're all tired of watching your antics at the board table. I'm here to tell you, we could be saving a lot of time if we simply got down to the
business of talking about literacy, for crying out loud. It took years, not months, not months, years to get this board and this administration to listen to people who had dyslexic kids and who wanted the science of reading back in here. Well, we're just gonna we're gonna keep talking about this. Blah blah blah. Get over yourselves. This is about the darn kids and their literacy. It's not about sex education. And I'm absolutely a mom word. I'm very disappointed in you all that voted down even listening to what That's your
three minutes. The trustee wanted to talk about the sexual standards coming forward. Petarski followed by Elizabeth Clare, followed by Stephanie Van Dale. Doctor Petarski? Hi. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. I'm a parent of two twins in University Hills, and I'd like to bring up an issue of inclusion and fairness, particularly to the enrichment programs. I've noticed that there's a practice of a first come, first served sign up with a limited cap, which is understandable given capacity issues and volunteers and so on.
However, I just want to share how one practice works, which is the basketball leagues in the elementary school. So if you're like my family who's new to the district, when we show up, we don't even get a chance to sign up because it's legacy based, meaning that the first 10 kids in third grade are automatically reenrolled the following year and the following year. So that creates a bit of inequity for new families. Additionally, other children that have been wait listed all of that time have to also be
excluded from it. And so I'm here to advocate and raise awareness. In fact, I did offer to, from my understanding, the more coaches that would volunteer, they would make new teams. They said no, which, by the way, I do have, some emails, and they weren't very professional, unfortunately, from the enrichment office. I'd be happy to share those. But I would be looking for a solution that includes, as many children as possible. And so as long as there are volunteers that are willing to, step up and support, then we should be reaching that that goal.
So thank you for your time and much appreciated. Thank you. Elizabeth Clare followed by Stephanie Van Dale followed by Ann Petersen. Hi. I'm Elizabeth Clare, parent in the District. I want to begin by thanking Carol Beth, not just for your courage but for your integrity. Can you step closer to the microphone? Yes, I'm pretty close, but I'm quite always sorry. It takes real strength to tell the truth when people around you are doing everything they can to keep it hidden. The proposed censure on tonight's agenda isn't about confidentiality or professionalism. It's about punishment and silencing one person on this board who has consistently chosen transparency
over politics or loyalty. The confidential information at the center of this issue isn't a personnel file or a student record or a legal strategy. It's a proposed countywide enhancement knowledge, a tax proposal, and one that directly affects every resident in this community. This is public business. It should have been discussed publicly from day one. And yet superintendent Russo told trustees to keep it confidential. Why? Why would a superintendent want to keep a tax discussion secret from taxpayers? When Carol Beth refused to go along with that, when she wrote an op ed informing the public about a matter that never should
have been hidden in the first place, this board decided to retaliate with the censure. That is unconstitutional. The first amendment protects an elected official's right to speak freely on issues of public concern. The Supreme Court also makes it clear, you cannot punish a public official for expressing an opinion or informing the public about their government. By moving forward at the censure, you are violating trustee Lecuey's first amendment rights and putting this district district at risk of another lawsuit, one you will lose. You've already seen what happens when the district tramples on free speech. I'm sure a lot of you remember the DeMurovoo lawsuit.
And for what? To punish a dissenting voice? To shield the superintendent's fragile ego from scrutiny? Or to make good on personal vendettas that have been brewing against trustee Lecuy for years. Every time this board isolates, interrupts, and belittles trustee Lecuy, they expose the insecurity behind their authority because a confident because confident leaders don't silence others. They welcome debate. Strong boards don't hide information. They share it. And ethical governance doesn't punish transparency. It rewards it. Carol Beth, thank you for being the voice of honesty and courage and a room that too
often values silence. You represent what public service is supposed to look like. I hope the rest of this board finds the humility to learn from your example. Stephanie Van Dale, followed by Ann Petersen, followed by John Rosenbacher. Can you hear me? Okay. So, I had a little bit of a speech written out here. And, you know, you all know who I am because, you know, plenty of times I've picked you out and identified you. And it's but by the way, it's Stephanie Van Dale, which rhymes with whale for you, Barb. Anyways, when I drop my kid off at Stony Creek,
I drive past a sign that says City Of Rochester, a Purple Heart community. And I think to myself, you know, those guys, they got shot up just to protect the First Amendment rights, all the rights of Americans. My husband's a vet. My kids are now serving in the Marine Corps. One is deployed, and one is 20 years old and living his best life in Hawaii. And then thank you. My third son has signed up to be in the Marine Corps.
Oh, by the way, happy 200 birthday. Thank you. Thank you. So my husband and my kids are fighting out there for your rights. And the nerve of you five dirty, dusty, horrible people to try and censor. Trustee Carol Beth, you deserve the worst day of your life after you vote positive, because I know you will, Barb. I know you, Barb. You guys are disgusting and dusty and horrible.
Don't you dare censor Carol Beth. She doesn't deserve it. She brought up a subject that was out there being talked by every other district, getting input from Farmington and getting input from Oxford, who, by the way, might have learned something about the Open Meetings Act that you people haven't learned. So I'm going to tell you this. Do not vote in a manner thirty seconds. Which restricts her First Amendment rights, because I've got three boys
and a husband who have fought for her to speak. Stop it. We see what you're doing, Michelle. We see what you're all doing, Jessica and Jason and Julie. We see it. Election twenty twenty six can't come fast enough for you, Michelle. That's your time. Thank you. Yeah, that's your time, too. Ann Peterson, followed by John Rosenbacher, followed by Genevieve Peter Scott. Good evening, everyone. I want to first thank Shelley for making sure that we could all speak and not have to sit here the rest of the night while we debate while we
debate many things. First I have my other speech, but first, I want to say what an amazing students we have at Rochester Community Schools. They will definitely, they will definitely, excel in the future. And Pride and Prejudice was an incredible play, and I want to just thank everybody who was involved in that. But after five years, can we still can we please get the orchestra pit fixed at Stony Creek? That would be great. So good evening. My name is Anne Peterson. I've had two children that have gone through Rochester Community Schools.
And twice, I pulled them out of your schools and had to put them back in because of behaviors of staff and different things in the past. Definitely would pull my children out today if you pass anything to do with health education. Okay? I have not a problem finding them another place to go to school. First off, though, I've been here I'm here tonight because something deeply troubling is happening. The Board is considering censuring one of its own members for doing exactly what they were elected to do: inform the public.
Now let's be clear. Sharing information about a proposed tax millage is not misconduct. It's transparency, it's accountability and it's a public service. When a board member speaks out about a tax proposal that affects every household in the fulfillment of it. Cents should never be used as a political tool to silence dissent or punish someone for telling the truth. It's not a gag order, and it's not a loyalty test. It's a certainty, not a substitute for debate. We live in a democracy. And that demeans that elected officials,
even when they disagree, have a duty to speak openly, especially when taxpayer dollars are on the line, Trying to censure a board member for informing the public about a tax millage isn't just wrong. It's unconstitutional. The First Amendment protects not only our right to speak but our right to hear. Thirty seconds. So when you silence one board member, you silence the voters who put you there. You silence the parents who rely on honest information. And you silence the very foundation of public trust.
So I urge the Board tonight to do not go down this path. Do not weaponize censure by to suppress transparency. Uphold your oath. Respect the voices at this table and the voices in this room. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. My name is John Grossenbacher, organizer of the petition everybody's talking about against the health standards. But I wanted to address the censure of trustee Carol Beth. This is not emotional. This is just a factual thing. The bylaw states board members will take no private action that might compromise the board
or administration unless you're in a document or information that has not already been shared by the district, including but not limited to confidential privileged information. The only enforceable part here is unauthorized release of confidential or nonpublic information. It does not prohibit expressing opinions or referencing publicly available data. Proposal A nineteen ninety four, public law. Alrighty. 1.5 mil proposal details already circulating Oakland County School Boards. Tax calculations derived from public property tax,
district financial information, public on the state transparency portal, enrollment and staffing numbers publicly available through MI school data and board meeting minutes, state education budget completely public. There was a quote there as well. That's not how this is done. We shouldn't influence other districts. Many have come from that may have come from information. None of these references disclose nonpublic documents, pending litigation, student information, or privileged communication. And that would be the only thing that could trigger a bylaw violation. There was a reference to possibly the superintendent asking for not to that it hasn't
been approved for release. But the article contains no identifiable confidential information, only public discussion or fiscal policy governance. And and just as a statement here, you know, I used to be a YouTuber a long time ago. I own multiple businesses. I've had so many notices sent to me, cease and desist. So I have a lawyer who deals with freedom of speech, and I can tell you she was acting in the freedom of speech. And as somebody running for statehouse, thank God for an elected official who would do the public justice. So, that's it. Thank you. All right. Genevieve Peter Scott.
Hello. My name is Genevieve Peter Scott, and I am running for the United States Senate. I share that with you because my job would be as a public servant being the voice of the people of Michigan. Just as each and every one of you are the voice of the people and the children and the parents of Rochester. As a lifelong educator, businesswoman, and public servant, I am called to a much higher moral standard. That means, especially in education, where we teach our children not to bully, not to make fun of,
not to exclude, and not to cause problems for other people. How can we be the role models for the children that we serve if what we're doing is exactly the thing that we're trying to teach our children not to do. I implore each and every one of you to search your heart, to humble yourself. As a public servant, many of you people of faith, our communities stand for faith, freedom, family. We have to be the change that we wanna see in the world,
and that starts right here locally. That starts in our families, that starts in our public positions, and that starts with each other. We have a first amendment right, which is free speech. Each and every one of you have that same right, And it isn't given by government. It's protected by government. It's given by our creator. I know that each and every one of you, having been in education for a large part of my career, have a heart to do the right thing. And tonight, you get to show your heart to do the right thing.
Thank you. All right. Agenda item seven is the consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature by the Board of Education and will be acted upon by one motion. There is no separate discussion of these items. If any member of the Board requests discussion of an item, that item will be removed. Please note that the items removed will now be discussed separately under the consent agenda and will retain the same number. For instance, if Item 7.1 was asked to be removed, we would vote on Item 7.2 through 7.4 and then come back to 7.1
for a motion discussion and vote. You may still request just one item and a report to be removed from the consent agenda. If this is the case, we would approve everything else and the item removed from the report would receive a new number. In this case, it would be 7.5 but still under the consent agenda. Our consent agenda consists of item 7.1, human resource recommendations. Item 7.2, Board of Education regular meeting minutes from 10/06/2025. Item 7.3, Board of Education regular meeting minutes from 10/20/2025.
