All right. Good evening, and welcome to the Rochester Community Schools Board of Education regular meeting called to order at 6PM. If everyone would please rise and join with me in the Pledge of Allegiance. The flag is over here on my right. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This Board of Education regular meeting is a meeting of the board in public for
the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not a public community meeting. However, there is a time for public participation during the meeting. General public comment will be heard under agenda item four. If you wish to speak tonight and have not already filled out a yellow card, they're located on a table near the entrance to the auditorium. Once you've completed the card, please hand it to a shield officer. Please note that the 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 help by abiding by the norms we agreed
to. These include keeping comments germane to the agenda item, that we don't surprise each other at the board table, that we have one speaker at a time that is recognized by the chair before speaking, to be honest, to refrain from attacking others' motives, to uphold the chain of command, and to truly listen to each other. To those in attendance this evening, I would like to remind you that this is a meeting for the board to conduct business. We request that there not be any outbursts from the audience. Outbursts or any other behavior that disrupts our meeting will be seen as a breach
of the peace, and those individuals will be escorted from the building. On behalf of my colleagues on the board, we're grateful to be able to serve this community, and we appreciate your support. For roll call, all board members are present, with the exception of Trustee Blake, who is absent with notice. Moving on to our agenda, is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? Moved by Trustee Gupta. Is there support? From Trustee Annis. Any discussion at this point? All of those in favor of approving the agenda as presented, please say aye. Aye.
Opposed, please say no. That's a six o vote, and our agenda is approved. And now we have our spotlight on, success, which is highlighting, our career and technical education. And, missus Mulberry, if you could come forward. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today to celebrate CTE Month and the incredible achievements of our students here at Rochester Community Schools. We're especially excited to spotlight our students' accomplishments in the Career and Technical Education programs, which provide them with hands on learning experience,
certifications, and direct path to careers in high demand fields. To kick things off, I'd like to share a quick video overview of our CTE programs and the value they bring to our students and community. Please take a moment to watch. I'm excited to share an incredible update about our career and technical education programs. At Rochester Community Schools, we're committed to preparing students for the future, and our CTE programs are the heart of this mission. We offer 13 state approved programs that range from business administration and management to medical
careers. Careers. These programs aren't just about classroom learning. They encompass four core components that ensure comprehensive education and practical experience. First, classroom instruction. Here, students gain program specific technical skills, career ready practices, and essential academic knowledge. It's all about building a solid foundation. Next, laboratory learning. This is where the magic happens. Students engage in hands on project based learning that brings their classroom knowledge to life. Then, there's work based learning. We connect students with employers, both in and out of the classroom,
providing invaluable real world experience. This means internships, job shadowing, and more real career oriented interactions. And finally, student leadership. Through career and technical student organizations, students develop employability skills and participate in events and competitions that prepare them for the professional world. Our teachers are industry experts with over four thousand hours of experience in their fields. They bring real world expertise that enhances our students' learning experience. In the twenty twenty four to twenty five school year alone,
3,157 students participated in a CTE class. That's up by 530 students from the previous year. And the best part, they have the opportunity to earn industry recognized credentials, setting them on the path to success. So let's continue to support and expand these incredible programs. Together, we can shape the future, one student at a time. Thank you for your unwavering commitment to our student success. Hands on experiences. For more information about our CTE programs, please check out the CTE by the numbers, which I included in your packet today,
which I made a few copies of. And I also put some on the back table if our audience would like to review them. And also, there's they're all available on our web page on the RCS website. With further ado, I would like to invite Elia Tasco to the table. I'm thrilled to share a special moment today. We are recognizing a remarkable student. Aliyah Tasco from Stoney Creek High School has just become the first student in our EMT fire program to receive a nationally recognized EMT certification.
This is a huge accomplishment, not only for Aaliyah, but for the entire program, and we couldn't be more proud of her dedication and hard work. At this time, we will be giving her her EMT frame certificate and a certified shirt as a token of recognition for this milestone achievement. We are so, so proud of you, Aliyah. Well done. Once again, congratulations to Aaliyah and her parents. Thank you very much for all your love and support. I'd now like to invite, my friend and colleague, Erin Slomka, up to I want to say podium so bad,
but do we call this the table? Up to the table. We are fortunate to have fantastic partnerships with organizations like Pomeroy, Henry Ford, and Cedarbrook who host our 28 students in a thirty six hour clinical rotation at their facilities. These partnerships are vital in helping our students apply their classroom knowledge in a clinical setting. Today, we are going to hear not only from our partners, but also from students who have been part of these experiences. They'll share what they've gained from their time working at these facilities. To start, I'd like to invite Melanie Dex from Pomeroy to speak about their experience working with our students.
Powerade Living is honored to be part of the medical careers clinical training program with Rochester Community Schools. This incredible program provides students with the valuable hands on experiences, giving them the tools they need to pursue successful careers in health care. Through this partnership, we have witnessed the students' enthusiasm for learning, particularly in areas therapeutic, communication, and relationship building. They have shown a genuine commitment to connecting with residents and the health care team, which is essential in preparing them for their future roles in this field. We are excited to continue supporting these bright and dedicated students as they develop the
skills and knowledge that will serve them well in their health care careers. Thank you, Melanie. Now we'll hear from Safa, who's currently conducting her clinicals at Pomeroy. Safa, can you share what you've learned during your time there and how it's impacted your career goals? Hello, everyone. My name is Safa, and I'm from Rochester High School. And I was honored to be a part of the first year of medical career this year, and I am proud and I'm confident in saying that it has taught me so much about my future endeavors. By being able to go to the Pomeroy assisted living and memory care center for my clinical rotations, I've been able to gain a one of a kind hands on experience,
practicing what we've learned in class. At Pomeroy, we've had the privilege of interacting directly with the residents so that we can apply our knowledge to real life scenarios. The caregivers and medical technicians are so passionate about their jobs that it inspires me to be like them too. From the motivating lessons they have taught us by shadowing them, I've solidified my passion for pursuing medicine in the future. Thanks to my experience in medical careers, I am positive that I will have a strong foundation as I pursue my studies in biopsychology at the University of Michigan.
Thank you. Thank you, Safa, for sharing your experience. Next, we'll hear from Tanya Reichmont, our co teacher and school nurse from Henry Ford, who will talk to us about the clinical opportunities that are offered to our students at the Henry Ford medical offices. Hello. On behalf of Henry Ford Health and my director, Angela Delpup, it has been a privilege to collaborate with Karen and the RCS team to launch the medical assistant CTE program. The health care industry has so many wonderful career opportunities, many of which can be stepping stones to, career advancement. Our Henry Ford clinical rotations provide an opportunity for students to establish relationships outside of
the academic setting as well as gain exposure to a variety of health care roles in the clinical setting. In the ambulatory clinical setting, students may have been able to interact with medical assistants, nurses, nurse practitioners, physicians, phlebotomists, billers, registration team members, navigators, and more. This exposure not only provides the students with opportunity to experience how the clinical setting functions, but also exposes them to the importance of each role. Although each clinical setting is very different, students may have been able to directly interact with patients and observe how the clinical
team supports the individual needs of each patient. Students gain very important soft skills that they will take with them in all future endeavors. It is our hope that if the student finds that health care is their passion, that they may want to join one of our Henry Ford health care teams. We often have open positions. They may decide that it isn't what they thought and decide to to pursue a different career, which is completely fine. Henry Ford is committed to cultivating a future workforce with meaningful purpose that bonds with
our communities. We have enjoyed working with the RCS students and hope that we have been able to make a small impact on their futures. Thank you, Tanya. Now we'll hear from Aiden, who has a clinical placement at Troy Family Care. Good evening. My name is Aiden. I'm a senior at Rochester High School. I was recently selected for a position in the medical careers class, and I have been given amazing opportunities since joining the pilot course. Throughout the course, I have gained lots of experience in different lab settings, observing medical assistants, and touring various simulation labs at different universities. Throughout our clinical placements,
I've had the opportunity to be placed at Troy Family Care associated with Henry Ford to complete my clinical hours. These hours will contribute to my preparation for the medical assistant certification exam coming in May. The at the office, I've observed various medical procedures such as medication administration, venipuncture, and urinalysis, as well as the use of various medical equipment during physical examinations. This experience has exposed me to many new settings in health care and exploring various future health professions. It has fostered my interest in health care and has given me the opportunity to
continue my education at the University of Michigan to study nursing with a focus in neuropsychology. Thank you, Aiden. We'll now hear from Riddhi, who's completing her thirty six clinical hours at Cedar Brook. Riddhi, what have you experienced and learned during your internship so far, and how will it prepare you for the future career in health care? Good evening, board members, RCS administration, staff, teachers, and community members. As Mrs. Mulisbury said, I am Riddhi, a senior at Rochester High School, and I've been lucky enough to be a part of the RCS pilot class medical
careers. Med Crews has given me so many amazing opportunities. We have been provided with simulation labs, being able to practice patient interactions, and tons of practice for a clinical medical assistant exam. I've also had the privilege of going into the community to complete my thirty six hours of clinical observations. I have been placed at Cedar Brook Senior Living Center. There, I am able to observe how caregivers interact with patients that are part of the memory care unit. This has been such a rewarding experience because I'm able to see all the different aspects of care as well as what care looks like on a long term basis
outside of the hospital. Overall, this class has provided me a window to different possible career paths in medicine. I now know that I would like to major in physiology and neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh and continue research neurosciences so I can further assist patients in the medical field. Thank you. Okay. Well, it was just wonderful to hear from all of the students and the staff that have been able to make the medical program, applicable and available at Rochester High School for our Adams and Rochester Students. And we hope to open up those classes next year. We are so thankful for our partners and students for sharing these insights.
As you can see, these experiences are truly life changing for our students. They not only get the chance to develop technical skills, but they also grow personally and professionally through their exposure to real world health care environments. The feedback from our partners and students shows the immense value these work based learning opportunities offer, helping students gain confidence, build networks, and make informed career choices. As we continue to celebrate CTE month, February twenty twenty five, we recognize the significant impact that career focused education has on our students and our
community. These programs provide critical pathways for students to enter the workforce with the skills and certifications needed for success in high demand fields. I want to thank everyone, our students, our partners, our board, our admin, our teachers, for their dedication to preparing the next generations of professionals. The work we do here doesn't just shape the future of our students, it strengthens our community and local economy as well. For more information about our program, please do not hesitate to visit our website or contact me directly,
Karen Molesbury. Thank you so much for your time tonight. Thank you for sharing that, with all of us. 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. Trustee Blake, our secretary is not here today, so I will just indicate that we have received 22 communications, and they are located in the board packet for reference. Next, we have an update from our student representatives. Each one will, I believe, come forward and introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about what is happening.
Are you doing individual ones tonight? Okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Anna Grumwold, and I am the representative from Rochester High School. To start off today, I'm gonna be talking a little bit about what the high schools have been doing to get the juniors ready for the SATs. The school's goals is for helping the students with math, English, testing tips, and test anxiety. One of the things that Rochester is doing to help students with this is having an SAT prep and homework help after schools every Thursday from 02:30 to 04:30 in
the media center. These sessions will help or will help the students prepare for the SAT. These sessions go through April 3, and there's no sign up needed. The nest the next thing the district is doing to help juniors prep is the SAT prep they can go on and do on Khan Academy. At Rochester, everybody who joins and completes these test challenges will earn raffle tickets and will give them the chances to earn prizes later on. Lastly, we have different SAT workshops coming up.
The first two sessions will be held on Wednesday, March 19, and Wednesday, Mar April second. These two sessions will be both during advisory and will be focused on math, reading, and writing. The next two sessions will be held on Thursday, April 4, from 02:40 to 03:10, and Friday, April 5 from 06:50 to 07:20. These study sessions will be held in F 106. Next, I have some sports winter sports updates. First, Rochester dance team was able to win the national championship in Palm and also take
home fourth in Jazz. Congrats to everybody who is a part of the varsity dance team. And also a big congratulations to the cheer team who were able to win the twenty twenty five district championship. Lastly, for our sport updates, the girls' basketball team won the OAA white champions on February 14, and we also had our boys' basketball team win OAA Blue Championship, also on the fourteenth. Next, our Rochester High School robotics team has been working really hard getting their robots ready
for their competition coming up soon. Student council updates. Student council has been very busy the past couple weeks. Our first event I'm gonna talk about is our annual Falcon Friendship Game, which is a basketball game we held hold for the CI program at Rochester High School. This event ended up going very well, and I just wanted to give a big thanks for everyone who came help and supported and raised money for this program at Rochester. We also had our Rochester SUGO, hold a blood drive last Thursday during school. We were able to collect 32 units of blood,
which is seven over our goal. We all the donations were helped to impact, 96 lives across our community. Thank you for everybody who was able to donate. Lastly, student council just came back today from Grand Rapids from our student council states. We were able to have three of our student council members present a showcase of on an event at Rochester called Falcon Fest. We also were able to win some awards at States. A couple of a couple of these awards are the Star School Award, the Quilt Award, which we earned because of our Falcon Friendship Team,
and we also won the Exemplary Service Project Award for our blood drives that we host at Rochester High School. That is all for Rochester. Thank you for listening, and I can't wait to see what we're up to next week. Good evening, everyone. My name is Stephanie Aviars from Rochester Adams High School. It is my pleasure to report on our recent and upcoming events tonight. My apologies. You have to bear with me. We just came back from the state's convention, so so I was running some chance. So I apologize I'm losing my voice tonight. Charity Week is fast approaching for Ace, Rochester, Stoney, and Adams High School.
And we are in our final planning steps for what is sure to be our best charity week yet with the goal of $100,000 This year, we are raising money for Camp Kesem, an organization that allows children with family members who have cancer to attend a fun camp that helps them feel like kids again, away from the financial and medical stress of them. All schools have an exciting week lined up, including events such as Pia Senior, an ice cream sundae bar, teacher versus students wing eating contest, and movie hour that students can purchase a ticket to attend during class time.
We also have some new engaging events at our pep assembly, including barbecue sauce wrestling, a table surfing race, and a performance by an add an add an add alumnus. Students and staff will also be participating in spirit week and food auction prizes each day, including the chance to win a jagged fork breakfast, pita away lunch, crumble cookies, and many more. We find food incentives are great ways to get our students involved in charity week. We also have, after school events lined up, including a parent silent auction gala this upcoming Friday.
We encourage you all to come learn more about Camp Kesem and potentially win prizes like a spa day or beads headphones. Registration information for the gala can be found in our Instagram bio. We also encourage you to bring your children, to our kids night out on Tuesday, March 4 for a fun night of games at 6PM at Adams. Tickets will be sold at the door. As you can tell, our councils have put a great deal of time into planning for charity week. If you would like to donate, any amount is greatly appreciated, and the link is provided in our Instagram bios.
Thank you so much. Now for Adams Club and sports report. As our winter sports season comes to a close, we would like to highlight some accomplishments. After a very successful season, our girls' basketball team is preparing for district finals with recent wins against Harper Woods and Utica High School. Our boys' basketball team was proud to win the cross show down game this past month. The Rochester United hockey team continues a successful season with recent win against Port Huron Northern and are preparing for the region thirteen final.
Our boys swim and dive dive team had a very successful season with a 16 to one record, breaking two pool records, and four athletes qualifying for states. Our cheer team finished third at the recent regional competition and and are preparing to fight for the win as states. Good luck, teams. Moving forward, our spring sports are beginning training for the upcoming season. Additionally, the monthly UN team attended a conference run by the University of Chicago this past month, and our DECA states qualifiers are competing in Detroit from March.
Our robotics team has also been hard at work preparing for upcoming competitions. We wish you all the best of luck. As our HOSA team prepares for states, we have partnered with pre med students at the University of Michigan to provide an informational presentation on March 10 with tips on how to get ahead in the medical field and opportunities for future connections with one on one guidance. Looking ahead, our language classes are very excited to participate in an annual foreign language week nearing the March to celebrate students' cultural backgrounds and diversity with presentations,
crafts, and, of course, delicious food. That's all for Adams. Thank you so much for your time this evening, and I look forward to seeing you all next month. Good evening, everyone. I'm Emma Chico, and I represent Stoney Creek High School. Stoney has been busy throughout this past month despite the many snow days that we very much enjoyed. Throughout the district, our schools are having an eighth grade parent night on March 13. There's also a club fair during that time so parents can see what types of classes, clubs, and sports their eighth graders might be interested in and can enjoy and can join as they enter high school.
Also, student councils from Stony, Adams, and Rochester just returned from the state conference in Grand Rapids just a few hours ago. Sony had the honor of hosting it. We have been working since last year to perfect the conference from decorations to structured activities to the technology behind the entire weekend. We were able to learn so much from not only the experience of hosting this event, but also the conference itself. We are so proud of all the work we have done and the success of the conference. We came home with new leadership skills and the best memories.
Our school also won various awards this weekend, including the Award of Excellence, Star School Award, Exceptional Service Project, and the Quilt Award, which are all very high honors to receive. Izzy Abezai received an Unsung Hero Award. Our advisor, Miss Antrop, received an Advisor of the Year Award. And Colin Lott received and was a finalist for the Student of the Year Award. Lastly, Corina Morfin made it all the way to States with her Michigan student voice presentation, presented it in front of thousands of students there, and won. We are so proud of her. Now that the conference is over,
we can finally dedicate all of our time to Charity Week coming up next week. Our kickoff assembly will take place this Friday, with the official week starting next Monday. It will be full of events like coin selling the teachers, dodgeball and spikeball tournaments, our first ever splash bash slash cannonball contest in the pool, a duck race, senior sidekick day, and so much more. Sony is also this year's host of the Charity Ball on Saturday, March 8, with students from Adams, Rochester, and Ace that will also be attending. We are including more events than we ever have in the past and can't wait
to get our school involved in raising money for Camp Casem. I'm also proud to announce that our cheer team just won regionals this weekend. We are so proud of them and can't wait to see how they do at states this Friday, hoping they can bring home another state title. Earlier this month, our dance team got eighth in the nation at nationals, which is a great way to end an amazing season. Our boys' basketball team made the playoffs with a bye, so we wish them luck and hope they make it far. Auditions for our spring musical just happened, and they will start prep for the amazing show they put on every year very soon. That is all I have today for Sony.
Thank you, and have a great night. Good evening, board mem oh, is this one? Oh, good evening, board members. My name is, and I am the student rep for ACE. Seniors, we're almost done with almost fifteen days left, and we have so many fun events coming up. ACE students are welcome to attend any or all of their homeschool events. Honors Convocation for Adams will be on Thursday, April 24, Stoney's at May on May 8, and Rochester's on May 15. All three proms will be at the Palazzo Grande Banquet Hall. Rochester will have their prom on April 29,
Stoney's April thirtieth, and Adams will be on May 1. All schools will have exams on Monday, May 19, and on their last day, Tuesday, May. Adams and Stoney will have their senior sunset that evening. Seniors at all schools will get the chance to walk in their captain gowns for their senior walk and clap out on Wednesday, May 21. Seniors at ACE will also have a senior luncheon and their clap out that morning before going to their homeschool event. All graduations will be held at Oakland University's arena. Rochester's graduation will be May 27,
Stoney's on the twenty eighth, and Adams on the twenty ninth. Immediately following graduation, all three schools will have their senior all night parties. Thank you for your time, and I'll see you next month with more updates. Alright. Good evening, board. My name is Minjun Kim. I am the IA representative. Compared to the other schools, we do have some similar events, but I think we also have our unique differences, that I'd like to share a little bit about today. In terms of senior events, our graduation is scheduled for June 1 at the Pine Knob Music Theater in Clarkston following a fun night at Legacy nine twenty five for the senior all night party.