And item 7.4, reimbursement for Superintendent Russo in the amount of 364.7 Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? So moved. I'm sorry, moved by trustee Annis with support from trustee Gupta. Does any board member wish to remove an item? All of those in favor of approving the consent agenda items, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven-zero vote and the consent agenda items have been approved. Tonight, we have two reports. We'll be starting with the superintendent update. Mr. Russo? Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Madam President. We have one report from SBOC,
Mr. McDaniel. SBOC stands for Superintendent's Business and Operations Committee. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Russo. The Committee met last week. We discussed budget tax for the twenty twenty four-twenty five results. We also reviewed the September 2025 financial information regarding the general fund and state aid. And then we discussed the bond refunding that will be asked for approval tonight. Thank you. All right. And then I just wanted to give a, update from the MASB Conference. In October, I attended the Michigan Association of School Boards Annual Leadership Conference,
two days of learning, reflection, and networking with trustees from across the state. The sessions and speakers were outstanding, offering both inspiration and practical tools to strengthen our work as a board. The opening keynote was by George Kouros, who has been to the district in 2018 and focused on how schools can better connect with students' hearts and minds. Many of his ideas reinforce practices already happening in our district, but they served as powerful reminders of our purpose. He emphasized that our goals should be to help students find pathways that are meaningful
to them, that relationships are belong I'm sorry, that relationships and belonging drive learning, and that engagement is what we do for students while empowerment helps them learn what they can do for themselves. He also stressed the importance that every learner should feel welcome, valued, and needed, meaning we must connect with their heart before we can connect with the mind. The second keynote was Matt Lerman, and he spoke on Leading Through Complexity. His message centered on courage, collaboration, and curiosity. He reminded us that disagreement isn't just natural,
it's necessary, and that we grow by listening to those we may not agree with. He encouraged leaders to think long term and to ask, What are we doing today that will impact students ten years from now? During the conference, I attended sessions on stakeholder engagement, board committees, strong governance teams, and leadership through complexity, as well as two CBA classes that focused on the positive link between effective school boards and student achievement. The class has highlighted how high performing boards stay focused at the 10,000 foot level, setting vision and direction rather than managing day to day operations.
It also showed that when board turnover happens for political rather than routine reasons, student performance tends to decline in the following years and superintendent turnover often follows. The most effective boards, the research found, create environments that inspire innovation, foster collaboration, model connected learning, provide adequate resources and maintain a visionary focus. In contrast, micromanagement, disunity, and a lack of community engagement were linked to lower student outcomes. One quote that we, often hear around here and I especially appreciated that has been attributed to Albert Einstein
is not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts. It's a great reminder that while data is important, relationships, trust, and leadership culture matter just as much. Finally, they reinforce that when it comes to helping students graduate ready for college and careers, nothing matters more than the quality of our teachers and the environment that allows them to do their best work. Overall, it was an inspiring and informative conference, and I look forward to applying what I learned as we continue to strengthen our governance practices and keep students at the center of work our work.
I also hope that, my fellow colleagues will consider attending next year so that they, too, can experience the MASB conference. Alright. Point of order, Madam President. Can I ask for a comfort break before we begin the rest of our Yes? Why don't you take a ten minute break right now, and we'll come back at 08:08? We're moving on to new business, and we have three items this evening. I'm sorry, not three. We have six items this evening. We are starting with item 9.1, which is a recommendation to add AP precalculus and AP honors precalculus to our curriculum.
Mr. Cusmano? Thank you, members of the Board of Education, Rochester Community Schools, community. Very excited to, recommend, something for the math department. I'm gonna read the memorandum of recommendation that was in your board packet along with the slideshow you're gonna see tonight with some of our math folks. The recommendation states starting in the 2627 school year, the math department would like to make the following adjustments to our high school course offering. Replace precalculus with AP precalculus. Replace honors precalculus with AP precalculus honors. Our strategic plan supports the transition to an AP curriculum for the precalculus courses,
especially in the following strands. Strategic plan learning plan three, explore academic opportunities for high achieving students strategic plan number five, establish consistent data collection, analysis, and response protocols and strategic plan number 11, implement and assess Responsive Instructional Practices. The transition to an AP curriculum provides many benefits to our students that include access to a nationally and internationally recognized pre calculus curriculum, course curriculum designed by College Board to be both conceptually rich and mathematically rigorous,
vertical alignment in preparation for both AP Calculus and RCS and Calculus at any university, enabling access to an AP math course for many more students in their standard math pathway in Rochester Community Schools, an opportunity to earn college credit and advancement without having to take a math placement exam when entering college. Stakeholder input was gathered from the district math department, high school administration and counselors, and like districts in the surrounding area. This curriculum proposal has been reviewed by the superintendent's policy and curriculum committee,
the assistant superintendent of secondary education, and the Superintendent. I'd like to welcome up, some professionals in the math department who can speak way more educated about math than I can. I'm going to welcome up, Jill Gumbs, who's our high school math coach. Sue Rapp, who's our high school math teacher at Adams and math curriculum consultant. Stephanie Little, high school math teacher at Rochester High School and curriculum consultant. And Craig Rizzi, high school math at Stoney Creek and curriculum consultant. So they're going to go through a little explanation of what it is and why
and what we're asking. Thank you. Alright. Good evening. My name is Craig Rizzi. I am a math teacher at Stoney Creek High School. I have taught, at Stoney Creek for thirteen years, and I teach AP Calculus. I've taught that for the last twelve years, and I'm the math consultant for the building as well. So just to give everybody a little bit of an idea of the structure of our presentation here, we're gonna be speaking about replacing our precalculus course with AP precalculus and our honors precalculus course with AP precalculus honors. We're going to be discussing some information about the course, the positive impacts for our students and some of the next steps involved in the
process. These are the four units that are covered in the AP precalculus curriculum as defined by the College Board. In the spring of last year and in the fall of this year, we had our precalculus and calculus cohort of teachers in the district comb through this curriculum to make sure that what we will be teaching matches this curriculum. They look through everything that we currently teach and have decided for sure that we cover everything here, so the transition should be seamless. But we just wanted everybody to see that there are indeed four units that are covered as defined by the College Board. Only three of them are assessed on the AP exam,
and that information will be important in just a minute. The AP curriculum is set by the college board with input from professors around the country, high school teachers, and other, stakeholders involved as well. It is a globally recognized credential that can be transferred anywhere in this in the country and in many universities outside of the country as well. And we are looking for specifically subject specific rigor when we adopt new curriculum from the college board for an AP course. So we we do believe that the AP precalculus curriculum,
matches that, our idea of subject specific rigor. Thank you, Craig. I'm Susan Rapp from Adams High School. So we are proposing this evening to replace the precalculus course with the AP precalculus course and the honors precalculus course with the AP precalculus course sorry, AP pre calculus honors course. So looking at the units that Craig had mentioned that, College Board has included into AP pre calculus, the main focus for the non honors course would be the three units that are tested, and then the honors precalculus AP course would be including the fourth unit as well.
As Mr. Cusmano had mentioned, this fits into our strategic plan under learning plan three, Teaching Plan five, and Teaching Plan 11. Along with additional benefits that we know that this strengthens connection to STEAM opportunities for our students, which is, Plan 10 as well, helps to develop the math fluency necessary for engineering, coding, and design. It supports literacy initiatives in Plan one by emphasizing precision in mathematical communication, argumentation, and our real world applications. We also believe this will prepare our students for higher level, global problem solving,
making them competitive in both national and international academic and career contexts. Good evening. My name is Stephanie Little. On this slide, you will see that we have the, different colleges and universities in Michigan that do accept AP precalculus credit for those students that meet a score of three or four or five on the AP exam. Notice that this will alleviate some pressure on students taking a placement test to enter college their freshman year. It will also mean that students will be able to have different opportunities moving forward through their mathematics career in college and universities.
SAT PSAT, so students, especially those juniors enrolled in AP Precalculus, will see consistency in question stems, concepts assessed, and depth of knowledge throughout the course. On this slide, we have our standard math pathway that students work through as they, work through their math curriculum in Rochester Community Schools. Notice that in the twelfth grade with the addition of AP precalculus, students have an on level math pathway that has opportunities to take an AP course their senior year. Previously, the only AP class taught for a senior year or junior year student would have
been AP Statistics. This again opens another pathway through the calculus curriculum. This is also our honors or advanced math pathway. This is going to strengthen the alignment with AP Calculus curriculum through coherence and question stems and topics covered. Those students in AP Precalculus could then follow into AP Calculus AB or AP Calculus AC. So given our commitment to providing rich and rigorous learning opportunities for all of our students, we know many benefits in offering AP Precalculus and AP Precalculus honors for our students.
AP precalculus is a recognized nationally recognized precalculus curriculum. It is designed by the college board to be conceptual and rigorous. This AP course provides preparation for both AP calculus, if taken in Rochester Community Schools, and calculus at any university. AP Pre Calculus provides access to an AP math course for many more students in Rochester Community Schools, and it is an opportunity to earn college credit or advancement. The cost of adopting AP precalculus and honors, is similar to providing,
any other AP course in Rochester Community Schools. Our current materials are approved for use in AP precalculus, so no other purchase of materials is needed for AP precalculus at this time. In addition, all precalculus teachers and students will now gain free access to the AP classroom website resources and materials. Similar to all other AP courses in Rochester Community Schools, we would support our teachers, our current pre calculus teachers with professional learning directly from College Board, which is, like other initial AP courses, and training, approximately $1,000 per teacher. In training, approximately $1,000
per teacher. In the packet, you'll see that we have some common, frequently asked questions. So we really appreciate the board's time and consideration of this AP, opportunity for our Rochester community students. And at this time, we'd like to ask what additional questions might you have. Alright. Do my board colleagues have any questions at this time? I have, one question. Do you foresee or from other school districts that have implemented this already, do students that go on to take AP Calculus take the AP Pre Calc exam, or do they just skip that and just take the AP Calculus and then take
that exam? So students always have the option whether they wanna take the exam or not. We know that for our senior level students who are taking AP precalculus or AP precalculus honors, they have that extra advantageous, situation where they could earn credit. For our juniors who are taking it, knowing that they'll be taking AP calculus, they may or may not choose to sit for that exam. However, we do believe that it's an opportunity to sit for that exam and practice and get exposure in that kind of math setting before they would take the AP calculus.