Currently, our steward student leadership teams are working hard to host some final fundraising events that will support our senior prom taking place on a yacht on the Detroit River. Probably the fanciest thing that the students at the IU will get to experience, definitely a huge step up from the Bowers Farm dances. Some events, also include a Dave's Hot Chicken fundraiser that everyone, loves that will be on March 3 and an IA talent show on the fourth that will hopefully bring down the prom ticket cost.
Finally, reporting back to an event from two year, two weeks ago, IA had a fusion of the Winter Olympics along with our own canned food drive, kind of our version of the charity week. Collectively, we raised around $1,500 and a few thousand cans, which will be all going towards the Greeners Food Bank. So we're very excited to see what March brings to us, but for now, that's all for IA. Thank you so much for your time today and have a wonderful evening. Thank you all for coming and giving us an update of what's going on at
the schools. We I know it's a highlight for me. Agenda item 5.3 is the section where members of the Board of Education share communications that were shared directly with them and were not sent to the full board. Did any board member receive communication from the public? Trustee LaSanne? I received is this on? I received a message from a parent at MUSSEN, Casey Bressler, who expressed her concerns regarding the SAC enrollment process, and she requested us to take a look at it. Things that she mentioned was returning families do not have priority registration.
Application process takes place at 12PM, so in the middle of a parent's workday, which can be difficult for some parents. Parents are not immediately notified if they're accepted or denied. Actually, she had one child get accepted and one not. So she was kinda like, I have it be both. She said that the application process, there's no option to select all school days and you have to manually select every day that you need SAC for throughout the entire calendar year. And she said with the program pretty much filling up within the first five minutes of opening, it can make it pretty competitive and stressful for families,
especially because with, families with multiple children as each one has to be submitted separately. So if we could take a look at that, kind of streamline the process, it would be very helpful to parents, especially those with multiple kids. And also, there was an email sent by Shelley Brown who was unable to attend tonight's meeting. She asked that I read her email and I kinda just have a little summary of what her email was. Yes? That I think, didn't that go to everyone? And it is in the it would be in the board packet. Okay. Well, it's in the board packet for reference then. And so that's all. Thank you. Madam president? Just one second.
Trustee Annas? Yes. I received correspondence, from Melissa Hoffman, Sarah Colo, and Carrie Norton. They're all RCS parents who reached out to express interest in sharing their child's special education journey, with me so that I could share them when I was in, D. C. Advocating for full funding of IDEA. I also received an email communication from Gabriela Gandor, who is the legislative staffer for U. S. State Representative John James, or U. S. House Representative, I should say, John James's office. And I received, a follow-up thank you email from Otto Madala,
who is the public diplomacy coordinator for the Embassy of Sweden. He extended his thanks to myself and the contingency of Oakland County School Board trustees, who have the honor of visiting their embassy and learning about their education system. Trustee Lecui? I had a follow-up to what Trustee Lozan had mentioned. She said when she talked to the family about SAC that I think I heard her say that one child was accepted from a family and one child was not. I was wondering if you could help me understand what our process is and why something like that might happen.
I don't know that we have the answer at this point. So, I'm sure that the administration would be happy to get back to you with that. Madam president. Hello? My understanding is the first come, first served basis. So you submit one kid, then you have to start the whole process over again for your next child. So people probably bumped her in line putting their kids in. So that's, like, how it works. Well, thank you for sharing that. I'm sure they can look into that and see. Did anyone else have any, communication? Madam president? Trustee Lacui? Yes. Eric Roberts contacted me on February 18 to discuss how the courts have diminished FOIA now that it's not applicable to employees of public bodies and how he plans to
help address that going forward. Trustee Alsbaugh? Thank you for sharing. So I received a communication from Melissa Hoffman as a follow-up to a conversation we were having about special ed. I'm also trying to connect with Christina, who is in the heart PTA since I'm a representative to that school. And I received a thank you from the principal at Delta Kelly because I went over to their bingo night and helped her drew the numbers and had a lot of fun. Alright. And I received two emails, one from Jennifer Otter regarding live streaming board meetings and one from Melissa Hoffman regarding the IDEA,
resolution that's on tonight's agenda. Alright. Moving on. Next we have Madam President, what Absolutely. The email you received about live streaming board meetings, I was just curious to learn more about what that was about. It was just a, trustee from a different district who was just curious about our live streaming. Next we have Jamie Rockliff, who would be providing us with a PTA council update. Good evening. Tomorrow night is one of the biggest nights of the year for our PTA council. Our annual Founder's Day celebration will be held at Rochester High School. Seventy parent,
staff, and student volunteers will be recognized for their efforts to our school communities through PTA. Lisa Kowalski, president of the board of directors for The Arc of Oakland County and longtime special advocate for special education and RCS, will be our keynote speaker. Known for her decades of advocacy for all students, Lisa is a perfect person to speak to our theme, celebrating advocacy. There will be musical performances by elementary students from Brewster and Longmeadow, as well as Rochester High School students. Additionally, our online auction will wrap up tomorrow night,
which supports the six Scholarships PTA Council Awards each year to RCS graduating seniors. On Wednesday, our high school Battle of the Books teams will meet at Stoney Creek for their third and final battle of the year. Following month on March 12, they will wrap everything up with the finale as three of this year's authors join via Zoom for a q and a with our students. Next week, Tuesday, March 4, is our district wide reflection ceremony here at Stoney Creek High School. Over 200 students in kindergarten through twelfth grade will be recognized for participating in this
national PTA arts program. Winners at the district and state level competition will be shared that evening as well. Authors in April is currently looking for high school students to introduce each of this year's authors at its annual banquet on April 28. Interested students can apply online at authors in April's website. Our Green Schools teams are working on finalizing their applications for green school certification. Applications are due by March 9, and we're hoping again to have all 20 of our PTA units, reserve receive certification. Right now,
many of them are holding sock recycling drives for used socks. And future plans for the spring include a cleanup with the Clinton River Watershed Council and Earth Day activities. Later on this spring, our PTA council is bringing Richard Gary to Adams High School for a presentation on digital safety and safe online technology use. The event will be held on April 22 at 7PM in the Adams High School auditorium. It's open to all parents and students over the age of 11. April 20 third, our legislative committee is hosting its annual careers in public service event.
The evening is geared towards students in eighth grade and above who might be interested in careers in public service fields. Anyone interested in participating as a speaker can reach out to their PTA's legislative rep. And then our annual health and wellness fair is planned for Saturday, May 3 at Rochester High School. Details will be shared as the event gets closer. Thanks again. Thank you. Appreciate you being here to give us an update. And now we'll hear a PAC update from Melissa Hoffman. Good evening. I'm Melissa Hoffman, president of the Special Ed Parent Advisory Committee for Rochester Community Schools.
Any families in need of special education support can reach out and let us know how we can help. We can be found on the RCS webpage under special education, on our Facebook page, and on our website, rcspac.com. We would love to hear from you. Our last meeting was set to be held at Hugger Elementary on January 21. Due to building closures from the cold temperatures, we moved our meeting to virtual. But with the important topic of building move ups to discuss with our special ed supervisors, we had nearly 60 people join the call to learn,
ask questions, and give feedback on improving the process. Our special ed team heard the need and will be continuing this dialogue with parents and caregivers on March 10 at the Administration Building, which will be another opportunity to build on this conversation and prepare to move on to the next level in their child's education. We also heard from some parents during and after the call that there is a particular feeling of disconnect from the community in early childhood. I can speak from experience, early childhood special education is a particularly raw and overwhelming time for our families.
Our incoming chair, PAC chair, Jackie Marcard, and I met with the early childhood special ed supervisors to follow-up and convey the concerns and come up with creative solutions. We are very excited to see some of our collective ideas implemented and going forward, and to better support our families to help create a community and provide easier access to information at a time when families often feel lost. For our families with children ages seven to 14, in partnership with the special ed department, PAC is proud to present our SIB shops at West Middle School. These are offered at no cost to families,
thanks to a grant we received. We have held two so far. And according to an inside report from my own daughter, they are, quote, the most fun part of the weekend. The sessions are led by a trained facilitator and are mainly a chance for the kids to get to spend time with other kids who also have siblings by UPS. Sessions will take place on four more Saturdays and Sundays from March to May. Kids can participate in one or all remaining sessions. March 13 at 06:30, also at West Middle School, we will present a free program for parents and caregivers on regulation and behavior.
This presentation will review emotional regulation for children with challenging behaviors and strategies to support their growth. Nominations are still open for Sparkle Awards. Our Sparkle Awards are our favorite night of the year when we honor hundreds of teachers, students, staff, and community members. Nominations can now be submitted through our website. Currently, we are on pace once again to break another record. Last year, we received over 400 nominations and filled the auditorium at Adams twice. This year, we are pacing even faster. Please join us on April 15 at Adams High School and bring your Kleenex.
Information on these programs, as well as sparkle nominations, can be found on our website, rcspac.com. Our next public meeting will be this Wednesday, February 26, at Musson Elementary at 7PM, with a meet and greet at 06:30 to give everyone a chance to speak with any available PAC board members, special ed administrators, or RCS administrators who are in attendance, and of course, meet each other. We will be giving our first official welcome to Jason Blake as our Board of Education Liaison. We hope that our other six board members will know that they are still welcome
to join us as community members at any time as our meetings are public. At this meeting, we will be highlighting three very important topics, which are all interconnected and stressful for our parents right now. The first is special ed student safety. We will welcome special guests, Deputy Superintendent Doctor. Neil DeLuca, and RCS Safety and Security Consultant Steve Shuttenholm. This discussion will include considerations for emergency preparedness, as well as personal safety, such as medical and mental health emergencies. We will also be talking about our new visitor security system and how it will
better help our special ed students. Excuse me. Another important topic we will cover is special ed discipline. Student behaviors are often a manifestation of their disability, and how we handle it can have a dramatic impact on the outcome of their education and future. According to the Michigan Department of Education, quote, the Michigan State Board of Education's mission is to support learners in learning. This can only be achieved if students are in school pursuing their education, end quote. The basic law of special education is FAPE, free and appropriate public education,
and that starts with access to the building. When we unjustly deny students access to their learning environment for a behavior that is a manifestation of their disability rather than respond with support, we erode their right to public education. Jackie and I met with our superintendent and special ed executive director to ensure a plan that all staff are informed on their legal rights of all students with disabilities. A training of building administrators trainers, excuse me, was given in January, and there's more to come. At our meeting this Wednesday, we will get our first update on the district's plans to continue educating all RCS
staff. We truly appreciate the partnership with our administrators and the investment in the care for our special ed students' rights and well-being. And the third and final main topic on everyone's mind is the current climate surrounding education, particularly special education. We understand change can be unsettling. We are working to gather the facts, and our legislative update will include a summary of current happenings as they come in. We believe there is more that unites us than divides us, especially when it comes to disability. RCS PAC has no political affiliations or opinions, and we remain committed to supporting all families in special education.
It's a long one. I'm sorry. Finally, later tonight, this board will discuss support for the funding of IDEA, and I'd like to address that. When I say PAC supports all families in special education, it's because we have made a commitment that every family and child that receives special education is important to us. Each of us came to be part of parent advisory committee with a story. For me personally, this story starts in 1939 when my uncle was born. Within a few years, my grandparents noticed he wasn't doing the things other children were doing.
And about a decade later, the Detroit public schools came to their home and told them, in order to continue his education, he would need to move to the Plymouth Home For Boys in Northville, which is an institution was an institution. Special education didn't exist and public schools were not able to accommodate him. Excuse me. He spent the rest of his childhood there and the rest of his life lamenting the way they treated him. In 1975, the IDEA was created, which was then known as the EHA. Prior to 1975, only one in five children with a disability attended a public school.
The EHA established rights and protections for all children, stating that they can receive a free and appropriate education alongside their peers. Congress passed the EHA with the intention that eventually, the federal government would fund 40% of the IDEA. But since then, fifty years have still passed and we are all still waiting. In 2012, my son was born. He attends the ASD program at West Middle School and interacts with his peers throughout the day. The services children like my son have been able to receive these past fifty years
are a miracle, but hardly a day goes by we aren't reminded how fragile they are. Nothing is ever handed to anyone in special education. Every IEP, every service, every accommodation has to be fought for because funds are forever in short supply. The truth is, our school district is still mandated by federal law. No no now known as IDEA, excuse me, to serve our special ed students. So ultimately, the lack of funds from the federal government just pushes the burden down to the state level and down to the district. And ultimately, that lack of funding means a bigger fight for families to get adequate services from
our school districts. We have already waited fifty years since 1975. Here in Michigan, we educate our most impaired adults to age 26. That means my son will complete his adult program in February, just after my uncle would have turned 100. I know that day will mark one hundred years of fighting for disability rights for my family, because this is a battle that will never be done. And today and on that day, I'll always be proud to fight alongside each and every family for what we deserve. But maybe today, in 2025,
on the fiftieth anniversary of saying all children belong in our schools, maybe this will be the year we make full funding of the IDEA one less thing to fight for. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa. Appreciate your update. We're now on agenda item six. This is public comment. This provides an opportunity for board members to hear from community members. If you wish to speak tonight but have not already filled out a yellow card, please fill one out now. The yellow cards are located on the table near the entrance to the auditorium. Once completed, please hand it to the shield officer. 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. The time will be on the, smart board in front of you, and I'll try to let you know when you have thirty seconds remaining. Please be mindful of this time limit. When addressing the board, please state your name and your relationship to the district. To protect student privacy, we ask that no one identify a specific student without their permission, even if the student's name is not used. Also, we ask that you address your comments to the entire board and not to individual board members, school district employees, or to members of the audience.
The board will not be responding to comments or questions during the meeting. However, someone will follow-up if needed. At this time, I do have a number of cards here. I believe that we'll be able to get through them in our thirty minute time limit. And first up, we have Christy Fleming followed by, I believe it's Dan Bowe and then Stephanie Maury. And, there's a microphone right back there. It's got a spotlight on it. Hello, my name is Christie Fleming, and I'm a parent in the district with two children and a graduate as well.
As you are well aware, it has been brought to the board's attention multiple times that this district currently allows boys to use girls' bathrooms. As a parent of a young girl in the district, I expressed my concern to the board and the girls bravely did as well. You ignored us all. In fact, we will never forget Trustee Gupta's response that the girls were fear mongering, which went unchecked by the board majority. It would appear that all does not mean all if you are a girl in the Rochester Community Schools. You currently have drafted a gender support plan which states on page six that,
quote, any student shall have access to the restrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity, consistently asserted at school. This flawed policy is consistent with the board's consistent refusal to protect the rights of girls In schools, on your website, you currently have a false statement in your LGBTQ resolution that states, and I quote, Whereas, U. S. Department of Education and the U. S. Department of Justice has recognized that the Supreme Court's reasoning in the Bostock decision applies to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972,
Title IX, and that Title IX prohibits discrimination against harassment of students and school employees based on sex, including gender identity and sexual orientation, end quote. These policies violate the rights of our young girls and that is provided for by the Title IX of the Higher Education Act and specifically violate President Trump's executive order entitled, Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-twelve Schools from 02/04/2025. The district needs to announce tonight in this meeting that they are rescinding the policies, procedures, and guidance that permit the violation of our young girls' rights.
Failing that, the district will be subject to a violation filed with the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education. Let me say that again. The district will be subject to a violation filed with the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education. I personally have addressed this board many times in the subject, including the Title IX coordinator who sent our family's letter to the attorneys to respond with the district's position, which was silence. What is so disheartening is that instead of Rochester Community Schools being the trailblazer in Michigan for solutions and visions for all,
you are seeking excuses and holding the line, which helps no one. You have my contact information. Please let us know if you will be bringing your policies and procedures into compliance with the law. Our young girls deserve it. Thank you. Thank you. Dan Bowe, followed by Stephanie Maury, followed by Megan Madigan. Dan Bowe, Oakland Township, parent of four and grandparent of 10. So just for context related to really the previous speaker, the Biden administration's title nine regulations are something that the Rochester schools fully embrace.
However, your attorneys or you don't aren't listening because a federal judge reputed repudiated those rules, canceled it just several weeks ago. Added to that, Trump's president Trump's executive order, he signed on the very first day in office, 01/20/2025. In that executive order, he declared there are two sexes going back to six thousand years of human history, okay, male and female, and the Education Department will enforce Title IX consistent with the directive. What was the, Department of Education's response? Department officials said that in reverting to the 2020 rule during the 2020,
Trump's first administration, they will return to enforcing Title nine protections on the basis of biological sex in schools and on campuses. Trump declared in his executive order what I which I just mentioned. So they're going they're complying with that. You're not. Craig Trainor, the acting sec assistant secretary for the department and its civil rights leader wrote, the federal judge who vacated the Biden rule correctly repudiated the 2024 Title IX rule
expanding meaning of on the basis of sex to include gender identity. Trainor added that the department will enforce the Title IX consistent with the Trump's executive order of 01/20/2025. The Office for Civil Rights recently opened an investigation into allegations that Denver Public Schools District discriminated against its female students by converting a female restroom in an all gender into an all gender restroom in its largest high school according to department news release. So there's an investigation now ongoing with that.
If Rochester Schools continues with what it's been doing and is doing today, not only are you jeopardizing the funding that I just heard talked about on one of the from one of the board members and one of the parents, but you're jeopardizing the entire funding for the school district. Time to wake up. We're we're we're heading back to America. We're not in this fog anymore. Time to wake up, folks. You're in charge of where you're at. Okay? I wish you well. Hello. My name is Stephanie Mayuri. I'm a parent at Hugger, and I'm also on the executive board of PAC.
When my son began his first year at Rochester Community Schools, it marked a pivotal moment for our family. He is autistic and requires a comprehensive network of support to access his civil right to a free and appropriate public education. Thankfully, through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, which Melissa spoke about, he has access to critical resources that help him thrive, including adult support, a dedicated resource room teacher, speech therapy, social work, occupational therapy. These services are not mere conveniences for him. They are lifelines that enable him to navigate his educational journey and grow alongside his
peers. But while IDEA guarantees these rights on paper, reality tells a different story. When IDEA was passed in 1975, congress promised that the federal government would fund 40% of the additional costs associated with special education. That promise, nearly fifty years old, remains unfulfilled. Today, federal funding covers less than 13%. This shortfall places immense pressure on school districts, forcing them to stretch already limited budgets to meet the needs of all students. For my son, inclusion has been a cornerstone of his growth and development.
And research consistently demonstrates that being educated alongside peers without disabilities is vital for children with disabilities. It fosters social emotional development, builds relationships, and promotes understanding and acceptance among all students. For him, inclusion means being seen, valued, and embraced for who he is. And it means that his classmates learn with him, from him, and about him, creating a richer and more empathetic learning environment for everyone. But inclusion and access don't happen without funding. Fully funding IDEA would mean that schools can provide the necessary support without compromise.