And so we're hoping with that alignment, it would only, encourage students to do better. Do you do you know from other schools that have already adapted this in prior years what they did see? I don't believe that we have collected that data. AP precalculus has been offered as an AP course once. This will be the second yeah, this is the second year that it's been offered. So we didn't jump on board right away. We were waiting to kind of see how that was going to play out, what universities were going to look at it, so we did not collect that data. But we do know that it has been offered in some of our neighboring districts,
including Troy, Birmingham. I haven't seen Troy yet. Not Troy yet. Okay. Alright. Then I oh, Trustee Locuih? I just wanted to say that I really love that this opens up that AP math option to the wider group of students. I know how how helpful it is to be able to take college credits when you're in high school and stuff too. It can save you a lot of money down the road, and it's cool that we don't have to buy new materials. We can do it with that. So thank you so much, and I love how it aligns with the FAT prep and all of that. Thanks for your work. All right. Is there a motion to adopt the AP precalculus and AP precalculus honors replacing precalculus
and honors precalculus for the 2027 school year. So moved. Moved by, trustee Gupta with support from trustee Annas. At this time, is there any other discussion about this? Alright. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven-zero vote, and the motion passes. And next year, we'll have AP precalc and AP honors precalc. Thank you. Thank you very much for coming this evening. Our second item is our audit presentation. Mr. McDaniel? Thank you, Madam President. I'd like to invite Brian Dixon,
partner from Yo and Yo, to the table. We're going to do things a little bit differently than we have in years past. So Brian will present about a 20 slide presentation on the results of the audit. We've also attached as part of the Board packet a presentation where we talk about what happened when we look at budget to actual results of the general fund. I think you need to push the green button. Front of you. Oh, thank you. And in front of you, you also have a copy of your presentation and a copy of the audit report.
You will notice there is no copy of your single audit report or your governance letter yet. We are waiting on the federal government, to open back up and give us the final compliance supplement. So, all districts in the state and the auditors throughout the state are waiting on the federal government to give us that information, that final compliance supplement so we can finalize. We did audit through the draft copy that they provided in the September. So we audited that, but we cannot issue until they give us the final go ahead.
So we do have a copy of your financial statements in front of you. Just a little bit about, the audit process. So the audit process has three parts. We look at your financial statements, which are the numbers. We look at your internal controls, which are the district's safeguards over those financial reporting. And then we look at compliance. That was your your federal compliance audit as well as some state, laws and regulations. On the next slide, you will we do have the financial statements, and we are going to issue an unmodified opinion or have issued an unmodified opinion,
which is a clean opinion. The financial statements are fairly presented. Then we have your balance sheet of your governmental funds. And it is broken down into your major fund, which is your general fund, and then your non major governmental funds, which are your special revenue funds, which you have four different special revenue funds, which we have a slide on a little later, and then your debt retirement fund as well as your sinking fund all aggregated in one column. If we focus on the general fund, we have $82,500,000 in assets at the end of the year, dollars 34,200,000.0
in liabilities and fund balance at the end of the year of $48,300,000 Non major governmental funds, dollars 14,500,000.0 in assets, dollars 2,600,000.0 in liabilities and just under $12,000,000 in fund balance. On the next page, we have your statement of revenues, expenditures and changes in fund balance. Again, broken down with your major fund, which is your general fund and your non major governmental funds, total revenues this year in the general fund, dollars 231,500,000.0. In the we have expenditures in the general fund of 231,200,000.0
for an increase this year of just under $300,000 in the general fund, bringing you back to that same $48,300,000 in fund balance at the end of the year. And if we go to the next slide, we do have a breakdown of your non major governmental funds. And this is the four special revenue funds that you have as well as the debt retirement fund and the sinking fund. So the total column on the right hand side, we have revenues of $33,800,000 expenditures of $34,500,000
for a decrease of $743,000 bringing back to that just under $12,000,000 in fund balance at the end of the year. Then we focus on your general fund and compare that to your budget. You do have your original budget on here, your final budget, and your actual. You will see that, in the far right column, so you are 98% accurate on your revenues and 96% accurate on your expenditures. Both of those were under your final budget and really just due to some grant funds,
that weren't fully spent, throughout the year. Then we take those same numbers and we compare those to your prior year. So you have your revenues for 2425 compared to 2324, and you will see pretty flat, between your revenues down $295,000 from 2324 to 2425. And expenditures were up $3,800,000 or about 1.7%, so a slight increase there. Then we take those $231,500,000
of general fund revenues and break those down between your federal, state, local, and interdistrict and other financing sources. This year, federal funds did decrease. They decreased about 4%, but the other categories went up slightly because of that. And that decrease in the in the federal was about $8,000,000 increase in interdistrict and local was $2,000,000 and increase in the state was $4,000,000 So fairly consistent in your percentages there. Just a decrease in the Fed, and that was really due to COVID,
those funding going away there and the reduction of the COVID funds. Then we have your general fund expenditures, dollars $231,000,000 again, broken down between instructions, support services, community service, intergovernmental payments, capital outlay, debt service and other. Even though your expenditures did go up this year, about $3,800,000 these were all within 1% of how you were spending them last year. So very consistent in this spending practice, between '24 and '25, all within a percentage point. Then we take your general fund balance as a percentage of expenditures and you do
have a bar graph here with ten years of data. You had 21.12% fund balance at the '24 and a slight decrease this year of 20.9%. I already mentioned an increase of about $300,000 in fund balance, but your expenditures went up $3,800,000 so it actually, equated out to just a slight decrease there. MDE does recommend a minimum of about 15% fund balance. Your peer group, which is between 10,020 students, was at 14.67%
fund balance at the '24, and the statewide average was 25.47%. So you are above your peer group, but below the state average at the 21.12%. But you are pretty much right in that range. Then we take that general fund balance. Again, you have $48,300,000 or 20.9%. Unassigned fund balance is 17.74% of that. You have some assigned fund balance, which is planned spending for the twenty five-twenty six in your original budget of $6,600,000
and that equated to about 3% of your fund balance at the end of the year. Then we have your ten year enrollment trend from $15,024 back in 2016, did increase for about four or five years and a high point of 15,413, and then decreased over the last five years, down to now fourteen seventy six in student count. So that's all the financial numbers and then we looked at your internal controls and compliance. We looked at internal controls over your financial statements and we had no material weaknesses,
no significant deficiencies, and no material noncompliance. And then when we looked at your federal awards, again, we're still waiting on that federal compliance supplement, the final federal compliance supplement, but when we audited off the draft statements from, the compliance supplement from the feds, we did audit the nutrition cluster this year, and we issued an unmodified opinion on the nutrition cluster. And we had no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies, and no material noncompliance. So you are spending that federal money properly. And then the final slide here we have is your governance letter.
The governance letter is required communication between the auditors and those charged with governance. And we had one management comment this year and that was net cash resources in your food service fund. You are allowed to have up to three months of expenditures at a maximum in your food service fund. And currently you're sitting at about four point seven five months, so you are over that, or not in compliance with that, rule. But we do just recommend, you know, with with free students, free lunches right now, you know, students getting free lunch.
It is very hard for most districts to spend down that fund balance and get it under that three month. You can only do so many improvements and and, you know, to your cafeterias or equipment. So just follow that MDE spend down plan that you have. And then also in the governance letter, we have a couple of new adoptions, new accounting standards this year, and that was GASB 101 and GASB 102. Compensated absences was a was a big GASB change this year. And as you can see in your financial statements,
we did have a few footnotes included on that. And then GASB 01/2002 actually did not affect your financial statements. And then finally, included in your financial statements, there are significant estimates. We did review all of these management's estimates and deemed that they were reasonable and had an unmodified opinion. And that was the useful lives of your capital assets, the net pension liability, the net OPEB asset as well as those compensated absences that I just mentioned under the new accounting standard. Before you leave that page, can you just talk a little bit about what that means,
the compensated absences? Yes. So compensated absences are if you have absences at the end of the year, sick and vacation time that have not been used. Or So just to be clear, we're talking about employees. Yes. That would be a liability to the district at the end of the year. So it's either going to be used as sick or vacation time or to be paid out based on your, bargaining units various bargaining units. So there's a big liability that's included in your financial statements due to that effect.
Those are district wide financial statements or your full accrual statements only. We focused on, you know, the general fund here, in which you guys look at on a monthly basis. They are not included in your general fund as a liability. Any other questions? Trustee Liqui? Well, I just want to say, thank you very much for the very comprehensive audit report. I was concerned last year when there was no increase in foundation allowance and the state decided to direct funds toward stabilizing the retirement system instead. But now I can see some of the wisdom of that in both our long
and short term liabilities. Looks like this will really help for long term sustainability of the district's finances, especially when it comes to pensions. For the first time in ten years, it looks like our assets are worth more than our liabilities by over $1,000,000 which is great. It looks like we're in really great shape. And so that's good to hear. We did have a bit of a scare here about a month ago when we thought that our fund balance was going to take a much bigger hit than it ended up taking. And I was just curious. Can you tell me how long you were here before you discovered that our fund balance was off by $5,000,000?
How long I was here? Right. Like, at the district? The trial balance that we received to do your financial statement audit did not have a a deficit. Okay. That's interesting. So, the original or the final budget had the deficit, but the trial balance that we received to to do your financial statement audit did not have a deficit. We actually did not have journal entries, so all the information was already made adjusted prior to the audit. Oh, okay. Interesting. Thank you. I think, you know, from a board perspective, similar to what Trustee Liquia just talked about,
our biggest concern was sort of the discrepancy between what our final budget amendment was and what our audited numbers are. Do you have any suggestions on how we could improve the accuracy of our final budget amendment? Well, I think it's looking at number of students, the foundation allowance, the grants that you have and seeing if what you're going to spend on those grants, throughout the year. A lot of business managers will accrue or in the budget, they'll accrue for all expenditures that they plan to spend. And sometimes,
at the end of the year, that doesn't happen. That might happen at the beginning of the next fiscal year. You do have an original budget that's showing about a $6,600,000 decrease, but that's prior to knowing what the state was paying on your students this year. So I'm sure you'll have a budget amendment, to to change that. I guess just a couple other follow ups. Are you aware of other districts that has as dramatic a swing between projected end of year financials and audited financials like we did? You had about a 96% accuracy on your expenditures and a 98% accuracy on your
revenues. You are a much bigger district than a lot of others. So the dollar value, it's only about a 4% change in your expenditures. But yes, that is a significant dollar value change. So from a percentage standpoint, are we From the percentage standpoint, you're pretty close to a lot of the districts. And then I guess my last one is just that it seems many districts, review their audit in October prior to normally, I think, the November deadline to submit it. What would need to happen in for us to be able to do that next
year? It would just be timing of the audit, actually getting you know, having the audit done. So So does that mean, like, did you Closing your books a little faster, maybe. And I know, we have, obviously, have an audit schedule. Your management team has an audit schedule. You know, put they're putting the rec books and records together. Presenting in November is not uncommon. I still have another I had one last week. I have another presentation next week. So presenting in November is not uncommon. Did anyone else have any questions?
Alright. So my understanding is that we need to make a motion to accept the twenty fourtwenty five audit as presented. Is that the correct language? I'm looking at you, Mr. McDaniel. Yes. Okay. Madam President. Just a quick question. I noticed that a lot of the surrounding districts did end up closing their books about two months ago. Would it be reasonable for the board to receive final numbers around that period of time? Or is it necessary for us to wait until November if that's when the audit is scheduled to receive the actual final numbers?