It would mean hiring and retaining qualified staff, providing appropriate training, ensuring that every child has the tools they need to succeed. Investing in children now has the greatest impact on outcomes later in life, setting the foundation for their long term success and contribution to society. Passing laws like IDEA is a powerful gesture, but without adequate funding, it's an empty promise. It leaves school in an impossible position and parents in a perpetual fight for what their children need. Fully funding IDEA would honor the commitment made nearly half a century ago and reflect
a true investment in the potential of every child. Thirty seconds. Thank you. As a parent of a child who receives special education services in RCS, I wholeheartedly support permanent funding of IDEA and applaud this board of education for prioritizing and supporting all learners in our district. Thank you. Megan Madigan followed by Catherine Agarwal followed by Stephanie Van Dale. Hi. My name is Megan Madigan, and I'm a parent to three kids in the district. One with an IEP who utilizes special education services. I am also an RCS graduate,
and I attended thirteen years at RCS. I'm here today asking all board members to vote yes on action item 10.6, the special education IDEA resolution. IDEA is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which is a federal law that funds special education for children with disabilities. This law was enacted in 1975. However, the federal government has not fully funded IDEA in fifty years. This means the last fifty years, states and school districts have ended up funding the difference between what the federal government
should be paying and the amount they're actually providing. Yes. A fully funded IDEA from the federal government helps special education students. However, it also benefits all students. Because the school district will not have to pull funds from other areas to make up that difference, the federal government doesn't contribute. In 1975, when IDEA was enacted, the federal government stated that they would fund up to 40% of IDEA. In fifty years, they have never fully funded IDEA. In 2023,
the federal government provided less than 13% of the funding they committed to pay. I'm asking you all to vote yes on this resolution. However, this is only the first step. I'm asking you, the Rochester Community Schools Board of Education, what tangible actions can special education advocates take to help get the IDEA fully funded. Our students deserve this funding. If we can finally get the IDEA fully funded, we also need to ensure and enforce that the money is applied to special education programming appropriately. My son who receives special education services is five years old.
He has autism, and he is a nonspeaker. He has been enrolled in the district for four years. If my son requires special education services for the rest of his life, he will likely be in special education for the next twenty one years. Will IDEA be fully funded by the time my five year old son ages out of special education in 02/1946? Special education advocates have been asking for full funding of IDEA for fifty years. Fifty years. How many students could have benefited from a fully funded IDEA over the last fifty
years? And how much longer do we have to wait? Thank you for your time. Thank you. Catherine Agarwal followed by Stephanie Van Dale and Marvy Neubauer. Hello. My name is Catherine Igerwall, and I'm a parent of a child in the district. I wanted to, talk to you tonight about gender ideology and about our school's current position and practices, which I find deeply unacceptable. I'm writing to express my deep disappointment in your failure to uphold the rights and protections of all students, particularly biological girls within our schools.
It's our expectation as parents that you comply with president Trump's executive orders regarding gender policies and ensure that biological boys are not allowed to use girls' bathrooms, locker rooms, or compete in their sports. Furthermore, under no circumstances should biological boys ever be allowed to share hotel rooms with girls on overnight field trips. Board members Jessica Gupta and Michelle Beutel Beutel, on 01/2925, stated to me directly that biological boys were, in fact, allowed to share hotel rooms with girls and that parents were merely notified ahead of
time. This is completely unacceptable. Parents should not be put in a position where they are simply informed of such policies rather than given a say in protecting their daughter's privacy and safety. I would like to know what the current process is for forcing a biological boy into a girl's hotel room. Who makes this decision? What criteria are used? Are parents allowed to opt out, or is this decision made without their consent? These are serious concerns that demand immediate answers and corrected action. Your role is to protect and provide a safe and fair learning environment for every
student, and that includes safeguarding the rights of biological girls. By allow by allowing biological males into female spaces, athletic competitions, and overnight accommodations, you are not only compromising fairness, but also neglecting your duty to represent and protect all students equally. Additionally, by violating president Trump's EOs on gender policies, the RCS BOE is putting more than $5,000,000 in federal funding at risk. This reckless disregard for compliance could have serious financial consequences for our district.
Impacting all students and educational programs, it is unseemly that you jumped into following ex president Biden's title nine EO rewrite on pushing boys into girls' faces knowing full well that they were being challenged. And now you claim that you will not follow president Trump's EOs because they may be challenged. Your hypocrisy and political maneuvering is stunning and unacceptable. We expect you to take immediate action to correct this these issues and align school policies with common sense protections for girls. Parents are paying attention,
and we will hold this board accountable for decisions that fail to prioritize the well-being of our children. I urge you to stand up for all students, including biological girls, and ensure their rights, privacy, and safety are not disregarded. Thank you. Stephanie Van Dale followed by Marvie Neubauer. My name is Stephanie Vandale, and I have two graduates and one student that is current in the district. And I'm gonna start this off by saying I find it extremely hypocritical of the five majority members
sitting up there I know one of them is missing That, you know, you're putting all of these millions of dollars at risk because you won't follow the Title IX policy. And then you're sitting you're having all of these people talk about having a fully funded IDEA. And so you're gonna rip all that money away because Trump's gonna do it. He's already had a fight with the governor of Maine, and he already said he's pulling the money. So So if you're gonna have the money pulled, how are all these special ed kids gonna end up?
You still gotta take care of them. So I would advise you people to start thinking about the funding and the money and where it's going. Now in regards to missus Brown's letter that's in the packet, she had advised that you guys update the title nine policy in order to comply with Tennessee versus Cardona, which found that the Biden administration's Title IX ruling was unconstitutional. She pointed out that USDOE has clarified the Title IX will now be enforced under
2020, not 2024 rules. Miss Brown expressed her concern that RCS was potentially losing federal funding and how taxpayer dollars would be wasted on defending noncompliance. We have enough money going to all these lawyers. Stop it. She urged the district to prioritize approving the Title IX policy that restricts biological males from participating in biological female sports and using locker rooms and bathrooms.
Additionally, she expressed her disappointment in the behavior of trustee Julie Aussbach at the January meeting when the board was discussing handbook changes. She described how Trustee Aussbach made a dismissive comment toward Trustee Lecuhy about how she was wasting everyone's time with her proposed edits, followed by a very snarky facial gesture. Mrs. Brown feels this behavior is unprofessional and immature.
And I completely agree with her. And it does reflect completely agree with her. And it does reflect poorly on this board. How many times do you people wanna end up on Libs of TikTok? I really don't know because those go viral all the time. So, you know, keep it up. So in conclusion, I hope, like Mrs. Brown hopes, that maybe you can demonstrate some maturity and kindness as these qualities are essential for the development of students that we serve. I can't wait to get Marvy, Neubauer. Yes.
Thank you very much for interrupting me, Michelle. I can talk just as loud as you, bitch. I'd like to remind the audience, please, that we be respectful when we are in this meeting. Miss Neubauer? Hi. My name is Marvie Neubauer. I have two kids in the district and a bunch of bonus kids that call me mama. And I'm here on behalf of two of those bonus kids today. As many of you know, I serve on the city council, and I did clear this with legal council before to make sure I have to make it clear that I'm not here in my capacity as a city council person,
but just as a mother and as a resident. So I just wanna make sure we understand that. I respect your governing body and jurisdiction. And as a city council person, I know that when you're on a board or committee, you get a lot more ugly emails than you're doing a great job emails. So I know it can be exhausting and tiring, but I just wanna thank you for your service to begin with. I I was I was asked by another mother to come speak on her behalf because she was too intimidated to come and speak,
to the board about her safety her son's safety, actually, in the school. She felt that her son didn't feel comfortable using, the facilities or whatever it is because there's some confusion about policies for the bathroom and things like that. And she she just wanted to know what the protocol was, how these things were determined. And, what I told her is I think the best way for us to resolve this is communication and not this sandpaper communication that's been going on, but more of a collaborative effort. And I'm willing to sit down and talk to anybody about this.
I I've talked to miss Lutke and miss Lausanne. And I don't know, miss Annis, if you remember, a couple years ago, I sat in a meeting and I was hysterically crying because I felt that there was no place for my son in this district because he's bicultural. And he had to constantly defend being a minority but also being grouped in with people who are oppressing minorities. So that's the first thing. On my way here, I got a phone call from another student's parents. And I spent three hours with the police before I got here because she experienced
a threat today in school. And, the student felt unsafe. And, you know, I I I wanna know if there's a protocol on what's determined how it's determined if there's a viable threat, how the police are involved, if the police do get involved, at what you know, is that written down anywhere? Is that something that's accessible to the parents? And if not, if we could communicate that a little bit more effectively or at least know where to find that information so that us as parents know what our resources are. Because like I spent I've spent like I said, I spent three hours with a crying
eighth grade girl and a sixth grade little girl who are too scared to go to school tomorrow because they can Yes, I'm sorry. They think that somebody's gonna hurt them tomorrow in school. I'm willing to work with whoever needs is available to work with together. Thank you. And we will have for those of you who had some questions, we will be getting back to some of you with answers on those. As far as some of the Title IX, we did revert back to our prior administrative regulations on, those, and that was effective February 17.
I think we're still in the midst of getting that updated on the website, but those are in effect. Madam President? Trustee Lacui, this is not, I do have a question about what just came up in public comment. No. We can't. You can talk about that in your comments at the end. According to Robert's rules, trustees are allowed to ask questions about items that are on the agenda. But in our So this would be a violation of parliamentary procedure and not allow me to ask the question about the agenda item. In our handbook, it specifically identifies that, the superintendent and the president are able to respond at that time,
but it is not appropriate for anyone else at that time. Madam president, I'm not asking I'm not responding to community members. I'm asking you about what came up in public comment. It does not say in our board handbook any rule that prohibits trustees from asking questions about agenda items. I'm asking you a question about But the agenda item is consent is the public comment at this point. So I asked you about what came up because I'm wondering I'm hearing that a citizen is planning to file a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights. Right. And I'm wondering if the district understands what kind of an undertaking that is and
how that puts our funding at risk, how we have to draw up all kinds of policies and emails and records and there's interviews and there's site visits, and it could be very costly, could result in withholding of funding. And unfortunately, we have evidence for a valid complaint to be made, and I'm wondering if we ought to agree that maybe we should put together a policy that is in compliance with the law. Because what we have right now is not a policy. We're just updating administrative regulations to what we had before, but we have never had a policy that addresses what happens in bathrooms and locker
rooms or on sports teams. And that's what has been asked for. They're asking for a policy, which is something that we do not currently have. The OCR frowns on that. They will write you up if you don't have proper policies. And I'd like to make sure that the district is in compliance with what's expected. Trustee Lacoue, what I would like to say is that you are welcome to, talk with your fellow board members to see if there is consensus to bring that up. You can talk to the people who are on the, policy and curriculum committee as well and look to put that on a future agenda.
Alright. Well, I move for the board discussing putting a policy in place. Trustee Lacoue, you are not recognized, and it's not germane at this time. And we consider possible action at the next meeting. We are moving on to agenda item seven point zero, which is the consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered routine in nature by the Board of Education and will be acted upon by one motion. There's no separate discussion of these items. If any member of the board requests discussion of 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 7.9 and then come back to 7.1 for a motion, discussion, and vote. You may still request just one item on a report to be removed from the consent agenda. If this is the case, we would approve everything else and the item removed from the report would receive a new number. In this case, it would be 7.1, but still under the consent agenda. Our consent agenda consists of 7.1 current bills payable for 01/01/2025 to January 2025,
in the amount of $15,005,910.93 7 point 2, human resource recommendations 7.3, Board of Education closed session minutes from 01/09/2025. '7 point '4, Board of Education regular meeting minutes from 01/13/2025. '7 point '5, Board of Education work session minutes from 01/21/2025. '7 point '6, Board of Education retreat minutes from 01/25/2025. '7 point '7,
Board of Education work session minutes from 02/03/2025. '7 point '8, reimbursement from conference from a conference for Superintendent Russo in the amount of $198.8 and 7.9, of course, on parliamentary procedures through Jurassic Parliament for Michelle Butel in the amount of $197 Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? Moved by Trustee Annas with support from Trustee Gupta. Does any board member wish to remove an item? Madam President.
Trustee Liqui. Item 7.1, please. Alright. So at this point, we would be voting on 7.2 through 7.9. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a six-zero vote, and item 7.2 through 7.9, on the consent agenda have been approved. Before we move on to 7.1, I'd like to thank and congratulate James Cromie, Sarah Roberts, and Denise Tayloe on their retirements, and officially welcome Ivy Holland,
Jordan Velad, Sarah Weaver, and Sean Monica to RCS. I don't know if any of those, are here in person at this time. Alright. Well, thank you. We look forward to meeting you and working with you. So now we will move on to item 7.1, which is, current bills payable for 01/01/2025 through 01/31/2025, in the amount of $15,005,910.93. Is there a motion to approve, item 7.1? Moved by, trustee Annas with support from trustee Gupta.
And, was there any discussion on this at this time? Trustee Liqui? Alright. I well, I noticed that we spent some money on Genesee education consultant services. Looks like it's for a bunch of lead caregivers and stuff. 34,000 on January 10, '20 '8 thousand January thirteenth, '20 '4 thousand on January 24. Just based on what I was seeing on the invoices, I was wondering if we're using is is this the consultant service that we're using for staff at Caring Steps or through SAC or I was curious if you could help me understand what that's for.
Mister McDaniel, are you able to answer that? Yes. That is the Caring Steps staff. Okay. I guess my follow-up question to that would be, can you help me understand why we are using a consultants a consulting service that's not local? Mister McDaniel? No. I can just say historically that's what the district chose when the facility opened. I guess I'm wondering I know we're gonna be talking about caring steps later in the discussion, but the thought that occurred in my mind was if the consulting service is not local, it might be harder to hire people. But Okay.
I'm I'm curious if anyone has any thoughts on that. Specific to this. Alright. I have another question Okay. Madam president. I submitted a conflict of interest policy to the SPCC, and I showed the full board. I have not heard And what does that have to do with the items that are on our bills payable at this time? If you let me finish, I promise I'll connect it. If you can get to it quickly. Alright. Here we go. I submitted this conflict of interest policy because right now, I have been forced every meeting, as I've been telling you,
to vote no on this action item until I see documented actions that reflect that we won't allow the override of the financial controls process, which we've seen before and has gone unaddressed. I did try to write up a policy that I thought might help address those problems. I shared it with all of my board colleagues. I haven't heard back from anyone except trustee Lozan. So I'm just curious if you have submitted what I sent to our lawyers in addition to other policies that have been sent about this topic with conflict of interest and nepotism because the vendor relationships has also been a concern.
And I tried to do my best, you know, looking at what other districts had and trying to meet that need. Has that been sent to our lawyers to review so that it can also be included in the discussion? Okay. So, I will say that what you're talking about does not pertain. This item is specific to the current bills payable. It is specific items on there. So your first question asking about what something was is per pertains is germane and pertains to this. Your question at this point is not germane to this subject.
My financial controls question is not germane to bills payable in your opinion. It is not an item specifically on here. If you have a question about a specific item on our current bills payable, that would be germane. Okay. I think I did get an answer there. It was just a little indirect. Okay. So, at this point, all of those in favor of approving item 7.1, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. No. I abstain. So that's a four-one-one vote. So, our bills payable is approved.
Moving on to reports. We have two reports tonight. We'll start with our strategic plan. And to keep our community and board updated, we have monthly updates on our strategic plan and dive deeper into a few of those. Today, we'll be hearing about processes and structures for initiative rollouts and a review and update to the district's website. Mr. Russo? Thank you, Madam President. Before we jump right into strategic plan update, please the Board just wanted to address the fact that, we did say we were going to go through committee reports as part of the superintendent report,
as when we were at our retreat. But our SBOC committee report is completely 100% reflected in the presentation that's following, so we decided to skip that. I just wanted to be upfront about why that change in process happened. So we'll move on to strategic plan. In the strategic plan you can see on the screen and hopefully those who are viewing from home, we have 23 just to kind of recap the entire process here. We have 23 deliverables or plans that are that we're tracking. Everything that is labeled in green, is on track. Anything that is labeled, yellow is paused or might not be on track for several reasons.
You can see in that, in Plan two hopefully as you're seeing that on the screen for those who are following at home Plan two is, again, to recap what we've talked about prior at public meetings. We have a state legislature who has promised some funding to go with our literacy initiative but they have not given us what vendors and or what would be approved as part of those monies that we could receive. So we are making sure that we are not misstepping in terms of misspending money
that is earmarked toward improving literacy in our district. I want to be very clear that doesn't mean that we're not moving forward in teaching reading and writing and literacy in our classrooms, but that just this portion of the plan has to be looked at very cautiously and carefully as we step. Anything that's marked in blue has something it means that has been completed already and so if we go through those plans you'll see that. At this time, though, I will turn it over to Mr. Cusimano to go through his first plan, and then he will pass it on after that. Hello, members of the Board of Education and RCS community.
My Plan 19 is Visionary of Professional Development. The vision statement is RCS will provide the time and support needed to implement, adjust and evolve new strategies and initiatives. And the specific deliverable is develop common processes and structures for initiative rollout, which as you know there's tons of initiatives that we're always looking to rollout. So this is pretty relevant. So I want to give an update of the committee that's working really hard. They have made strong progress in laying the groundwork for more structured and strategic approach
for RCS initiatives. The work thus far is focused on defining, documenting and understanding how initiatives are developed, implemented and aligned with district goals. By October 2024, the team took a critical step forward by developing a clear definition of what an RCS initiative is. This was essential in ensuring that all future initiatives align with the common purpose, scope and set of goals. The initiative definition document formalized this definition, outlined key components such as expected outcomes and success measures. Additionally,
a literature review document was created to ground our approach and best practices ensuring that our model aligns with research backed strategies. With a solid definition in place, the group's next step was to gather insights into how initiatives has historically been rolled out across RCS district departments. In November of twenty twenty four, we conducted research to collect information about existing processes and the Technology Services Sample Project implementation was examined as a case study to illustrate how structured planning supports successful implementation.
Most recently, in December of twenty twenty four, we compiled a list of current initiatives identified as the top three areas of focus across departments. This effort ensured that we have clear understanding of the initiatives already in motion and how they fit within broader district priorities. And looking ahead, with all of this work being done, the next step is stakeholder engagement and process refinement. The stakeholder consultation session to gather input from key voices across the district, This will help us identify important considerations such as communication strategies and potential challenges to
implementing new initiatives. The insights gained will directly inform the development of a district wide initiative template, which is the end goal, ensuring that future initiatives are planned and executed in a structured and impactful way and consistent way. So far, our progress has set a strong foundation for a more strategic, collaborative and data informed approach to initiative planning within RCS. As we move into the next phase, we will continue to refine our processes, engage stakeholders and ensure that every initiative is aligned with district goals and effectively implemented
for long term success. So that is an update on what we have done and where we're currently moving with the end result of having a district wide initiative rollout template. Any questions? Any questions? Trustee Gupta? So this is relevant to any new initiative in the district? Yes. So do you have roughly how many of those are there right now? Going on currently? Yeah. No. I don't have that number. Okay. But this would be to create a this is us reviewing our initiatives, but creating a process of initiative rollout.