Brian, I'll let you answer that. But I think the point that I want to make that if you're going to close your books, two months ahead of September when we did, that means you're using, a greater amount of estimates. But I'll let you speak to that a little bit. Well, I don't mean two months ahead of September. I mean two months ahead of now. So your question is can you get updated financial information from your management team prior to the audit? Correct. So if the audit is done in September Like, let's imagine the audit is done right now in November. Would it be reasonable for us to have closed our books a couple months earlier
just so that the board could see what those actuals the actual actuals were for the 2425. Yeah. That would be based on management, you know, providing that information. But it's not unreasonable to ask something like that. It's not like it would take No. Because we were here in September. So we Oh, wow. There was good information provided to us at that time. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So I'm back to Is there a motion to accept the twenty fourtwenty five audit as presented? Moved by Trustee Blake. Is there support? Trustee Alspa,
is there any discussion before we vote on this? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven-zero vote and the motion passes and the audit is accepted. Thank you very much for having me here tonight. And I would like to thank mister McDaniel and his, all his finance team. They provided us very timely, accurate information and made the audit go very smoothly. So Yes. And likewise, I'd like to thank Brian Dixon and his team. This was our first year with Yoh and Yoh, so there's always a little bit that's unexpected.
I don't think we really had any bumps. I think both of our teams worked pretty well and quickly to get the information that you needed and requested and probably would have had a full audit finalized if not for the federal government shutdown. Thank you. Well, Mr. Dixon, thank you for coming out tonight. We appreciate you being here. All right. We're now moving on to Item 9.3, which is bond refunding. Here, we will decide whether to refund, which means refinance our bonds. And if so, whether we want to president? I'm sorry. I had a couple I didn't realize we were completely moving on from the other
presentation. So Matt, just a couple more questions here. This is gonna be quick. Okay. Trustee Lecui? Matt, this is a question for you because this is a page that was in last year's audit And I just happen to notice on page seven thirteen, it said the statistics shown above are for the County Of Macomb, which encompasses the entire school district and surrounding communities. And I'm just wondering why it says the County Of Macomb because I would have thought the population numbers here are the RCS district. Yeah. I think it probably should say Oakland and, Oakland and Macomb because we do have a section of Macomb County.
Okay. Yeah. My other question was on page seven fifteen looking at the headcount. And the headcount looks pretty stable on this chart of employees, but it says that this is talking about employees throughout the years from 2016 to 2025. But it says you pulled all the contract personnel out of this list. And I'm wondering I know that we've gone up by 400 employees since 2018, so does that mean that they're all contract personnel? I'm not sure that I understand the question. Are you saying there's when we look at 2025 here that we're up 400?
From 2018, yeah. These numbers all look like they're pretty consistent. They're pretty stable. Mhmm. But I know we went up by 400 staff in that time period. But it also mentions that this doesn't include contracted staff. So I just wondered if maybe the 400 that we have assumed, if those are contracted workers, not the ones that are listed here. Yeah. I would say that this is, utilizing the, the register of educational personnel, rep data. So the rep data reporting has changed,
multiple times since 2018. So I can't speak to necessarily what some of those changes were and why those numbers would be different. It is possible that contracted staff could make up a portion of that. When I think about 2018 versus 2025, we had contracted out food service, we contracted out custodial, we contracted out transportation as well. So I don't see any large changes there. I don't know. It could be possible that we are, also reporting our subs through Aegistaff, which is a contracted company and may not have in 2018.
I'm not sure. This is more of a human resources managed report. I was just gonna ask because are you getting that +1 or that 400 from the my school data? Is that where you're getting that number from? Yeah. And I think didn't we have that discussion, previously? Can you refresh our memory with that, Mr. Russo? Sure. Thank you, madam president. I think I don't have much to add besides what mister McDaniel added. The rep reporting has changed in not only in frequency, so but in units as well. So what you report and where. And I can if mister Murphy wants to speak any more eloquently to this because
it's been a year and a half since I've been out of HR, in addition, we have if if let's and I'm just gonna use examples that could skew numbers. If we have a two hour employee who's a noon, noon aide, those folks who come in and out, maybe they keep the job for a few months and then leave, that reporting structure changed. I know when I was in HR, but I don't know what it looks like now. Mister Murphy, do you have anything to add to that? No. No. I don't. If if some more specific information is requested, I'd be happy to look into it, but I don't wanna speak off the cuff on it and give incorrect information.
Okay. That's fine. I just had one more question. I read through your presentation, Matt, and I appreciate your detailed presentation. I was curious. It's similar to what President Butel asked the auditor from your perspective. How could we prevent something like this from happening again where the budget that we received in June is that far off from what the actuals are. Is the question to actually spend the money that we budgeted or is the question to, I guess, go in reverse and make sure that the budget aligns with, I guess, what actual spending is? To make sure those two numbers are closer in alignment like they've been in the
past? Right. And I think there's, I think historically our budget has been similar to what was what happened here. But it's Not by this much. No, no, not by this much. I don't believe that's accurate in the last seven years that we've added a few million dollars to fund balance, since my tenure here. But we can actually look at the numbers at a later date, I guess. Yes, I think it's either getting our administrators to spend the money that was allocated to them or cutting those budgets earlier, right? I think the question, and Trustee Liqui can correct me if I'm wrong, is just how can we make sure that our final budget amendment is closer to
our actuals? Not that people are spending all of their money or not spending it, but just that the actuals are closer to, what the our our budget amendment is closer to what our actuals are. Yeah. I think it's either getting people to spend their money or, cutting budget sooner, right? So, for example, you know, $2,500,000 to $3,000,000 of that was supplies and materials, purchase services that sort of have a discretionary ability by our any administrator in the district to spend those dollars, right? So we could cut those dollars in May when we do the budget amendment or
we could just work to spend down some of those dollars. Now, that's easier when it comes to maybe supplies, but there is some accounting pieces to that where we're supposed to align those resources with the year that they benefit, right? So for example, if we buy 100 football helmets in May or June, really that expenditure should go into the football season, which is in the next fiscal year. So I think it's a balance between the two approaches, which is either cutting budgets from our administrators in May when we do the final amendment
or giving them additional time to spend that money down. Trustee Blank? I know you touched on this, but I really want to I just want to make sure that we're clear because I keep hearing this that we have 400 or 500 additional employees from what we had a few years back and yet we have less children. And is that true or is that not true? And if you can't say it now, but can we figure out why she keeps saying this number and why it's incorrect? Because it seems inconceivable to me that we have 500 more employees than we did
seven years ago. Yes. I wanted to mention a couple of things and I didn't mean to jump in. But, I mean, it would be a huge anomaly in a place where we have educator shortages that Rochester is the only place that's employing 500 or 400 more people than everybody else. So there's definitely things we can look into in terms of rep reporting and how those numbers are different. But also to Mr. McDaniel's response, some of the and again, Mr. McDaniel, please correct me if I'm wrong some of the, discrepancy there in the 4% that we were off
is also attributed to grant funds that we could either carry over or were not spent or a combination of both, correct? Yes, that's correct. And also, the grant years, the the fiscal time for grants is does not align with the fiscal year with the fiscal year for the state of Michigan in terms of when we have to close our books. So there's a little bit of a dance to do between June 30 and September 1. Correct, mister mister McDaniel? Correct. So I just I would still like to see an answer. It doesn't have to be denied. But I would like a real answer to that.
And I don't know if four other people would like that because I can't make demands on my own. But do we have enough interest in knowing the true number? I would like to know it. I would support that. I think it would be great to get that information. And just, just to be clear, I'm not necessarily saying these are educators. This might be non instructional positions. So I don't think we should be, you know, framing it that way when we're just talking about employees and we don't know what type of employees, which is why I asked the question that I did. No. That's fair. Some of the contracted services, for example, though, where there's bus shortages as well,
driver shortages as well. So it's not just confined to educators. But as I said, if the Board is interested in looking at what those numbers were versus 2018 to now, we can probably get that information correct, Mr. Murphy? Sure. Yep. We can look into that. Thanks. Is there anybody else besides the two of us? Yeah. I think there's support for that. Okay. Great. Alright. Were there any other questions that we can move on? Oh, Trustee Gupta. I think I think, one of the other issues I hear and understand why we were off by that 4% and that it's this dance.
I I wonder, is there a way to keep us better apprised in that time frame leading right up to there so that we're expecting that there could be this big adjustment or this difference? Because, I have to say, like, at the final hour, you know, where most of your actuals are in to then have such a swing, while I understand where it's rooted, it seemed like there could have been some better communication about that earlier on so that we weren't so surprised about it. Yeah. And to help us understand it because we didn't get a very good understanding of
it either until we pressed for it. Yes. I think, some of the understanding is that our State Aid payments run from October through August. So when we approve that budget in June, typically we don't have that June payment, we don't have a July payment and we don't have an August payment. This past August, we got additional funding in the month of August, which is too late to amend our budget, and it was given for last year. We also have the teachers contract, which if you look at the financials and the group that did last week saw that when you look at our instructional expenditures,
it doesn't look like we've spent very much. I think it was about 8% of our budget for the year and that's because our teacher's contract is paid essentially from September through August the next year. So there's two months' worth of estimates, maybe even more if you count the full month of June. So about 25% of our budget is based on estimates when we present you that final budget. All right. Now we are going to move on to 9.3. And this is bond refunding. And again, here we'll decide whether to refund, which means refinance the bonds, and if so,
whether we want to do that through a public sale or a negotiated sale. And again, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. McDaniel. Yes. Thank you, Madam President. So, yes, we have a recommendation before the Board, to refinance or refund the bonds, based on our colleagues at PFM. And I'll invite Nate Watson, Managing Director of PFM up to the table, so that he can answer any questions that you may have that it is an appropriate time to refund the bonds. We believe I think with PFM's assistance that it'll save over $5,000,000
The question before the Board is whether or not to utilize the competitive sale method or the negotiated sale method. And of course, if you would approve our recommendation to refund the bonds. So, I'll turn it back over to the board, but Mr. Watson is here and he can answer many of the more technical questions about pond refunding than I can. All right. Well, then I will open up to my colleagues. I know I have questions, but I'm happy to take your questions. Trustee Annas? Matt, can you speak to the last time that the district refinanced our bonds?