So once we create the template going forward, we would follow that process to roll out any new initiative. So, we have the survey that we gave to Team Rochester. Obviously, it's pretty long pretty big and extensive, but, I don't have the number of exactly how many initiatives we have going on. Obviously, every strategic plan is an initiative. Any curricular things or initiatives, anything that we do is really an initiative. Yeah. That's why I was just trying to wrap my head around the scale of initiatives. And then, I don't know. Maybe in a future update, it would be helpful too to have, like, an example of one and walk through the process once you get further along.
Yes. That will be the that will be the goal is to share that and get feedback on that from all the data that we're pulling from our organization before we move forward with it. It would be something that we bring to the board, bring to the cabinet, bring to everybody to say this we want to adopt this going forward. Do you have an idea of timing on that? If you look at the milestones and measures on the plan, we will on there it says, implement a test pipe. So develop a district wide initiative template by April 30 and then seek out input and see you know,
what our stakeholders say about it and then, develop a rollout plan for upcoming school year by, nineonetwenty twenty five. So if I heard you right then, by the April, beginning of May is when you would have something ready to start getting feedback on? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Trustee Liqui? I was just wondering, are there any issues that we've had in past initiative rollouts that led to the need for this project? It's deliverable to come up with a structured approach to initiative rollout. So it's because it's what process are we following that aligns to our strategic plan,
which is our goals, right, to be able to tie it to how do we go about in a large district like this, right, with a lot of people, a large organization to follow consistent and templates so everybody can understand like this is here's what you do first, here's what you do second, here's what you do third. You want to gather input from your stakeholders, right, before you go too far down the line and say, okay, I got to go back because we didn't follow these steps. So I think it's to be consistent and have a structured approach to initiatives that happen all the time in a district this size.
Trustee Locue? Okay. I guess I was also wondering how we'll measure the success of this framework beyond completing documents and things like that. Is there are there any other ways we're looking to measure the success? This one specifically, this deliverable that I'm speaking on today is just to develop an initiative rollout process. So past that, I'm sure there will be, you know we always evaluate our we always evaluate what we do, the success of our programs by using data, right, in whatever we roll out, how is it going, you know, what's going on,
what's the data saying and like, you know, evaluating those initiatives. But that's not part of this specific plan. Trustee Lecui? I was wondering who the key stakeholders are for this, like, in terms of, like, this is going across staff, I assume. Like, who who are the key stakeholders, and how are they selected? Team Rochester completed Team Rochester comprises of, you know, a bunch of different administrators, some REA members, took the survey and that's what they're using those results from that survey. And the committee consists of the committee,
consists of REA members, REA members like across a wide section of people to kind of have their eyes on the different departments. So I guess and so you said there are people from various departments. So you have technology as represented? Yes. Okay. I think, moving on to 23. Thank you. Hi. Good evening. So vision area, the the vision area for strategic plan '23 is community engagement and the vision statement, to support parents and caregivers who are new to the district, transferring to a new school,
or interested in advocating for their students, Rochester Community Schools will provide onboarding, support, and collaborative opportunities. One of the deliverables under that vision statement is to develop structures for the regular review and updating of the district website and associated web pages. The title does reflect that deliverable, review and adjust the district website. Success criteria: By 05/31/2025, website adjustment recommendations will be developed as measured by a website adjustment checklist.
By 08/01/2025, more than 90% of adjustment determinations will be implemented as measured by the updated website. I have to to share that that this strategic plan will be something that probably never ends, right? We always want to keep our website updated. The purpose of the website is really to inform our community. So we want it to be user friendly for our community. The board knows, I think members of the board have given recommendations, just over the past several months that we've embraced and continue to update our website
with. Some of the more structured things that we've done, we pulled the data analytics, to see what are our most common areas for searching. And and if folks are having, difficulty finding something, we wanna correct that. I'm gonna give you an example, and this was an easy fix. Our calendar was one of the most searched areas on our website. Simply by moving it from lower on the front page of our website to the top, we've received a much greater feedback.
So some of that things are very simple, but but it helps. So so really pulling the analytics. We just did a website audit, and where we're at with that now is we're creating a template just so all the school sites have uniform information. Now, that's not to say that they can't have their own flair, but but we want similar information on each pages, such as the school address, the name of the principal, a contact information button. Trustee Lauzon, you had mentioned, the, for the meals,
the menus, excuse me. So, the menus. And that, by the way, actually came out when we pulled the analytics that the lunch menus were very commonly searched for. So, again, we're talking to folks, we're using the analytics, and we're trying to, just make it a a user friendly website. Trustee Liqui? I noticed that we have, dollars 20,000 allocated for this particular project. I was curious what that money will be spent on. So $20,000 Let me just pull that up. Yeah. And right now, we've not used any of that,
so so that will be determined. And, you know, when we, established the the cost for any of these plans, you know, was an estimate. And we were really anticipating, kind of a full blown survey, and we weren't sure what that would be. Gosh, we didn't even have to get there. It was just, you know, again, from the analytics. Now we do anticipate reaching out to our community, once we make changes. But, I don't anticipate that at this point being $20,000 I guess that I was curious about, you know, I you're doing the audit great so that everyone has the same information out there.
But how are you collecting the information from, you know, maybe frustration that parents are having or community members, you know, when they try to find something? Yeah. That's a really good question. And we talked about this. The committee talked about this. We felt that right now, before we go out to the community with a more formal ask, let's correct what we know needs to be corrected. And that's where I said we did the website audit, to make it more uniform. Get those things that we know need fixed, fix them first, then go out to the community,
and what else do we need to do? Trustee Alspa? I'm wondering, you know, you said you hope to have this done 90% done. And but you also mentioned this is always a moving target. Is is there a point where you're gonna have it a % done? Or is that always a moving target, that kind of that 10% cushion you're talking about? I believe the website is always a moving target. I think where this strategic plan will be particularly useful is that we're documenting the process. And this process then can be used from year after year. And, that's where I find this to be particularly valuable.
Another question. So do we have any issues with the website being ADA compliant? Yeah. That's that's part of our process. Right? We wanna make sure, that it is ADA compliant. And and, trustee Lacoue, you had asked about cost. Perhaps that, as we get into this, that may be part of our cost, you know, ADA compliance. There's there's monitoring systems out there, to make sure that we're compliant. It's we're a big school district, so so that may come into play there. That's a good question. Was there any evaluation done to determine whether we needed to change our website versus
sticking with what we currently have? Yeah. So the website is relatively new, believe it or not. We, established this website through final site, and I believe it was 2021. So we would have to go through a whole RFP process. I I believe right now, the intent of this strategic plan is to take what we have and and update it because since 2021, there's a lot of updates to technology and updates to capabilities on the site. So really, again, it's all part of the process of exploring these,
options. Okay. Trustee Liqui? Alright. Based on the website audit, what are some of the next steps for your concerns or deficiencies that you plan to address? So, yeah. So the audit let me just pull that up so I make sure I've got everything in front of me. So, yeah. So, with the audit, again, making the uniformity of all the buildings, again, addresses. Some of our school web pages don't have addresses even on the front page. So we really want them to be uniform. A Contact Us button we found to be particularly helpful.
I had mentioned the lunch menu. And and really it's just a button, a nice easy button that'll just take you to the site, but folks are having trouble finding that site. So, so those are some things from the audit that we're gonna try and correct immediately. Sure. Oh, I'm sorry. Trustee Lozano today. Sorry. I can't see if my light's on. Is there any talk about kind of updating the enrollment process for new students or incoming families? I just registered my third child through the district, and I still found it kinda be quite a pain in the butt, to kind of go back and forth with ParentVUE from the website and such.
Is there any way to kinda, like, streamline it to make it a little bit easier? That would be outside the purview of this strategic plan. Yeah. Any other questions? Alright. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Next then, we have an update from Trustee Annas, who attended the National School Board Association's Advocacy and Equity Institute. Trustee Annas? Thank you, Madam President. Advocacy requires action, which is why I was honored to travel to Washington, D. C. Earlier this month on behalf of our board and district to attend the National School Board Association's Advocacy and Equity Institute Conference.
This year's conference carried a different tone, coinciding with a new administration whose priorities, in my view, challenge the goal of ensuring all students receive a free and appropriate public education or as the PAC chair recently, mentioned in her update, the acronym is FAPE. The role of local school boards is essential in shaping legislation that impacts public education. Our board must highlight both our successes and challenges, making direct conversations with legislatures and legislators critical. I was, privileged to enter or attend several sessions,
which I will provide the, this, document for, the record, with hot links of some of those that, I attended if, the presentations were shared. Some keynote, or there was one keynote that kicked it off, by a young man named, Brandon Faberstein, who talked about the issue of bullying as he was a child growing up in schools. And that was a very powerful, testimony that he gave. Other sessions I attended, which I felt were really important and gave some great information was the NSBA advocacy priorities and federal update,
resource equity and advocacy, becoming a resource equity champion in your community. Civic learning is a pathway to equity, the essential role of school boards. And prioritizing and advocating for evidence based policies to engage each and every family in your community. Congressional meetings and legislative asks of this trip. At this conference, Michigan board members, including an Oakland County delegation, met with five members of Congress, Representatives MacLean, James, Dingell, Barrett, and Tlaib, and both U. S. Senators Peters and Slotkin.
Our key requests included, one, full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. This work is deeply personal, but quite honestly, this work shouldn't have to be personal to be important. My brother was unable to attend school due to his physical and cognitive differences. Since 1972, the federal government has pledged to cover 40% of these costs, as mentioned earlier. But currently, as of today, it funds only 10.3%. So that, that amount has fluctuated over the years. I shared Rochester Community Schools' special education data and personal stories from parents with children
in special education with staff from representatives, in McLean's and James' offices. Michigan has lost nearly $700,000,000 since 2023 due to underfunding IDEA mandates from the federal government, forcing districts, including RCS, to divert general fund resources. RCS serves approximately nineteen forty eight special education students or 12% of the population of our district. And we are the second largest, sometimes fluctuating between, I believe you had said Walled Lake,
or us as the largest school district serving Oakland County Students in special education. Approximately $45,000,000 or 19.5 percent of RCS's budget supports special education through various funding sources. Dollars 9,000,000 of our second, of our special education costs are subsidized by the general fund. I thanked Representative James for cosponsoring the bipartisan IDEA Full Funding Act, which aims to fully fund IDEA over 10.
It was, explained that it would be a ramp up process, which, quite honestly, they've waited fifty years to fifty years to fund it. I'm a little offended by a ten year ramp up. Representatives James and McClain were urged to encourage education and workforce Committee chair Tim Wahlberg, who is also from Michigan, to hold a hearing on fully funding IDEA, something that has never occurred in the fifty years of this law. I reinvited Representative James to tour the John Schultz Educational Campus and the Special Education
Adult Transition Program so he can see firsthand the great things that we're doing for our students in this district. There were some other items that, that we discussed. School meals for students. We all know a hungry child cannot learn in school if they're hungry. We urged Congress to expand access to free and reduced school meals that benefited all students during the COVID pandemic, providing by providing meals to families who hadn't completed paperwork or for those whose monthly income was marginally above program requirements. Michigan is ahead of the curve in terms of,
states that are providing this, and we'd love to see more of an investment from the federal level. Cybersecurity and broadband for schools. Cyberattacks on schools are increasing, yet many districts lack adequate defenses, creating financial risks. Schools and insurers are calling for a comprehensive federal plan to address cybersecurity threats. RCS has made significant digital investments through our, 2015 bond, But we'd like to encourage, better coordination between, the federal agencies, the FCC, the CISA, and the U.
S. Department of Ed and other federal agencies to enhance cybersecurity measures. Continued support also was requested for the E Rate program, which I know our district does participate in because it's critical, and particularly as the U. S. Supreme Court prepares to review the universal service fund, which finances broadband access for schools and libraries. So that has yet to be determined, the outcome of that case, but it could impact, districts throughout The United States. Federal appropriations was another ask. We urged ongoing prioritization of key federal education programs,
including Title I, IDEA, Title that's five four and Title II, which ensure a capable access to quality education. Of particular concern are any Medicaid cuts in the appropriations or the fiscal year budget as RCS receives about $2,100,000 in Medicaid funding for our special needs student population. Lastly, we also addressed the executive orders impacting K-twelve public education with our elected officials. Two in particular,
expanding educational freedom and opportunity for families, which is basically a voucher program, and Ending Radical Indoctrination of K-twelve schooling. They both contain ambiguous language that has already chilled an educator's work in the classroom and impacts school funding, especially for vulnerable students. Policy changes on immigrant services, vouchers, and student rights should be debated in Congress and not mandated by executive action. Federal education is determined by statute, and withholding funds is not within the scope of a presidential EO or the US
Department of Education. Some EOs are already being challenged in court, and our district will follow all applicable laws and seek legal counsel when necessary to protect all the students we serve. Anyone supporting the preservation of $20,000,000,000 in federal public school dollars, funding from going towards a, charter or not a charter, but a voucher system, I've included a link here from the National Coalition for Public Education's analysis of this federal, voucher program. Lastly,
after we had our hill visits, we had the honor of going to the Finnish embassy for a visit. And, it was quite interesting. It was a great conversation. Interestingly enough, they have an actual sauna in the basement of their embassy, because evidently that's what you do when you're from Finland. While not directly comparable to The U. S, there are some notable highlights that they shared with us regarding their education system in Finland. They have universal daycare until the age of six. They have compulsory, education until 18,
but their students don't begin technically going to school until age seven. Students choose a general or specialized education path after ninth grade. There is no standardized testing, only one national exam when a student is ready to graduate. Competitive teacher training programs with minimal shortages is what they experience. I believe, I think it was sold there were only four Finnish embassies, and it is quite competitive to get into their teaching programs. They do not bus students. Students walk or use public transportation.
And they have shorter days for younger students. Typically, their primary school is from eight to noon or nine to one, and that includes after school care. And interestingly, Finnish students study an average of four languages, which I found that quite fascinating. Also, school funding comes from income and sales tax with the top income tax bracket of 50%. So it was an interesting visit, and, I really appreciated the, staff from Oakland Schools coordinating that visit. Lastly, I'd like to extend my gratitude to the Hoffman and Norman families or Norton families
for sharing their child's special education story, as well as families from prior years who've done the same. Also, to superintendent Russo and his cabinet for their support in preparing me for this conference. It takes a collaborative effort by all who care about kids in public education, parents, educators, administrators, and elected school board members, to ensure policy and laws that at every level of government reflect and serve the needs of all RCS community school students. I will respectfully submit this report for inclusion in the board minutes.
Thank you, madam president. Thank you. Thank you very much, Trustee Annas for attending and for providing that report. Just as a FYI, I think it may go into we may update the board packet moving on to agenda item nine. It's an update to the board handbook. This is simply identifying our current and past practice that we use the superintendent's executive assistant's time stamp on any contact the board correspondence for inclusion in the board packet. At this time, it was included in the packet. Is there a motion to add,
quote, all contact the board communications received by the superintendent's executive assistant as of 12PM, three business days prior to a board or work session will be included in the agenda packet to 1.5.2. Madam President, before we make that motion, I was wondering with the original 1.5.2, if you were still amenable to inserting the word emergency before circumstances. At the last at the meeting in January, you were amenable to that because that's what we had agreed upon in 2023 Well, look. When was written.
Let's I'm just afraid if you make this motion right now, then you'll say we can't talk about that part. So I'm wondering if Well we could I I wish you had brought it up. I mean, this I brought it up in January, and you said that you would fix it, but I No. I did not say I said I would fix it if it had been included, but it was not included. We talked about it in January. We did. And it was in there at one point, but it was not included in the original one that we approved. I have no idea. I brought that up, and I asked you to use that. Did not. At that time, I thought it had. But when I went to look at it,
it was not in there. It was not included in the one that we had before. It was not in the board packet. But since I brought the mistake to your attention, are you willing to fix it? But it's not a fix. It was included it was not included in the item listed in the prior Ford handbook. So what is here is what was in the what was approved previously. Alright. I move that we insert the word emergency before the word circumstances. We we have this section that's added right now.
So right now, there I'm asking if there's a motion to add what I had just read. So is there someone who would like to move that Trustee Alspa, and is there support for that? Trustee Gupta. Alright. So now there is discussion. And so, trustee Lecuey, you're asking because it doesn't have to do with this section. It has to do with the other. It's not the addition. You're talking about a separate motion. My question was not about this particular addition. It was about the one point five point two that was in front of us. And, maybe we can go back to that after we talk about the addition.
Okay. So is there is there any discussion on this item? Alright. All of those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. Okay. So, that's a six-zero vote, and the motion passes. And then Trustee Anas or I'm sorry. Trustee Liqui, you wish to make another motion saying what? I move that we insert the word emergency before circumstances in item 1.5.2. Point 5.2 as was agreed upon in March 2023. And I'm going to have to say that it was not agreed upon at that
time because it was not included. But at this point, can can you read it again? Do you have it written down? No. I don't have it written down. I'm just looking at what's in front of me. I'm just asking to insert a word, honestly. The motion is Madam president, I'm going to insert This is adding a whole another agenda item. I I'm going to overrule it. Madam president, I had the floor, and trustee Gupta's in a couple of minutes. Of order, which can be an interruption, but I'm going to overrule it. And and and that Okay. You are agreeing we are talking about one point five point two, and I will allow it at this time.
And my motion is, I move that we insert the word emergency before circumstances as the board had agreed upon in March 2023. I just wanna make sure that you want to include that piece in there, even though that was not, I mean, I don't have any record of that. I can show you the meeting minutes if you want. It's on it's it's online. So you're insisting on adding that in here? I I made a motion to insert the word emergency. That's what we had agreed upon in our language. That's not your that's not what you said. What? So is your motion I move that emergency be inserted inserted before circumstances,
or are you adding that whole rest of the line that you just said? No. I'm just asking for inserting one word. Alright. So your motion is I move that emergency be inserted before circumstances in 1.5.2. I would like you to word it however you want. The the spirit of what I'm asking for is that we insert one word before circumstances. So that it's emergency circumstances. So then is there a second for this? Trustee LaSanne? Thanks. Alright. Is there any other discussion before we vote on this? Sure. Trustee Lacouni? Well, Well, maybe I should explain is what I figure.
I'm just thinking, right what we did when we originally inserted this into our board handbook is we were looking for a deadline because board members were getting packets with very little time to digest the information. So on the whole, we should understand if material is going to be late, why? Because if we get materials twenty four hours before a meeting, for instance, that inflicts a certain rigidity upon the board, and it interferes with our ability to function effectively and review the materials. And I'm assuming we all take our positions on this board seriously.
We don't wanna be ceremonial rubber stampers. So we wanna just make sure we can understand the the materials effectively. Alright. Does anyone else have a comment? I guess the only thing I would say is I don't think there's any need to add emergency into this. I feel that the administration makes every effort to have all materials in the packet already, and it seems somewhat redundant to include this. So that's my comment. Trustee Annas? Yeah. I would concur with that, what you said, President Butel,
especially because later in the sentence, it says, or if unforeseen. To me, that kind of connotates that could potentially be an emergency. I I don't see the necessity for that word addition. Madam Clerk present. Trustee Liqui? I would just ask you if you would be terribly opposed to including the language because I I don't see any harm in it. If if the only concern is that it's redundant and we're concerned about that, there's certainly no harm in including the language. And the problem I see with unforeseen that that unforeseen circumstances could mean anything. It could mean,
oh, I was I was getting my hair done, so I didn't bother sending the board packet. That's silly. Emergency circumstances, we can all understand. So if you're not terribly opposed to it, then I would just suggest why not approve it the way that we had it? Unless you're just trying to, you know Unless it's because I'm the one saying it, I guess. Oh, for god's sake. First, Trustee Gupta and then Trustee Annis. Yeah. I guess I I would, I'm gonna oppose this because, for one thing, the interpretation of the word emergency, is subjective and we know that can get hairy sometimes here. And I agree that it's redundant,
because it's already saying unforeseen. And also sometimes it's not, that the packet is updated late or not ready right on time because of an emergency or anything on the part of our administrative team. Sometimes it's something on the part of the board. So I don't really see how this is operationally beneficial. Alright. So all of those in favor of adding emergency I'm sorry, all of those in favor of emergency being inserted before circumstances in 1.5.2, please say aye.
Aye. Those opposed, please say no. No. That is Wait, I have stayed. I see no purpose in this. Okay, so it's a two, three, one. The motion does not pass. So at this point, we are moving on to new business. 10.1 is the approval of five policy updates, including three, eight zero three, three thousand and one, four thousand and four, and 5,008. These had a first reading at our last meeting. Before I turn it over to,
well, I guess I'll go ahead and turn it over to you, Mr. Murphy, and then I'll ask for a motion. Thank you, President Butel, members of the board, members of the community. This is the second reading. I'm asking or requesting approval for the following changes to board policy. All items were introduced at a first reading at the 02/03/2025 work session. I have received no follow-up questions, no follow-up concerns since February 3. The five changes are included in the packet. Happy to answer any additional questions or clarifications. And again,
requesting approval this evening. Thanks. Alright. So is there a motion to approve the updates to 03/8003, '3 thousand and '1, '4 thousand and '4, and 05/2008 as found in the packet? Moved by Trustee Gupta. Is there support? By Trustee Allspa. Is there any discussion before we vote? Trustee Lacui? Alright. Well, my issue with this one has to do with zero zero zero three. And I will need to vote no on this second reading. And I'd like to explain why for those who are here now that didn't hear
what happened the last meeting. None of my questions or concerns have changed since the last meeting when we discussed this. Last meeting, we had an opportunity to end backdoor contract changes. But instead, while the board agreed to approve memorandums of agreement, they left a loophole for letters of understanding, which can add clarifying language to contracts after the fact. I tried to amend this to include both, but the board majority shot that down. However, what I was trying to say is that it's the obligation of board members to approve all policy changes because we're ultimately responsible for approving policies and contracts.
It's one of the few responsibilities we really have up here. If something in a contract requires clarification, it probably wasn't clear to the board or the public either, and we shouldn't have nonelected members adding clarifying language to contracts after the fact. Regardless of whatever other boards and other places might choose to do, secretively adding language to contracts is a bad practice and is yet another sign of our board refusing to live up to our ethical standards and responsibilities. Alright. Are there any other comments before we vote? Alright. All of those in favor, please say aye.
Aye. Opposed, please say no. No. That is a four to vote, so the motion does pass, and, those five items would be updated. We also have a first reading of two other policy updates to 01/00/2002 and 04/00/2003. Mister Murphy? Thank you. The two additional first readings this evening, are included in your packet as well. The first one, was referenced at the last meeting, but here it is in writing. This is essentially splitting up the board organizational meetings into a board annual organizational meeting
in January, which was currently in the policy, and the district annual organizational meeting, which is in June, and clarifying which actions are in each. The second policy update is 4,003 remote work. We had an error essentially. We updated the administrative regulations, throughout that process where we were updating the entire booklets last year without updating the subsequent policy. So we've done this one in reverse, essentially. We have a current administrative regulation, which essentially says my role has to approve any remote work requests,
but we had lingering language from policy that said a building administrator was to make that approval. So this request or this first reading, corrects that and updates it to match the administrative regulation. Simply crossing out the word building administrator, changing it to assistant superintendent of human resources. Operationally, what that would require going forward would be a written request, to my office, to the HR department for any remote work requests, which then would be, handled by the HR department. Happy to answer any questions on either of those.
K. And I was just gonna say, as this is a first reading, no votes required, but are there any questions? Trustee Alspa? Can you tell me, tell me about our remote work policy? Do we have people that are regularly working remote? How often do we use this policy? You know, what situations do we use it in? That's pretty rare in a school district. As you know, you know, 80%, ninety % of our employees don't have this option. Teachers don't work remote. The kids show up. So it is used very sparingly. Sometimes in a situation I can think of one or two in the past few
years. Usually, in a situation where, an administrator or someone maybe more in the lane of doing paperwork or office work was coming back from a medical leave and could come back partially. And that was handled by reviewing their job, duties, reviewing with the supervisor of whatever that department, whether or not what they were requesting was, doable, right, from a work perspective, whether or not you know, how many hours that would take during the week and what the end date was was included in that. You know, it said building administrators before.
I'm not sure operationally our building administrators have ever approved a request like this. It doesn't really belong in that, lane because it needs to be organizational. It needs to be cohesive across the district. So not a power grab by me. I don't want to necessarily be the only one deciding on this. I'll have a team to talk it over with, but I do think it needs to be handled in a consistent manner. Excellent. Thank you. Anything else right now? Alright. Thank you. We will now move on to four bid awards with funding coming from our sinking
fund. Three of these pertain to drainage issues at Adams Rochester High School in Baldwin. And one involves the cooling system for the district's data center. If there's no objection from the board, we'll vote on these all as one motion, but we'll discuss each one after Mr. McDaniel has presented it. Is that okay with the board? Okay. Mr. McDaniel? Thank you, madam president. In the interest of time tonight, I'm simply going to refer you to the memos, requesting, approval for the Adams High School drainage, the Rochester High School stormwater drainage, the Baldwin site drainage and the admin data center cooling system rebid recommendations.
Alright. I know I have a couple of questions. Can you talk about on the drainage? Because it seems to me that we've, done drainage work at Rochester High School. There was a bunch of drainage work during construction at Adam. And I seem to remember that we did some at Baldwin, so I'm just trying to understand if this is redoing work we've already done. How was this not how did we not know about this before? Those types of things. Can you address some of that? Yeah. And I think Mr. Musio is here as well, but I'll try to give you the brief highlights.
The Adams High School drainage and discussions with Mr. Musio this morning have really kind of expanded the scope of the project. So, whenever we're bringing projects, for award to the board, we're trying to be conscious of the total dollars. So this is a larger look at the total stormwater drainage system, larger than we've done before. That's kind of the same thing with the Rochester High School stormwater drainage. This is, near the media center and book room. And so they're expanding drainage all the way down that wall where we've had, water infiltration. And then the Baldwin site drainage,
I don't believe that we've done anything, large scale to remediate the drainage issue for three classrooms and the playground. It's kinda in that same area. The three classrooms are at the back of the building, that back up to the playground, and there's some drainage issues also at the playground. Can you just identify for Adams High School where this drainage issue is? Yeah. I believe it's right near the main entrance. There's that kind of lower level of seating area, a storm drain there that, historically has backed up and then floods into the building because there's nowhere else to go.
So this will be doing it. It's mostly, replacing the stormwater drain, like, Matt said in that lower level area, then along the front drop off driveway area. And then also along the, I guess, it'd be the West side where the staff parks along where the dumpster and the loading dock area is. And then there's, some work out into the staff lot as well. So we're redoing all the piping. We're enlarging the piping. I had a civil engineering firm actually evaluate since we still were recurring, having a bunch of flooding,
evaluate the whole entire storm drain system. So they determined that there's about 300 feet of piping that's undersized, and it was probably never addressed with previous additions. They probably just left it there. It's probably been there since 1971. So, yeah, we're kinda paying for it now. We did enlarge some manholes to your point earlier. We did enlarge some manholes outside that entrance on the lower level and thought that would take care of it. It didn't. They still get overwhelmed because the piping just can't handle it. Are we confident that whatever the plan is now will handle it?
And do we have any recourse if it doesn't? Well, knock on wood. Like I said, I had them look at take a more comprehensive approach. So we looked at the whole campus, and that's what we did at Baldwin too because we had the flooding issue event at Baldwin as well. So I had them look at and evaluate the whole system. So they take in account roof area, parking lot area, paved area, and, calculate and size the storm drains based on that and how much water runoff is generated. So this should take care of it. This is, like I said, a more comprehensive approach to look at it holistically,
the whole system, instead of just a smaller area. And I guess just to follow-up, because at Rochester High School, in the media center, we had done some drainage work there, and it sounded like the area that was being affected was right near that. Yeah. So what happened so, when we came back, it was bid pack eight. So we're on this is 44, so it's a while ago. It was '21. So we put some, foundation drains in two areas. One was the oxygen because the oxygen flooded and ruined the floor, and we had to replace large sections of the floor.
So there was some trench drain we put in there. Also, there's a large water infiltration in the MDF Room right next to the media center. The water just comes through the foundation wall. So we added it there and it extended it from there eastward. So it went through the media center through there's four, like, private group rooms in there, and then it goes out into the courtyard and then we added a sump pump in there to pump it out away from the building. So what when we did that fix, so this past August, we had a large rain event. It didn't flood in those area in the in the technology area nor the nor
the, media center, but it did west of that area. So the book room that's adjacent to that Matt alluded to, and then the special ed there's three special ed rooms that are west of that along that whole, I guess, it would be the North Wall. So our thought is whenever they did the addition years ago, there's probably a storm drain they forgot the cap that's leaking somewhere. So we're just catching that water, and it just finds the weakest place to come in. So, hopefully, this should take care of it because now we'll have that whole north wall covered
with this trench drain. So then will this trench just tie into the one that was added? Yeah. We're just extending it to the West. Yes. I apologize for my questions. Anyone else? Trustee Lacoue? On the RHS bid package, V, Capital Flooring, I saw on the bid award page that the luxury vinyl tiling cost $6,700 but on the bid tabulation page on page six, the alternate one was $4,950 And I'm just wondering how $4,950 turned into $6,700. Yeah. So in those special ed classrooms,
there it's a vinyl composition tile. It's a tile they don't make anymore. So the alternate they propose is since we're tearing up that portions of that floor anyway, we're gonna put luxury vinyl tile in its place. So the base bid was the lower number and then we're accepted there ad alternate to to increase the area and also put this luxury vinyl tile that doesn't have to be stripped or waxed or anything. And it's kind of the standard that's been in that building. Okay. I have another question. Mhmm. Trustee Lacui? On the administration dat data center cooling bid Mhmm. I noticed that bid package a was awarded to Delta for 91,670,
but SysTemp had the lower bid at 89,138, and they also checked all the boxes. So I was just wondering why we awarded the bid to Delta. They backed out. The other the other the tenant, the low bidder, backed out. So when when they backed out when we met with them, they said, oh, no. We can't do it for that. Oh, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah. So that yeah. So we went to the second bidder. Gotcha. One more question. Go ahead. I also noticed that three of the awards are charging us $45,000 45,300
as the contract manager general conditions and staff fee regardless of the range and cost of the projects. And I was just wondering about that because it's hard to believe that staff in general conditions would be exactly the same on three very different sized projects, especially if they might be working on some of the storm and drainage projects at the same time. So I was just curious why that was. Very very good question. So those are allowances. So they they just throw in in case they have a have this have a separate superintendent or a separate project manager for some reason while the project's going on.
If they don't, they can combine them and they can run all at the same time, then they won't charge us that. So it's just it's just an allowance. It's just an allowance. It's just a it's a budget allowance, like, a not to exceed. So they just so when they bill, they only bill actual costs. That's just their best guess based on the size and the amount of money and duration of the project. It's not I I it's not under the allowances section, though. I know. I know. But that's how they bid it out, though. No. That's correct. But that's how they bid it out. That's not a that's not a final number. That's just that's just their budget number for it.
It's not allowance. Allowances like for an unidentified thing. If you read through there, there's allowances for wall patching or different types of patch that they don't know the scope of. So for general conditions, typically for staffing and general conditions, they just throw a budget number in there to cover their staff and staff fees for superintendent, project manager, and office staff, and all that stuff, project engineering. But you're saying that that would be a Not too much. That's an actual cost. And for instance, when we get to some of the changes later, that may be why we receive Correct.
So, yes. So on the change order that Matt's gonna talk about, you know, they're they give back money, but they don't use it all. And a lot of that is allowances or staff conditions or, you know, staff that, uses that they didn't end up using. Right. Now I understood that's how allowances work. Why why wouldn't the Centimeters general conditions and staff then be in the allowances section and part of the allowance subtotal? That's just how they break that's how constructive managers break out. That's standard it's it's standard practice to do it that way because you're paying it's
a it's a service that they're providing. So they just they just throw an allowance in there or a number that's they were best guess of what their staff and based on the duration of the project that they would have to have a a superintendent at full time or not or who's available. So, yeah, they try to group them so they we have savings, but this is like a worst case that they don't wanna have to come back and say, oh, by the way, it took more money because they had to have an extra superintendent come and manage a project. Okay. Alright. Thank you. Yeah. Alright. Any other questions?
Alright. So, we didn't put our motion drainage projects at Adams High School for $1,297,673 at Rochester High School for $146,784 and Baldwin for $203,099 and to approve the admin data center cooling system for $179,024 as presented using sinking funds. Moved by Trustee Gupta. Is there support? Trustee Allspa. Alright. We had a bunch of discussion, but is there any other discussion at this time?
All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a six-zero vote, and those four projects are approved. So at this point, we're moving on to item 10.3, which is a list of sinking fund change orders. Mr. McDaniel? Yes. Thank you, Madam President. So, kind of, to close out the discussion from earlier, we have some final costs for a number of projects. There is one related to the administration building that is not closed out yet, but you'll see a number of final actual costs for various projects.
The change orders reduce or decrease the amount of the projects by 590 or 579,714 All right. So first, let's, is there a motion to approve 13 sinking fund project change orders with a net reduction of $579,714 Moved by Trustee Annas with support from Trustee Allspa. And then are there any, discussion or questions on this? All right. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion passes. So thank you for that.
And we're moving on to item 10.4, which is the food service and caring steps budget amendment. As before, if there's no objection, I just group them together for approval. But we'll talk about each one after it's presented. Mr. McDaniel? Yes. Thank you, Madam President. I'm being joined by our Director of Financial Services, Beth Perera. Tonight, we have two of the smaller funds, that we plan to amend. We're going to start off by looking at the Food Service Fund and the Caring Steps Fund. And, Beth is going to take us through the Food Service Budget Amendment. Okay. Can you?
So okay. So over the past few years, our food service fund has been in a very strong position, with a healthy fund balance. This has resulted in excess funds. And as required by the state, we must now allocate and spend these funds accordingly. We are presenting this budget to amend, to address the changes needed to reduce our excess fund balance in compliance with state guidelines. An excess fund balance occurs when our ending balance exceeds three months' worth of expenditures. When this happens, we are required to create and submit a plan to MDE to spend down the excess funds within the next fiscal year with the option to apply for a one
year carryover. All expenditures must be approved by MDE. A preapproved list was created for common items. If items are not on that list, we must complete an application to get MDE's approval prior to purchasing. On the next slide, you'll see a list of allowable and unallowable expenses. When looking at the list of allowable items, we have spent funds in almost every category. The next slide. Upon reviewing the budget, you'll notice an increase in revenue due to higher number of meals served. The transition of offering free meals to all students has, contributed to an increase in meal counts, which has generated higher reimbursements for both state and federal government.
Along with the increase in revenue, you'll see an increase in current in certain expenses. The rise in food, has directly there's a rise in food costs, which has, related to the increase in number of meals served. Additionally, staff raises and bonuses have contributed to higher labor costs. We've also adjusted our capital project budget to reflect our expectations for the remainder of the school year. Overall, we anticipate a $1,200,000 use of fund balance, bringing us closer to the three month average expenditure requirement set by MDE. Our ending fund balance is projected to be just over $2,000,000
the changes and assumptions reflect these updates, including the increase in meal counts and staff compensation. Additionally, we've formed a new partnership with a produce supplier, through our supply chain assistance grant, allowing us to provide a wider variety of fresh produce. We have also hired two new chefs that enable us to incorporate more scratch cooking. We've also continued the popular global eats program in our schools. This initiative has allowed us to incorporate more international cuisines into our offerings. For capital improvements,
nearly all of our kitchens have received updated equipment. And this summer, renovations at Stoney Creek's high school serving line will begin. On the next slide, you'll see a look at our fund balance for the past few years and the amount of excess fund balance that we've had. Next year, as the budget is presented, we anticipate, no excess fund balance, but that is dependent on the timing of projects in our fiscal year end. I think now would be a good time to break for questions on the food service funds. Are there any questions on food service at this time? Yeah. Trustee Liqui? I know that trustees have asked several times about improving food quality and doing stuff
like that. It's possible. Maybe we've done all we can do as far as that goes, but, why not lower prices on the things that we do charge for if we're looking for ways to spend down some of this money? Yeah. That's mandated by federal law, so we have certain, profitability measures that we have to meet. So we're very limited. For example, adult meals, we still have to charge for. So so there's no meals other kinds of offerings that we have that we could lower costs? There's a la carte items, but, again, they're subject to that same restriction. Oh, okay. They're all restricted. Okay. Yes. Food service is probably our most heavily restricted fund.
Got it. And have we done any additional looking at upgrading the food quality or offerings, especially at the elementary level? Yeah. I mean, they've done some more, scratch cooking. They're also looking to add a dietitian, but also, you know, I should say that our food service management contract with Chartwells ends this year, so we'll be going out for bid. That's another piece that's mandated by federal law. So, probably, in May, I would guess, we'll bring a recommendation for a food service company. That could be Chartwells, that could be any other company that bids.
But we can certainly add language, if the board so desires to try to improve quality of food. There is a new section in the RFP, that specifically speaks to food directly. Thank you. Trustee Lozano? Is this excess something that we have to spend this current school year, or can we wait until the next bid is up for the food service to see if maybe we could roll it into a better quality program? Yeah. There is a one year extension that we can get. I think they've,
even in the last couple of years extended that to a three year, but we have had this, access fund balances as the slide shows here, for quite a long time. So the fear is that if we don't spend it down that eventually the feds or the states, will take that money back because that they're well within their right to. Alright. I don't see any other questions. So if we wanna move on to Caring Steps. Yeah. So next, we'll take a look at the Caring Steps Fund. We're gonna dive right into this budget. There's only a few,
kind of major changes. So you'll see we've updated revenue, to reflect 500,000 roughly decrease in local revenue. This is tuition, so this is based on the number of students currently enrolled at Caring Steps. You'll see some other adjustments as well, mostly staffing. And then, food is another big cost. So you'll remember, in June, we brought to the board a plan to remove food from Caring Steps, which was hopefully getting us to a budget that showed about $20,000 added to fund balance. There was a decision made,
I think, in August to place a GSRP classroom at Caring Steps. And so at that time, because food is a requirement of GSRP, it did not make sense to remove food from Caring Steps as a whole because we still had to offer it out there. So food is now represented back in this budget. That's one of the reasons why, we're showing a $265,904 transfer needed, from the general fund to support the carrying SEPs budget. And then I think if we go on to the next slide, really, there's that's the three changes that were encompassing,
changes to enrollment, staffing levels and adding back in the cost of food. I'm sure there's questions on this budget. Can can you just quantify how much the food portion is? I think food is 125,000 is what we budgeted. And so that was so originally, if if you can refresh my memory, we weren't going to have food service there. Correct. And so when we did, did the tuition change at all because now they had food and they weren't going to? No. It did not. Tuition remained the same. Okay. Alright. Other questions?