When was that? And, how did we go about that sale and the rationale, if you can speak to that? Yes. I think, I don't think I was here for any of those refundings. I think the most recent one was maybe 2015. It was prior to me. So because we have an opportunity to save quite a bit of interest really, that was why the recommendation is being made. Mr. Watson can speak to it further, but essentially if there are no savings and this is not something that we would move forward with. The district historically has used a couple of methods,
more negotiated sales than it has competitive. But I think the most recent bond issue was a competitive sale, I think in 2019. Trustee Lecui? I'm wondering if this is like refinancing your house, which is generally a good thing. But you usually do a worksheet, I understand, to make sure the cost of the refinance doesn't exceed the money that you save with the lower interest. I was wondering, did we have a worksheet that goes along with this? I would say there's been a couple of presentations provided in cabinet notes that, I think show, the estimate of about 5,500,000
to $5,600,000 Is that correct, Mr. Watson? That is correct. And that is inclusive of bond issuance costs or Yes. Excuse me. Speaking to the savings, yes, correct. So total cash flow savings, I think to your point, which is a good one, refinancing the twenty sixteen bonds is similar to refunding your mortgage. So after all, cost of issuance, cost of issuance are rolled into the bond proceeds to defease the twenty sixteen bonds, pay the cost of issuance. Total cash flow savings, basically savings of interest is about $6,600,000 but this changes in our market constantly.
I'm sure you've seen plenty of reports using tax exempt interest rates. Those can fluctuate on CPI reports, many different variables. So until we can actually lock in, the actual interest rates, savings as an estimate, at about $6,600,000 based on last week's rates. Trustee Blake? Yeah. I saw this presentation in our committee meeting and it made perfect sense refinancing at a lower rate. We We can pay off the debts quicker or create more fiscal space. The question that just came to mind, and I don't know if I asked at that time, is do we have an expectation of where interest rates are heading?
Like, would it it seems to me like they're heading down. Wouldn't it be better to wait six months or a period of time if we think the rates would be even lower? Wonderful question. I personally do not have a sense on where interest rates are going. I know and again, not to elaborate because I'm not really an expert when it comes to to interest rates and where they're being forecasted and not an economic, but a lot of the talk in terms of Fed funds decreases. It's very short overnight rate. These bonds extend ten years. So as the Fed fund rate might be coming down, the uncertainty of the long term curve is unknown.
So I think, again, I've been in the business for about eighteen years. Talking heads have always been incorrect. We're projected to keep interest rates somewhere in the same band for the next eighteen months. But again, that's not my personal opinion on kind of where interest rates are going to answer the latter part. If we believed interest rates were going to fall, you would hold steady. These bonds are callable on 05/01/2026, and we can refinance them with tax exempt debt ninety days ahead of that. In a vacuum, you'd want to refinance that as quickly as possible because we're essentially replacing 5% with
3%. So we wanna capture that savings for as long as possible. But if interest rates were to fall, then to your point, you know, interest savings would go up. I'm just not sure where interest rates are going, unfortunately. I'm gonna follow-up on that. So if interest rates drop, then is our best is it better to go with the negotiated versus the public sale because you're kind of locked in at that point? You know, in my expert opinion, I think that really both sale methods gets to the same largely end result.
No. There's a little bit less flexibility when it comes to a negotiated sale. With a competitive thing about it as an auction, but that auction has a notice period. We call it the notice of sale. So we have to give notice about seven to ten days ahead of actually taking bids. So it's a little bit less flexible because that date doesn't move. Negotiated, we have a planned sale date, but we can change plans as late as the morning to price and bonds. But ultimately, both sale methods gets to the same point, in my opinion,
no less flexibility as it relates to kind of holding off on the sale to take advantage of possible interest rates falling. I don't know if that makes sense, but I think both sale methods really kind of get us to the same point. Trustee LaSalle? What's the time line process if once we agree on something to get it turned around? Because are we looking that it would be finalized within days, months, just kind of Yeah. Great question. So months. So it's, with a board approval to move forward with the refinancing, then the working group, bond counsel, municipal advisor, underwriter, if it's a negotiated sale,
we go to work, put together the appendix, the offering document, we call it the preliminary official statement. That comes together this month in December with the idea that interest rates would be locked in in January and that it usually takes about thirty days from pricing to closing. But when you have the sale or the pricing in early January, that's when everything's locked in. That's where savings is known. So it comes together in about two months. Matt, can you talk about and I think this is what I saw that if we chose the negotiated sale, we're working with, is it Stifle,
Stifle? Stifle. And then if it's a public sale, it's with PFM. Can you talk about how those were decided? Yes. I think in recent history with Rochester Community Schools, we've worked with PFM, and then Stifel as well when we do negotiated sales. So I think going back to those the 2012 refunding, there's one in 2014, 2015 refunding, all of those were with Stifel. So in recent memory, we worked with Stifel and I think we've been working with PFM longer than that. And does Stifel only do negotiated and PFM only do public or competitive bidding?
No. I think we work with PFM for both the competitive and the negotiated sale. It's just we would have to name one for the negotiated sale. We'd have to name Stifel. I'm sorry. Could you say that again? You have to name what? We'd have to name the underwriter with the competitive sale. It's in the resolution. Whereas if you look at the resolution for competitive, there is Stifel is not named. Okay. So you're saying we would work with PFM on either one, but there's an underwriter with the negotiated and that would be? Stifel. Stifel. Thank you. Are there any recommendations then on which route to take competitive versus negotiated?
Yes. I think as Mr. Watson mentioned, ultimately, we get to the end result. I think, with this board, in recent memory, we've done a competitive sale. Really, it's up to the board. I would personally recommend probably that competitive sale just because it's very similar to our RFP process. It's very public and transparent. There are risks that were included in the cabinet notes that Mr. Watson had provided. But as he mentioned, ultimately, we probably get to a similar result. If there were something catastrophic that could happen that maybe shifted,
where we were with enough time, I think we could delay that. But, right now, it's hard to foresee the future. But, there doesn't seem to be any large risk in the coming months, but that could change as well. So I guess, is that just because I'm not sure I completely understand it. If the, rates continue to is it if they continue to drop, will we lose out if we do the public one or does that adjust with it? I think with the competitive sale, right, you're picking a date and time.
Negotiated, I think there's more flexibility to negotiate that over a little bit of time, but I'll let Mr. Watson speak to that in a little bit more detail. No, I don't believe so. So under a negotiated versus a competitive, we have the notice of sale that specifies when we're coming to market. So we basically lock that in a week in advance. But either way, interest rates would fluctuate until the day of pricing. And under both sale methods, we'd probably have the same pricing date unless something dramatically moved interest rates in a negotiated situation where then we would delay the sale.
But under both sale methods, the pricing date is when interest rates are locked in. So both methods are the same from that standpoint. Madam President? Trustee Ennis? Does a district's, credit score impact, if we were to do a competitive sale, what is looked at in terms of purchasing the bonds by the buyer? Yeah. Wonderful question. The credit rating of the school system does come into play. The higher the credit rating, the more investors are attracted to the district's bonds. The district has a very high credit rating as it relates to other Michigan k
twelve's at AA from S and P Global. So that is certainly one of the factors that goes into the recommendation of negotiated versus competitive because in a competitive arena, you want to make sure there's plenty of bidders that are actually going to show up and put their hands up for the district's bonds. And the credit rating is a main factor of who can invest, who wants to invest, what those interest rates are. So that's one of the decision points that goes into the sale method recommendation. And would you say, in your opinion and, Matt, you could speak to this too in terms of our district credit rating,
my assumption is it's excellent. It's excellent. Alright. Well then, I guess I'm gonna ask, is there a motion to approve the resolution authorizing the issuance and delegating the public sale of Rochester Community School District twenty twenty six refunding bonds as presented. Moved by Trustee Gupta. Is there support for that? Trustee LaSanne? Any discussion then regarding the, you know, identifying the public sale? What would be the pub right. The public sale would be the type. That's what we just made the motion for.
Public or competitive, it's the same. Okay? Alright. Well, then all of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. Alright. The motion that's a seven o vote and the motion passes. And the resolution authorizing the issuance and delegating the public sale or competitive, sale for Rochester Community School District twenty twenty six refunding bonds has been approved. Do we have anything else to do with this one on this? No. I would just like to thank mister Watson for being here tonight.
I know that he got here about 06:30 and or after 09:00. So Thank you. Thanks for his support. Thanks for hanging out. It was my pleasure. Thank you very much for the opportunity to start the District. All right. Well, we are going to move on then to 9.4, which is a discussion on 31 AA funding. As a recap, state school aid section 31 AA allocates $321,000,000 to support school safety and mental health initiatives. This year, to receive funds, school districts are required to consent to a comprehensive investigation and agree to waive any
privilege that may otherwise protect information from disclosure after a mass casualty event. Because accepting this funding requires the waiver of privilege, the Board of Education must make the decision to accept or not accept funding. The deadline to accept the conditions associated with Section 31AA funding is November 30. This date was moved. It was originally the sixteenth. The board could decide to wait until next week's meeting to make a decision if we so decide that. And at this time, I will turn it over. Mr.
McDaniel, is this you as well? Yes. Thank you very much, Madam President. So I get to invite my final special guest, Adam Blaylock, Esquire Miller Johnson, to the table. As you outlined, there are some strings attached to this funding with the waiving of privilege and an investigation. I just want to note that I think rough estimates for funding is $2,100,000 for Rochester Community Schools, assuming that most districts take that fund. So, just anecdotally across the state from what I've heard, it is a mixed bag that some are taking it,
some are not. So it's possible that if you assumed half of the districts won't, that maybe that's 4,200,000 rather than $2,100,000 but we wouldn't know that allocation until, I think, December or January once we've all submitted. I think the language says, and maybe Mr. Blaylock knows this, that the state aid payment is supposed to go out in December. But, Adam is here and he can speak to any, legal questions. But essentially, the decision before the board is whether or not we want to waive privilege and agree to the investigation, to accept the money. Trustee Lozano? I had a question for I guess it would go to Matt too.
Do we have an idea as to what we want to do with these funds if we were to take them? Yeah. So, every year that they they change these funds a little bit, But I think, the majority of what we currently do for staff, which is, I believe, counselors at the secondary level, there's some question as to whether or not we would be able to continue with our middle school safe ed, because the guidance has changed a little bit. There is language in there for SROs, but it seems like only SROs. There'd be additional technology or materials that we could buy with these, with this grant.
But I think for the most part, it would be preserving those guidance counselors or those counselor positions in the 31AA grant as it exists now. Trustee Alsbach? So I know that this legislation talks about a mass casualty event and we all have an idea of what that is and it's horrific. We wouldn't want to go through that. But can you talk about, scenarios? Like, can you define what a mass casualty event is and scenarios outside of, you know, like a horrific shooting that would qualify for this? Absolutely. And the statute does define a mass casualty event,
in a couple of different ways. But the most prominent one is clearly targeted school shootings. The reality, though, is that there are if there are a significant number of injuries and the example that's come up over and over and over again in my conversations with boards and superintendents is a bus accident could qualify as a mass casualty event as used by the statute. And there are theories, although none of them have been litigated at this point, that it could encompass other things. So I was reading one of our competitors' legal opinions earlier today and they were talking about
school suicides because there's this definition within the statute for fatalities but there's no numerosity that's associated with that. So the number of fatalities is not clearly defined in the statute. One piece that I do want to share at the outset that is news I think today, I am anticipating that some number of school districts are going to file suit with regard to this legislation in the coming days, perhaps as early as tomorrow. And so coming back to the timing of a decision is that unless we are prepared to act tonight, I would recommend that we hold if we have another scheduled board meeting to see
at least that litigation play out over the next week or two. As a follow-up, that was going to be my next question is what impacts will funding will pending legislation have? So we do have pending legislation that might impact what our decision would be? Litigation. Yes. So I'm anticipating I've heard from a number of my clients and then it's I mean, the school attorneys, it's a pretty fairly close knit community. And so I do anticipate that some number of districts are going to be filing suit in the near future. My last question is, this waives privilege. Does it waives privilege in the scope how wide range is that wave of privilege?
Does it scope down to the event? Or could it have a little bit of a creep outside? And this is one of the discussion points amongst the school attorneys. So the statutory definition is any privilege that would prevent disclosure of information in the course of the investigation that's appointed by the governor after a mass casualty event. And so I would describe the ambiguity as a feature, not a bug of the legislation, is that I believe it's intended to cover things kind of ambiguously. So the interpretation that I have of it at this point is that it would
likely cover attorney client privilege for the school district, but there's a lot of disagreement amongst the teams about what it means beyond that. So as I read the statute, it applies to school districts and all their different forms. It does not specifically apply to individuals, but I'm also mindful of the fact that an individual that asserts privilege contrary to the school district is going to face tremendous political pressure both internally and externally. And that's one of the understated points I think related to this legislation is that,
there are some that have indicated that they want to challenge this post like retroactively right after a mass casualty event. And from all practical purposes, I don't think that's a realistic option. The reality is that once a school district accepts this funding, my broad recommendation is to plan on complying with that investigation because I think the consequences of not complying will be really steep, both financially as well as politically. So the core issue here is are we going to accept this funding today or this month? And at bottom, what I will say in working with school districts all over the state is that
it is very evenly divided. There are many communities that I've talked to that are planning on declining the funding, and there are others that are planning on litigating whether or not this law is going to continue in place and then there are others that are planning to take the money. And there are a couple of factors that I've seen that dictate what or at least correlate with that decision, one of which is the financial condition of the school district. And then the other that I've seen is there's a kind of like a rural versus urban perspective. So I've seen different approaches from rural districts than I have from urban districts.
And then the last one is that our intermediate school districts, by and large, are getting a very small sum of money. And so I've seen, the districts that I work say, we're probably not going to take the money for that reason as it's just outward it. I'm sorry. Just a clarification, could you repeat, the waiving privilege? Does that relate to the the mass casualty event or does that relate to everything and anything? So the structure of the statute is, after a mass casualty event, the governor has the right to appoint an independent investigation. There's a couple of different ways that they can do that.
And in accepting the money, the school district has to affirmatively waive any privilege related to that investigation and agree to comply with that investigation. Now, the nuts and bolts of this, though, is that definition of mass casualty events is broader than Oxford is the example that I'll provide. And there's some rub there that makes folks uncomfortable. But I also know in working with communities that surround Oxford, obviously, there was a very public discussion about the approach that Oxford had after the shooting. And that,
in my view, is the impetus for this legislation is to deal with that. First, I wanted to say to Mr. Blaylock, I I really appreciated the memo that you created for us. I think it was really helpful. You know, I had tended to agree with everything too, so that was good. But, as an attorney, there are a lot of things that do concern me about these conditions. You know, the attorney client privilege is is so valuable to help the district to be able to seek advice and be honest when seeking advice, and I hate to lose that. And the the the conditions are very broad,
like, it's unclear how far back you lose it or for what for what issues you use it. The definition of the mass casualty is really goes way beyond a school shooting. I've seen, you know, if there anytime three or more people have injury, that could be a fight at a football game if they if they had if any of them, you know, had to seek treatment. And my concern is the insurance coverage because most insurance policies have exclusions for intentional acts or criminal acts. And if the state conducts an investigation, you they're going to lay blame somewhere and it's probably going to be at the
district and so we could lose our insurance coverage. I know they said that they would cover reasons why if I was a lawyer, I would counsel my client probably not to accept this money. But kind of taking off the lawyer hat and and just being a human being, I really think that if we ever found us in this selves in this horrible position, I can't imagine ever telling a parent who lost their child that I'm not gonna cooperate with an investigation because of any reason, that I'm going to assert my attorney client privilege and and not give you what
you need to find out what happened to your child. And so I feel like we probably all would would do that in that situation. And so, you know, I just opened the doors. You can see everything. How could you tell that parent no? And so I given that, that that's probably what would happen in this horrible, godforsaken, you know, hypothetical here, we might as well take the money and use it to make our district safer so that we never have to face this. So, you know, we can wait and see how litigation plays out, but my instinct and my vote is that we would accept the money even with
the conditions. Trustee Lecui? Now, kind of building off of what he said and what you mentioned about Oxford, that was my impression when I read through this is that this came about because of that tragic event and that families over there understandably wanted answers and the investigation was thwarted by the limits of attorney client privilege because nobody would testify or talk. And so it seemed like the state's intent with thirty one AA was to prevent stonewalling in a crisis like that, No more running for the shelter of attorney client privilege because otherwise the investigation essentially becomes useless.
So I share that same intent that if, God forbid, anything ever happened here, our community would deserve truth and transparency and accountability. I had heard that school districts should include limitations on the waiver of privilege. To clarify that it's not intended to exist in perpetuity, how would a school district do that? So and I'll be candid. That is my recommendation is that school districts put in place some kind of language in order to preserve the argument. Warrants an investigation and the school district has taken the money, warrants an investigation and the school district has taken the money,
there are a lot of facts that could indicate whether or not privilege might be asserted later. So I'll provide a brief hypothetical that I hope will illustrate what I would suggest. Right? So the hypothetical is that this is a one year funding piece and then in fifty years there's a mass casualty event. The question will be have we waived privilege in fifty years? And I would say I think that's nonsense, But what I would say is that the school district should include some language in its resolution that helps show that that's nonsense. So ultimately, I would recommend two things. One is that the resolution include language that it's not intended to be in perpetuity,
that it's only intended to cover the duration that the funds are exhausted or as legally required. And then I would also indicate that it's intended to be prospective, not retrospective because I don't want the waiver of privilege to be expanded beyond the limited purposes that are indicated in the law. And one piece that I want to touch on from Trustee Blake's comments earlier, I don't like this and I don't want to sugarcoat that. This is, in my view, gross legislation, but it's what we're dealing with and that's the practical problem that we have to deal with at the table whether it's tonight or in the future.
And ultimately it's a very difficult decision and I think it's unfortunate that our school leaders are being put in this position to make this kind of decision because I do think that in the event of a mass casualty event that it's going to be a painful process in terms of all the things that follow from a litigation standpoint without the school community components. And those are obviously fundamental and core and the most important pieces. So the way that I would describe this is that after a mass casualty event, your school is dealing with a nuclear bomb that's gone off.
It's a catastrophe. And you're going to lose control over 98% of what's happening in your school district and in your community in the immediate aftermath. We're talking about a sliver of that 2% and losing some control over that, which will feel like a lot at that moment. But ultimately and part of the reason that we're here tonight and I'm having this conversation with boards is it's potentially a very consequential decision for a school district. And that's part of why I think it's a board decision. Trustee Oltzema. So our landscape has been constantly changing, and often we make decisions on where we are at the moment and then something
happens, something's clarified, something's deadline is moved. I call this the golden rule. The one with the gold makes the rules. I think it's horrible that we have funding that's supposed to benefit students that's tied with rules and conditions. I would prefer that we wait, still complying with the deadlines, that we make sure we wait for to see So then is that a motion to postpone until next Monday's meeting on November 17? Sure. Is there support for that? I support. Trustee Annas. Is there any discussion about postponing until next week so that we can get the
language for it and see if anything comes from the, potential litigation. Mister Russo? Thank you. Mister Blaylock, I know we meant you mentioned kind of covering in the resolution putting some parameters around the language in a resolution that helps define what the MDE won't. There's another piece of that that I'm curious about about, how does it interact with privacy laws like, FERPA, HIPAA, etcetera? Would that be something that you could help us with should the Board choose on November 17 to do this and pass a resolution? Absolutely. That's something that we can address in that as well.
Trustee Blake? So the two options that we have here to approve or maybe this one was drafted by Thrun. But if we're getting our device from him, should we have him draft us a resolution? I didn't there was a resolution? There are a lot of there are a lot of legal opinions floating around about this. I think every firm that has school attorneys has circulated something. And so it would not track me if you have something from Troon, Clark Hill, Miller Canfield, Miller Johnson and someone else, on this topic in your packets because and I've seen this out of a lot of boards.
They're asking for a variety of opinions and I think most of the school attorneys are in pretty similar but not identical places, which is part of what's caused a lot of the discussion that we've seen and I think different decisions by different boards and different communities, for just that reason. Okay. One other question that just came to my mind. I thought I had read that some attorneys were advising that a board that actually doesn't have to do anything, doesn't have to execute anything, and could just accept the funds and not do anything. Is that an option? I disagree with it. I've heard that floated as well,
and I think that it is, it is intended to be a way to try and preserve privilege in the event of a mass casualty event. The practical reality is that if you accept the funding and you decide not to comply, the first thing that's going to happen is that the funding is going to be withheld on your next State Aid payment. And so ultimately, I think that runs into some very significant practical problems, which is why my recommendation is that if you accept the funding that you should plan on complying with the investigation because I think that accepting the funding and then
not complying is going to have really significant consequences. And I also don't want to neglect a point. This funding is intended for safety and security and mental health. And so it ideally is going to be used for purposes that are going to help keep our buildings safe and prevent this kind of event. And that's something that I don't think should be lost either. Okay. So we have a motion to postpone. Ma'am? Thank you, Madam President. Just a a point of clarification, for Mr. Blaylock. If the board says they accept your recommendations,
it's prospective, not retrospective, there's a certain time frame. That is no guarantee that the MDE would accept that and give us the funds. They could reject that on its face and say you didn't comply with the law? No, I don't think that's true. The indication that I've gotten from MDE is they are not doing any particular investigating relative to the submission. It's a checkbox in the system. I've actually looked at the submission. It's literally a checkbox in the system. I do know that there was some discussion between MDE and the Attorney General's Office because we got some indications that MDE was going to interpret some of this language
for us and then they have decidedly not. And so my understanding and impression is that they've gotten direction not to offer any clarification on some of the key questions that are being asked by school districts right now. I would say, just mister Blanock, just to put the board in real information here, I would say that you would say it's your inclination or your feeling. I would say that that's there's probably facts around that. Right? There's we've asked superintendents have asked very pointed questions about clarification of language,
and we have been denied answers. Period. Alright. So we have a motion to postpone until November 17. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. That's a seven o vote And, the motion is postponed and, we will discuss that at our next meeting. Sorry. Mr. Blaylock, thank you. Yes. Thank you for being here tonight. Alright. We are now moving on to, agenda item 9.5, which has to do with the property located at 501 West University.