Trustee LaSanne? It relates kind of to the same topic. Is it just the GSRP class that gets food, or is it the whole center? Can you repeat that? I'm sorry. For the food budget, is it just the GSRP class, or is it the whole everybody in the Well, unfortunately, that GSRP classroom did not open. Okay. So now it's just the Caring Steps stat But everybody gets class care? Yes. Everyone at Caring Steps. Okay. Trustee Alspa? I understand there's a waiting list for one of the programs that carry in steps. Is that the GSRP or is that the tuition based program? That is the tuition based program.
I think there were also a number of students, that applied to the GSRP classroom, but, unfortunately, that wasn't able to open. I think the the question is and and I say staff has shared this as well. You know, if we can get, staff and attract staff, they believe that they can get children off the wait list and increase the budget and, you know, eventually get to a breakeven budget. How big is the waiting list? I'm not sure how big the waiting list is. I know that, we have infants and toddlers. We have young preschool, which I think are around three years old, preschool, which I believe are four years old,
and then K prep, which is maybe 4.5 to five years old. I believe there's a waiting list for most of those sections, if not all. I don't know the exact number for each group. I will say, the different ratios make, the financial attractiveness of each of those programs a little bit different because infants and toddlers, for example, need, one adult for every four kids, whereas the older you get, the the larger the ratio is. So from a purely financial standpoint, the older kids are better for the budget. And is the reason we can't clear that waiting list,
you said, because we can't attract the staff? Correct. K. Yes. I mean, we've had a director position open there for quite a while now and haven't been able to attract a director either. And I I guess I'm just gonna follow-up on that staffing piece. Any thoughts on why we're having issues with staffing where maybe, you know, other daycare centers seem to be, while there's turnover, they seem to be able to continue running their classrooms and being full? Yeah. I mean, other daycare facilities in the area,
they're pretty private with their information. You know, we think there are, though, and we've heard this from GSRP as well, there's a push to make GSRP teachers, higher paid, more in line with our teachers contract. So, we believe that that's likely happening at centers in the area as well. And so there are a couple of staff members that are in that range. We believe that range is probably around 40 to maybe 45 or 50,000. There are a couple staff members that make that. I think the other piece are the the staff that's not lead teachers, bringing that to maybe $15 an hour.
Now, again, these are just kind of our estimates based on what we think the market bears. Most centers do not share that information, even tuition information, willingly with us. Trustee Annas? So you mentioned that, GSRP did not happen at carrying steps. Why was that? I think it was related to staffing issues as well. Mrs. Hempton, I'm not sure if you want to jump in and provide or have more to provide than that, but Certainly. The, goal, I believe, in, the fall of 'twenty four was to open two general, Great Start Readiness Program classrooms, GSRP, for eligible four year old students.
And at the time of the classroom launch, while there were, I believe, six interested families, although don't please don't quote me on that number because I'm going off of off my head. The classrooms were not full, but, the staff were unable to be attained to teach each of those classrooms. We were working with the available seats through Oakland County, Oakland Schools, who acts as the intermediate fiduciary for us with that work. And the, the goal is to continue to expand our programming. Unfortunately, many students that may have been interested or otherwise eligible were either already enrolled in
a tuition preschool program at the launch of the school year. This was moving into mid October trying to make this transition. We believe that may have had an impact on our ability to secure staff, but also is likely related to enrollment not showing, you know, a full seat of classrooms with 16 children. So, you mentioned that sixteen sixteen is the cap on that It's just our P number. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Trustee Gupta? Yeah. So, if I recall correctly, the original projection was that we thought we could break even on caring steps this
year. And now we're seeing, an adjustment proposed to transfer about $250,000 from the general fund. So if I'm understanding it correctly, that what accounts for that is, that our enrollment was less than we projected. We're and that's connected to staffing issues. And then we were, in a position to provide food to everyone there because of the expectation of GSRP, which didn't pan out. Is that my understanding correctly? Yes. If,
we could go back to the slide with the budget, you can see 2023, 'twenty four actuals, so about 1,600,000.0 in revenue. So the budget initial budget was basically that same number, dollars 1.6, has now been adjusted down to 1.1, so about $500,000 loss was, you know, directly a result of decreased enrollment. And then you'll see, you know, for the most part, operations maintenance, security, instructional staff support, those numbers are pretty similar, both in final and actuals in the initial budget. And then a reduction in community services, which includes staff and food.
So it went from 1.13 to 1.19 to now, just under a million. Was there any discussion about, discontinuing the food when GSRP wasn't there? I think we're we're trying to be intentional with, providing enough notice to families as well. You know, when GSRP didn't run, I don't know that we could make the decision to say, hey. Families, tomorrow, you're not bringing food. So I think that's a discussion, probably something, you know, for the next item as well. I know that, I think my intent is to try to keep this part of the caring steps
discussion on the budget and what's happening there. And then, you know, if we're looking at different options, kind of have that, part as 10.5, the caring steps kind of discussion overall, looking at that model and maybe changes to it. And I have one question and then Trustee Lecuye. We have other things there like early childhood special education, I think we have some individuals who have offices there. Is there any type of, transfer in as a revenue, to cover those expenses at all? And on the other hand too, for, you know, your time or Mrs.
Hempton's time, is there any, outflow on the expenditure side to offset that as well? No. So for, both questions, we do have, school aged care offices there and I think it's ECSE? ECSE there as well? There is no, proration, going to the general fund out of those costs. So, there are spaces and staff using, you know, electricity, utilities, things like that. And as far as, my salary or Mrs. Hampton or anybody from the business office, any district employee, supporting that, no. There is no allocation there either.
This is simply the Caring Steps program building and the staff that support it. Thank you. Trustee Lecui? So it looks like we've already transferred about 265,000 from the general fund to Caring Steps. Is that going to get us through the fiscal year or do you expect to have to transfer anymore? Yeah. So this is an estimate for what we'll need for the the full year. We don't do any transfers until the end of the year. It's an estimate. We don't know what the final number will look like yet. Yes. Yep. That's an annual budget. Okay. My other question is, earlier in our meeting,
we didn't have the SBOC report because this was supposed to encompass any of those questions. So may I ask an SBOC question? Are you asking me if you can ask a question about the budgets being presented? Yes. Well, well, okay. So at the SBOC meeting last week, you showed us this, and you also showed us the December financial packet. And, unfortunately, I couldn't see the screen because it was too blurry, and you didn't provide materials until after the meeting, so I couldn't ask about it there. But I noticed that in that packet, we have this 29 c enrollment stabilization payments.
It's 37,000, 30 7 thousand, and then 346,000 over the course of three months. I was just wondering if you could help me understand what those are. I'll defer to the president if you wanna discuss that. What does the stabilization have to do with the Caring Steps budget? No, that's general fund. I'm asking the question that was related to the SBOC meeting. It's related to budgets, but it's not carrying step specific, but it was related to that meeting. And we were supposed to ask those questions now. I I I raised my hand at the time to ask you about if that
was actually a better time to ask the question, but then Why don't we stick to what our agenda item is here at this time? And then, regarding the SBOC, you can follow-up with mister McDaniel to get your Sir? K. I I move to add a quick section to our agenda just to ask about the enrollment stabilization payments that was presented to us at the SBOC meeting since we did not have the SBOC report as is normally scheduled at our meetings. And I'm sorry. What was it? What stabilization?
Enrollment stabilization payments. Okay. So there is a motion by Trustee Liqui to add an agenda item to, discuss enrollment stabilization payments. Is there a second? Trustee Lozan? Hopefully we can just make this quick. You already indicated, your rationale for it. Correct. Does anyone else have any other comments or questions? Alright, all of those in favor of adding an agenda item, to discuss the enrollment stabilization payments, please say aye. Aye. Aye. I think I heard three. Those opposed to adding an agenda item,
please say no. No. No, That's a three three vote and the motion does not pass Okay, so we are back to Discussing the carrying steps budget amendment are there any other questions on that? Madam President? Trustee Lacui? I would like to make a request that we just separate these into two separate motions. Sure, we can do that. Alright, is there a motion to approve the food service budget amendment as presented? I'm sorry, who said that? Trustee Annas? And is there, support from Trustee Allspa? Alright, all of those in favor,
please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. That's a six-zero vote and the amendment passes. Now is there a motion to approve the Caring Steps budget amendment, as presented? Moved by Trustee Annis. Is there support? Trustee Gupta. Alright. Is there any other discussion at this point on the caring steps? Madam President. Trustee LeCuey. I'll just explain that I'm gonna be voting no on carrying steps. I don't think it's right that we're continuing to have to transfer in all of this money from the general fund budget. Okay,
so just, I'll just ask you, so you would, instantly close it tomorrow? That's not what I said. Well, okay. I guess I'm saying I don't know how you don't, you don't approve it at this point unless that's your other alternative option. I expect that it will continue to pass anyways, but that's not what I meant. But I I don't I don't think it was expected to break even this year. It's not going to be breaking even. This is just it's been too long. I I that is our next discussion item. However, at this point,
we are faced with this where it is right now. And I would say that I would hope that, we are looking at ways that we can potentially reduce that transfer out of our general fund. But we have a motion to approve the carrying steps budget amendment as presented. All of those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Those opposed, please say no. No. That is a four two vote and the budget amendment passes. At this point, I'd like to take a short eight minute break,
and we'll come back then at, 08:57. Thank you. Alright. We are gonna move on to item 10.5, which is a discussion about caring steps. And I'm gonna turn it over to you, mister Russo. Thank you, Madam President. So as part of today's meeting and as, President Boutel mentioned, a section on discussion of Caring Steps really is about, There's a little bit of history to discuss first and I'd like to kind of lay this out so that I know that most of everyone here is aware but we have a new board member and I want to make sure that everybody is
aware that, when Caring Steps started, it was part of the last strategic plan to provide a early childhood center in the district. As it has progressed since then, it has not broken even financially While providing services to those families who need daycare, it still has not broken even financially for Rochester Community Schools. Given that, we are prepared to kind of give the Board options moving forward in terms of,
if an investment is wants to be made to continue to do this and to continue to provide the service that it was intended in that building. We have some options that we can put forward. Obviously some of these options financially are also based on scale, so they're not gonna be exact numbers, etc. We'll give you some examples. And then the other option is to, if the Board chooses to not want to invest more money into Caring Staff moving forward, that we would give you options in terms of, a closure of the facility for the daycare portion only. I want to be really clear that if whatever discussion happens today,
and I know there's no voting on anything today, of whatever discussion does take place that there would not be if there is any talk of, of a closure, we would not be in favor of closing. We would want to make sure that families have enough time, etcetera, if that would be the will of the board. But also we would not move early childhood special education out of that building this school year at all. That would not be a recommendation from administration because we would not want to place special education students in a move that was unnecessary for the remainder of the school
year. So having said that, I think, I can open it up for questions or we can turn it over to Mr. McDaniel, to discuss kind of some of the things that we've talked about in terms of investment moving forward. Should we want to, should the board should it be the will of the board to invest money to keep it open for years subsequent? Can I ask before we do that, can you just give some general numbers, information to us, like number of students, how many staff have kids there, how many staff we have, those types of things to just give a general sense so we understand what we're
talking about? Absolutely, madam president. Mr. McDaniel? Yeah, so I think there's 76, children. I think there's 76 children there, or 76 families. Get that mixed up. There are, I believe, five that are not, in any way affiliated with Rochester Community Schools. There are five that are, connected through a staff member but don't live in district boundaries. And then the rest are within school district boundaries. So whether that number is 76 or 74, you know, the majority still are within Rochester Community Schools and there's roughly five,
that don't live within district boundaries but work for the Rochester School District. And I think there are roughly 12 total staff members that receive care 12 to 14 that receive care, that work here that are employees of Rochester Community Schools. And I'm sorry, is that 12 to 14 kids of staff members or 12 to 14 staff members with, I don't know, 28, 30 kids? Yeah. I think it's, 12 to 14 families. The information that I was looking at was tuition payments, so I would guess that that was done by family.
I can pull that up real quick. I had a bunch of notes written down, and I'm not sure where I placed those notes. So I'm trying to do this off the top of my head, but I do have the report that I can pull up and take a look at. I think there were a couple other questions that were provided in advance. Well, I, Yeah. Do you know how many class rooms we have and how many staff we have? We have Ms. Redeem? So, there are, I believe, 19. Looking at the last payroll report, FTE. 19 FTE? 19 FTE for staff members. Okay.
Now, there are a number of part time, people as well. So, if we want a number of, people, I've got that up right now. One, two, three. But when we're talking about the 74 to 76 kids that are at, are those FTE or are those students? So there's 24 current DECCS, caring staff staff members. On the tuition, it looks like it's, individualized by students. So there'd be 12 to 14 students, or children. I I'm I'm so sorry. I didn't follow that. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm I'm mixing up a couple different questions. So when we talk about,
Rochester Community Schools employees and how many would be affected, there's 12 to 14 students of of staff members there. Okay. When we're talking about how many people work at the center through GECS, I think that number was 19 that I counted on on a more recent payroll report. Now I know there's been some transitions people leaving, so that number may be slightly down. But as of a a recent, probably January payroll report, there are 19 people on that list. I'm sorry. There are eight 19. Okay, so I'm just gonna repeat this back to make sure I have it.
Thank you. There are 74 to 76 kids that are enrolled. 12 to 14 of those are students of staff members. We have five students that are not in the district that have no relationship to the district. And of those 12 to 14 students of staff members, five of them are live outside the district, but they're staff. Correct. And then we have 19 staff members who actually work for Caring Steps. Yes. And in those,
how many classrooms are there? Seven. Seven classes. Okay. Okay. Did anyone else have any just initial questions? Okay. We'll do, Trustee Lozan, then Trustee Alspa, and then Trustee Gupta. Looking at the documents from the MPP, it says 74 students are are in the childcare center. 22 of them are the K prep. Looking at the waiting list, what are the age demographics? Say these 22 are now moving out into the district. If they're all going into the district, that opens up 22 spots.
Are the kids that are on the waiting list, would they go in first or are they not kind of in this category or can we not even accommodate? What's the age of the waiting list kids? Yeah. I don't have access to the waiting list. I'm not sure that missus Hampton does. I know that, you know, when whenever we talk caring steps, there is, the number of students there and the number of FTE. So one thing that may be unique to caring steps that some childcare centers don't offer is two or three day options. So I know that that's a bit of a scheduling staffing challenge because we have
to maintain ratios. So I think the goal was to transition to, like, a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then a Tuesday, Thursday if you're doing the two or three day option. So it's a little bit hard there. I mean, looking at FTE, I see on a recent tuition report that we had 19.4 infants and toddlers. I don't know, the breakdown of how many of that is infants versus toddlers. And then I see 36.8, older preschool age children, FTE. I can answer the wait list question to the best of my ability. I know that the, interest in the center far exceeds our ability to staff it and that,
the the teams have done, a great job at staying in touch with families that are interested in caring staffs, continuing to monitor that list, admit, folks off of it when staffing allows. And some of that ratio, as mister McDaniel just indicated, is really what launches that type of opening, for for the board's interest in terms of the, the number of students, that Ms. Lauzan was just referencing. We have, three children enrolled in infant one classroom, another three children in the infant two classroom, nine children in toddler one, 10 children in toddler two, nine children in young preschool,
18 enrolled currently in preschool, and 22 enrolled in K PREP that comprise that number 74. The idea that, families would continue to have interest while also perhaps pursuing other area centers is is a continuing dynamic. Their ability to come off the wait list may not align with the class that they particularly registered for at the time. I think it's also worth noting that that notion, of of staffing shortage, is a statewide dilemma that we certainly are encountering in the early childhood field in
general. And so we know that those, more competitive, salary ranges are certainly going to, engage applicants much more quickly. Trustee? Sorry. So it's my understanding that, we're using a third party contractor to, look for folks to staff caring staffs. Is that correct? Yeah. We utilize GECS, but I would say our human resources team as well is advertising those positions and trying to And that's been the case since its inception? Correct. So my question is, you know, what challenges do you see in moving to hiring,
in house instead of using a third party contractor? Is that a possibility? Would it be would it be, better for us as a provider to be able to be direct hires versus going through a third party contractor? That's that's my question. Yeah. I I don't know that I'm best equipped that, you know, from a purely financial perspective. It would mean more costs and higher tuition, just because the retirement system. From a competition standpoint, we are competing against some school districts that have childcare facilities, but also we're competing against,
you know, private facilities here as well, so I'm not sure how much weight either one of those carry. I think, anecdotally, we've heard from directors that, you know, we've tried to recruit from other school districts that, you know, that was a hindrance to them, that they wanted to continue to be a school district employee. But I think there's a balance there, right? We could, certainly offset the retirement costs, by using the GECS option to pay higher wages and make it around the same total compensation. But I'm not sure how much, and and maybe mister Murphy wants to weigh in on this as well,
how much, one or the other benefits or hurts us. I can say with GECS, we've been here, you know, six, seven years, and we've never been fully staffed. Staffed. But we've also been in better positions, in previous years as well. So for follow-up clarification, you said that, for you've tried to hire directors away. Is that as a direct hire or through an agency to do that? Yeah. Historically, the model has been to hire them through decks. So I think, recently, and missus Hampton may be able to shed further light on this, we've had a couple applicants that came from, or at least expressed interest that worked for a school district and then upon learning
that they would not be school district employees, no longer had interest in the position. So let me ask you as a follow-up then. Say for instance, the closest model similar to ours being a public school district that has a caring, like a caring step similar model would be Troy, probably, right, when you say? I think there's several districts. I mean, Troy would be Well, but closest in proximity. So, do they, do they hire their, director through their district and and pay them as an employee through the school district? Do you know that? I don't have that answer. I think we could get that answer.
I mean, I I would think that in order for us to be competitive with comparable models, which would be looking at other daycare facilities that are in the public space, I think we should look at that as a comparison. And and if they are, then I think we should consider doing so. Yeah. And I I don't wanna overstep, mister Russo, but I think that's part of the discussion is to to, you know, get questions from the board that we can do a little bit of work on to try to get answers to. That would be one of my asks, is that we look into that. Yes. I'd be happy to ask mister Murphy to look into that.
Get on that, Dave. Madam President? Hi. Just a second, because I thought I Trustee Alsbaugh, did you have a question? I have questions, but she can go first. Okay. And then it was, I had said trustee Gupta. Did you have a okay. Trustee Lacui? Is this on? This brings me back to, the Genesee Education consulting service that was more local that we might have better chance of attracting staff if staff is the main hindrance to the business model working as it is right now? Yeah. I think it's possible. I mean, we use other contracts like EduStaff,
get substitutes for us. They may have something similar. I think their markup is a little bit higher than GECS. Okay. And then my other question is, if we feel strongly that we should provide day care as a community service, which really is outside our purview because really we are supposed to stick to k through 12 education and special education. But if we want to provide day care, why not move to the elementary buildings where we have the space? Because we see in the facility utilization study that we've got 990 spots for people in the elementary building and extra classrooms.
So if our capacity data shows we have room for another 990 kids and we've got about 75 at Caring Steps, why not move to the elementary buildings and eliminate the unnecessary overhead of having an extra building and make it more convenient for families too? Because I think a lot of other districts like Troy, when we're talking about Troy and their day care, they operate out of their element out of their school buildings. And maybe the location would provide a benefit to people.
So that does come with I'm sorry. No. Go ahead. That would come with, that is an idea. Right? But that also comes with, licensing issues with your daycare. So your countertops and your toilets and your facilities have to be at a certain height, which would have which we have to do capital improvements in our buildings to retrofit to meet toddler built toddler rooms, infant rooms, etcetera. Okay. I guess I wonder how much that would cost compared to upkeeping all the acreage in that building that we have that is existing. But again, I am under the
I am under the mindset that it is hard to continue justifying using state funds for these purposes, especially when it's been six to seven years. We've just been draining this money. It's clearly a flawed business model, and something needs to change because we could infinitely try to come up with plans to break even and at some point we have to we have to figure out what to do. I just wanted to make a comment and by no means am I an expert or know for sure about Troy, but I don't think they have a day care center. I think they have a preschool program,
and they have a dedicated building for it that was through their bond. So I just wanna make sure that we're not spreading misinformation, up here. Well, thanks for that correction because I know there's some there's some districts that do that and it might not have been Troy. So thank you. Trustee Alspa? I think, I was very much impressed with the, nice traffic we got with CTE stuff, if we're going to have an actual discussion about carrying steps. I'd like to see some numbers in the presentation also. And I'd like to know, like, what the options are. And I would wonder,
you know, obviously, this is not working right now because of the low enrollment and and, you know, where enrollment is caps because of staffing. I'd like to know if there is a model where if we, you know, have direct hires or indirect hires or, you know I've I've worked with EDGIS staff, and I understand the overhead of a third party versus the overhead of a direct hire. But I'd like to see if there is some model, like, if we could get this up to a hundred kids and we could pay this amount, we could then get the staff. And I'd like to know if there's any way these numbers do work for it
to sustain itself. I'm gonna, just before I lose it, I'd be really curious about, what the tuition would need to be in order to be break even based on our current staffing now, or enrollment now. Mhmm. So that's one item I'd be curious about. Trustee Gupta? Actually, can I interrupt? I I have the answer to that question. So our our director, Beth Pereira, worked on that. So, everything being held stable right now, we need a 28.5% increase in tuition. So that likely puts us out of the market.
And I don't know that anybody would say we need to you know, with 76 kids, 50 some FTE, that that's the model that we're trying to run. We need to get to the economies of scale. So can you speak a little bit to, the prospect of, well, there's GSRP and then the prospect of potentially moving into a world where we have universal, preschool, being implemented and how that might be a potential transition point or way to utilize that space more effectively. Is that an idea that is being pursued? Yeah. I think for the purposes of this conversation we want to talk specifically about do
we want to what is the future of caring stuff specifically, right? When we talk about GSRP and classroom space and facility utilization that will come out of the master property planning process in which we can say should we be offering GSRP and how many classes of that do we expect based on enrollment, our birth rates, etcetera. Whether that fits in a carrying whether that fits at the building on Rochester Road or within our current facilities because GSRP would be four year olds so we wouldn't
have that capital improvement cost to change anything in the building level. If we did place at the building I think that's a separate conversation. To Doctor. Alspa's point, Trustee Alspa's point about, you know, having something like this in a presentation, I want to be very clear that I specifically asked my team not to do that today because I wanted us to have an open discussion about what do you want to come back with or what can we talk about now that we have specific numbers that we can run for you, right? We looked at what it would cost to get a director that's a direct hire. Our comps in the area for Walled Lake,
for Troy, who have, a director for their early childhood center goes between $86,000 and $112,000 So that's just salary. That's not including any overhead or benefits and etcetera. So if we're talking about things and you want to have that conversation now, we're prepared to have it knowing that it would be scalable. Right? That we know that if we did if we have this many students and we, you know, to, Mr. McDaniel's point, a 28.5 increase in our tuition, we can tell you what that looks like and then we can do it to scale to see how many classrooms we need to fill,
etcetera, etcetera. What would be the investment to continue to have Cary steps run as a tuition based, day care facility as a portion of that building? On the other hand, we can look at what does it look like, in terms of a model of phasing it out in terms of that portion, right? The daycare portion of the facility. So if you're interested in some of those numbers, we can do that for you right now. I guess I'm just gonna you you can run through some of those numbers right now? Yes. We can. We have we have a couple of things that we could talk about.
We did not say to 100% efficiencies. We did not say, you know, we have to have this many classrooms with this many students, etcetera. Because it really is a challenge the way it's set up right now that if someone puts on the waiting list and they have an infant but then they don't get on the waiting list till later then they move into a different classroom is there availability there? Right? It's a very different model of running with don't think of the carrying steps as the same thing as running an elementary school because it is not the same, right? You're a second grader for nine months. You're not you don't have that ability to stay in that same classroom with the
same services, with the same ratios because the student as they, you know, or the child as they grow, they qualify for different services. Before we do the before I go to questions, I guess do we wanna hear the information they have? I mean, I'm I I feel like we do. So I'd say let's hear what you have and then we can give more questions or comments at that point. Before I turn over to Mr. McDaniel, I just want to preface this by saying he talks about having a 28.5%
increase in tuition. He also mentioned before that we don't really have a lot of information on what we can talk about market ranges for staff but we don't really you can't really call a private day care facility and ask how much are your folks making they're really not willing to give that up. And they don't fall into the same public scrutiny as we do where we have to post all of our salaries, etcetera. So it's not as easy to get apples for apples information. I just want to preface all that. Mr. McDaniel. Yeah, and if I can start with a preface as well, it's that I have never been a childcare director.
And so, you know, this model is based on none of the actual in practice things that may occur. So we're looking at costs. So, you know, as Mr. Russo said, we've got a director. You know, I went a little bit lower than Mr. Russo's range. It's about 85,000 for a starting salary. Maintain our two kind of clerical office staff members there. Hold maintenance and operations costs very steady to what the budget showed. And then, some supplies. So about $18,500 worth of supplies and some of that is,
you know, actual supplies. Some of that's, software licenses. Some of that is, use of the copy machine. So, with this model, that shows that we need about 428,000 and what I'm calling kind of fixed costs. Right? We need a we believe we need a director. We believe we need office staff. We have to have maintenance utilities, things like that. So, to cover those costs, we looked at, how many FTE would we need to break even. So if we're looking at infants and toddlers, that's about 22 FTE to break even, because that's a higher tuition.
Preschool K prep is probably the more likely number. Right? Because you you can hopefully have more of those students. So that's 26 FT, just over 26 FT because that, tuition's lower because the ratios are lower. Moving the assistants, to $15 an hour and staffing that facility, our infants and toddlers, because of the ratio, minimal profit. Those just barely break even. So, under my model, again, no expertise in exactly how this would look like. This is assuming that kids are there from opening to close,
right, which is, again, not a reality. Right? Some kids may show up right at the beginning because their parents have to work. They may be gone at three or 04:00 in the afternoon. So, there's some nuance there. The best ones are obviously the higher ratios. So if we could get some preschool and K prep rooms, open and you have the older kids and it's easier for the whole center to break even or to get to profitability. Those younger kind of in the middle between an infant and toddler, the young preschool, those when they're full, they'll still break even. But it's it kind of all depends on what that mix mix is.
So we know that infants and toddlers, again, not being a director, I believe those are important because they build your future program. Right? So if you start as an infant and a toddler, then you're likely to continue to the young preschool and the preschool program. So we know that you you need some of those students to build those numbers, but you still need to have the the heavier preschool kind of K prep, classrooms there just because the ratios mean that you can, be profitable or you you make more money on those. The wild card that I didn't include is GSRP. Right? So, I'm not sure why anybody would choose to pay tuition for a preschool program when
they could utilize the GSRP option. So that is not factored in here at all. And so that's something that, I'm not exactly sure how that would play out with the Caring Steps, budget, because GSRP historically has been held in the general fund. So to split those programs, that's something that we would have to look at and think about, because we have a director that right now, if there's a GSRP classroom there, the way the model is, we would have a a caring steps director who's over caring steps. And if you place the GSRP, classroom in there, I'm not exactly sure who would supervise that person.
The, pre k supervisor who has all the other GSRP and is knowledgeable about that or the caring SEPS director. So there's some nuance as to how, GSRP may impact. I think I'm just gonna further complicate things. So GSRP staff members are district employees. Caring steps staff members are GECS employees. So there's questions there. Would the GSRP at Caring steps be GECS or be district employees? There's some, you know, nuances there when you have district staff working with a contracted staff.
I'm not sure what the staff that are currently there would prefer. Right? Would they want to move to GSRP? I believe that some of them have the credentials to do that. So, I guess all that being said is yes. I think there are some options here that can get us to a model, that can be profitable. But, the board would need to invest, some time to grow that enrollment to a level where it could be. So, from the board perspective, I think you've heard this from us a few times. Right? So when we opened the center in 2018, I think we said we needed to get to roughly 80%,
something like that, and thought it would take three years. We almost got to three years. We were looking pretty good until COVID shut us down in 2020. And then we sort of restarted. So, you know, COVID, decimated that enrollment, right? We weren't legally able to even be open as a childcare facility for a little bit. So, that kind of put us back to the drawing board. I would say, we've been working without a director for quite some time now. I think it's well over a year. So that has some challenges as well. There's, you know, I've been over there a little bit but not nearly as much as Mrs.
Hampton or some of our human resources team, or our pre k supervisors. So, I guess there's a lot of nuance as to how we think this could look in the future. GSRP is kind of the big question mark, for the district as a whole, just not carrying steps. But yes, I think there is a model out there, if the board wanted to invest the time and the money to do so, that way we could get profitable. In my humble opinion, the worst thing we could do is would be to stand pat. Right? I think, we've heard from staff, and heard from parents, right, there's a wait list. There is a need out there.
If you can get staff, then you can clear the wait list and potentially get there. But I don't think we can do that without looking at hiring a director and, you know, miss Russo told you what rate that was. And then, getting more competitive with overall staff salaries to try to attract staff. Madam President? Trustee Lecui? What I was gonna say is and this plays off of what what we were just hearing. This is obviously a very complicated business. And Caring Steps is competing with other daycares that don't get subsidized but seem to
be staying afloat, and I have no idea how they're able to do that. From a business standpoint, I'm not even sure how this kind of a situation is fair. But one question I have for the board as we're thinking about all this is, is breaking even even good enough for us? Because operating the daycare is actually taking the time and attention and resources from our staff who have other job responsibilities and stuff too. Wouldn't it be better if we could focus them on our core purview? So I'm not even sure breaking even makes a lot of sense, but Trustee Lozanne?
So I have a variety of questions here. I'm interested in learning about the difference if there is a difference in tuition costs for in district, out of district And, if there's a staff discount If they get discount for their children that are there because right now we're looking at 3,600 a loss of 3,600 per kid, which is significant. Another question I have is how many open rooms are there? There's seven classrooms, so how many classrooms are actually, you know, in that building? I've never been in there, so I don't know I don't know how much space we can have.
Like, how much if we had the staff, how many classrooms technically could we open? And then you said in regards to the GSRP, there was not enough interest. Is that how I understood it? That's why we didn't have it? Staffing and interest? Correct. Okay. Because it kinda the the location of hearing steps in that area kinda seems like if you look at Hampton and Brewster, they have thirty three and fifty one students GSRP classes. They're big. There's a big need more south. So I don't know if maybe the the location of caring steps also plays a role in having a GSRP classroom out there,
plus staffing. It's a hike. Does just a quick follow-up on that. GSRP includes busing, doesn't it? Correct. Okay. So from a location standpoint, it shouldn't come into a huge play because there is transportation available. Currently, we don't bus, GSRP students in the district. We do not? We do not. It is allowable, but that would be, another question as well for our transportation system. Does, is transportation a covered expense? Yes. It's allowable with the grant. There is, I I was told,
a a pot of money that's not getting any larger but being, split by more and more districts. But there is some money for transportation. So it's, like, on a reimbursement type? I would guess so, but I I don't have any first hand experience with it. Okay. In terms of GSRP, just a couple things. There is options for transportation. It doesn't mean you have to take advantage of it. And there is a start up you do get start up money to start a new classroom if one didn't exist before. That doesn't mean a lot to people at the table but I just want to be transparent about what the options are in terms of GSRP.
But I think that we have to come back to center on what we're talking about as carrying steps in the tuition based, daycare. Was there an answer to, the number of open classrooms that are there right now? In in looking at the building map, there's a total of 13 classrooms there. But, I believe some of those are utilized by ECSE. So I don't know that they'd be open to the caring steps program currently. But, I mean, do you know how many are not being used right now? I believe ECSE uses two from time to time. Missus Hampton mentioned that there's seven,
so Four? Think the math would be four. Yep. I mean, I guess I'll just make a comment. Similar to Trustee Lecuye, I mean, I think this is a complicated business. We've been at it since 2018. You know, my concern is continuing to throw money at it. And not only money, but also our cabinet and other administrators that are being focused there versus, you know, kind of what I'll say is our our core business. But I also, you know, I mean, the families who are there, this is obviously a service for them.
And especially our staff and offering them, something there. So I guess for me, I'm really looking for the administration to look at what a recommendation. You know, what you really feel is the best route to go on this. And you know, whether you think whatever changes you're proposing would make that difference so that this would be, and I agree, more than break even, because we're maintaining that building as well. And so, any capital expenses, are still coming from district funds too. Expenses, are still coming from district funds too. So, I just wanna make sure that we're really looking at all costs,
because it's not just what we're seeing here. But on the other hand, there's also, we're utilizing it for other resources. So, I mean, there's things that are not being captured in this budget, that really need to be weighed. And I feel that as administration, you would know how much time people are spending, you know, and whether you think this, whether it's the right move as the district to be involved in a daycare center. You know, I personally am more for
the pre k piece that's leading, you know, into our kindergarten, transitional kindergarten programs. So anyway, those are just some of my rambling thoughts. And Madam President, I can weigh in on some of the questions you've asked in terms of the administration's kind of take on it. But I'd love to hear if there's any other comments or questions from the board before I do so. Trustee Gupta? Yeah. I would just, piggyback on a lot of what President Futell stated that I think we need, you know, we it is a complicated business as trustee Lucuy also pointed out.
We don't have a director. We don't have anyone. I mean, everyone's trying their best and working really diligently on this but, like, we don't have a person who who has ever run a a center like this. And, I I think the business plan is just not compelling right now and we would need to have a compelling business plan, to continue to invest district dollars in this. Madam President? Are there any other nonresidential? Oh, Trustee Lacoue? Just, yeah, really quick. Just wanted to also remind you that we do have space inside our buildings.
So if we wanted to move the early childhood education, if we wanted to move the, pre k piece of it, And that doesn't mean I think that should happen tomorrow. That means that should happen probably by the next school year if we decided we wanted to move on it. We could move that into existing slots. There are nine ninety slots in the elementary buildings. I'll just say that, and I guess the administration can comment on this too, but I think that, when you're looking at, if you're talking about the childcare center, it's a little bit different because of how kids attend when they're there and when
they're not. So, you really need it to be in a central location so that, you can share resources between rooms. And so if it's spread out amongst the district, I'm just not sure that you would have any of those efficiencies. And I'm not sure that, you know, we have any building that necessarily could handle, you know, seven additional classrooms right now. Right. Well, I was I was referring to the early childhood and the pre k, like, what you had just mentioned. Oh, okay. So not the childcare. You're just saying the Anyone else?
Trustee Annas? I'll just say is, myself and president Butel are the two, board members that were a part of making this decision back in 2018. And as superintendent Russo alluded that this was part of, the previous strategic planning goals. And the fact that it's floundering right now doesn't surprise me. We've had a lot of transition in this district. As Mr. McDaniel mentioned, we were on track with this facility. COVID struck. And I would say since then, we haven't been able to regain any footing with this particular,
facility. But that said, the original intent was to, educate children and begin that education at birth. And that was a need that we saw that the district was requesting. And based on the fact that we still currently have a wait list of families that are interested, it says to me that there's a potential there. But I agree with some of my colleagues that I would have to see, a stronger business case come from the administration to, to convince us because, we've been floundering. I mean, over a year with no director,
but prior to that with an interim superintendent for a year, there's a lack of leadership at the top for, you know, pushing us through, and leading the way with this particular facility. So it doesn't surprise me that this is where we're at, quite honestly. I would just ask that, you know, we we consider the families that we currently serve. We consider the employees that we currently impact with this service, and we also consider future families that are on the wait list that want to take advantage and utilize the service that we're offering as a public school district.
I think it's unique, and I think it's warranted. But, if a business if a business case can't be made, that the board can agree with and we can't come to consensus on, then we'll have to make a decision regarding it. Okay. Did you have any other questions, Mr. Russo, before we move off of this? I have no questions. I just I think, as we talk about what we're talk about moving forward, right? You know, Trustee Annas and many trustees have kind of given their opinions on where we are and where where we've been.
I think from an administrative lens we look at this as and I'll speak for myself coming into the district knowing that we had, a facility that was doing, that was providing daycare for children was moral and it was an imperative that was something that we're trying to start earlier than pre k to '26. I would say the core of our business is pre k to 26 and that's what our funding model is for. Collecting money in terms of getting a revenue source from a tuition based daycare is
admirable but I believe we're at the point where even if a good business model is presented to Trustee Annis' point, to Trustee Lacoue and President Butel, we do have the to come back to something Ms. Hempton said to put this all together, even with let's say, I don't want to say perfect but an outstanding business model and the ask to invest money we will still run into my prediction is that we'll still run into staffing issues because this isn't something that's restricted to Rochester Community Schools or this area,
or Oakland County, etc. This is a national situation that we're in. You know, if you look at it's in person work in general. You know, there's not many people who want to report to work five days a week. And so I think when we look at some of these things, I don't know that we are in the best space to continue this to say to you even with a perfect let's call it perfect for a minute business model or an outstanding business model that we would be able to do that even if we asked you for a $500,000 investment so to speak. I think your number Mr.