Back in 2019, the district looked at what it would cost to update the Administration Building and that was located at 501 West University. At that time, the cost ranged from approximately $23,000,000 to $30,000,000 to update the existing building. The decision was made to purchase a new property on De Quindre with an existing building for substantially less. Our Central Office team moved out of 501 West University in, I believe, it was 2022. Last school year, we asked our new superintendent to provide the Board with a recommendation of what we should do with 501 West University property.
On September 22, Mr. Russo recommended that we sell the property. Tonight, the board will decide whether to sell the property, keep the property, or delay a decision until additional information can be provided. At this time, I'd like to open it up to my, board colleagues to hear what their thoughts are. Madam president. Trustee Gupta. I move that we, postpone the discussion about five zero one West University until May 2026 in in order to allow full consideration of recent interest by community groups and any associated internal developments
as a result of our strategic planning process that may identify usage of this property for future district needs. Alright. Is there a second to postponing this discussion until May 2026? Trustee Alspa? And then any discussion on this? Trustee Gupta, did you wish to speak first? I just think it's premature to have the conversation right now, given the, a couple of different variables. One is, that we have just recently been informed by a community group that they're interested in
exploring a community center, model and that will take time to flush out and and, see through to see if that's a realistic option. There may also be an interest in using that property for some development that is realized through the strategic planning process as we're exploring things like an IB curriculum or school or gifted program. And I I don't wanna presuppose what that outcome would be, but it could be that at the end of that, which we're expecting to get a report on somewhere in 2026,
could indicate a need for a property such as 501. So it would seem premature to make a decision today, without all of that information. Anyone else? Trustee, Annas? Yeah. Just a question for trustee, Gupta. So may because you want to hold off to see what, what transpires from what's happening with our strategic plan? Correct. Okay. I appreciate that rationale. I appreciate the gentleman who came forward with, an ask. You know, my concern is that, you know, this is a property that's been sitting there stagnant for quite a while.
And, while we have a group that's trying to get organized, I also want to be perfectly clear that I am also not comfortable with, with selling a property, below market value to placate, you know, a specific group. I still would want to see this property go out for a regular bid process, a public bid process, and they would have to be competitive with other folks that approach that as well. But I am amicable to, postponing it. I don't necessarily agree that May is the right date. I'd like to see something in the March,
April time frame, a little bit earlier so that we can go into the end of the school year with some knowledge that we have a path forward. That's my opinion. Trustee Lozanne? I was to piggyback off of, Barb, I agree. I don't think I think May is a little bit further. I say March so we can get past this February, date for mister Bloomingdale so we can see take a look at that. But I agree, it should go up for public. I guess I would just say that if we wanna take into consideration anything from our strategic plan and potential uses there,
that we need to wait until that May time frame. Trustee Gupta, did I see your hand again? That's that's basically what I was going to say as well. I appreciate everything, that trustee Annis and trustee Lausanne shared as well. And I agree that with all those points that it should go out for an RFP and, be a competitive pricing situation. The timing of May was chosen, specifically to align with our calendar of reports expected, for the strategic planning, initiatives that involve exploration of an IB program or a gifted program,
the kinds of things in the plan. And that, could call for a need for space. Trustee Lecui? I remember we talked about this, I think, back in January. And at the time, president Butel, we ended up stalling. And I remember you asked our superintendent to come up with a recommendation for us nine months later. The September, he was supposed to come up with a recommendation on what to do with the building, and he did that. And we have a valuation for it as is right now. And the recommendation was to sell the building because it's not in a condition that's
usable, and repairing the building or trying to get it back up to it's just not there. It's been sitting for too long in that location just, falling apart. And so I'm just kind of wondering how much longer we're gonna stall instead of recognize the reality of what we have before us right now. We have other space to do other programs, actually. We even have this building that we're in right now. I don't think that building seems like a viable option for programs anyways. And I think it's time that we make a decision on that building to sell
it. And anyone who's ready to put in competitive bids, they can put in competitive bids and I hope that perhaps that group could put in a competitive bid if they're ready. But right now they haven't offered us anything concrete, any kind of commitment. It's more like it's an idea. It's in an exploratory stage. And I just don't think it's responsible to keep stalling. I will just remind everyone the motion is whether to postpone or not. I have a whole statement to make too, because I don't agree with selling that building. But at this point, the motion is to postpone. Does anyone have any other comment on the motion to postpone?
Trustee Blake? Yeah, I'll just say it seems hard to say that it's premature when it's been so many years. But I do hear the two things that you said: the strategic plan and this community group. Now I will say, with all respect to the community group, we've had other community groups in the past. We've also had the City of Rochester came to our meeting and said they wanted to buy the building. And so, at this point, I'm skeptical, but I hope that I'm I hope I'm pulling for you. But, if we do this, if we delay it this time, this has got to be the last time.
It just absolutely has to be the last time. Alright. So right now, the motion is, to postpone this discussion until May 2026. All of those in favor, say aye. Aye. You know what? I'm just gonna ask for hands since I can't see or hear. Okay. I see five. Those opposed, please say no. No. No. Alright. Five two. So at this point, we will postpone until May 2026. Alright. Next, we have a censure motion. I'd like to remind the board to keep comments germane and to be respectful.
At this time, I'll turn it over to trustee Gupta. Thank you, president Butel. At this time, I move to adopt a resolution of censure against Trustee Lecui included in the packet, which reads, whereas the Rochester Community Schools Board of Education recognizes the importance of maintaining the highest ethical and professional standards in all Board operations and communications, and whereas Board by law 1,001 states that, quote, Board members will take no private action that might compromise the Board or administration and
will not share any document or information that has not already been shared by the District, including, but not limited to, confidential or privileged information, end quote. And whereas, trustee Lecui recently authored and published an opinion piece in the Detroit News that referenced confidential information shared by the superintendent that had not been approved for release, presenting it publicly in a manner that was incomplete, misleading, and harmful to the reputation of the district and its leadership,
and potentially fiscally harmful to the district and other Oakland County school districts, and whereas this action constitutes a breach of Board Bylaw 1,001, undermines the integrity of the board superintendent relationship, makes it increasingly difficult for board members to receive necessary information in the future and compromises the district's ability to maintain confidentiality in sensitive matters, and whereas, the Board of Education must act to affirm its collective commitment to integrity,
confidentiality, and trust in governance. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Rochester Community Schools Board of Education formally censures trustee Carol Beth Litcuie for her violation of Board Bylaw 1,001 through the unauthorized disclosure and misrepresentation of confidential district information, and be it further resolved that effective immediately, Trustee Carol Beth Litcuie is removed without future assignments for one calendar year from all committees and liaison roles,
and be it further resolved that the Board reaffirms its expectation that all trustees will uphold the ethical standards outlined outlined in board bylaws, policies, and the board handbook, maintaining confidentiality, professionalism, and respect in all public and private actions. Alright. I would need a second. Second. Trustee Annis. Alright. And then any discussion? Trustee Lausanne? So I know this comes as no surprise, but I want just to make this very clear. I strongly oppose this motion to censure Carol Beth.
It's completely unnecessary. And let's be honest, it's not about misconduct. It's about a disagreement. Carol Beth was upfront about when and what she shared. She didn't link secrets. She shared information that was already made public. Another district, as mentioned earlier, already discussed this millage in an open, recorded meeting weeks before her op ed and, actually, before we even learned about it, and likely other districts have as well. Punishing her for speaking openly is wrong. It sends a terrible message that trustees can be punished for voicing opinions or for being transparent with the community that we serve.
This is not leadership. This is intimidation. We are supposed to be doing the work of this district for our students and staff, not spending time censuring colleagues. We should be modeling integrity, fairness, and respect. Publicly shaming a trustee for doing what she was elected to do to represent her community and exercise her Trustee Annas? You don't dismantle what you value. You don't tear down what you want to thrive. And you don't share what was given in confidence for political gain. In her recent op ed, Trustee Lecuye disclosed information that had been shared privately with trustees to determine whether it
was appropriate to bring the matter forward for public discussion at a future meeting. But before the Board could proceed to present and discuss the issue in public, with time for community input before any vote, Trustee Luclui chose to release the information prematurely under the guise of transparency, willfully knowing that doing so could negatively affect not just our district, but potentially other Oakland County school districts as well. As a school board trustee, there is a clear responsibility to keep certain information confidential until it is ready for
public consideration. Trustee Lecui knew this and chose to disregard it. By doing so, she placed her personal position above this board's ability to engage in a fair and transparent process and undermined trust in our superintendent, our district, and this governing body as a whole. Her actions contribute to shaping public perception in advance of full facts and implications being accurately presented in an unbiased way. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from the consequences of that speech.
For these reasons, I will support this censure. Anyone else wish to speak? Trustee Blake? Alright. So to be clear, Trustee Lecuy is accused of violating Bylaw 1,001. And I know that it was already read, but I think it's really important that we focus on the exact words of that bylaw, which says: Board members will take no private action that might compromise the board or administration and will not share any document or information that has not already been shared by the district, including but not limited to confidential or privileged information.
And this bylaw is phrased this way for a reason. There was a previous bylaw that just said a board member couldn't share any confidential information. That's essentially what it said. And when Andrew Weaver was on the board, he had a habit of sharing information that and then he would claim it wasn't confidential. Or say, Well, what makes it confidential? And you can read in the arbitration decision several incidents of that happening. So the board and the administration wanted to make sure not to get into these debates and just make clear that all the information that we learn as a board
is learned in trust, and it shouldn't be shared by us before the district has the chance to share it properly. This was debated in this SPCC committee between myself, Trustee Lecuey and Trustee Annis. We had robust discussions about this particular bylaw and the change was passed by a board vote and it was blessed by our legal counsel. So Trustee Lecuy knows all this well. This is not a surprise to her. Why is it important that we don't share information? Well, frankly, we get access to a lot of information in this role.
And sometimes we see very sensitive information: information about students, information about families, information about employees of the district. Sometimes, like in this case, we get asked our opinion about an idea. Many times I get asked about an idea by another trustee, by Mr. Russo, and many, many of those ideas never see the light of day. Others end up being pursued. And when they do, they're brought in front of the board for public discussion and for vote. That's the process. The seven of us were elected to be on this board, and with that position comes a certain level of trust.
We're trusted with information about the district, families, students, and so forth. But our friends, our families, our political causes, our favorite newspapers were not elected, and they should not have access to non public information. Just because someone is my friend, her friend, or she supports a certain organization doesn't mean they have a right to know things that we are entrusted with and the general public has not yet been shared. So here we were told of another idea. And let's be clear: every district in Oakland County was talking to their members,
taking their temperature, to see if there was an appetite for a countywide millage. We were asked not to say anything while the members were being pulled. But if this idea had support, there would be two phases where public opinion could be solicited. One, each board would have to take a public vote to put it on the ballot. At that point, everybody gets to speak, and all of you, and so forth. Secondly, then it would go on the ballot. And at that point, everyone could speak their opinion in any way they want. So nothing would have or could have been slipped past the voters. It was not possible.
Almost 200 board members across the county were being pulled for their interest. Not a single board member anywhere broke the trust of their superintendent in this fashion. And Trustee Lacouille not only broke the trust by revealing that she ran off with the partial information that she had, like the town crier, and published it to the entire readership of the Detroit News. There can be no bigger breach than that. She also characterized it as something nefarious in her op ed, in casting aspersions on all the school districts in the county. And there were ramifications from that. I know for a fact that Mr.
Russo was inundated with other superintendents reaching out to him, thinking he had perhaps breached their trust. This caused him professional embarrassment. It caused the district to look untrustworthy. And some districts around even believe that their bond issues failed at the ballot because this editorial made them look dishonest, or that they were hiding some plot. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. We've had several close calls lately with confidentiality. We've had closed door sessions where Trustee Lecui took information, material that we were asked to return. She took it, put it in her bag,
refused to give it back. There was another situation where we had to get district legal involved because she was so set on sharing public information that was sensitive about students. So it is scary to serve on a board with someone who has the power to do such damage and seems to not understand why there are confidentiality laws. And this is not about And this is not about And this is not about He's a say stuff about me that's untrue. And I can say in In closed session, he's saying he's pretending that in closed session,
I did stuff that wasn't driving. About transparency. The public has a right to hear things that go on eventually. The question is when and who is doing the telling. And we've learned, and I'm almost done, from our recent arbitration that if the board doesn't use the powers it has to constrain a trustee who's gone out of bounds, that can be used against the district later. So I know that many of us feel that we're compelled to act, even though nobody, or at least not me, enjoys this. I do not like to spend my I don't like to spend my time doing this, but the violation here is simple.
Will not share any document or information that has not already been shared by the district. It doesn't she had received information, the district did not put that out. It doesn't matter if she thinks it wasn't confidential, she thinks it wasn't privileged, because that's not in the bylaw. So she has no defense to that charge. And so for that reason, I have no choice but to vote yes to censure Trustee Lukuy. Trustee Alsbaugh? So I understand and I support us wanting to learn more. And the public is correct that they do need more information. As we prepare to communicate this information to the public,
we need to make sure we have all the information to address the questions so that we give the public enough information to make up their own mind. The question the board was asked was not whether you personally support the enhancement millage. It was whether you believe the voters should have the opportunity to decide that for themselves. Across the county, no other board member felt the need to dictate their personal opinion to the community. And that's exactly what Carol Beth Lukuy did. She wrote an op ed. The op stands for opinion. Instead of focusing on the original question,
should we ask our community, she skipped right to promoting her own agenda. That's not representation. That's imposition. Our board members have a duty to listen to our community and empower our community to have the voice, not to impose their personal views upon them. If this does end up being passed, we will have to pass it in public. I encourage you all to reach out to the board. And then if it gets through the board, you will have the final decision. You can vote. You can vote however you want. But if the final decision belongs with you, ever you want. But if the final decision belongs with you,
not with somebody's personal agenda, so I will be supporting this. I'll just say that, this does not have to do with a differing of opinion. It does not have to it is not a limiting of a First Amendment right. Trustee Lucuy has written many op eds that I disagree with, and there has been no censure of those. The purpose of this censure is to address a breach of our bylaws. The decision to publicly share information that had not yet been released by the district creates significant challenges for this Board, for the superintendent, and for the relationship between the Board and the superintendent.
When confidential information, which is information that a board member learns about through their official roles in which the district has not authorized for public release, is shared prematurely, it not only misrepresents the district's work, or in this case, the county's work, but also damages relationships, limits the flow of information to all board members, and erodes the trust that is essential for effective governance. Our ability to make informed, responsible decisions depends on open communication between the Board and the superintendent communication that can only exist when confidentiality is respected.
This censure identifies a breach of our bylaws and reaffirms our collective commitment to commitment to integrity, trust, and professionalism in service to our students and community, which is why I will be supporting it. At this time, does anyone else have a comment to make? Trustee Blake? Sorry. I just wanted to address one thing, which is people who say that this is a violation of the First Amendment. And I would refer those people to read Houston Community College System v. Wilson, 2022 case from the United States Supreme Court,
unanimous, where a board member was censured and they said it was a violation of the First Amendment rights and the entire Supreme Court agreed. And it's really interesting in here actually to see. They put the whole history of censures. The very first censure from the United States Senate was issued in 1811 after a member read aloud a letter from former President Jefferson that the body had placed under an injunction of secrecy. And it goes on and on. I won't read them all. But they're they're very interesting, the types of things. Another censure, insulting the speaker. The there's multiple over the history and that the court concluded that a censure is
a form of speech, just like her speech, and it is not a violation of the First Amendment. Madam President, Trustee Lacui? Well, first, I want to thank you for at least bringing this discussion into an open meeting. For months, much of the pressure has been happening behind closed doors, and it's about time that the public gets to see what's going on. I see two main claims being made in this resolution that was brought before us. The first one is that I supposedly released confidential information. And this isn't only about supposedly about breaking an unconstitutional bylaw,
but it states in here that I that I shared confidential information. And number two is that my op ed supposedly misled the public. Now I think some of my colleagues have forgotten about what it means to be a public servant, but I'm gonna address the first point first. I did not release confidential information. Everything referenced in my article is already public: Oakland Schools documents, district financial data, and communications that are all subject to FOIA. If the public can legally request the same information, then the board cannot claim that it's confidential.
How can I be punished for something that has to be revealed to the public anyway? Not to mention, as many community members brought up earlier today, other school districts have been going about this the right way. They've been discussing this millage already at open meetings weeks before my op ed was published. How can you call this confidential when the conversation is already happening in public with other school districts who are going about it the right way. And also I'm going to mention to you this. I wrote a couple emails to all of you, to this whole board, regarding this millage because it's complex.
And like we heard earlier, there's winners and losers in this in this debate. I wanted to debate the pros and cons. I heard nothing back. And I also was clear that I hadn't heard any compelling reason that this was confidential. And I also made it clear that I planned to get feedback from constituents because after all, Rochester is unique in this situation. We're such a large district. Our vote is likely gonna sway this one way or the other. I mean, if this passes, Pontiac has to give away 3,000,000 of their funds to other districts and stuff.
I mean, this could really hurt other people too. So, anyways, at the time when I said that, it seems that my intentions were understood. But here's the important point. Just because someone asks you not to talk about public information, that does not make the information confidential. Public bodies it's true. Public public bodies are restricted in what they're allowed to withhold from taxpayers, And tax proposals do not meet that threshold. The public has every right to know and weigh in before decisions are made, not after, not the day of the board meeting when we're discussing this.
And that includes about whether or not the proposal actually makes it onto the ballot in the first place. Because now regarding your second claim about misleading the public, I listened to all of you, and I have not heard a single example of anything that I said that was untrue. What you mean truly is. You don't think this is true, but what you mean is that you don't like my opinion on this issue. And that is just disagreement. It's not a violation, and it's not misconduct. A trustee is allowed to speak publicly with her constituents about a proposed tax increase.
And I was elected to represent the community, not to participate in a strategy that shields a tax proposal from the very people who would pay it. My fiduciary duty is to the residents who fund this district, not to the comfort or political preferences of the board majority or superintendent. Taking me off committees and preventing me from access to information simply for expressing a viewpoint, that's retribution. It is suppression of my First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and it's damaging to my reputation. So I will continue to ask questions,
to speak openly, and to ensure that matters affecting taxpayers and students are discussed publicly, not quietly decided first and explained later. Does anyone, wish to speak it again at this time? Alright. Well, we have a motion, a motion to accept the resolution of censure against trustee Lacui as presented. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. No. That's a five-two vote and the resolution of censure has passed. Alright.
We are moving on to, additional comments. Agenda item 11.1 is additional comments by members of the Board of Education. Individual board members may use this time to share information about school visits, updates from committees or organizations they're assigned to, or to express their personal opinion. Each trustee has three minutes, and there is a timer on the smart board for your reference. If you run over that time, I'm happy to ask the board if they are willing to extend the time. However, I would keep in mind that we are now at 10 Madam President? Trustee Gupta? Would I be able to make a motion to,
what is it, amend the agenda or suspend the rules to, entertain skipping board member comments given the time? Yes. You can make a motion to amend the agenda to skip item 11.1. Yes. Is there a second for that? I second. So the motion was made by Trustee Gupta and supported by Trustee Annas. This would require five votes. Is there any discussion at this time? Trustee Blake? I'll vote for it if everyone agrees. But, if somebody wants to make their comments Could I could I edit that to just we can just end the meeting as
a whole? I'm I'm sorry. I couldn't understand where it's going. Can we just add administration comments too to just end it now? Madam president. Hold on just one second. So there is a motion to amend to include, 11.2 as well. And I need a second for that. May I ask a point of clarification? Is there a second for that? Trustee Ousman. Okay. Now you can I guess I wanted to ask, mister Russo if, there is anything urgent you wanted to report tonight? I don't wanna skip your comments if you have something important. Thank you, trustee Gupta. I just had two very small items.
One was just acknowledging Veterans Day and those who served and, all of the events that are happening tomorrow in honor of in honor of them for the for the freedom that we presume almost every day and just to thank them. And, I'll skip the second. Thank you. Alright. So we have a motion a motion to amend the motion, to include 11.2. Can we move to a vote on that? All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven-zero vote.
So we are back to the, motion to amend the agenda to skip eleven point one and eleven point two. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a seven-zero vote. So we're going to skip two announcements here, which is that on November 17 at 04:00 at the RCS Early Childhood Education Center, the board will have a special meeting with a closed session for the superintendent evaluation. And following that, at 6PM, we will hold our regular Board of Education meeting.
And if there is no objection then at this point, we will adjourn the meeting at 10:04PM. Seeing none, we're adjourned.