McDaniel was something around $4.28 if I remember what you said a little bit ago. That would just be an initial investment. I don't know that we come out on top of that after that. So I think that's where I stand right now. I think it's imperative that we're preserving the money for pre k to '26 and that we are not subsidizing something that we really don't have a business model for it and I say that meaning that I don't think it would be successful. People have talked about in general there's other daycares in the area that seem to
be, that seem I think it's an important piece right? It's not we don't they're not under the public scrutiny to get their financials. We don't know if they're gonna close their doors tomorrow and I'm not suggesting that they are but I am suggesting that we don't know. Actually I'm not suggesting, I'm saying. So that's where I stand. I think that I would like if the board wants us to move forward with an investment, we will do so. If the board says that, we don't want to continue this in terms of the way it's been going, then we will have an exit plan that moves,
for the next three or four months and tries to preserve employees and tries to preserve families and gives families other options post closure, but that's that's where we stand. Alright. With that then, we're gonna move on. We have a resolution calling for the full and permanent funding of IDEA, which is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This resolution was drafted by the K-twelve Alliance of Michigan. And when IDEA was established, which we've all heard, 1975, Congress committed to fund 40% of special education costs.
However, it's currently funding, I think, less than 11%. The resolution calls for Congress to fulfill their commitment which would reduce the financial burden on states and local districts, ensuring schools can meet the needs of all students without diverting resources from general education and provide a high quality education to all students. At this time is there a motion to approve the resolution calling for full and permanent funding of IDEA and to share the resolution with state and federal representatives? Moved by Trustee Annis. Is there support for this?
Trustee Lausanne? Lausanne? Is there any discussion on this resolution? Alright, seeing none, all of those in favor of approving the resolution, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. Alright. That was the easiest one yet. That's a six o vote. Trustee Annas, could I ask that you share this with our state and federal, representatives? Of course, I would be happy to. All right, item 10.7 is the election of a Region 8 Representative to the Michigan Association of School Boards Board of Directors.
Region eight includes districts in the Macomb ISD, Oakland Schools ISD, and Wayne Riese. There are eight candidates running for one spot. Four candidates participated in interviews held by the Oakland County School Board Association and those interviews were shared with all trustees. The four that participated included Doctor, and I may not say these names right, Anish Hanna, Paul Cohen, Roderick Means, and Randy Randall Meisner. At this point, does anyone have a candidate they wish the Board to consider? I'm not seeing many hands being raised.
Trustee Licui. Okay. I support Paul Collin. He focused on what he'd do and he really seemed to want it. He said he's gonna ask questions and follow-up and extract data to ensure MASB is meeting its vision for all Michigan districts. So Throw him out there. I will say that of, all the candidates running, he comes from the largest school district with 5,000 students in it. Bloomfield is within, the Oakland ISD and nearby. So then you wanted to make a motion to cast the ballot for him? So moved.
Alright, is there support for that? Trustee Gupta? Is there any other discussion before we vote? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, please say no. No. No. That was two? Okay, so a four two vote. The motion does pass and, we'll ask, Mrs. Whitmore to submit our ballot with, and I didn't say it right, Colin? That's Colin? Okay. Paul Colin. Alright. Then we are now to, additional comments.
12.1 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. With our updated handbook, please note that each trustee has three minutes. If you run over that time, I'm happy to ask the board if they're willing to extend the time. So at this point, trustee Lausanne, did you have anything you wish to say? I do. First, I'd like to say that I'm happy to see Caring Steps finally caught some attention and was on the agenda tonight. I truly hope that we can make a decision that's best for everybody that's involved
with this center, and has it has been quite the financial burden. And I'm hoping that we can work for a resolution. Next, I believe it's important to prioritize discussing the old admin building as well. It's been vacant for quite some time now, and there hasn't been much talk about what to do with it. I hope we can move forward with the plan with that space as well. For those that don't know, I've been assigned board liaison for Hampton, Brewster, and the Schultz campus. Tomorrow morning before the SPCC meeting, I'll be touring the Schultz campus, and I look forward to seeing firsthand what's going on there. Barb, if you need any help with representative John James,
I I kind of in contact with him. He's been very supportive of parents in this district, and I know he would, definitely like to school see the Schultz campus. Finally, I was asked to join the master property planning committee for, the district, and the meetings kicked off last week. I'm excited to be a part of this committee, and I'm hopeful that this process will help direct our district in a way that we can operate at our full potential efficiently and ultimately benefit all of our staff and our students. So thank you. Trustee Lecui? Could you restart my time, please? Alright. Okay. So the Master Property Planning Advisory Committee met on February 19.
I wasn't chosen to attend in person, but I did review materials afterward. Unfortunately, committee members also received the materials after the meeting, which is not very efficient and not as not as productive either. Without time to digest the data beforehand, how can members ask quality informed questions during the presentation? Instead, they have to wait until next time. So I hope that they fix this at time for the next meeting. Now let's talk about the presentation itself. There's good news and bad news, so I'll start with the good. For the first time, the district is being honest about our enrollment decline.
We're working with real headcount numbers and not being confused by other types of counts. If you look at the presentation, which is available at the Finding the Right Answer page on Facebook, you'll see that since 2018, we've lost over eight seventy one students. At a projected foundation allowance of about 10,000 per student, that's over $8,700,000 in lost revenue. It also means we have space for over 2,000 students who are not here anymore. Eventually, we'll have to sort this out by building and do what's necessary to right size the district for financial reasons. Now the bad news. The presentation uses a lot of flawed data to play victim rather than facing the
fact that the problem is self inflicted. They're trying to paint the picture that this is all due to population loss and lower birth rates in Oakland County. It's not. Let's start with population, which is pretty easy to verify. The 2020 census, which is a conservative estimate, businesses use that, puts our district's population at 97,614 with with projections to grow another two to 3% over the next five years, which would put us at about 100,000. Yet the presentation claims our population is only 96,192.
The problem is if you start with an artificially low number, every projection that follows is skewed. There's a lot of funny numbers here. Take slide 21, for example, that shows district changes from 2018 to 2024. They say there's been a population increase of about two forty, about 1,200 new housing units, and about two ninety additional families. Are we really supposed to believe that 1,200 new homes were built but only two forty people moved in? The math doesn't add up. The truth is we have more school age children in the district than ever before.
They just aren't enrolling in RCS like they used to. And while this presentation relied on countywide birth rates, they could have easily accessed birth rates by address. They chose not to. Why? Now does this immediately change the task at hand? No. But it speaks to a larger issue about honesty when it comes to the data we're using. When the numbers don't add up, it makes me question everything. And I suspect I'm not the only one. Thank you. Trustee Annas? Thank you, madam president. I do wanna give a brief update on the, OCSBA government relations Committee meeting that I attended.
So if I go over, please ask for some indulgent. Tomorrow, I'll be attending the superintendent's policy and curriculum committee or the SPCC meeting, which Trustee Lausanne mentioned. And the agenda was provided prior. We'll be talking about a nepotism conflict of interest, edit and draft. We'll be talking about the change in the IRNSS sick time minimum wage summary, which those laws just changed recently, a salary study update and timing on updates online. For full transparency, I wanted to share that.
I recently attended the district's annual crosstown showdown basketball game between RHS and Adams High School. It's a great community event to come out and see everyone's support. So, if you haven't had a chance to see one, be sure and catch it next year. As I mentioned, I attended the Oakland County School Board Association Government Relations Committee meeting. I am the board liaison for this committee. The chair of the Oakland County Commission, David Woodward, came and, spoke and shared information about an interesting program I wanna share with families. It's called Acorn to Oak,
the number two OAK program. It's a grant based program that encourages Oakland County youth to explore their, quote, unquote, big idea by applying for a $1,000 grant through this program. Applications are open all year and the next deadline for submission is March 15. And you can go to Acorn, A C 0 R N, the numbertwo,0akgrant.com for more information. We also received an update, on the, Oakland County Sheriff,
change in contract costs to municipalities and its potential impact on several school districts, including RCS, who contract our school SROs through this arrangement. And I would love to get an update from the administration on this issue at some time in the near future. For a legislative update, it's budget season for both, the federal and state levels of government. At the federal level, the U. S. Senate passed the fiscal year twenty six budget resolution, which increased, spending on border security and defense. Both Michigan senators opposed it.
The House is considering its own resolution proposing $2,000,000,000,000 in cuts. If the House fails to pass this plan, the Senate version may be the backup. Federal funding uncertainty looms over Title I programs, which is a real concern, for any school district that has special education students. And, it is potentially a 25% cut along with Medicaid, which may require state funds to compensate for this lack of funding. So it's something we have to be mindful of sitting here at this board table, that there is a definite trickle down when it comes to lack of funding from
federal and impacting state and then eventually us. At the state level, Governor Whitmer has proposed her budget, with a $392 per pupil foundation increase, bringing that target to around $10,000 Trustee Annis, just because it is the three minutes, I have two more slight little paragraphs. Does the board have any objection in allowing her to continue? Thank you. I'd like to keep things moving along. Yep. Discussions continue on using gas tax revenue, historically contributing $967,000,000 to school funding,
for future road projects. So that is something we need to be aware of as well because that will impact the state school aid fund. I advise parents and community members concerned about federal, use of, dollars for private, religious, or homeschool vouchers to contact your elected officials in both the House and the Senate. And I just wanna say, happy Black History Month. There is a great author. His name is James Baldwin. And there's a quote that I think is really appropriate now. We can disagree and still want and still love each other unless your disagreement is
rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist. Thank you. Thank you. And trustee Alspa? So, since our last meeting, I attended Delta Delta Kelly's bingo night. It was lots of fun. It was great to be in a gym full of people that were just so excited. And, you know, of course, you got the little group of kids that was running around. And, it was it was great to see the kids and their excitement when, we were filling out the bingo cards. I meant to go to University Hills bingo night, but that was rescheduled due to the snow days. I do plan on going to their international night,
which is, March 14. So and I am the liaison for those two. We also have, our PTA volunteer recognition awards, the Founders Day tomorrow, which I'm going to. And I really wanna thank all of our parents that are so involved and really supportive of our schools. As we look at the great programs we have, like authors in April and things like that, that's because our community supports our schools so much. So those are my getting out and being in the building. I hope to run into some of the people there, and I love hearing from you guys.
Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Kate Gupta? Yep. So I attended the master property planning meeting as well, and, was just kinda taking in all of the data and processing that. Grateful to the community for how well attended it was. I also attended the PTA council meeting this past week as a representative of the board. And, I'm looking forward to reaching out to my liaison schools in the near future to set up some time for a visit. And I'd like to also just thank trustee Annas for representing the board in advocacy
for full funding of IDEA amongst many other topics. Thank you. Thank you. I also attended the Crosstown Showdown and, not only did we get to see basketball, but we got to see the, Rochester Falcons dance team, which did amazing. The cheerleaders were there. We had, at least parts of the band were there from both teams, and just a lot of school spirit. So, it was great to see the students as well as the parents who came, out to support all the teams there.
I wanted to mention, Trustee LaSanne had talked about the 501 West University Building. And, just so the community knows that that is part of the master property planning, and we specifically identified that as a goal in, superintendent Russo's, evaluation too. So that is on everyone's agenda and looking to be addressed. And that's really all that I had at this point. So with that, we will go on to, item 12.2, which is additional comments by members of the administration. These are also limited to three minutes, but additional time may be requested.
And these comments allow members of the administration to share information that they believe is valuable to the board and or community. But these are not comments and not these are comments and not discussion items. Mr. Russo? Thank you, Madam President. Mr. McDaniel? Thank you, Mr. Russo. So some good news for a number of our staff. The district was allocated $1,900,000 to return to staff for 3% health care reimbursement payments that are withheld from them. We received $878,000 so you'll see a communication from me hopefully this week, letting you know that we'll officially
start reimbursing or start paying that in March, and we'll continue to make payments until those funds run out. The bad news is we don't believe we've been allocated enough to fully fund that for affected staff this year. And in future years, this will probably move to the General Fund as a future cost. So we may have $1,900,000 added to cost for us next year. Thank you. Thank you for that wonderful uplifting news, mister McDaniel. Mr. Murphy? Sorry about that. Thank you. I wanted to talk a little bit about our new policy look website and the process for that using the title nine discussion
tonight as an example. As we're updating policy now, we're we're going through a couple layers to get to a vendor. So it's updated now, but for instance, when we updated our administrative regulations related to Title IX to revert to the 2020 per council recommendation, I sent that, I don't know, February, told me effective date of the seventeenth. As you saw, seventeenth came and went. It wasn't updated, so I followed up. It is now updated. So I think that will improve, but there is a bit of a lag. For instance, tonight,
we had a second reading. I don't wanna presuppose that we're going to prove anything necessarily, but I also wanna be, respective of getting things up to date. So I sent that on Friday. This is what I'm expecting to be updated Monday night. I will let you know if it doesn't. Will that be immediately updated? Probably not, but we're going to try to get that lag time down as much as possible just as a way to describe that. And as a reminder, we did revert to the 2020 administrative regulations and the policy with in in relation to, discrimination and harassment has not changed throughout this process.
Secondly oh, I'm on the clock. Okay. Secondly, to trustee Lecui's question about her suggestion about conflict of interest and whether we've emailed that to attorneys. So to take you back, the nepot we had a a desire to enhance the nepotism policy. We, as an administrative group getting some legal advice came with a recommendation for that, before the board turned over, before the members of the committee changed. There was a desire expressed to enhance that or to expand that into conflict of
interest because I think that wasn't nepotism wasn't necessarily getting at the root of all of the questions that were being asked. So as an SBCC group that met in January, we revisited that topic, and then got feedback from those three members what they wanted to see, in relation to legal counsel advice. That was sent. We've now received feedback on that. That will be brought to the SBCC meeting tomorrow. I also have printouts of your email ready for the group tomorrow to review as
well. In my mind, I'm sending advice to legal counsel or questions when that SBCC group wants it. I don't know how else to do it if I get multiple suggestions because I know that legal expenses are important and we're now being tracked by person. And I I fully expect to come in first place in that based on my position in the district. So that's that's where we're at with that process. Out of that, committee to tomorrow, We'll see where the group wants to take it and whether those come to recommendations
for the board. Can I have twenty more seconds? Okay. I was invited to the Friendship basketball game at Rochester High. Most of the cabinet was there. I think some of you were there as well. This is the, CI program playing basketball in supported by a student impressive student section cheering them on pyrotechnics as only Rochester High can really do, not that others don't do it, but they kind of set the standard sometimes with that. And then the student athletes out there, shield officers, coaching the teams, it was a wonderful event to be at,
I think. Principal Ringkel and his team for inviting us. And I know, doctor DeLuca was instrumental in getting that started too, and Tiffany does a great job supporting it. So a great event. If you've never been, I recommend it for next year. Thank you. Thank you, mister Murphy. Is Scott here? Yeah. Is it working? Excellent. Okay. So good evening, everybody. First, I wanted to thank the board, of education for your support with the IDEA resolution that was presented this evening. Your support of students with disabilities and the individuals that support our students within our
school setting is greatly appreciated. Recently, I've had, some received some inquiries regarding special education as it relates to conversations that are happening at the state and the national it's important to share this evening with the community and with the board of education that, Oakland Schools, Intermediate School District, and, of course, Rochester Community Schools remains committed to supporting students with disabilities by working closely with our state and national organizations. Examples of those include our Council for Exceptional Children, our Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education, and our Council for Administrators of Special Education.
Strong educational systems are built on stability, trust, and a shared commitment to excellence. While federal policies may change, our dedication to every student remains steadfast. We will continue to advocate for what is best for our students and ensure that our schools remain safe and supportive learning environments for us all. Advocacy regarding critical issues affecting special education and students with disabilities is so important. For anyone who is interested, the Council of Administrators of Special Education, also known as CASE, has a free and easy to use action center to let your voice be heard.
To access this, you can go to the case website at www.casecec.orgbackslashaction-center. There are many advocacy opportunities like this one, and I would encourage anyone who is interested to please do so. Your voice is important and it matters. And then lastly, next week, I'll have the honor of attending the Michigan Special Education Legislative Summit in Lansing. I'll be joining other Michigan special education administrators to meet with senators and House of
Representatives to advocate for students with disability and special education. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scott here. Mr. Guzmano? You don't have to start the time real quick. Just congratulations to our CTE Director, Karen Malsbury and all the staff for CTE for all the great work they're doing and how the program is growing and the excitement around it. So just wanna say congratulations to all of them. And then everyone in the community get involved in the Try High Charity Week that's coming up to support Camp Kesem. It's a great community event, for a good cause. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Guzmano. Ms. Hinton? Thank you, Mr. Russo. I appreciate the conversation this evening around the Caring Staff Center and the important work around budgeting. The economies of scale for staffing and for tuition are certainly important. I also, don't wanna close the meeting without saying thank you, to the very committed and passionate staff at the Caring Steps childcare center that help children grow every day. The confidence and love that these children and their families have in their teachers and, at their for their time at the center,
has been evident with each interaction there. Thank you, Vasantan. Just a few closing items for me, in terms of Doctor. DeLuca is passing. Thank you. So, just a couple items just in terms of executive orders. I want to make sure everyone in the community understands we are following, what these executive orders are and what the blockages are and, really just making sure that we are checking with our legal team in every step of the way so we are not misstepping in any way or fashion. It's important to I know special education has been a hot topic today specifically about fully funding IDA and etcetera,
but I think it's really important that you understand it as your superintendent, for those folks for those families who have students with children with IEPs that supporting inclusion will always be, what we stand for. Right? It's more than just fully funding IDA, but it's also about inclusion. And so, I said that at PTA, I'll say that at PAC, and I'll say that publicly here today. My Master Property Plan, our first meeting, was well received. There was a host of information that was presented. There were 75 members that accepted based on 115 applicants. So that's a pretty decent pool.
I've been through this in a few different districts and I can tell you that's a good cross section. It's important to know that, for our board members and for our community that we have a representation across all facets of our district from birth to 20 six and from all geographic spaces in the district. So it's north, south, east, west and, programming from from birth to '26, which is incredible. Say again. In all buildings. Correct. And then really the point of this is to look at projections, to look at our demographics and just see what really what do we need and what do we want moving forward in the course of
the next five years and more. It was brought up, about the SROs, the School Resource Officers. And, there is a budgetary situation that's happening right now. We are being passed on the costs from the county level and from our Oakland County Sheriffs, which could amount to about 35% increase over the course of the next three years. So, it's something we're looking at very closely. When we get exact numbers, I'll report them back to you, to the Board of Education. We don't have exact numbers at this moment, but we have a pretty good idea. But we're not gonna just guess. We wanna make sure they're right before we share them.
And then, last two things again, back to fully funding IDA. I will be attending, the state get together with our state reps and state legislature next week. But then on April 29, I'll be going to DC to do the same thing again to support fully funding of IDA. And lastly, I will be I'm excited for our three cheer teams, which is nothing new for Rochester schools. They are numbers one, two, and three in the state, and we'll be heading there this weekend to watch them. So I'm assuming that I'll look like a Doctor. Seuss character with my Adams sweatshirt, my stony tie, and my Rochester hat.
So go Rochester. Schools, that is. Thank you. Thank you. A couple of announcements. January 16 no. I I don't have them. Hold on. I know. I I think I didn't update. Thank you. February 28, half day of school grades, early childhood special education through fifth. On March 3, a Board of Education work session at six p. M. At Stoney Creek High School Auditorium. On March 5, that's the half day of school district wide PD in the afternoon. On March 17,
there will be a board of education closed meeting at 5PM, also here at Stony Creek High School, followed by our regular board of education meeting at 6PM. And with that, if there's no objection, we will adjourn at 10:14PM. Seeing none, we're adjourned. Thank you very much, and have a good night.